Zane Safrit

Punishment isn't how you celebrate failure

I've yet to see punishment work as an effective response to failures, errors, mistakes. Whether it's with pets or people, punishment is so....unproductive as a tool for learning.  (Politicians in DC may be the exception to the rule. I'm still pondering that.)

Why? A. the correct way isn't learned in the process of administering punishments; B. learning is made more difficult when preceded by punishment. Receptivity tends to shut down very quickly with negative stimulus; C. you can rest assured that the next time they make a mistake you won't be informed.

Did you do this on purpose is a great post at Running A Hospital blog that deals with this issue. And he profiles how this question is used when errors are reported by nursing staff. Obviously, it's unlikely many will answer 'yes'. So what do you when they say 'no'? Answer this way:

Well then it is my fault.... Errors stem from systems flaws.... I am responsible for creating safe systems.

Now, that's tough. You have to be very strong, with a solid crew of well-adjusted people to do that. That crew and you would operate on the basis of trust and transparency. You trust them to do their best, to be accountable for their actions and to share their mistakes with you. They trust you to work with them in creating a system where they can flourish, deliver outstanding service and in the event of the inevitable errors, be treated with dignity and respect, like an adult, and correct the system.

I've worked in groups where the leader emphasized the systems. Systems fail; people don't. I liked it. It worked. We grew together, made  lots of mistakes and in a spirit of openness and transparency, worked together to create better systems.

It takes a very strong, well-rested, broad thinker to handle errors in this manner. And in this group, eventually, the strong were promoted and with them went this approach. Soon people were mentally fatigued and soon became un-disciplined in not reaching for the low-hanging fruit of frustration: blame someone.

As a leader, I always tried to remind everyone that A. mistakes happen; B. it's ok a mistake happened; C. I've made worse. I'll tell you about them, later; D. you do a great job; 'perfect' isn't part of the job description; E.  let's see what's happened and what we need to do to fix it.

But I like this question: Did you do it on purpose? And the culture of trust and transparency, with accountability and responsibility, that's created with the follow- up answer of Well then it is my fault.... Errors stem from systems flaws.... I am responsible for creating safe systems.

And if you're still attached to righteous punishment...here's a follow-up post title: What about punishment?

Boring

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. Walter Lippmann

Yawn...hanging around people who agree with you is fun, for a moment. Then it gets boring. What's the point, really? It surely isn't innovation.

Link from quotations page.

Story of the Day: Our Nation's Infrastructure

Some people are talking about it. More and more, in fact.

They're concerned about our nation's infrastructure and our lack of investment in maintaining it.

Flipping through the channels Monday night, I saw Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell on CNBC talk about their 6000 bridges, 25% of the total, with negative ratings, how he's systematically expanded the budget for improving those bridges to where it's now triple the amount when he came to office, how $1 billion is needed to fix the 400 most dangerous bridges in the state. Do the math. If $1 billion is needed to fix 400 of the worst and most dangerous bridges, and there are 24,000 bridges in this one state that need regular maintenance how much money will be needed in the coming years to just maintain them for safe use by the public?

Then on C-Span, I saw the Mayor's conference talk about the need for huge investment in the infrastructure needed to insure a safe, adequate supply of water for their citizens. The mayor Fayetteville, AR, chaired the panel. And one official from DC spoke of their project to create a holding tunnel for runoff from flooding. This is the runoff from storm drains and home gutters  captured by the city sewers. Without this holding tank, the sewer's overflow the treatment system and that results in untreated waste being dumped into...the drinking water supply of somebody. The cost for this one project...$1 billion.

Our little town faces the same challenge DC faces with runoff overwhelming the water treatment system. We're investing a $4-500,000 to  fix that.

What's this got to do with business?

Here's the story from BoomTown USA of two companies: One Lives On, the Other Slowly Dies.

One dinosaur plant is up and functioning with people employed…another slowly dies. Both delayed their maintenance and repairs. One was rescued in time. The other one not.

Your business is only as good as your corporate infrastructure allows it. Regardless if your people are the best-of-the-best, your marketing collateral is dazzling, your niche is exclusive, your cash-flow margins are fat and sassy...all of that comes to halt with a weak infrastructure that inhibits your ability to open your doors much less deliver on a brand promise.

And ongoing maintenance and upgrades are relatively inexpensive and easy-to-budget for when done regularly. Though measuring the ROI is similar to proving a negative. How do you measure the costs from down-time and errors that never happened? ( And if you work for a company that can't recgnize this...I'd advise you to keep very good records of your correspondence on the topic of the need to invest in maintaining or upgrading your infrastructure. The first response with any infrastructure failure is usually a finger, pointing at someone. )

It's hard to fathom how a country who prides itself on the embodiment of capitalism and efficient business practices has chosen to ignore such a fundamental rule. With our budget deficits it'll be hard to remember it.

The follow-on post from BoomTown USA reminds us of the obvious: Pay Me Now, or Pay Me Later.

The USA is only spending 2.4% of our GDP on infrastructure compared to 5% in Europe and 12% in China.

On the other hand, the last time our country made a commitment to building our infrastructure we were in the depths of the Great Depression. And that investment created jobs, and the infrastructure that served as the foundation for our growth over the past 60 years. Ok, so maybe you're bound ideologically to such an extent that you can't embrace the overwhelming numbers that measure the success of that program from the 1930's. Ok. What about Kennedy's commitment to send a man to the Moon? That created the foundation for our success in the sciences and engineering and math, that drove our country for the past 40 years. A lot of jobs and wealth were created from that vision.

Maybe now's the time to show the world we still know how to efficiently run businesses in a free-market arena, do what all good businesses do and reinvest in our nation's infrastructure?

What do you think?

The Governors and Mayors of all political parties think it's a good idea. Governors, Mayor Form Coalition to Rebuild Ailing US Infrastructure.

Shouts to Becky McCray from SmallBiz Survival for sharing those posts from BoomTown USA.

Story of the Day: Who's left to drive our economy?

Access to consumer credit, including home equity lines of credit and credit cards, and access to good  jobs drives our consumer economy.

New home sales, on an annualized basis, dropped from 793,000 in June 2007 to 530,000 June 2008. That's a 30+% drop.

Home foreclosures rose 121% from June of 2007 to June of 2008.

USA Today

The trend lines for jobs looks like the ones for home equity.

...the Labor Department reported yesterday that the number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits bolted past 400,000 last week as companies trimmed workforces to cope with a slowing economy. The unemployment rate, now at 5.5 percent, is expected to climb to 6 percent or higher by early next year.

Newsday

That combines to create an equally distracting level of household debt.

Consumers are behind schedule in payments or have walked away from nearly $800 billion in household debt of all kinds — mortgages, credit cards, car loans, says Mark Zandi, chief economist for economy.com. "Household credit quality has arguably never been worse," he says.

USA Today.

And this combines to change our consuming behavior, that behavior that drives our consumer economy.

Many Americans are already finding it is not that painful to reduce their spending to a considerable degree, and while that is hurting the overall economy, including the ability of the Chinese to export consumer goods to the U.S., it barely begins to address the problems associated with the accumulated personal debt that is currently hanging over so many.

Falls Church - New Press

Ok. As more consumers reduce their spending to a considerable degree, who's left to drive our economy?

Small Business Owners DON'T See a Credit Crunch

From MyBusinessMag comes this Small Business Owners Are not Indicating a Credit Crunch, Despite New York Times Trend Story.

[NFIB's] current monthly survey reveals the following:

"The net percent of owners reporting loans harder to get in recent months fell one point to a net 7 percent (8 percent said "harder," 1 percent said "easier"). The average reading since September's surprise Fed rate hike is 7 percent. Only 2 percent of the owners cited the cost and availability of credit as their No. 1 business problem (down 1 point), far from the record 37 percent reached in 1982.

That's very good news, a great way to end the day.

11 Great Reasons to Have a Peer Advisory Board

I wanted to write a blog about the value of peer advisory boards and then it came to me. Why not be environmentally friendly and recycle. This blog was written a while back by my partner Andrew and it says it better than I could hope to. Hope you enjoy it and learn something about the value of peer advisory boards.

Steve Rucinski at Small Business CEO posted these insights from Anita Campell on 7 Great Reasons to Have an Advisory Board.

We can all benefit from good advice, and that makes advisory boards a hot topic for the savvy CEO and business owner.

In recent years, advisory boards have become an increasingly popular tool for endeavors ranging from Fortune 100 companies to one-person shops. That’s because a Board of Advisors can do more to make your business grow than any other comparable expenditure.

So here’s some advice: set up your own Advisory Board, and here are seven great reasons to do it today.

SEVEN GREAT REASONS TO HAVE AN ADVISORY BOARD:

1. EXPERTISE YOU CAN’T BUY: Advisory Board members typically bring a combination of skill sets that are totally out of reach for most small businesses.
2. BUSINESS CONTACTS WHEN YOU NEED THEM: Choose Advisory Board members with diverse backgrounds and their Rolodexes will become one of your most valuable assets.
3. THE BENEFITS OF A BOARD OF DIRECTORS WITHOUT THE HASSLES: Some business owners equate an Advisory Board with a Board of Directors. Yet, the two are very different.
4. SIMPLE AND INEXPENSIVE TO SET UP AND OPERATE: Advisory Boards are relatively simple and inexpensive to set up.
5. GROW YOUR BUSINESS FASTER: An Advisory Board is a great way to signal to the world your intent to grow your business. Few actions say as much about your commitment.
6. A PERSONAL SOUNDING BOARD: Advisory Boards can serve as a sounding board for fleshing out new ideas or solving weighty problems.
7. MENTORING: Let’s face it: The top is a lonely place. Business owners, CEOs and other executives often have few ways to get support and guidance.

Anita does a great job of hitting many of the core benefits of an advisory board, but there are a few items I’d like to add to her list.

1. Advisory boards give CEOs accountability they can’t find elsewhere.      Not only can board members act as a personal sounding board but they hold      each other accountable for the delivery of the solutions they develop.
2. Advisory boards offer an opportunity to test ideas. Anita touches on this in her      discussion about a personal sounding board, but I think it’s important      enough to reiterate. Entrepreneurs are rarely short on ideas, what’s      needed is help sorting opportunities, picking which ideas to pursue      and where to spend all too valuable capital.
3. Insight into your competition. PeerSight advisory board members are encouraged to play the role of each other’s      competition and offer competitive insight. It’s easiest place to learn how      your competition might behave before they do.
4. Members ask the tough questions. Advisory boards force entrepreneurs to consider tough      questions about their businesses - why, as Michael Gerber would say,      they’re working in their business, instead of on it.

We did a lot of research on advisory boards before we started PeerSight and we really do believe that peer advisory boards are the best tool to help small businesses grow. Thanks Steve and Anita for putting together these great insights.

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Steve MacGill is the co-founder of PeerSight. PeerSight is the pioneer in virtual Peer Advisory Boards. We provide the platform business advisors use to deliver virtual peer advisory boards to their clients.

"Free" Works, Chaz

Barry Moltz shares 2 examples of businesses offering generous, and free, amounts of their product/service.  One's in the comments.

Both show caring, connection, kindness, suprise, delight. Both show confidence in themselves and their product, confidence enough to look long-term, and arise from companies with employees who show strong commitment to each other, to their brand. Both generates tons of free word-of-mouth and direct 'referrals'.

"Free" works, Chaz.

Even Pirates Have Startup Metrics...

From Chris Schultz at Voodoo Ventures:

| View | Upload your own

Asking Prices for Small Businesses in Decline

Supply and demand. Or a growing supply and a dwindling demand.

To all the usual reasons that small businesses are put up for sale – personal problems and personnel squabbles among them – add economic woes this year.

The nation's largest listing site, biz buysell.com, recently had 50,000 businesses for sale, vs. 43,000 the same time last year, said Michael Handelsman, bizbuysell's general manager.

Link: Dallas News.

Bigness of Smallness

From John Moore at Brand Autopsy:

The Bigness of Smallness

view presentation (tags: webvisions john moore brand)

Christmas Comes Early for Top Performers

Top performers will see higher than average pay raises in 2009. A recent survey of 276 US companies reported that most of them were planning on giving higher than average pay raises for their top performers.

And for those non-top performers....? Well, besides switches in their shoes they'll face a list of drop-down menu options from Santa (or their customary  gift bearing icon at the holiday season ) that start with lower than average pay increases and deteriorate quickly, eventually reaching the last option, layoffs, during what should be a weak economy, still 2-3 quarters away from a rebound.

From Inc. Magazine.

Related question: Who says the gobal marketplace isn't becoming more Darwinian or maybe Socially Darwinian?

Help your people show their pride

How are you helping your employees to show their pride? Jones Soda is asking them to sign their names to their work, using the inside of their boxes. As a bonus, this shows Jones Soda taking some pride in their people, too.

In your small business, are you building in opportunities for people to sign their names, to show their pride?

More importantly, are you doing something worth being proud of? How are you communicating it to your people?

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- Guest Author: Becky McCray writes about small business and rural issues at Small Biz Survival, based on her own success and failures.

- Guest Author: Becky McCray writes about small business and rural issues at Small Biz Survival, based on her own success and failures.

"I'd like a great life, not a mediocre life..." - Krishna De

At one point during my BlogTalk Radio show with Krishna De she surprised me with:

I'd like a great life, not a mediocre life.

She surprised me with the passion and spontaneity when she said it. Don't get me wrong. Passion and spontaneity are not surprising with Krishna De. She's not Europe's leading Employer Branding, Personal Branding and Social Media Strategists because she's bored or she'll bore you. Far from it.

What surprised me was its timing along with the passion and spontaneity of it. We were talking a bit about how she came to this point in her life: Europe's number one employer and personal branding expert. And her boss/mentor/friend who quoted the statistic that 80% of employees don't feel their strengths are put into play at work.

And she looked at the passions, and her strengths, and the research in Now Discover Your Strengths. She realized what HUGE potential is available by tapping into our strengths and the strengths of our colleagues. And she says:

I don't know about you Zane, but I'd like a great life, not a mediocre life.

BAM! How many professionals, how many of our friends, will suddenly open up and share their life goals with you? And that's what Krisha talks about when she talks that a brand is an emotional connection. It's based not on a promise, but on what's delivered.

And Krishna delivered a delightful connection with me on our show that day. I think when you listen to it, you'll find the same.

Krishna's brand, personal or corporate, they're both the same, connects her personal goal to have a great life with the same goal with her clients, corporate or personal.

As I told her on the show, she walks the walk and talks the talk of personal branding.

Have a listen and let us know.

Then follow her at BizGrowthNews.

Can Obama Reduce Health Care Premiums?

I don't know. But it's worth talking about. And his efforts are stirring the discussions. And that's always the start of anything done. Obstacles for Obama Meeting Health Care Goal.

And the conversations are going to be tough, they're going to be awkward. We don't want to talk about it. If we do, we're pretty pissed about our health care system. There's no common language, no common terms. There's a reason they say Divide and conquer. Language is what unites and what separates. Making the topic difficult to understand is a great way to avoid discussing its change.

Still, we have to do it.

Again, I'm just asking. Save the partisan rants for the partisan, political, blogs. I'm happy to share McCain's health care program terms or discussion. Just share a link.

Health Care Victory: Complaining, Transparently

I scanned through 130 blog posts from blogs devoted exclusively to the health care, medical, health insurance arena.

Lots of problems were discussed. Lots of conflicts of interests between Big Pharma and doctors/researched were covered. Lots of discussion over the problems with medicare and the rising costs of health care and people needing to choose gas for their cars to get to work over preventative health care, lots of articles on the fines insurance companies in California paid for illegally cancelling policies when their members called on them...

No one talked about solutions or plans or victories.

Granted, these discussions are a first step.

Maybe that's the victory for the week: lots of discussions and complaints from lots of people...all delivered in a transparent manner through the diligent efforts of MSM and bloggers in the medical community. As long as that's ongoing, heated, impatient, outraged...we can look to finding a solution for this situation we've all allowed to flourish.

Keep talking, ranting, complaining. The threshold to spur change hasn't been reached, yet.

Health Care or Gas for Your Car

That's the choices for a growing number of folks. Do I put gas in my car or have my annual screening...with expenses paid out of my own pocket as I can't afford health insurance.

Lots of folks are choosing gas for their car. Makes sense. No gas, no job. No job, no food nor roof over your head or your family's.

But, preventative care is so much cheaper for everyone: health insurance companies, consumers, businesses.

Something's wrong with this scenario.

WSJ: Patients Pinch Pennies by Skipping Care.

"It's been a tough year..."

Cooling down from a run at noon (don't advise you to do it) I turned on MSNBC. And some standard DC pundits were commenting on the news that columnist Robert Novak* has brain cancer and is getting treatment for it. And they proceeded to lament what a tough year it's been with the news that Ted Kennedy also had treatment for brain cancer and the passing of Tim Russert.

No doubt they were sincere. These are their friends and colleagues. They were touched personally by these events.

But I couldn't help but think..."Yeah, it's been a tough year." Imagine being diagnosed with brain cancer and not having the health insurance to pay for your  treatment. You don't have it because you can't afford it. And if you can't afford health care, you can't afford proper checkups and preventative care nor ealy diagnoses.  If that's the case, then it's likely you're being diagnosed at a later stage of the cancer's development. That means treatment will need to be more radical, aggressive, unpleasant. The survival rates are much lower with late-stage diagnoses common for those without health insurance to pay for proper health care.

For those that do survive, their family finances won't. Personal bankruptcy awaits them and their family upon their recovery.   

There are 48 million people in the US who face this option. They can't afford health insurance. That means they likely can't afford quality health care including regular checkups for them and their families.

Yeah, it's been a tough year for a lot of people. If facing brain cancer is THE definition of a tough year (and it is, no doubt, whether it's you facing it or your family member), how do you define facing it with no health insurance?

( * I'm not a fan of Novak or Kennedy. But I wouldn't wish that on my enemy. And Novak writes provocative columns which confronts everyone's stands. So...personally I wish him quick recovery and professionally I look forward to the return of his columns I disagree with. It helps me clarify my stand. And Kennedy always takes bold stands, some I agree with, some I don't. I wish him quick recovery and return to the Senate.  )

The problem with the health care "marketplace"

The problem with the health care "marketplace" is that it is not a real market. There are so many intermediaries that the usual connection between buyer and seller that we see in other fields does not exist. Thus, the incentives for suppliers (doctors and hospitals) to engage in efficiency improvements and value enhancement are extremely slow to emerge. Also, the incentives for consumers to seek greater quality and lower costs likewise are very weak in this field. (This is aggravated, of course, by the lack of transparency about relative quality of providers.)

...and we see that over 40% of the delivery of health care is not subject to market influences at all. Paul Levy at Running a Hospital.

Well-said.

Maybe now we can stop the straw-man arguments about our  free-market health care system vs their boogey-man, socialized, health care system.  The idea that our health care system is based on free and open markets has been an illusion trumpeted as a barrier to prevent any meaningful change which would eliminate the middle-man, who benefit the most now and who loudly cry for the free market health care system...as long as the marketplace passes through their toll-booths. 

A follow-up article at Health Care Matters had this pithy, focused insight into the mechanics of how one gate-keeper, intermediary, Coventry Health,  manipulates operates in this this free market health care system.

There's this thing in business called a sustainable competitive advantage - something you do really well, that is hard to do, that others don't do well. This gives you an edge in the market, one that makes you a perennial winner. Coventry doesn't have one, and neither do any of the other health plans. Because all they do is process transactions, adding no value.

Yes. For all the talk by health insurance companies and their acolytes on the morally superior stance of their free market posturing solutions...none of them abide by one of the central precepts of a free market system: competition and the need for a sustainable competitive advantage. In fact, it's hard to see their business mission as being nothing more than a means to stifle competition, and free-market access to solutions for their customers.

Life imitating art

Sometimes it happens....

My wife and I went to see Dark Knight this afternoon. Excellent show. Not epic. But...excellent. And yes, Heath's role as The Joker is spectacular. Epic, really, in a dark way.

We walk out of that storm into a storm in real-life such as I've never seen, much less driven-through. Then followed a 30-minute drive through 70-mph winds, rain blowing straight across, limbs and leaves flying across the road. Lightning bolts everywhere. Corn bent in half from the wind. The streets of our little town, a town that didn't flood during the recent floods in Iowa, are flooded, even on the square, which I believe is the highest point around.

We make it inside. Our dog is so-o-o-o happy to see us home. He won't leave our side even for a moment.

Then the denouement...I turn on the TV and playing is the Wizard of Oz. It's just started and there's the storm that sets it all in motion.

And, I believe, we have one more round of storms heading our way, in real-life or is it on TV...? I'll let you know tomorrow.

Best Professional Title: "Patriarch of Media"

Funny. "Patriarch of Media" was the self-designated title of one person on LinkedIn.

Wow. 

He must be the father of Al Gore. Al, you'll remember, once claimed to have invented the internet.