Zane Safrit

Employees: Worth Their Weight in Gold

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Healing Our Healthcare System: Step 1, Heal the Health Insurance Company

Healthcare system experts haven’t been able to create a solution that creates affordable health insurance options for small businesses and startups and entrepreneurs whose efforts fuel the growth of our economy.

I thought I’d try. I’ll break this up into a series of posts dealing with the 3 major constituents:

1. health insurance industry,
2. healthcare providers (doctors and hospitals and Big Pharma)
3.  that’s us, the consumer. We should be the master of this system, the ultimate shareholder. 

( I may have to devote a  separate post to Big Pharma and the FDA.)

Background: The health insurance industry controls the flow, the disbursements and receipts, of funds from consumers to healthcare providers, from private funding sources through government funding sources. They approve the costs, the terms, the level of treatment, the equipment used, the time spent in diagnosing.

Their primary mission is to maximize their shareholder value. Consumers, and many in the healthcare industry, are not included among their shareholders, though. Maximizing their revenue and control of the market is the model they use to maximize their shareholder value.

They have become the elephant in the ....breakfast nook. I say breakfast nook, not living room, because health insurance costs have risen 2-3 times faster than our wages have increased over the past decade. National Coalition on Healthcare

Our economy allowed us to have a breakfast nook, on average, but now crushing the table in this tiny room is the huge elephant of the health insurance industry and their ever-rising share of our income.

Our current system of employee-sponsored health insurance overwhelming favors the large corporations who can offer hundreds, if not thousands of members paying thousands of dollars each along with matching contributions of their employer.

Affordable health insurance plans have not been available for small businesses as result of this universal business model dictated to us, the consumers. I define small business as  those companies employing under 50 employees.

The insurance industry has created an inverse ratio of monthly premiums to company size. The smaller the company, the higher the monthly premiums for a company sponsored group health insurance plan. The larger the company, the lower the monthly premiums required of the employees who join the company sponsored plan.

Health insurance companies treat each group plan as a standalone profit center. They manage the risk and expense of claims against the revenue received from the members’ monthly premiums paid. For a large corporation, the risk of a major claim is minimal when it’s considered against the revenues of thousands of members and their monthly paid premiums. For a small company, the risk is much higher. And therefor each of the employees in a small company-sponsored group plan must absorb more of the risk through their payment of higher monthly premiums.

Here is the result of the healthcare and health insurance system we have today:

1) large numbers of small business unable to offer competitive benefits that include affordable health insurance. Small business cannot attract the employee talent they need to grow;
2) large numbers of employees without affordable health insurance. That creates an unhealthy workforce, an unproductive workforce;
3)  one with a high number of personal bankruptcies that result from one catastrophic health crisis. 50% of all personal bankruptcies arise from such catastrophic personal healthcare crisis. National Coalition on Healthcare
4) A rate of growth for health insurance premiums that is 2-3 times faster than the rate of growth of our incomes over the past decade;
 5) greater numbers of Americans forgoing health insurance and preventative healthcare which will inevitably lead to more expensive treatment required...without the means to pay for it.

And the health insurance industry also suffers lost revenue. What’s lost to the insurance industry is a minimum of approximately $2 billion in monthly premium revenue or $24 billion.

How’d I get that number? There are approximately 46 million Americans without health insurance. 15 million of those are children. That leaves us with 35 million working uninsured adults. 60% of these uninsured work for small business, according to the US Chamber of Commerce.

60% of 35 million = 21 million. Let’s make it 20 million.

Let’s keep the monthly premium paid at a very conservative $100 a month. $100 times 20 million = $2 billion. $2 billion per month, $24 billion per year, on a very conservative basis. An amount 2-3-4 times higher than that would be reasonable, also.

However, those costs from healthcare-induced personal bankruptcies and the premium revenues lost to the insurance industry from the design of their business model do not go unpaid. Instead, they’re passed on in the form of ever-higher costs for healthcare and health insurance and an ever more arbitrary and aggressive health insurance claims process that too often...leaves those insured with no coverage or benefits paid.

The elephant sits in our breakfast nook because he’s hungry. He needs more revenue. And we’re the easiest source of revenue to help pay for the rising costs in a system they helped create. So, this plan is a plan to feed the health insurance beast in a way that shares the burden.

First Step: Mandatory Health Insurance.

Health insurance would be mandatory for all, including the employees of all businesses, small or global as well as startups and entrepreneurs. Health insurance plans would be a mandatory benefit required of businesses, startups and entrepreneurs to offer their employees.

Why mandatory? Why not.

We have mandatory home owner’s insurance; we have mandatory car insurance.

Healthcare isn’t an optional expense. It’s not among a list of options on a drop-down menu for life’s priorities. Healthcare, caring for one’s health, is more mandatory than owning a home or a car.

It’s mandatory.

Second Step: More Sources of Revenue. (Satisfy the beast we created, fed and let into our homes.)

The challenge is how to change the business model of the insurance industry. It only serves to add to the costs and inefficiencies in the industry. That expense ultimately ends up in our checkbook. Those costs and inefficiencies, again, are discussed above.

We’re going to level the playing field with regards to offering health insurance as a company sponsored benefit. We’re going to take the same rules and apply them to all businesses and all their employees.

Sources of Revenues and Their Amounts:

Employee: $100 a month. All employees, each employee. Regardless of where they work, or their income, they pay $100 a month. Their dependents are covered.

Company: Each company contributes-to/invests-in/is-charged for their employee healthcare costs. The amount is .5% of the annual compensation for each employee.

( The company receives a tax credit equal to this amount. The tax code could be revised to treat this as an investment, not as an expense, in upgrading assets like buying a new computer. The amount spent for that year could be amortized in that year. )

Government: The government contributes .5% of the employees’ annual compensation. And the lost tax revenues that result from the tax credits for businesses.

Totals
* Employee Contribution: $100 x 154 million** = $15.4 Billion
* Company: .5% x $40,000* x 154 million = $30 billion
* Government Contribution: .5% x $40,000* x 154 million = $30 billion
* Total Premium Revenues, from Zane's employer sponsored health insurance :

• $75.4 Billion, per month.
• $800 Billion Per Year.

Current Total, Health Insurance Premiums Paid: $154 Billion, annually.

That’s a 5-fold increase in their revenues.

Why is that important? Why must we increase their revenues?

It’s the current stage of the industry as a whole, (declining, according to: BusinessWeek...), that’s created a rigid, unresponsive, out-of-date business model that’s based on control, not response that’s  tied with their need to deliver value to their shareholders that creates this squeeze on the costs. It is about the money. It is about how that money’s handled, distributed, received and from whom and its impact on our lives.

Right now, the health insurance industry is the driver. And they’re not healthy. Until we address their needs....the health insurance industry and its role and control of funds in the healthcare industry is not going to get well.

No matter how distorted this system, this business model, has become from the ideologically pure state of Objectivism as espoused by Ayn Rand...for the moment, this is the industry and its tools we have to use right now.

We can dance with other partners. But we go home with the date we brought.

What’s the benefit?

The benefit is that a system like this:

• makes health care universal and affordable for employees, without ‘socializing’ the benefit.
• businesses will recognize the value of their employees and invest in their welfare based on the value of that employee (their annual compensation)
• treats our nation’s health care, and the means to deliver it, as important a piece of our national infrastructure as are highways, the internet, bridges, airports. If no one’s healthy, these elements are worthless.
• reduce by 50% the number of personal bankruptcies over time with the resulting benefits of improved cash-flow/reduced bad-debt writeoffs delivered throughout our economy.
• Proper care will be delivered regardless of costs.

Now there are a number of nuances and impacts from this one change that ripple through the system. ( One, is what to do about the unemployed and their insurance. ) And we’ll talk about some of them in our next installment, January 6, when we talk about the healthcare providers.

** 154 Million = Number of Employees: Social Security Administration Plunkett Research http://www.plunkettresearch.com/Industries/Insurance/InsuranceStatistics/tabid/238/Default.aspx

*** Health Insurance Premiums Paid, Plunkett Research

Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Mad Dogs and Englishmen "Cry me a river"

The quality's a bit iffy, but it doesn't stifle the party.

Sure, go ahead, crank it up. Send everyone to church...agitated.

Happy Holidays!

Story of the Week: The Inaugural Prayer

President-Elect Barack Obama chose Rev. Rick Warren to present the invocation at his inaugural day ceremony where he takes the oath of office has created...a stir. 

And maybe that everybody is astir, from both sides of the podium or pulpit, from those in the church and not, from friends and foes alike of both Obama's and Warren's makes this a great decision.

Why? As much I don't care for the reverend....if you're going to be an inclusive president, you're going to be inclusive of everyone. And that includes those whose brand of religion includes views and opinions you don't share, don't support, do share and do support. We've been through 8 years of politically correct religion and religiously correct politics. And now we have a leader who actually...embraces, includes, gives a public platform to those with dramatically different viewpoints on hot-button issues of the day including the rights of adults  to marry the adult of their choice (I support it.).

Here's my favorite response. It's from David Weinberger at NPR, titled I'm a Lefty and I like Obama's Pick of Rick Warren.  Obama, says Mr. Weinberger, is:

more interested in addressing a fundamental issue that we liberals have been just plain wrong about. And so have been the conservatives. That problem is that we're so damn angry at one another. All the time. For decades. We can barely live in the same country. The blue states sneer at the red states. The red states think the blue states aren't really America. We can't go on this way.

He's right. We can't go on this way. A house divided cannot stand. And uniting us will require us to...gasp...talk with each other. And that first step starts with the invocation at Obama's oath of office ceremony.

(Personally, I'm going to practice what I preach here over the holidays. I'm going it out with my in-laws. I'll let you know how that goes. If I don't mention it again, it didn't go well. )

Updates:

Hardball Discussion on YouTube.  Supporters of Rick Warren and the Gay Community debate the stands of Rick Warren, the sea change in the national conversation since this decision.

Failure is instructive...John Dewey

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. - John Dewey

Interesting guy, John Dewey. Given his huge successes in philosophy and education, areas that a person who really thinks,  I'd have to say he had some huge failures along the way.

Mashup: Blip.Fm and YouTube

What if you could mashup youtube’s video of your favorite artists performing your favorite songs with the DJ playlist feature of Blip.fm?

With Blip.fm you can be a DJ. With this you could be a VJ on YouTube!

Queue up a whole concert of Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Mad Dogs and Englishmen....on Video? And then be able to share that concert uninterrupted with others? Why buy the video on DVD of legendary concerts when you can experience that same seminal concert from the perspective of audience members, roadies, their recording agency, etc? Relive your favorite concert from dozens of perspectives. Maybe even see yourself in the crowd.

And then your fans could create or recreate entire concerts to share with their other fans who were there: wow, did you see their 5th encore from behind the stage, or I never saw that guy over there doing...whatever....or I never saw Keith wander off the stage...

Or create your own concerts...?

Then neutral fans could see what they missed. And go out and buy what they missed.

I could see something like this being a real boost for sales of live CDs.

I like both blip.fm and youtube. And I spent one evening watching YouTube videos from The Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour with Joe Cocker and Leon Russell. And I kept wishing I could just create the playlist of song videos and then sit back and have the entire concert played for me. And then share it with others. Or find others like that.

Guys. Blip.fm and YouTube....what about it?

Innovation Prescription: Fail 2 Times Before Lunch

And, drink lots of water. Call me in January if the ideas and solutions still don’t arrive

The gist of innovation’s importance these days comes down to this: We need to find faster ways to innovate, ideate, create....and execute. A good idea’s true value is only found in its execution.  So, to succeed we need more ways, faster ways, to innovate, ideate, create...and execute.

Some of you may already feel your mouth getting dry, your throat muscles constricting, together with a shortness of breath. That’s understandable. (I’m nervous writing this. It could turn out to be...one of more than two failures today I’ve already had.)   If you are, you’ve read and understood the meaning. 

The meaning is failure. Embedded in this prescription is an increased level of ...failure. And the pain that goes with it. Like physical therapy, it’s going to hurt until those innovation muscles get flexible and fluid and strong. Like physical therapy, the goal at this point is less to accomplish some goal, but to push through the discomfort between us and the goal.

We need more ideas, more ways to innovate, more ways to create solutions. And more ways to execute those ideas. And we need processes that let us do all this, repeatedly, and do it faster.

My suggestion is that you all, we all, fail twice before lunch. Take an idea of our own...research it, explore it, as fast and far as we can. Individually or collectively. You can share an idea here for us to explore and research.

Take as many ideas as we need until we each  find two that fail...before lunch. They can fail gloriously or quietly. The spectacle of that failure is our choice.

And we can average two failures a day, before lunch. It doesn’t have to be two each and every day. Just an average of two. Some ideas may take some research and exploration to discover their failures. ( But, oh, what I learn in that process. )

So, you may end up with a queue of ideas...that fail in bunches. Or...you may end up with a queue of ideas that succeed in bunches.

• Some things we’ll all end up with is...
• more knowledge
• more successes
• more solutions
• more personal courage in facing the changes coming to us
• a steadier disposition to face turbulence and uncertainty
• more leaders, role models, among us
• our true strengths
• paths to our happiness on a corporate or personal or both level
• some great stories of inspiration we can share with others.

But, let’s fail two times, before lunch. We can all do that.

And, drink lots of water. Brains need water to function in a heated environment.

Call me if the the ideas and solutions still don’t arrive. (We may need to adjust your caffeine intake, up or down.)

Innovation Tactic: I cleaned my office today

I cleaned my office today:

• organized my papers (threw most of them out, hurriedly filed the others for later review),
• filed email; the majority went into delete folder.
• organized the stacks of books read or half-read or about-to-be-read, vacuumed (yes, I do that myself),
• straightened the blinds (opened them, evenly),
• cleared the desktop on my computer,
• hung my jacket, scarf and hat up, stored pens and paper-clips...anywhere but on my desk,
• sat straightly in my chair ( I have this habit of walking in, sitting down and starting to type. Hat and coat stays on, one leg's off to the side like I'm getting ready to leave..quickly.   Some call me impulsive. I say I’m impatient for progress, tangible progress, and the most immediate step I can take is to... move the ideas farther out of my head and into ...tangible reality.)

You may be thinking Yeah, so what?

It’s the most effective step I can take to resume the idea-generating, solution-finding, failure-generating, process. When the ideas stop, when I can no longer prepare a to-do list of any meaning, I’ve found cleaning my office settles the mind, clears the distractions and lets me resume my focus.

Sometimes, at these times, the process of ideation, of innovating, can be unleashed with the simple step of ...cleaning my office.

On an esoteric level it’s comparable to the act of curving back on one’s self in order to create again and again.

On a problem, challenge-management, system it’s walking away from the problem; letting it go for the moment. And during that stillness, or being free from the headache-worry spinning in the mental mud period, solutions are free to present themselves.

On the level of your exterior environment reflects the interior environment, and vice versa, I can begin to reorganize both by bringing clarity (cleaning up the freakin’ mess...) to my office.

Still, you may be thinking yeah, so what? (And you're still my friend.)

All of us have brilliant ideas. Just some have them more often. The ones we call geniuses are the ones with fewer, shorter, gaps between brilliant ideas. (That’s a coarse paraphrase of a genius who had very few gaps between his brilliant ideas.)

This is important to understand now. Ideas are the coin of the realm now. Innovation and creative solutions and unique ways to differentiate your product, and personalized ways to connect and motivate with everyone in your organization is how we’ll grow our way out of this recession. Monolithic  corporations with unremarkable, unrecognizable, unworthy products never work.

Those who can sustain a steady, consistent, stream of ideas and solutions to implement them are the ones who bring value to an organization, to a community, to a nation. 

This is one tip, one tactic, I’ve found that shortens my gaps between ideas. The gaps are still there.  I’m nowhere near genius. But  they’re getting shorter. And fewer. That’s a very good thing.

See if it helps. Let me know.

Innovation's Myth

HumbyZine has a great post: Reality Quick Check. It's so good, I'm copying and pasting some of it that hit home for me.

Innovation is ALWAYS built on the shoulders of great people that decide to keep on keeping on when no one cared about their ideas and plans. Great moments of insight are always the first steps in a very long and painful journey to joy and happiness.

A personal hero of mine & great inventor, Dean Kamen, said it best:
“People take the longest possible paths, digress to numerous dead ends, and make all kinds of mistakes. Then historians come along and write summaries of this messy, nonlinear process and make it appear like a simple, straight line.”

This is a huge reminder, a huge point, often overlooked when celebrating innovation and its role in success.

Innovation is often messy, complicated, disruptive, annoying, aggravating, way-too real in a personal and intimate way as it forces us to deal with change in ways we don't like or with content we don't like or with impacts we don't like.

And that's just the emotional toll.

As we see a renewed focus on innovation as part of our economic rescue plan....no, as we participate in the process of innovation nationwide, as part of our economic rescue plan...it will be important to remember this.

Link from openzine  on twitter.

Pictures from 800CEORead's Powwow

I had the delight to spend a day and a half with some very smart, bright, talented, passionate, articulate, funny, creative, resourceful, skilled authors at last week's 800CEORead Powwow.  Thank you, Todd Sattersten. And thanks to all the people who attended and those who spoke and the folks at Catalyst Ranch who once again provided the facilities that fostered the creativity and engagement and interaction.

Here's some pics from that event.

Find more photos like this on 8ooceoread Author Pow Wow

Social Media Links: December 17

One week and it's Christmas Eve. Where did the year go?

Oh well, here's links to news from the past week(s) on the social media front.

* Creative Commons celebrates its 6th birthday this week in SF.

What is Creative Commons? Well, according to their website:

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."

You'll see at the bottom of my right column a creative commons license. I use a creative commons license to allow further sharing of my ebook, The Collaborative Hiring Process, and its contents.  And at some point, I'll want more restrictive copyright protection. But for now, the risk/reward ratio favors fewer limitations on sharing my content, freely, with acknowledgements.

And Creative Commons has created those options for netizens of social media.

Link from marshallk.

* How to Engage Detractors in Online Conversations.

One alternative title might be how to use social media to turn customer vigilantes into customer evangelists from the comfort of your desktop.  Jason Falls writes this blog and shares his PowerPoint presentation at Social Media Explorer on how to use social media to deliver customer service.  It's the same conversation as you'd have with your customers on the telephone. The difference, the BIG difference, is that this conversation is now...public.

 That's the challenge and the opportunity.

• The challenge is acknowledging a detractor's complaint...publicly.
• The opportunity is the public being able to see how well you deliver on your brand's promise.

One of the best examples, a living case study in how to engage detractors in online conversations is Frank Eliason, aka Comcastcares, and his use of Twitter to single-handedly it seems change the global online conversation about Comcast from that of evil empire sucking width from bandwidth to that of caring, responsive, early-adoptor corporation.

Link from mainebusiness.

* Australian Couple Served with Court Documents on Their Facebook Page.

Whoops. Now, it's not just parents nabbing their wayward children  for misbehavior on Facebook, it's judges and courts...nabbing parents on Facebook for their wayward behavior...off Facebook.  (Come to think of it, judges and courts do function as society's parents.) 

Link from johncass.

* Speakaboos: online children's stories.

Listen, Play or Record Your Own favorite children's story and share it online. Building an online community for fans of children's stories. Cool.

Link from angelamaiers. 

* How NOT to Use Twitter.

A brief case-study that shows how NOT to use twitter...for any business. And following that case study is a brief one showing...the proper way to use Twitter to converse and connect and build connections.

From beckymccray of SmallBizSurvival. 

* Etiquette on Social Media.

Yes, it exists.

No, it's not a contradiction in terms.

Yes, there are rules...enforced by the community. See previous post.

Pay heed. Social media is a kind, compassionate and forgiving resource. But, once a repeat offender shows patience isn't appreciated...social media can be very direct and abrupt.

Link from David Bullock. 

* The 4 stages of the Twitter SeeSaw

1. Twitter Rockstar
2. Twitter Peoples Champ
3. Twitter Spam Follow
4. Twitter Snob

 Read the post to see which one you are, or could be. Great comments there, too.

For the record, I find it hard to believe anyone follows the conversations, daily, of 30,000 people. Cruel to be kind....perhaps, to not follow everyone who follows you. But, is it functionally honest to say you follow...the daily and multiple tweets of 30,000? I don't know.

Link from Grantgriffiths

* Social Network Users Less Receptive to Advertising.

Less receptive than who?

Alex (Malcom McDowell's character) in A Clockwork Orange, maybe?

Somehow, this article bothers me. It's like a first step towards Big Brother's pre-emptive 'request' for greater receptivity....

You're using social media aren't you? You're not receptive to My Messages, are you? My Messages are very important for the Homeland, our Homeland....You know that, don't you...Alex.

Here's a telling piece of text from the article:

 Advertising does not factor into consumer motivations.

The inherent arrogance of the self-serving nature of that insight speaks volumes for why advertising is ignored...by all, fans of social media or not.

However, yes. That's right. We consumers, rebels that we are, don't factor the needs of advertisers into our motivations.

Link from jeanannvk

* Is Social Advertising an Oxymoron?

An alternative title would be is advertising on social media....overlooked.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason users of social media aren't receptive to advertising is that advertising isn't receptive to social media.

In a recent online survey of brand managers, more than half of those responding declared themselves not interested in social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.

In one respect, I say Thank God! I am thankful for places where conversations and connections can take place uninterrupted by ads with no connection to our discussion. I'm open to ads. Ads can help me find solutions. But I've yet to see where ads do that now.

Nothing kills the usefulness of a social media resource faster than rampant advertising and widgets of no value. See Facebook.

It's fascinating to read the opinions of advertisers/brand managers reflected in this article. They are perhaps, 3-5 years behind the curve for that types of conversations are taking place on line, what types of media consumers are generating, what types of interactions are being created, the power of the connections, the innovations and ideas being created.  Maybe that's the problem; that's THEIR problem.

Link from dawudmiracle. 

* The Borg Social Media is Not Something to Fear...

Intel's Ken Kaplan presented at the recent BlogWell, an event dedicated to Corporate blogging which was organised by Andy Sernovitz, friend and founding CEO of WOMMA. This post shared some excellent insights for large corporate brands learning to embrace The Borg social media. 

One point I'd add, though, for large corporations: Resistance is futile. 

Link from jcass.

* How to Use Social Networking Sites for Marketing and PR.

What's interesting about this post is that it's an article posted at the NY Times, but written by Allbusiness.com.

Back in the early days of the internet, the NY Times was one of the bastions of free press (mainstream media) who poo-poo'd the internet's potential.

Now, they may be one of the first to embrace its power with guest posts from a major online site for business resources. Maybe that's why, so far, NYT is one of the largest media outlets to NOT file for bankruptcy. 

Oddly, though the 2nd part of this article from Allbusiness.com is titled Checklist: Ways to Keep Social Media  Safe and Productive.

The parental tone is...oddly condescending. As if we need a parent supervising us...

Yes, for employees and partners whose motivations have been tossed aside by out-of-touch management, then you need to control them.

However, if you create an opportunity for those in your organization to accomplish something meaningful to them and their colleagues and their customers...and their/your organization, and attach a system of rewards meaningful to all...you'll find these employees are quite capable of making good decisions on their own to Keep Social Media Safe and Productive.

Remember: social media's a tool to satisfaction and fulfillment. If you're not offering that for them...they'll turn to social media to find it, or a cheap distraction, instead.

That's enough for now. We'll talk again on Christmas Eve.

Yeah. That's right. So what?

Let’s say the setting is a review of a once-popular employee and their high-profile project. It's the project they championed in the organization. It’s the one they staked their career on at your company. They built their whole leadership around this one project.  They asked for your trust to work on a hunch, on a gut decision.

And you gave them the right to fail.

And fail they did. Gloriously, for all to see. And they flaunted the right to fail, again and again, ever bigger. Every area. Costs - Financial, Costs-talent, costs-reputation, costs-legacy, costs-brand, all show horrendously negative ROIs. Never once did they meet a goal, rarely did they articulate a target goal performance. Their project sucked resources from other vital projects for your company, dissension was created as others saw a different set of criteria used to support and evaluate this employee and their grand scheme, the reactions of the market were misgauged, as were those of employees, customers and prospects. The response from potential partners was greatly underestimated or overlooked or dismissed.

And it’s a mess, now.

And during their review with you over the status of the project (still not completed, still draining resources from other projects), their assumptions (all wrong)...you question them about...just one of the wrong assumptions. And they answer: Yeah, that’s right. So what?

What would you do?

As much as you/we, the manager, may want to blame this person...he’s our creation. A situation like this is a situation of our creation. An employee who goes this far, goes this far with our approval, endorsement and the resources we allowed them to have. There were many opportunities to stop them sooner. And we chose not to. We were too busy.

But, that’s what leaders and managers do. They set  limits. They hold people accountable. They stop projects before more resources are wasted. They unite, not divide, organizations. They make democracies work.

Yeah, that’s right. So what?

Sales are down. Now what?

What do you do when you see your sales start to falter, especially now in a soft economy? (Soft's kinda generous, really. It implies some structure, if only a bottom...)

Well, the first thing you should do is read SmallBiz Survival.

Then you'd see a great post today titled: What to do when sales are down.

In that post you'd see some great recommendations and tips, most of which are those you can do...today.

My favorite was:

• redoubling efforts to get new clients while doing as much to keep existing ones
  
• trying to get all employees with sense of ownership, we all in this together

A common mistake is to cut advertising and marketing budgets during a recession. Kinda makes sense until you realize that as your competitors fall by the wayside an opportunity grows for your company's message to be seen with less clutter, with less competing ads, with greater clarity. And when we, consumers, start buying again...your message, if consistently displayed, is the message they've connected with all these months.  At the very least keep your advertising budgets in place.

I'd encourage you to redouble your efforts to keep your existing customers. It's a two-fer tactic:  two benefits from one tactic.

1. You generate added sales from your existing customers.
2. You create customer evangelists. Their testimonials and word-of-mouth message that result are far more effective, cost-effective (ahem), than any other form of advertising.

And before you do this, you need to invest your time in creating owners from employees. Time is of the essence. There's an urgency. You have to create these new owners, today. On the other hand, employees don't become owners...today. Your time is required for your employees to embrace their new roles, really believe their new roles, as owners.

That time, your time, has to be spent creating an ownership manual for your employees that answers these three questions from their perspective:

• What's in it for me?
• Why should I care?
• Why should I believe?

Once you've answered those questions, you have your new owners. These are very active owners, the ones who make your brand, your company, now their company.

Disclaimer: I'm a guest author at SmallBiz Survival.

Which kind of bosses are we?

Which one are we?

Which one do we work for?

Which one do we settle for?

Which one is the leader that will drive our economy out of this recession?

Tweet from KathySierra.

Note: I changed the one word in the title: you to we. I'm learning.

6, no...4 reasons now's the best time for a startup

On Startups lists 6 Reasons Why This Economy is Good for Startups.

1. Low Opportunity Costs(1)
2. Cheap Talent*
3. Cheap Stuff***
4. Eager Customers**
5. Competitor Carnage
6. NOW, is always the right time

* Cheap talent - Personally, I hate the term cheap in the context of talent, employees, people's incomes and how it impacts the families who depend on these incomes...their community, their ability to provide healthcare for their families, their ability to buy and resume our economic growth...

On the other hand, thanks to large corporations laying off thousands, there is a surplus in talent and motivated talent. That surplus equates cheap in an economics discussion about a commoditized resource.

But talent, true talent isn't a commoditized resource. Hire enough cheap talent...and you create a cheap brand. Force great talent to take cheap pay....and you diminish their contribution with the resentment you create in paying them...cheap. They'll leave at the first opportunity and your cheap now becomes expensive with the added hiring expense to replace them. And that doesn'tinclude the hidden costs from your demoralized staff that remain. You ALWAYS get what you pay for...

Many of these talented folks will be motivated (by your cheap pay) to start their own business to take control of their destiny, to make best use of their talents, to best provide for their families and communities and customers.

Frankly, given the decline in incomes over the past 6-7 years for all but the top 1% of income earners...given it's the lack of disposable income that's creating the decline in consumer spending...and the resulting recessionsince december 2007, I'm surprise that 'cheap talent' is listed as a viable reason for anything but...adding to the depth of the recession.

** Eager customers. If there were eager customers....we wouldn't be in a recession since December 2007.

*** Cheap stuff. Some of the cheapest stuff is also the most powerful. Social media tools and resources are often free like twitter and blogtalk radio, Jott and blogs. These resources are what's leveling the playing field not only in politics, economics and empowering us the tax payers to participate more in the handling of our tax dollars...but they create a huge leveling effect for startups and small business competing against established brands.

Here's my 4 reasons why now's the best time for a startup.

* It's imperative.  Big, global corporations, aren't going to bring our economy out of this recession. There's too much evidence in banking, housing, cars (our economy's Big Three right now) that says their practices, allowed or not, have played a key role in creating this recession. At the very least, their thousands of layoffs only worsen it, prolong it. And for now, we have support them until we create a smooth crash for their business models.

* Social media. This is the major resource that creates the low opportunity costs for startups. The message of a new product, service, solution, idea...can be spread quickly with customer evangelists and word-of-mouth together with the tools of social media. Customer communities can start and grow with ease using tools like Ning to support a new company.

* Lots of talent. The thousands of misused, abused, overlooked, ignored, undermotivated employees being laid off at these large corporations come with unrealized talents and dreams and in many cases skills. That's the source for a lot of ideas and startups, a lot of pentup passion and inspiration that will drive a startup.

* Renewed focus on innovation. Obama's innovation initiative, and his embrace of innovative technologies, while uncertain in its implementation at this point, will at the very least  refocus our attention on the importance of innovation in  driving our economy. Innovation serves to create products and solutions. These need ....wait for it...startups to bring them to market.

In many cases, this is as perfect a storm for startups from innovation as it was for a recession from egregious behavior by our corporate leaders. From one comes the other is the golden kernel, I guess.

BlogTalk Radio: Brad Smart, PhD., Author of TopGrading and The Smart Interviewer

Brad Smart, PhD., author of two outstanding resources on hiring and growing A-Players for your organization will join me tomorrow, Wednesday, December 17, at 8:00 AM to talk about:

1. When companies are laying people off, should they be thinking about hiring?
2. Leading companies like GE, Honeywell and American Heart Association, have achieved hiring success rates of 90%. How does their 90% success rate compare with the average company's success rate?
3. How costly are mis-hires?
4. How Topgrading can help companies avoid the most common hiring mistakes.

You can listen live at www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit.

You can call in, listen and ask questions at 646-915-9212.

I'm excited to be able to talk with another business and marketing expert. I've been a huge advocate of the Topgrading method based on the success I had implementing it at a prior company. I was so enthusiastic I offered complimentary passes for customers to the day-long Topgrading training event. And I prominently profiled these outstanding two resources from Brad Smart in my ebook, The Collaborative Hiring Process. He graciously wrote a cover testimonial.

These resources are:

The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best.

Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People.

More concerns over the silver bullet of Healthcare IT initiatives

Despite  the siren calls of the Big Business consortia, the IS guys in hospitals, the Information Technology industry, the former CEO of Intel, Bill Gates, and maybe even Oprah that ignore the downsides of healthcare IT and make it seem easy as 1-2-3 ...

There are those who point out the principle of unintended consequences and its impact on our health from the irrational (poorly understood, planned and implemented) implementation of IT systems in our healthcare system.

Healthcare Renewal blog shares some.

Remember when your last company implemented a new software system to handle...payments or accounting or timesheets? Remember how they implemented it wholesale with no beta testing? And no one, no user, was asked to participate in the beta testing if they did beta test? And remember the disaster that resulted for customers, employees, benefits, profits, cash-flows.

Now imagine that same experience with a near universal and untested rush to the door for digital healthcare records and barcodes for prescriptions, etc. The disaster would be on our health, not on our timesheets.

I'm just saying...you know, maybe we could pause for a moment. Run duplicate systems for 6 months before we cut over to live systems. We do that for our accounting systems. Why not with our health care systems?

How much do we eat?

Know Your Number is a blog post at Rudd Sound Bites blog that talks a little bit about the  campaign in NYC that uses a little shock treatment in their ads to  helps people target the right number of calories.

Google Know Your Numbers. There are similar campaigns around the country.

I can't help but see the corollary with business. If you don't know the right number, if you're not measuring for the right number...how can you adjust to reach it or celebrate when you do?

(Giant muffins have 1500 calories...? Great, thanks for letting me know. )

BIDMC: True to its mission

Each week, on Monday, I blog about issues related to our healthcare system. The need for discussion on this issue should be apparent, even to members of Congress now. (I couldn't restrain myself.) And each day of each week, I search for possible solutions. I even have a category for health care victories and health care solutions. You can see in the category cloud there aren't many entries tagged with this category.

Maybe, it's my feeds. Maybe, it's the egregious nature of some of the abuses in our healthcare system, the suffering they create, the productivity they impeded that distracts me from seeing solutions. I don't find many solutions.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston may be an exception. It seems like it could be a hospital that remains true to its mission regardless of medicare/medicaid payment amounts or percentages or the ever-changing vicissitudes of co-pay, no-pay, denied-pay health insurance system.

I live in Iowa. I've never visited the hospital. Honestly, I hope I never need to, as well.  But, they would deliver stellar care in that event.

How do I know this hospital could be unique, true to its mission and my care would be stellar?

It's their leader, their CEO. He blogs at Running a Hospital.  I've read his blog for a few years, now. He blogs well, too, mixing in personal anecdotes and stories, as well as stories of successes and mistakes at their hospital, their challenges and he uses social media to share that story. He sometimes writes on the industry as a whole. He shares stories of how his hospital helps, not only with medical/health challenges, but also with life's challenges. He's a patient man it seems with weak people/competitors/organizations who need the crutch of hidden agendas. (Patience comes from strength, wisdom, discretion, perspective.)

That's the great thing about a blog. You get to know the author over time, your time, their time. Should I ever meet Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, I don't think I'll be surprised by much. Maybe how delightful it was to meet in person.

A leader leads. But an organization, a community, a nation...a hospital staff, we all get the leaders we deserve. Clearly, the staff there deserve a great leader.

His staff is very loyal to their shared mission of care, treatment and education for their patients, their staff and their community.  Very few hospitals and their patient care inspire letters and blog posts like this and this.

Too often we read of hospitals with a different culture, a different attitude, a different mission. So many it seems that the road less-traveled now is the road that leads a hospital to sustain its mission of care, treatment, education for its patients, its staff and its community.

I don't know how to solve every probem with our healthcare system. I know if we keep talking about it together we'll find a solution to all the problems. But one solution would be to clone/duplicate BIDMC, its staff, its leaders, its volunteers...

I know this isn't the only hospital like this. So, share your stories here of your hospital and community it supports and that supports it. And encourage them to blog and share their stories. We can create a community of solutions and role models, help each other find solutions.

Have a great week.

PS: Thanks, Mr. Levy for the time you spend blogging.

Janis Joplin, Woodstock: "Try"

Whew! Scorcher.

You know if church services had this much passion...I don't know. I'm just saying.