bizsolutionsplus

The Final Chapter (But Not the End)

Update: October 2, 2009--Although bizsolutionsplus has reached its last chapter, another blog will take its place sometime next year. The subject matter will focus on us humans, instead of on business. When it launches, I will announce it here and on Facebook. Meanwhile, enjoy the archive of more than 1000 posts here.

Today's post represents my 1002nd since 2005, when I launched bizsolutionsplus. It also represents my last. After much thought, it seems the right time to end this chapter in my writing life and move on to the next.

Thank you to my thousands of readers, including the nearly 1500 who are subscribers. Over the years I have met many of you and carried on extended conversations with many others. Please don't see this as a good-bye but instead as another opportunity for us to see each other in new and different ways.

It is not my intent to be maudlin or self-serving, so I shall skip all the stuff about why I occupied this space for half a decade. Instead, just let me end by saying thank you and God bless. May our paths cross again somewhere, sometime. Be happy!

Are Twitter & Facebook Creating a Narcissistic Nation?

Today, I want to tackle a subject that touches communications, including social media--self-centeredness and narcissism. My inspiration for this post comes from a CNN.com commentary penned by Ruben Navarrette Jr., a nationally syndicated columnist. It is entitled, Joe, Kanye, Serena -- aren't they special?. In his column, he argues that recent episodes of rudeness featuring the likes of Joe Wilson, Kanye West and Serena Williams are a result of several generations of Americans being raised to believe they are special.

In the column, he writes:

....But this phenomenon isn't limited to celebrities and previously anonymous backbenchers in Congress basking in their 15 minutes.

There are many people out there, in all walks of life, who think they're more significant than they really are. Plagued with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, they feel entitled to do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it no matter whom it hurts.

In his analysis, he mentions that "some in the media blame the coarseness of talk radio and the Internet where the most extreme voices are the loudest and where people tune in not to hear different points of view but to have their own views validated." And he touches on "...the look-at-me-I'm-so-special culture bred by egocentric social networking sites such as Facebook, My Space, and Twitter. With thousands of 'followers' caring enough to take time from their own day to shadow you through yours, is it any wonder that the followed are getting big heads as they "tweet" what they had for breakfast?"

And, I believe, there is some truth to those allegations. How many Glen Becks or Keith Olbermanns on TV or Rush Limbaughs on the radio does it take to desensitize us to rudeness, contrariness, half-truths, and everything that is opposite respect and dignity for others, especially those we disagree with? And how many times do we need to be told that so-and-so on Twitter is an A-Lister or that what's-his-name is a rock star because they have thousands of faux friends on Facebook before so-and-so and what's-his-name begin to believe they really are A-Listers and rock stars?

That said, I agree with Navarrette that social media, talk TV and radio, and spoiled celebrities are not the root cause of the entitlement culture we live in today, but they certainly deserve lots of credit for the crudeness and rudeness of our nation's behavior when it is bad. Like, Navarrette, I place most of the blame on bad parenting. First, let us discount those celebrities, politicians and the wealthy who must be held accountable for their own self-centeredness, who look in the mirror and see gods smiling back. Those misled narcissists aside, most self-centeredness begins in the home. And before I get up on my soapbox, let me admit that my generation--the baby boomers--hold much of the blame for the current generations who bear the scars of our mistakes.

My wife and I are products of educators and psychologists who believed that the critical piece for raising confident, happy and successful children centered around self-esteem. Never mind that previous generations produced some pretty successful and relatively happy people, who were raised to believe that we earn everything; nothing is given us. In fact, that's how the leading edge of us baby boomers were raised. But, hey, baby boomers weren't all fools. Putting the blame on our parents and their generation was a lot easier than accepting responsibility for our own weaknesses. So, we grabbed onto the idea that doting on children's self-esteem and nourishing it with false rewards were a lot better way to raise kids than making them work for success.

So, we practiced what psychologists call "cheap self-esteem," both to mend ourselves and our children. In the earliest grades, instead of ranking stars gold for best, blue for good and red for needs work, everybody gets gold stars and a hug. We carried that concept through college by issuing inflated grades, often at the insistence of parents. Instead of awarding trophies for outstanding results, everybody got a trophy. And when our kids made a mistake, kind words and second chances were ample. Our goal, in Navarette's words: "...making our kids think they're 10-feet tall and bulletproof when they're neither." What were the ultimateresults: overblown egos, self-centeredness and in a few cases, narcissistic, rude behavior. Respect and dignity for others diminished. The entitlement culture took root.

This entitlement mentality now flourishes in our culture. We see it everywhere. Often the symptoms are far more subtle than those proudly exhibited by the boorish among us. Nevertheless, there are far too many of us who exhibit a "me" first mentality, best exhibited by those who believe that government is both the cause and solution to our problems. We also see it exhibited by those at work who blame others for their mistakes; by those children who blame their teachers, coaches and parents for every bad thing in their lives; and by those friends who exhibit negativity day in and day out. (BTW: If your friends are like this, you need new friends.)

I don't have a cultural solution; however, it has taken 40 years to get us here, we aren't going to change cultural attitudes in a day. But we can do something for ourselves. When I was a kid my mother read me the story about the little choo choo that could. Cute story. Decades later, I finally got the message. If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't. We are the only ones responsible and accountable for our successes and our failures.

Speak up! Share! I bet most of you have strong feelings one way or the other about what I wrote here. I'm open to your thoughts, pro or con.

Trust is Earned, not Given

Who and what do we trust? Very few and not much, it seems. For some context, here's the lead paragraph from a May 2009 Time article by Adam Smith entitled, What Banks Are Still Missing: Trust:

"...bankers around the world took wild risks that their bosses and regulators failed to stop. Throw in Bernard Madoff's massive fraud, and trust right now is as scarce as good credit. According to the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index, a new quarterly measure of Americans' confidence in financial institutions, faith in banks — on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 denotes no trust and 5 complete confidence — fell from 2.95 to 2.8 in the first quarter of this year; trust in bankers slipped from 2.6 to 2.5. Things are even bleaker elsewhere. In a January ICM poll carried out across 17 of the world's leading economies — using a scale of 1 to 10 — public trust in the stability and solidity of banks came in at 4 in Germany, 4.2 in the U.K., and 5.1 in France."

But it's not only banks. A January 2009 Public Strategies Inc./Politico poll shows that a majority of voters say their confidence in the federal government's ability is falling: 62% say their confidence in Washington has decreased over the past 12 months, 8% say their confidence has increased.

When people lack trust in others and in institutions, we pay in costs, time, stress, productivity, morale, and both mental and physical health. Try to imagine what would happen in during these difficult times companies trusted employees. Changes in the workplace and in our nation such as the following could create dramatic positive results.

• If executives and managers trusted their employees, I have little doubt that we would see a huge increase in the numberts of people working from home, saving time and energy and reducing stress on the environment. In addition, trusted employees are more motivated, productive and innovative.
• In 2002, for example, when Best Buy decided to allow employees to work when and wherever they liked as long as the work got done, productivity went up 35% (The Speed of Trust, p. 226).
• If governments were trusted, citizens would be more likely to listen to their elected officials and participate in solving the nation's challenges. Few principles are more motivating than hope, and how can we experience hope if we can't trust government officials to do the right things.
• And little economic progress can be made if we don't trust banks (and Wall Street) with our money or our investments. Such distrust causes a ripple effect that causes banks to crash, markets to lose value or recover in spurts and stops, the value of the dollar to be unpredictable, all preventing a full-blown economic recovery.

The fact is: Trust is in a downward spiral, and flowery speeches and promises won't move us to give our trust. It must be earned through actions that demonstrate integrity, intent, capabilities and results. In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey identifies 13 behaviors that must be an integral part of the fabric of an individual or an institution for trust to be earned:

1. Straight Talk
2. Demonstrates Respect
3. Transparency
4. Rights Wrongs
5. Shows Loyalty
6. Delivers Results
7. Gets Better (constant improvement/learning)
8. Confronts Reality
9. Clarifies Expectations
10. Practices Accountability
11. Listens First
12. Keeps Commitments
13. Extends Trust

Imagine the difference we could make if all of us worked to improve those behaviors in our home and or work lives.

What is a Social Business? How Would You Define It?

My last two posts have focused on what I believe is a giant leap toward creating Social Businesses, a phrase beginning to enter the dialog created with the coming of Social Media. To date, I believe the Dachis Group has made the biggest contribution toward creating a definition and a reality in which Social Businesses become a reality. I particularly like the quote by Dachis Group member David Armano:

We believe that organizations across the globe will begin to view “social media” as social business and when this happens, integration, scale and adoption will become complex issues which will only be solved through a purposeful act of coordinated activities built upon a solid strategic foundation.

David and his colleagues are on the right path and building a road map for others to make their own. In my last post, I urged them to consider the barriers in place that are imposed by current corporate structures, if they are to achieve the "dream". The barriers first needing to be exploded are a proper definition of what a Social Business looks like and that the development of a business model focused not only on revenues and profits and, third, strategies to create the culture change necessary for a business that can be called social.

To overcome the "complex issues" the Group sees and to build a "solid strategic foundation", we have to define what a Social Business will look like. Today, I attempt to start a process that, with assistance from people just like you, the effort will result in a definition acceptable to the corporate world. For unless they can see a solid fiduciary reason to become social, many, if not most, will not.

Recognizing that a non-profitable-business definition already exists, I believe we should start with it and work from there. According to Wikipedia, A social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social objective. The profits are used to expand the company’s reach and improve the product/service. Marc Dangeard, founder of the Entrepreneurs Commons, sees weaknesses in that definition, if we are to invite entrepreneurs and corporations to be social. Marc offers this definition: Social Business: any business which is focused on optimizing both Social Capital and profit rather than just maximizing profit.

I like where Marc goes with this. However, Wikipedia and Marc (I believe) rely on "social objective" as the key to their definitions, which cannot be the cornerstone of profitability and which in the corporate world we call Corporate Social Responsibility. Underlying the social objective is this definition: social objectives: it needs to have positive social objectives (help comes from the altruistic social services that the business provides to the poor e.g. health, education, poverty, environment or climate urgency).

While worthy, social objectives are not the objectives of profitable businesses, whose goals are to grow revenues and increase profits. That does not mean they cannot be a Social Business. Here is my crude attempt at a definition:

A Social Business is one that operates with a value system that strives to put people first by focusing on trust, credibility, openness, respect, dignity, revenues and profits equally, and uses social media to give everyone a voice to achieve those objectives.

I know this is a draft that can be greatly improved upon. It is meant to be a starter only. Without a solid definition, Social Businesses might still evolve organically. However, if a business consultant's job is anything, it is to provide guidance to grow businesses in ways that are smart, purposeful, efficient and successful. Without knowing what a Social Business would look like, how can that happen?

To achieve what Dachis envisions, complex issues which will only be solved through a purposeful act of coordinated activities built upon a solid strategic foundation, all of us who are consultants and/or who care about the potential of "social" have a chance to determine what that means. We can start with a definition, which can be our first purposeful and coordinated activity. Then we can work on building a business model and culture change strategies to achieve the "solid strategic foundation" upon which social businesses will be built.

Give it your best shot. How would you define Social Business?

Note: This is my 1000th post.

Business Models Must Change for Social Businesses to Exist

Yesterday's post (Social Strategies Grow Out of the Culture, Not the Tactics) grew out of the news that the Dachis Group acquired Headshift. Two things you need to know to understand why this news might change the way businesses operate:

1. Headshift is Europe's leading social business consultancy helping organizations use smarter, simpler, social technologies to improve business performance, communication, and customer engagement.
2. Founded in 2008 by Jeffrey Dachis, Dachis Group (Dachis Corporation, Inc.) was created to unlock the value of social technologies for large corporate enterprises through its Social Business Design global advisory practice and technology implementation program.

The significance of those descriptions lies in what is not being clearly stated, which is this new company's purpose isn't primarily to implement social media tools, it is to create a new way of doing business. The Dachis Group, I believe, is much more about help to create a new business model for the establishment of something which the phrase Social Business has been applied. For an apt description, here is what Dachis member David Armano wrote this morning on Logic+Emotion:

It’s been five months since I joined colleagues Peter Kim, Jeff Dachis, Kate Niederhoffer, and Jevon MacDonald in a new venture that we believe will alter the way business gets done. In this time, I’ve immersed myself along with the team in fine tuning the vision we’ve developed which we call social business design—a holistic approach to transforming organizations from traditional infrastructure toward a more open, socially calibrated ecosystem. We believe that this is the only way businesses will be able to scale and integrate what’s now commonly known as “social media” on one side and “enterprise 2.0” on the other. And I’m pleased to announce that we are no longer a team of six people. We’ve just acquired Headshift, a European social business consultancy with offices in the United Kingdom and Sydney, Australia. This is the biggest news we’ve had since I joined the team and I’m really excited about the global opportunities it presents us.

David states the purpose clearly: We believe that organizations across the globe will begin to view “social media” as social business and when this happens, integration, scale and adoption will become complex issues which will only be solved through a purposeful act of coordinated activities built upon a solid strategic foundation.

My comment to David's post is: Nice start, however, I recommend that your group think in terms of business models driving today's companies and how they much change in order to create a social business. When we convince companies that a new business model is in their best interests (costs to change vs. results), the next step would be to completely re-organize operations to efficiently take advantage of the new business model.

The Dachis Group doesn't need my advice; the partners are smart, capable and clearly understand where they are going. My response was primarily to the graphic David shows us, which has more to do with results then it does the transformational process. To get from where most businesses are today to where Dachis wants to take them, a new and practical business model needs to be developed, and companies such as Dachis are leading the way. It will be interesting to see which company among those leading the way towards a Social Business model wins the first leg of the race. Meanwhile, building a business model to form the foundation of a Social Business is critical.

A business model shows the way in which a company makes money. It can be simple or complex. The model clearly describe where revenues come from and what they look like (i.e., the amount and the frequency of receivables). The structure of Operations arises out of the model, as Operations makes up the structure through which dollars are earned.

For example, my restaurant clients need to source food, cook it and serve it in an environment that produces a good customer experience. If they franchise out their restaurants, their business Operations must change, as a new revenue stream is created. In other words, the business model is a plan to generate revenue and to make a profit from operations (ROI). The model includes all the functional areas of the business, as well as the revenues it generates and the expenses it incurs. When the models work, you end up with a Starbucks or a Dell.

When the models don't work (think the auto industry and airlines), reinvention needs to occur. In my mind, those industries are ready to be convinced that any new business model they apply results in creating a Social Business. As a frequent flier and a car owner, I would welcome the reinvention of both industries. In this scenario, companies such as GM and United were ready for reinvention yesterday.

As you might expect, I have some strong feeling about implementing change within a corporation, as I have more than a little experience in being involved in just such change. Some of that experience felt good; much of it was a disaster. It will take lots of hard work and cultural buy-in to convince businesses to become Social, especially if we start with results and tactics. Instead, we need to start with costs, culture and Operations changes, and why and how becoming a Social Business will be profitable and a good place to work.

Social Strategies Grow Out of the Culture, Not the Tactics

With few exceptions, every job people need or want has a social, a functional, and an emotional dimension.  When business leaders focus on money, they speak only to the functional side of human needs. In baseball, great teams focus on pitching, defense and offense, as all three are equal in importance when it comes to winning. Shouldn't businesses focus on more than the functional side if they want to create a winning team?

We should set our goals to create a great culture, to keep our promises to our customers, and to create a better world, and then measure each area for success. If we do those things, we will make more money, employ better people, create more customers, and build a better world in which to live and raise our children.

In today's social world, we expend most of our energies discussing the media; in fact, we call this new technological environment social media. But it isn't about the media, and if I am wrong and it is about the media, we should just forget the whole thing. Business operations are never about tools; they are about meeting employee wants and needs first and foremost, which leads to creating great customer experiences, and that is how we should define social, not by its media.

When I was with Starbucks, there often was talk from above regarding turning the phrase customers come first on its head. The feeling was that if customers are really important, and they of course are, then employees need to come first. Otherwise, an unhappy employee base could never put customers first, if they didn't trust leadership to have their best interests at heart.

The question for any company then, no matter its size, is: How can you change your organization’s culture from one of greed and self-interest to one of productivity and growth?

Start by listening to your workers. Conduct surveys to ferret out root causes of unhappiness. Talk to employees and customers. Listen to them and hear what they are saying. Listen to the rumors—they often reflect more truth than not. Employees are usually unhappy because business leaders do not meet their emotional and psychological needs, not only because of their pay (although fair pay and benefits must be a factor in success). Leaders who don’t work diligently to make the workplace, the marketplace, and their communities better put their companies at risk.

Tunnel vision focused mostly on customer sales results in both employee and customer turnover, less-than-great products and services, short-term increases in productivity followed by downturns in productivity and performance, burnout, resentment, and frustration. It builds a wall between business and the public. In the long term, this negatively affects profits and leads to losses in the billions of dollars, creating a new downward spiral reflected in downsizing, cost-cutting, and employee backlash when the economy picks up again.

While old, I remember reading a December 2005 report by Datamonitor  that concluded that 86 percent of Europeans and American consumers surveyed have become more distrustful of business within the past five years. In recent times, surveys indicate that level of distrust hasn't changed much. Daniel Bone, Datamonitor's then consumer analyst and author of the report, tells us that the primary causes for this breakdown in trust come from three main sources: A lack of business transparency, business complacency about winning customer trust and loyalty, and a decline in customer experience.

"The more positive experiences a consumer has with the brand, the more trustworthy he or she is likely to become," Bone said.

Here are but a few scenarios that lead to such distrust:

• When customers read about layoffs and then experience a decline in their experience, people conclude that efficiency and cutting costs are more important than customers.
• When customer service is outsourced overseas and customers perceive a decline in their experience, people conclude that efficiency and cutting costs are more important than customers.
• When customers read about CEOs making millions of dollars a year, while they bring home many times less, they conclude that no one person is that much more valuable to a business than any other person. Since employees are also consumers, they carry that perception over to other brands.
• When customers are over-sold or given a version of the truth, they conclude that sales are more important than consumers.
• And when all of the above perceptions are confirmed by business scandals, people’s trust is broken.

In order to overcome consumer distrust, business leaders must start focusing their energy on the customer and the employee experience. Businesses must build trust and credibility, create authentic experiences, and show in everything they say and do that they care more about people than they do profits.

As Bone said in 2005, “Brands are rooted in the trust that consumers place in them. After all, the ultimate goal of marketing is to generate an intense bond between the consumer and the brand, with trust being a fundamental factor in achieving this.”

If you develop strong relationships based on values and trust, your business will benefit financially and your customers will begin the process of becoming loyal customers. This is the kind of long-term positive impact and payback that delivers results that are driven socially from within an organization through its employees, resulting in great customer experiences. What we are talking about is a social business, a topic of conversation this week inspired by the acquisition of Headshift by US agency Dachis Group.

I urge you to consider and further discuss the important differences between what is currently called social media and what some, including my, are suggesting a more appropriate and effective way of thinking. If our focus is on media, we do little to advance the way businesses operate. In fact, we reinforce the business model of silos and barriers that are anything but social. Isn't it time to take the next step? Change never is about tools; therefore, it can't be about social media. Instead, isn't it time for a social business paradigm that begins and works from the inside/out?

I've Got A Secret. Do You?

Who wouldn't like to know the ingredients in the secret sauce or the age-old mystery behind the Coke recipe? Or what's in store for our favorite 24-Hour guy Jack? Secrets! We love them; we hate them. They drive us crazy. So today I challenge each of you. Break out of your hiding places and share your best-kept business secrets. What one thing works best for attracting and growing new customers at your business? I'll begin.

For us, the best tactic remains direct mail campaigns. Although I continue to actively pursue an integrated marketing effort, it seems as if the one tool that always delivers is direct mail. Here is how we conduct our direct mail campaigns:

1. We identify the businesses we want to approach, narrowing the field by sub-industry categories, revenues, geography and recent growth factors.
2. Then we either create a list using online research tools or we purchase one.
3. The next step requires writing a cover letter explaining why the recipient should care about what we do and why their company will benefit from hiring us.
4. Along with the letter, we send a useful white paper or an article we have published that is pertinent to growing the recipient's business.
5. Five working days later, we send a post card to the same list, directing recipients to a free white paper, e-book or article on our web site or this blog.
6. The last step beings five working days later, when we begin our telemarketing efforts to qualify the leads--who on the list is interested and who isn't. For those who think they need our assistance, we schedule a meeting.

That old-style tactic still delivers best for us. But we know that other businesses are finding success using other tactics. Share with us. What is the one thing your business does that works best to attract new clients or customers?

Freebie: If you share your business secret, I will send you a free autographed copy of How to Grow a Business by Putting People First. Just send $4 for S&H to me at 651 Country Club Road, Avon CT 06001, and include your return address. U.S. only.

How to Succeed in Relationships

The only relationships in this world that have ever been worthwhile and enduring have been those in which one person could trust another.--Samuel Smiles, author and biographer.

You've likely heard the saying, Talk is cheap. When my mother would become angry with a friend or family member and they apologized, she often responded in just that way. She was saying that what we do means more than what we say. In The Speed of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey puts it this way: The truth is that in every relationship--personal and professional--what you do has far greater impact than anything you can say.

Covey than goes on to use such examples as love, win-win negotiations, putting customers first, recognizing people, and ethical behavior. We've all been there. It's not uncommon for men to tell a woman he loves her to gain physical favors, or for an sales person to say they want a win-win when they really want to earn the largest possible commission, or for a President and CEO to claim people matter most in the company and then to treat them unfairly, or for a business to publish its values  based on integrity only to act unethically. Eventually trust erodes when such behavior is visible and true to Smiles quote, a relationship in which a person or business says one thing but behaves quite differently is no longer worthwhile.

The good news in all this is that behavior can be changed, if that becomes a purpose or objective for an individual or a business. In 2005, DELL was reeling from negative earning's reports and customer service complaints Today, DELL once again is a media darling and a company consumers trust. In our own personal and work lives, we've all worked with difficult people who took it upon themselves to change once confronted with the devastating impact they were having on their co-workers and productivity. And we've seen marriages seemingly beyond repair that have been healed by a willingness of one or both partners to change.

The key to change is first identifying our weakness and then becoming purposeful in reinventing ourselves. Doing so might just prevent what Warren Buffett shares as a warning to all of us:

It takes 20 years to build your reputation and five minutes to ruin it.