Category Archives: Self Analysis

Achievement, Alternatives, Change Management, Leadership, Self Analysis, Strategy

Disposable Business

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A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a family sat despondently in their family room. They didn’t know what to do. Their color television had for some reason stopped working. Since they had never felt the need to communicate with each other while the TV had worked, they were now horribly out of practice. What to do? Things looked bleak. It was time for action.

Now here is where things get really weird. The eldest male of the family, the nominal head of the family unit (I say nominal head as this was only a fictional title. He actually reported to his mate, the most powerful woman in the universe) stood up, put the non-functioning television in the family’s means of conveyance (re: minivan) and took it to a place that was known as the repair shop.

Yes, he actually took the TV in to be repaired.

I can actually remember back to a time when this would not have been a fictional story. The reporting structure of the family is non-fiction. Every male, nominal head of a family does in fact report to their respective specific most powerful woman in the universe. The rest of this story is border line science fiction. Today when something breaks we don’t seem to fix it. We don’t even seem to be inclined to try and fix it. We just throw it away and go get another, newer one.

What used to seem to be a society based on the utilization of durable goods seems to have evolved to society based on the purchase of disposable goods. We don’t seem to want to fix anything anymore. When something breaks our first inclination is to get a new one. If that is not eminently feasible, the next step is to call someone to have them fix it. It has become the societal norm these days.

Now let’s go to go to different galaxy that is not so far away. We still have a disposable versus a repairable product mindset, but now we will be talking about businesses, not products. In this galaxy there is a business that has been performing well for many years, making products that have been well received and are well thought of by their customers. I was going to say that they made high quality, repairable televisions, but that would have been just a little excessive in my opinion.

Let’s say something now happens to this business. For whatever reason it is now no longer performing as well as it did. Its products are no longer well received nor are they well thought of by their customers. For lack of a better description, this business can now be considered broken.

Are broken businesses as disposable as broken products? How does a business actually break anyway? In a broken product, it is usually a component that fails and brings down the entire product. What happens when the components of the business are all still operating as they did when the business was not broken?

We were a culture that used to fix our own cars, change our own oil, fix our own flat tires, do our own home maintenance and improvement work. Now we just get a new replacement or call someone to come fix it. How does this culture translate to our new business models? What do we do when the current business model doesn’t work anymore?

I am fond of quoting Albert Einstein. I think he is universally recognized as a pretty bright guy, with the theory of relativity and all that. One of my favorite quotes of his, and I have used it before is:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.”

I have met a few leaders that could actually change the way they think. There have not been many, but there have been a few. Most of the time a manager learns a way to do something successfully gets rewarded for that approach and spends the rest of their career replicating that solution set. They continue to think the same way. They just try to apply the same methodology in different situations.

Think of the old phrase:

“When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

In effect, they were once successful as a managerial hammer, and seem to have dedicated the rest of their managerial life to finding another perfect business problem nail.

Businesses are not disposable, and can invariably be repaired. Repairing a business changes it. It takes a different mindset. You can’t just call someone to come fix it. You can’t call a plumber or electrician to come fix it for you. You have to understand the plumbing and wiring of the business yourself. You have to get back to the mindset of changing your own oil and fixing your own flat tires.

Sorry for the poor metaphors, but I think you get my point.

Part of the solution may be to get a good plumber or electrician on your team, and to listen to them when they give you their recommendations and opinions.

I think this is the essence of learning to change the way you think. Sometimes you are the proper hammer for the current nail. Sometimes someone else is the proper hammer. The key is not being locked into a specific method or process of solving problems, and being able to recognize when things have changed and some different thinking is required.

A broken business is made up of many “working” people. I think that despite the trends to the contrary, they are not disposable. If they are performing poorly it is usually not because they want to perform poorly but rather they have been given poor leadership and are focusing on the wrong issues (re: nails). Disposing of them and getting new people will not fix that problem.

Remember, the thinking of those that got the business into its current state will usually not be sufficient to get it out of that state. The way the business is being managed, or those that are managing have to change. It is difficult for a leader to recognize that they must change. I think it is almost impossible for a manager to recognize that they must change.

I think our disposable product culture has taken its toll on our ability to repair broken businesses. At the risk of sounding too trite we seem to be predisposed toward disposable businesses. We seem to have evolved a mindset that if the current compliment of people cannot achieve the desired goals that we should dispose of them and replace them (like our products) with newer models.

The problem with that thinking is that it seems to be some of the thinking that may have been responsible for getting the business into its current state, and as Einstein noted, that probably won’t be sufficient for getting it out of that state.

Analysis, Decision Making, Performance, Risk and Return, Self Analysis

Is Phil Mickelson Ruining Business?

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I was watching the U.S. Open golf tournament the other day. I enjoy doing that because it gives me the chance to watch people who really know how to do their job which in this case is to play golf. Believe it or not I think I actually learn a little when I watch them as well. Not much, just a little. I feel the only thing that truly separates me from them is talent. They have it and I don’t. That and age, and flexibility, and focus, and drive and probably a few other traits that I am not currently aware of.

What I noticed about this broadcast was that they seemed to focus on the players’ recovery shots. The course was set up so that if you weren’t in the fairway you were in trouble. What I saw was a lot of miraculous recovery shots that were attempted from this trouble, and only a select few that were successfully executed. However, the guy who eventually won didn’t seem to attempt the miraculous on every shot. Truthfully he was probably not in trouble as often as the others, but when he was, sometimes instead of attempting the miraculous he just chipped out. He then tried to put the ball on the green and make a putt to save par. He did that a lot. The other guys didn’t. He won by like eight strokes, which in golf terms is the same as lapping the field, or a knockout.

Let’s get this straight right up front. Phil Mickelson is an amazing golfer. He has won forty two events on the PGA tour. He has won five major championships. He has spent over seven hundred weeks in the top ten of the world’s golf rankings. I cannot hit my driver as far as he hits his six iron, maybe even his seven iron if he decides to hit it hard. He is a crowd favorite everywhere he goes because of his demeanor on the course and his willingness to interact with the fans. So why do I think that he is ruining business? I think of him as the father of the miraculous recovery golf shot. He makes a lot of them and they are all highlight reel material. When we see what we think of as an “everyman” like Phil Mickelson pull off the miraculous recovery, we think we can all do it, and not just in golf.

David Feherty on the other hand, is a former professional golfer. While he did win five times on the European golf tour, he has never won on the PGA tour and may not have spent a single week in the top ten of the world’s golf rankings. He retired in nineteen ninety four to become a golf announcer. It is widely accepted that he is far better as a professional golf announcer than he ever was as a professional golfer. Why do I bring up David Feherty in responding to my question as to why I think Phil Mickelson may be ruining business? It is simple. David Feherty provided the following quote regarding Phil Mickelson:

“Watching Phil Mickelson play golf is like watching a drunk chasing a balloon near the edge of a cliff.”

We are now getting close to the point. 

Phil Mickelson will hit some of the most incredible shots in golf that will end up getting him into some of the deepest trouble possible on a golf course. He has been known to get a little wild, or to make some foolish decisions at the most inopportune times imaginable. What is amazing about him is that he can then hit some of the most amazing recovery shots humanly possible and put himself right back in the game again. Notice that I said he “can” hit amazing recovery shots. That doesn’t mean that he always does. Sometimes it works and he is almost unbeatable. Many times it doesn’t, and then things only get worse. Golf, like business is very unforgiving of compounded mistakes.

While it is true that he has won so many times on tour, what is not so widely publicized is the number of times that he lost when he should have or could have won, due to the erratic nature of how he plays the game of golf. In 2006 Phil Mickelson lost the U.S Open on the seventy second and last hole. He came to it leading by one and needing only a par to win. It was not an especially long hole, but as with all major championships it was not easy.

Instead of being a little conservative, and probably winning or at worst tying, he went for it as he always does. He teed off and knocked his drive into the trees.

Instead of playing it safe and smart (as this year’s U.S. Open winner did on several occasions), and pitching out to the fairway where he could then rely on his well documented and much acclaimed pitching and putting skills to get his par, he went for the fabulous recovery shot. Mere mortals could not have hit the shot he was going to try and hit.

He was going to bend a shot around some trees and knock it on the green from more than two hundred yards away. It didn’t work. He hit another tree and the ball came rolling back toward him.

Now he is laying two, and he needs a four to win or a five to at least tie, and he is no better off than he was before.

He goes for it again because now he has to. This time he gets it around the trees, but misses the green and it ends up in a difficult lie in the greenside bunker. Now he needs to get it out of the bunker and in the hole in two shots just to tie.

He gets it out of the bunker, but misses the putt to tie and just like that he loses the tournament.

While Phil Mickelson is renowned for his miraculous recovery shots, there will always be the question of should he have avoided the trouble in the first place. Could he have played it smart and not hit his sometimes erratic driver, opting for a club that he could have more easily used to hit the fairway? Once in the woods could he have made a better choice that would have taken losing the tournament outright out of the equation, while still giving him the chance to win? Mistakes in golf, like in business can always happen, and when you do find yourself in trouble is it always the best course of action to go for broke on the recovery?

History has shown that most attempts at miraculous recovery shots fail, otherwise it would not be considered so miraculous when they succeeded. If they always succeeded they would just be recovery shots, not miraculous recovery shots.

Too many times it seems that businesses can find themselves in a difficult situation and instead of playing to their own strengths and capabilities, play for the miraculous recovery. Most of the time when they try the go for broke recovery in business, the business does indeed go broke. There are examples of successes using this approach. They usually end up in some business school case study where they are captured and passed down to future generations.

I think they are more like lightning strikes in a rain storm. They are relatively rare, individual events, and as the saying goes lightning doesn’t usually strike twice in the same place.

Actually in golf getting struck by lightning even once is not considered a good thing. That’s normally why we go inside when it starts to rain. Getting struck by lightning of a golf course will usually ruin your round, and probably any future rounds you had ever planned on playing.

In golf a steady performer is known as a “grinder”. A grinder is someone who works at minimizing their mistakes and maximizing their opportunities. A grinder usually doesn’t have less talent; they usually just don’t take as many risks. When a grinder makes a mistake or does find themselves in a difficult position, they weigh all the risks and rewards with an eye toward realistically minimizing the downside risk. They understand that they may not be able to win the tournament with a good decision, but that they can certainly lose it with a bad one. Making par after a mistake is not a bad score.

Tiger Woods is a possible example of the ultimate grinder. He has been the best golfer in the world for almost as long as Phil Mickelson has been in the top ten. He rarely makes mistakes to the point that it is extraordinarily uncommon that he ever beats himself. The majority of the other top ten golfers in the world are probably best described to one exten
t or another as grinders also. This means that the riskier, more swashbuckling approach to golf that Phil Mickelson so successfully uses is much more the exception than the rule for the truly successful.

Miraculous recoveries are attention grabbing by their very nature. Few of the attempts are really ever successful despite the numbers that are tried. Those that are successful however are very widely reported and seem to take on an image and a life all their own. Miraculous recovery attempts seem to have become the standard against which we want to measure all performances, be it in golf or in business.

A business that finds itself challenged might better learn from this year’s U.S Open winner. He calculated when to go for the miraculous, and when to play it smart and just chip out of trouble and play on. Phil Mickelson has finished second six times in the U.S. Open indicating he definitely has the talent and capability, but has never won. This year he was sixteen shots back. Businesses are also always competing and need to understand that while the miraculous is usually widely reported, that by its very nature cannot be expected to regularly occur.

Setting realistic goals for each shot a business is going to take is a key to a business’s ongoing success. It’s better to leave the miraculous recovery shots to the golfers.

Humor, Resume, Self Analysis, Style

Get a Real Title

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People who know me know that it is only on the very rare occasion that I may get just the teensiest bit sarcastic when people, places, things, etc, strike me as being silly. I enjoy humor. I seem to find it everywhere, even when I am not especially looking for it. I guess a more correct phrasing would be that the humor and silliness of the business world just seems to find me. Occasionally my approach and public comments regarding what I find funny aggravate my wife, and now she reminds all of our friends not to encourage me when the silliness finds me and my sarcastic twin emerges and starts commenting. Fortunately she is not around right now, and yet another source of silliness in the business world has found me, so please bear this in mind.

I guess I am lost as to what has occurred within the business world that has enabled people to bestow upon themselves, or upon others the latest collection of self aggrandizing job titles that appear to be proliferating on both resumes and the online networking sites that everyone in business now seems to be members of. If I didn’t know better I would say that it looks as though there is a tacit competition amongst the various business players to see who can come up with the most grandiose job title for themselves. If that is indeed the case we seem to have quite a lot of “winners” out there.

I have to believe that the current “Title Wave” started with the many comedians of the past and their stand-up comedy routine monologue searches for laughter. I think the great George Carlin was one of the first to refer to garbage men as “sanitation engineers” as a way of uplifting their roles in society, and Rosanne Barr refused to refer to herself as a house wife and opted for the more resume friendly “domestic goddess”. Who would have thought that from these humble and humorous beginnings business people would now generate an entire new lexicon of job titles, with the only difference being that today’s purveyors of new age job titles are not trying to elicit even the smallest chuckle from the audiences reading their resumes.

In looking at some of the various job and occupational titles that are now being crafted with such care, they appear at least to me, to fall into three general categories:
• Chiefs
• Eastern Philosophers
• People born in or lost in the 1980’s
I am sure that there must be others, and possibly even potential sub categories of the ones I have named, but for me they seem to all fit into these three. It is interesting how that works out. With everyone striving to differentiate themselves from everyone else, they have succeeded in all looking relatively if not inanely the same. I suppose it is the same phenomenon that causes all teenagers to grow their hair long so that they can look and be different. If they all have long hair, how can you tell which one is different? But I digress.

In this case “Chiefs” are not the professional football team from Kansas City. There used to be a politically incorrect saying that when a business was deemed to be too management heavy it was said to have “too many chiefs and not enough Indians”. This however no longer seems to be the case based on the ongoing proliferation of “chief” titles. In the past there were essentially two “Chief” titles: the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Chief Operations Officer (COO) as the primary chief titles in an organization. Now we must include a few of the more recent ones that I have witnessed:
• Chief Visionary Officer – okay, you got me here. Some people are visionary and some are not. How do you get to be the Chief visionary? Business keratotomy?
• Chief Creative Officer – Same as above. Some are creative and some aren’t. I guess the person that came up with this one first gets to claim the prize.
• Chief Thought Provoker – While I am always in favor of more thinking in business, I don’t think I would hire this person to make sure we do it.
• Chief Inspiration Officer – Now I’m really starting to get lost, or inspired. I’m not really sure which.
• Chief Elation Officer – I think we have officially made it into the silly realm.
• Chief Instigation Officer – I would like to see this job description. How would you do succession planning for this one?
• Chief People Herder – Despite the title, I can see a need for this function. I think most of us refer to this role as a “Project Manager”.

I could not make these up. While I like to think of myself as being somewhat visionary and creative, I know I am not that visionary or creative.

The next general set of new age titles that are appearing seem to be associated in one way or another with Eastern philosophies. I am not sure why. Perhaps the owners of the following titles watched the movie “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” one time too many (which in itself would be an oxymoron as watching it one time could be construed as one time too many) in their more formative years. A few of these new titles are:
• Marketing (or insert any other business discipline here) Ninja – I can stretch to see the skill level association, but the rest of the silent killer / warrior connotation is lost on me.
• Marketing (or insert any other business discipline here) Guru – Same as above I guess, but probably not as warrior like. Marketing seems to attract these types of titles. The last group that I am aware of that had a “Guru” was the Beatles in the 1960’s.
• Marketing (or insert any other business discipline here) Sensei – Staying with our bad movie theme, this how the bad guys in the original Karate Kid movie referred to their teacher. True martial artists refer to their instructor as “Mister – insert last name” (as in Mr. Miyagi in the afore mentioned Karate Kid) as a sign of respect.

Eastern philosophy has always had a role in business. I have extolled the virtues of Sun Tzu, and the twenty fifth century B.C. Chinese general’s “Art of War” several times in the past from a strategy point of view. Despite my appreciation of the book, I don’t think I would try to title myself as a “Business General”. On the other hand, maybe I should.

The final group of new position titles seems to me to be best associated with the 1980’s. Just like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “The Karate Kid” may have engendered the Eastern philosophy bent of new business titles, it seems that other 1980s movies and cultural phenomenon may be responsible for other titles. Here are a few of the more entertaining examples:
• (Insert a business discipline here) Evangelist – Weren’t Jim and Tammy Faye Baker television Evangelists? Just asking.
• (Insert a business discipline here) Magician / Wizard – I get the feeling some people played Dungeons and Dragons (a lot) in their formative years.
• (Insert a business discipline here) Jedi – Yet another movie (Star Wars) reference. Just because you call yourself one, does not mean the Force will be with you.
• (Insert a business discipline here) Warrior / Overlord / Badass / Demigod – These were lame descriptors back in the 1980s. They don’t work now in business either.

I understand the desire for people to set themselves apart from others when it comes to who they are or what they do, but have we allowed ourselves to propeller off into a relatively strange place for business when we use and proliferate such titles. These are actual titles – if you don’t believe me, go out on Linkedin, the business networking site, and do a search on any one of them. I suspect you will get several hits on each one.

I know it sounds boring, but I think most businesses are interested in what talents people have, what they can do and what value they can bring to the organization. If the targeted organization is responsible for creating new job titles, then we probably have some over achievers identified here. If the organization is interested in getti
ng on, and ahead with the business disciplines and functions that drive a business, then they will probably be looking for those that can find a better way to demonstrate their business prowess and skills.

On the other hand, maybe I should just start auditioning for the newly created position of Chief Sarcasm and Silliness Ninja Evangelist.

Organizations, Self Analysis, Style

The Executive Suite

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It’s hard to say what will get me started on a topic. It may be something I see or notice. It might be some offhand comment that I hear. Something clicks and off I go. I recently visited a customer friend of mine and went through the usual security screening before entering the building. I presented a photo ID, filled out the form on who I was seeing, passed through the Magnetic Resonance Imaging device similar to what we now go through at the airport, provided a blood sample for disease testing and had the inside of my mouth swabbed for DNA testing. I was then issued a day pass security badge and allowed to enter the building. I then took the 14 minute elevator ride to the top floor where I got off and waited. Yes, waited for someone else, with an entirely different and more special access badge to come and let me into the Executive Suite of offices to see my friend.

I guess it is time for me to address one of the last bastions of corporate elitism in business, the executive suite. Sometimes called the “ivory tower”, sometimes called “mahogany row”, the executive suit has been a source of wonder for me, for years.

The executive suite is that part of the organization’s building or campus that for whatever reason is off limits to everyone, including the mere mortals that work there. It is the part of the building where the access door is locked, and even in the age of high security magnetic badge access for entry into the building, those that are not chosen cannot enter the executive suite. I understand the concept of security for the staff and the building, but exactly who are the executives in mahogany row protecting themselves from with this incremental access denial point, inside a building which is populated by their own employees? If you are going to be allowed in the building, surely you should be cleared to access all floors and regions of that building, right?

I have mentioned many times that I am old school when it comes to business. That does not mean that I particularly ascribe to the way things were done. It just means that I am aware of the way things were. The executive suite to me is a part of the way things were. It has even entered our lexicon of corporate terms in that “getting a key to the executive washroom” is the sign of an executive’s success. I don’t know why executives would need a special bathroom, but then I don’t understand why they are locking the access to their offices from their own employees and staffs. It is also probably a vestige of the hierarchical business world that has run its course and worn out its usefulness. In the age of political correctness, egalitarianism and immediate access, having senior management working behind an extra set of locked doors seems to me to be both an anachronism and the wrong message to send to the rest of the corporate team.

I have worked in and visited several locations where the executive suite was a cherished and protected aspect of the corporate culture. You longed to feel the extra padding and more plush carpet under your feet. You got to appreciate the upgraded office art and inspirational images that adorned the walls. To be called in there was to walk on hallowed ground. After being in an executive suite, walking around on the industrial strength, geometrically patterned, low wear, indoor – outdoor carpet that the rest of the building walks on just won’t do.

Most of the time the executive area is cloistered away from the prying eyes of the uninitiated, behind a solid wooden door. Occasionally, and perhaps a little perniciously, there is sometimes a glass door as the access point to mahogany row. That way the general business population can walk by, and see how the executives live, much like the children that walk by the window of a candy store only to gaze upon that which they cannot have. I could also assume that the reason for a glass door would be so that the casual observer could per chance walk by and gaze upon an executive in the midst of his work day and marvel at his or her work ethic.

However it has been my experience that executives upon entering the pearly gates of the executive suite immediately go into their offices and close the door so that they have yet another barrier separating them from the masses. With the door closed and being fully sequestered from the herd it is hard to guess what they are doing.

The locked door to the executive suite seems to be a vestige of a bygone era. I once had the opportunity to work in an environment where the only access to the executive suite was by a very small, cramped elevator. The various stairwells were locked from the inside to keep people from gaining entry to the hallowed ground (or in this case floor).

I finally worked up the gumption to ask the residents why the limited access and the small elevator. I was told that the facility was actually built in the 1950’s, and back then there was a genuine concern that if the labor resources on the manufacturing floor became so disenchanted with the management team that they decided to charge them, they wanted the elevator to be so small as to limit the number of them that could access the executive area at one time. This is a true story.

I then noted that the 1950’s were more than half a century ago and that it might be time to change the facility’s configuration. I was looked at as though I was from another planet. I actually seem to get that look a lot. Still it was interesting to me how this segmentation of the executives from in this case the waged manufacturing staff had far outlived its usefulness (if it was really ever useful at all), but that there was no desire to change it, even fifty plus years later. In fact there seemed to be subtle and tacit resistance to any mention of changing it.

I think this is in part due to the idea that so many people passed by the outside of that special door on their way up that when they actually get to have an office on the secured side of it, they want to continue perpetuating the segregation. It seems to be that if they went through the wondering of what was going on in there and the pining to be a part of it, then everybody else will have to go through the same wondering.

I have tried to think of other organizations that have retained this same idea of general access for the standard population, but segregation of a specific group away from the rest. It took a while, but I actually came up with a couple of institutions that initially started out with this organizational configuration and have maintained it, quite successfully for literally hundreds of years.

These institutions are prisons and zoos. It seems to me that the only potential difference is that the executive suite door locks are on the inside and the prisons and zoos have the door locks on the outside. This would logically lead to the question: Did the Executive Suite get it wrong when the put the lock to the door on the inside?

The answer to that question seems to fully depend on which side of the door to the executive suit that you are currently working.

Analysis, Risk and Return, Self Analysis, Strategy, Value

Big Deals

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I try to avoid starting off by asking a question, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. Is it just me or does it truly seem that in many instances it is possible for business egos to get in the way of business IQs as the size of the business opportunity increases? This big deal blindness is a phenomenon that I have encountered several times in the past. As the magnitude of the numbers being considered for whatever purpose (sales, costs, scope, merger, etc.) increase, there seems to have been some instances in the business past where the momentum of the deal takes over and the basic principles of business analysis and management appear to be forgotten.

This type of behavior does not seem to be confined to any one company or industry, but rather emerges unexpectedly for a while in one place and then just as quickly goes dormant again. But not until after some sort of a business millstone has been placed around the corporate neck. It then takes all of the business’s senior leadership to formulate the path back to recovery. Meanwhile the general process is that those responsible for “the deal” have already declared victory, taken their bows and then very quickly exited stage left.

I am not specifically talking about Mergers and Acquisitions here (M&A) when I talk about things such as the magnitude of the deal, but rather more along the line of basic internal business conduct. However, I think some of the lessons that have been learned by some of these humongous M&A failures of the past can equally be applied to business situations that are more related directly to the operation of the business.

Here are a few lessons for business deals that leaders ought to take into account, at least in my opinion, before they start looking at the next big opportunity, at least in my opinion:

• Unlike the Bob Dylan song (Times They are a Changing), the times are not changing. The same basic rules apply to big epic opportunities as they do to the smaller ones. Profitability still matters. Core competencies still matter. The magnitude of the deal disproportionately increases the risk of the deal if the probability of success is based on a significant change or transformation away from what has been the business’ norm is associated with the deal.

The success of the deal is usually associated with doing something that you already know how to do, to a great extent. Growth and expansion by necessity mean that you need to take on some new aspects and scope with each deal, but unless you are relying at least in large part on your known core competencies, the big deal that is supposed to be a game changer or entry into a new market is usually an even bigger risk.

• In too many instances it seems that management may have felt the need to make a big, bold, landscape shifting, game changing sort of deal. This may be as a result of a desire to get into a new market or in response to some sort of internal or external business pressure. The idea appears to be to make a dramatic market statement or splash in order to signal some sort of new direction.

Few businesses do the new, big and splashy right the first time. Unfortunately if the deal is big enough and as a result generates a situation that is bad enough, there may not be the second opportunity to do it right. Change associated with business core competencies or structure takes time. It can’t be forced as a result of a big deal. A certain amount of ego is essential for leadership. Too much ego results in deals where the mouth has written a check that the brain can’t cash.

Deal success usually comes about as the result of doing the basics well. This capability evolves from doing similar types of deals on a regular basis, understanding what your deal or market sweet spot is, and maintaining a stable business approach. If you have been successful doing smaller deals in one area, the chances of having issues with a larger magnitude deal outside of your knowledge area are significantly increased.

• Sometimes deal momentum takes over and supplants common sense. When a large opportunity or deal is first noted, it begins to appear in the various business forecasts. It doesn’t matter that it may be exploratory or of initially low probability. The longer it stays visible, the more it becomes part of the expected fabric of the business. Eventually it becomes expected and sometimes even counted on as part of the business results.

It is very seldom that any amount of caution, qualification or warning can stop this progression. It eventually evolves that big deals that have been around for a while become deals that “cannot be lost”. Once this mentality has set in it leads to a set of seemingly logical steps that culminate in an illogical deal. Costs can be shaved, schedules can be condensed and onerous terms accepted all in the name of getting the game changing big deal done.

This type of deal behavior would normally result in a difficult environment for success if the opportunity was associated with a core competency of the business. When it is associated with a new market or an unproven capability the performance and results are usually not so pretty. The budgets and the schedules are usually the first items to be impacted, with the profitability and customer’s satisfaction very close behind.

Perhaps again we are seeing another business manifestation of one of C. Northcote Parkinson’s Laws, specifically Parkinson’s Law of Triviality, from his 1957 book “Parkinson’s Law”. In it amongst other topics, he examines the amount of time and attention that businesses spend on smaller (trivial) items as opposed to the larger, more complex and more important ones. In summary:

“He dramatizes this “law of triviality” with the example of a committee’s deliberations on an atomic reactor, contrasting it to deliberations on a bicycle shed. As he put it: “The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved.” A reactor is used because it is so vastly expensive and complicated that an average person cannot understand it, so one assumes that those that work on it understand it. On the other hand, everyone can visualize a cheap, simple bicycle shed, so planning one can result in endless discussions because everyone involved wants to add a touch and show personal contribution.”

Big deals are an important aspect of any business’s growth plan. They require a significant amount of discipline as businesses seem to get more anxious to close them, the closer they believe they are to closing them. (Perhaps this can now be cited as Gobeli’s Big Deal Corollary (BDC) to Parkinson’s Law if Triviality.) This phenomenon can result in final agreements that are far from the original big deal concept and far from beneficial to the business. The risk associated with the big deal increases rapidly if it is outside of the business’s normal operating area, or is associated with senior management’s plan for the transformation of the existing business or business model into something else.

Big deals are quantum events that must be given at least the same amount of deliberation if not more than that associated with the standard business conduct, regardless of the business’s desire or dependence on their closure. If you are going to try to successfully change the business, it is also probably better to not start the change, or make it dependent on a big deal.

Predictability, Self Analysis, Time

The Past

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A lot of people may think that I live in the past because of all the references that I make to it. I read business books that are hundreds of years old because I have decided that almost all new business books and articles are a recycled version of the classics with some modern jargon thrown in to make it seem fresh and contemporary. I compare present generational norms and business performance to the past because they are good benchmarks and yardsticks for what has been done as compared to what is now being done. Those comparisons do not always favor the past generations or business performance. I am eminently aware of the past because without knowledge of the past how would we know what direction we are going? I am definitely aware of the past but I definitely don’t live in the past.

It’s time to get a little esoteric, but why not? George Santayana, the twentieth century philosopher, poet and essayist wrote is his book “The Life of Reason”, (1905):

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Many think that Winston Churchill was the author of the famous quote “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”, but he was in fact paraphrasing Santayana. This is just a small literary nugget for your historical learning pleasure.

The key point here is that the retention of what we have learned is the key to progress. This would logically mean that the future is built upon the past. Go figure. It takes a visionary to be able to interpret what was and extrapolate to what’s next. Just as Sony took the leap from portable transistor radios to portable cassette players (the then ubiquitous, and now all but forgotten Sony Walkman – ranked as one of the top TWO technical inventions of the last fifty years), Steve Jobs and Apple took the next leap along the same path with the now ubiquitous iPod (which ranks number THREE behind the Walkman). Contrary to popular belief these products did not materialize out of thin air. They had their roots in the past.

Conversely, there is the ubiquitous financial caveat contained in every investment prospectus that I have ever read, that states very clearly:

“Past results are not a guarantee of future performance”

In business as in sports we always keep score. That is how you tell who is successful and who is not. A very good example of this is the batting averages of baseball players. While the player’s batting average is not a guarantee of the performance of any individual at bat, it does give an indication about what you might expect from that player over time. There are always hitting streaks and slumps that must be factored in, but in general past results are a reasonable predictor, not guarantee, of each player’s future batting performance.

This fact may also be demonstrated in the Walkman – iPod comparison as well. The Walkman was indeed a game changer in the market, but not anymore. The iPod has supplanted it – but it was not until after twenty years had passed where the Walkman was dominant that the iPod was introduced, and even then it took a few years.

The same concept would logically be analogous to business. Understanding past business performance allows you to understand what worked well and what didn’t. Just like knowing individual batting averages or team won-loss records may give you an insight into how they may do for the rest of the season (although no guarantee), in business we like to know who has been profitable, how profitable they have been and how long they have been profitable. It doesn’t mean that they will continue to perform the same way that they have done successfully in the past, and it doesn’t mean that they will have to change everything if they were not successfully done in the past, but it is a good indicator (not a guarantee). There are hopefully always ways to do good things better and ways to improve on failures without starting changing everything and in effect starting anew, or returning to the “infancy” that Santayana mentions. There is that retention of the past thing again.

Staying with my esoteric bent I am going to go a little further into the past. Heraclitus, the fifth century B.C. Greek philosopher said:

“Nothing endures but change.”

This statement has been quoted and paraphrased by everyone from Plato to Diogenes to the latest business management books de jour . We like to all say that the only constant is change. The concept comes from three thousand years in the past, but still seems reasonably applicable today.

However, staying focused on your past is like trying to drive a car forward by looking in the rearview mirror. I don’t know who said this one, and it didn’t seem to be so valuable a quote to spend the time looking it up. Even so, it is reasonably accurate. But you do need to have some idea of where you have been if you are to successfully get to where you want to go. The past is where you were, the present is where you are and the future is always a goal.

So enough already with the philosophy and esoteric. What has this got to do with business?

The past is no guarantor of the future, and we know things are going to change. Knowing the past allows us to understand what the business has done right and what it needs to improve. Even the most disruptive of market forces take time to take effect. Walkmans replacing radios, iPods in turn replacing Walkmans, CDs replacing LPs, digital replacing analog technologies or even automobiles replacing horses for transportation did not happen overnight.

It takes people who understand the past and the trends and directions that it has imparted on the present to make sense of and deal with the present. It is the visionary who understands the past and the trajectory that it has put us on, that can take the next leap and either extend or modify this trajectory as is called for in business to realize the future. The past is useful in that it tells us where we have been in comparison to where we are. It is also a necessity if we are to recognize what we must change and what we should retain to get to the future. You can’t live in the past but you need to be aware of and understand the past if you are to make it to the future.

Responsibility, Self Analysis, Style, Teamwork

Blame

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What is the first question that gets asked when something goes wrong? This should be an easy one for everybody. The first question that is asked after something goes wrong, or not according to plan is: Who is to blame? It seems to be built into our DNA that we look for someone to blame. This process has evolved into an art form in recent times. It is now even the subject for tongue in cheek commercials, which in my book means blaming someone else for our own performance (good or bad) is now part of our social, and business fabric.

If we happen to fall off a ladder, we blame the ladder manufacturer for not putting a warning label of some sort on the ladder that clearly states that ladders are in fact dangerous pieces of equipment and that the scaling of them should not be attempted by the uncoordinated, clumsy or stupid. Going even further, the epitome of this blaming cultural art form has to be the getting burned by spilling hot coffee in our laps and then blaming the provider of the hot coffee for providing coffee that is too hot. The fact that “spilling” the coffee was involved seems to have been left out of this picture.

I have digressed, but I think you get the picture. Since childhood we have been conditioned to create excuses or blame others for our behaviors. “The dog ate my homework” has moved into our cultural lexicon, as a method of blaming an unexpected external event for not having an assignment completed. “The sun was in my eyes” likewise has evolved into a catch-all method of blaming external factors for not being able to perform an expected function. The bottom line here is that we like to blame other people, issues, factors and things for when we fail to meet expectations. The fact that the dog may have been around for years or that the sun has been around since well before the dawn of man and is a known source of glare, both of which could have and should have been taken into account during preparations, is conveniently not mentioned.

All of this evolution and history of the culture and art of passing the blame for our inability to achieve our objectives or to succeed in completing our tasks brings us to business. I think we have all been around people who are never at fault for missing their goals. They are artful. They are glib. They are eloquent. But they are not leaders. They usually elicit looks from their peers that are normally reserved for politicians, used car salesmen and poorly trained puppies that may have tried their best but just couldn’t seem to go on the paper.

The simple fact is that sometimes in business things do not go the way we hoped, expected or planned. It can be for reasons that are outside of our control or within our control. It doesn’t matter. For whatever reason the job didn’t get done. It happens. I will now impart to you the best phrase to use when creating excuses and placing blame when this type of situation occurs:

“It was my responsibility.”

Stand up. Look in the mirror and recognize the person responsible. Regardless of what happened you shouldn’t get to blame anyone else. Leaders understand this.

It may not have been their fault that the objective was not achieved, but it was their responsibility to achieve the objective.

Other leaders recognize this. It is the leader’s responsibility to put the team in a position to succeed. That means they need to provide the appropriate resources (time, money, people, there really are no other resources than these) to get the job done. If the team doesn’t succeed you cannot blame the team. It is the leader’s responsibility to put the team in a position to succeed.

It is the leader’s responsibility to put the right people on the team. If the right people are not on the team it is not the team’s fault. The team will do the best that it can with the people that are selected for it. It is the leader’s responsibility to foresee the potential issues and roadblocks to the team’s success. It is not the team’s fault that the unexpected occurred. The team is in place at the direction of the leader. A leader needs to be prepared with alternative and back-up plans in case the unexpected does unexpectedly occur.

In business as with falling off a ladder, we seem all too prepared to place the blame for any missed achievements on others. We are all too willing to place the blame elsewhere for our own lack of performance. We also seem to be all too willing to allow others to exhibit the same blame shifting behavior. The blaming art form has given rise to a new activity and the creation of a new word to deal with the blame generation process:

“Blamestorming”: The Oxford Dictionary defines blamestorming as: Group discussion regarding the assigning of responsibility for a failure or mistake. The Urban Dictionary defines it as: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and identifying a scapegoat. Check out:

http://www.tvspots.tv/video/53353/DIRECTV–BLAMESTORMING

No team is mistake free when it comes to the execution of their responsibilities. No team achieves one hundred percent of their objectives one hundred percent of the time. No team should be blamed for this fact. Just as the leader should acknowledge and attribute all team successes to the team, the leader should NOT blame the team for any failures associated with the team’s performance. Just as the leader receives their credit for the team’s performance from the fact that they enabled the team to be successful, so should they take responsibility for not enabling the team’s success.

Blame is a funny thing to me. I think it openly diminishes the one doing the blaming. However it also seems to unavoidably diminish the one being blamed. Once the accusation is made or the blame assigned, at least some of the stigma associated with that event will remain, regardless if the accusation or blame is proved to be unfounded. That to me is a lose – lose proposition. There is no benefit to be gained by anyone by trying to assign blame anywhere.

The leader that stands up and takes responsibility, and does not look to attribute blame to anyone else, will again be the leader that is looked up to by their team and will be respected by their peers. Just as the leader receives some of the credit even though they attribute the success to the performance of their team, they will also not receive all the blame by taking responsibility for the issues associated with the missed achievements by the team.

I know it goes against just about everything we have seen and been taught to this point of our lives, and it also seems to go against what is now accepted as the cultural norm but when it comes to issues in business I just can’t see the value in someone uttering the professional equivalent of “The dog ate my presentation” or “the fluorescent lights were in my eyes” when not taking responsibility for their performance.

Leadership, Nerve, Risk, Self Analysis

Being Young

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I think we are all young to a certain extent. I don’t think it matters how old we are. Although we all equate numerical age with being young, we shouldn’t. Being young is something else. We all start youths and as we gain experience we also seem to start to lose our ability to be young. I think in many instances we do not see these changes in ourselves. I do not think that those that we continue to work with see these changes either, since they too are gaining experience right along with us. I think the loss of being young is a little more insidious than that. When we are young we don’t know what we can’t do, and as a result we are able to do the things that others can’t because they “know better”.

In case you are missing the connection here I am not saying there is a direct connection between your age and being young. I don’t think there is. I think being young in business resides in your head.

I watched a great rant by the comedian Craig Ferguson on the “Deification of Youth” or otherwise titled “Why Everything Sucks”. You can find it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROJKEwYEx8Q. Aside from being very funny he does touch on some of the issues and sources of our obsession with youth. I think they apply equally to business.

Notice again that I am not connecting “Youth” with being “Young”.

We tend to associate being young with the physical attributes of youth and age. As Craig Ferguson points out there are also experiential and state of mind attributes associated with being young. Unfortunately we all seem to focus on the youth aspect of being young. We assume you have to be a youth in order to be young. Hence again according to Craig we seem to be focusing our resources on retaining our youth instead of what I would call being young.

I tell people that I have grown older, but that I have not grown up. My wife does not seem to be entirely happy about my lack of growing up.

I absolutely agree with the preconception that we need young people in business. Young people have energy. They don’t seem to slow down. They have places to be and things to do. They walk fast. They get there early and stay till they are done, not till any specific time. They look at goals as something to be attained and exceeded, not something to be measured against. The young believe that they are responsible for their own attainments, or failures, and act accordingly.

I remember few if any incidents in my youth where I looked for a consensus on just about anything I did. In some instances I might have been better off doing so, but in the long run it was probably those failures that taught me the most.

Young people take on challenges because they have no idea what they are getting into, or if they do they don’t know any better about saying no. When we were young we did not know what we could do, or conversely what we couldn’t do. There were always plenty of people who were ready to tell us what we couldn’t do. There are many of those people still around in business now. When we remain young we retain this don’t know that I can’t do it approach even though we may have gained some of the experience that tells us it may be difficult if not impossible.

Young people ask direct questions and give direct answers. There was an old television show hosted by Art Linkletter called “Kids Say the Darnedest Things”. It consisted of kids (in this case really young people) answering some simple and seemingly innocuous questions and everyone listening to what they said. The kids answered directly without first wondering if they should answer at all, if they would look foolish for their answer, or if they would get the answer wrong. They just answered. I can’t help but believe that approach might help improve business.

Direct questions are usually the simplest ones to ask. Why? How much? What do you do? We seem to have evolved to a point where direct questions are associated with being rude. The young ask direct questions without the consideration of if it is rude or not. It shouldn’t be construed as a question of etiquette. It is merely a request for a desired piece of information.

Young people understand that they can be wrong. They think they know everything (especially my children) but I think deep down they know that they don’t. That doesn’t stop them though. That’s why they went to school. To learn some things that they didn’t know that will help them later. That learning process usually involves getting a few things wrong. They don’t want to be wrong, but they know it happens and hopefully they will learn from it.

The active ingredient here for this aspect of being young is learning. Sometimes it is mandatory and we are forced to go to school and learn something whether we want to or not. On the other hand as we gain and gather experience we should recognize how much we have yet to learn and no so much rely on how much we believe we already know. When we have decided that we either have learned enough, or know enough is when we begin to not be young.

Too often it seems we have a tendency to get defensive in our business posture as a result of feeling that we must defend what we have already achieved or accomplished instead of remembering the risks and behaviors that enabled those accomplishments to occur. We understand the new challenge but may not as fully commit to or embrace it. We are now more conservative in our approach. We feel that we have something to lose and not so much to gain. We are no longer young, and we are acting like it.

I do not wish to sound too utopian in my views. I understand the realities of life and business. At least I hope I do. My objective is to remember my approach to things as a youth and combine it with the knowledge and experience I have gained since then. I may have a little better idea of some of the things that I can do, but I think there are probably vast expanses of things that I can’t do that need exploring, if for no other reason than to prove that there are parts of it that can actually be done.

I think being young in business is about remembering and channeling the energy, excitement and approach we had to proving something when we started out. It’s more about having somewhere to go instead of looking back at where you have been. It’s about continuing to learn new skills and capabilities instead of relying on those that you already have. It is retaining the realization that it still is about the destination and not so much about the path or process that is supposed to get you there.

It is remembering that it is not so much about youth but more about retaining our approach to things in our youth. I think that is the essence and key to being young.

Books, Learning, Management Style, New Ideas, Self Analysis, Strategy

Finding Inspiration

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I need to send out thanks to my friend Ulrich for the inspiration for this post. Uli is a friend that I met in Brazil on a trip sometime back. He had some really amazing electronic gizmos and gadgets that made me quite jealous. While we were talking about his electronics preferences the conversation shifted, as it often does to other topics. One of the topics we touched on was our reading preferences, and the types of books that we both drew inspiration from. I mentioned that I like to read, and prefer to read a broad range of literary genres and topics. Uli too likes to read but said he usually keeps his reading centered on business and management oriented books and materials. Those happen to be one of the specific genres that I for the most part avoid. It was interesting that we had such divergent approaches to the items that we read, and the information we applied to our business responsibilities.

As I have noted in the past, many of the items I have read seemed initially to be outside of a direct association with business and management. This isn’t by chance. I have read many management articles and books. However in doing so, from my own point of view, I started to notice many similarities to the tenets covered, and only slight variations in the applications of them. There were only so many ways to dress up the ideas of the need to be flexible, that things are going to change and how to deal with these inevitabilities.

That type of management book similarity has sent me off in a couple of different directions when it came to reading and applying what I read to business. One direction I went was into the past to see where many of these “new and improved – yet strangely similar” business strategies came from. I have covered this topic several times in the past. Remember, business, commerce, and strategy has been around almost as long as humans have been around. I have found that sometimes the best books about business are not actually about business. If I need true specific business management input or strategy I go to the four texts that I see as the basis for just about everything in business management and leadership that has been written since. They are:

The Art of War by Sun Tzu. This is a twenty five hundred year old text written by a pre-china general that never lost an engagement that is still used in military academies around the world, and in many business schools.
The Prince by Machiavelli. A sixteenth century political and strategic treatise by an Italian diplomat and political theorist.
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. A text on focus, adaptation and martial arts by a seventeenth century Japanese swordsman.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian. A book of maxims for dealing with the real world written by a seventeenth century Spanish monk.

These are not the books for everyone. These are just the primary books that I turn to when I need a jumping off point for inspiration on a specific business or related issue. I continue to reread them and usually pick up something new every time I do.

I recommended them to Uli. We will see if he reads them and agrees with my assessment of them, or if he continues to buy and read the latest derivative management strategy books that are on the market. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as he is enjoying and finding value in what he is reading.

The other direction that I go is to read just about anything but management books. This covers the literary spectrum from magazine articles to Blogs to Science Fiction novels to Classic Literature. Much of it is not directly applicable to anything associated with business and leadership, but occasionally there are some interesting aspects that present themselves. Whenever I per chance happen to make one of these unexpected business leadership synaptic connections with something that I have read I try to capture it specifically and share it here. Hence the idea of inspiration as the topic for this piece.

Uli on the other hand noted that the source of business inspiration for him came from business oriented literature, be it articles or books. If this works for him, then great. There seems to be a never ending supply of new management and business oriented articles and books every day for him to read. If they provide inspiration to some of their readers then there must be some value in them.

Inspiration for me is a strange element. I have very seldom had it strike me metaphorically from the blue. I normally get it by recognizing analogies, connections and parallels to seemingly unrelated events and topics. I look for stories of success or leadership in seemingly unrelated fields and then wonder how it might be applicable to business. This approach has led me to better understand the leadership secrets of Captain Kirk from the Star Trek shows and movies, as well as how Jerry Seinfeld applied himself to his craft as a writer to such a successful extent. Along a non-literary line, it has also taught me how to deal with and negotiate with my soon to be fifteen year old son when it is time for him to mow the yard. Success can be achieved from many different directions.

The point here is to start recognizing what keys your specific moments of inspiration. What are you doing, what are you reading, who are you talking to when you have your best ideas? More importantly how do you recognize them when they occur and how do you capture them? There is something about those environments that triggered the creative process. A little self analysis and cognitive association will go a long way here.

I have never been able to innovate because I have read a book on how to innovate. I have read many other books on many other topics that I cannot do, even though I have read about them. I have read about time and space travel and even though I might like to try it I don’t think I can do it just because I have read a book about it. On the other hand, I did learn about physics and differential calculus from books, but I also had a reasonably highly skilled mentor / professor to help me there. Almost all the innovations that I have been involved in have come from trying to apply something new from outside the accepted business norm, to the business norm. That and a significant amount of stubbornness in refusing to listen while everyone else patiently explained to me why my new idea would never work.

It is a significant step going from knowing where you can hope to find inspiration to actually doing something with the inspiration you found.

I also think that part of the reason that I have been able to draw business inspiration from such a diverse literary catalog stems from the fact that I genuinely like to read. I enjoy books. That may be the key to finding inspiration, at least for me, and probably others. I seem to draw my inspiration from relating the things I like to do, like reading to the other things I enjoy in business. I would think that this might be the case for others as well. Conversely, I would guess if you dislike something enough it may be a source of inspiration in how to avoid or improve it. I’ll have to think about that one a little more.

Inspiration doesn’t seem to be a well that I can just wonder over to and dip a bucket in and come out with a new idea. It is more of an understanding of how things work and how I relate to them, and putting myself in the positions where there has been a proven tendency to find inspiration, and then being aware enough to recognize it when it hits. It seems to be the doing of something, possible fully unrelated to the topic that allows you to form the new associations to the old issues.

For me anyway, that does not usually involve the reading of the latest management self help, or how to innovate book. In this case it came from talking to a friend out those books.

Communication, Self Analysis

Intelligent Pause

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I seem to discuss communications a lot. That is probably because communications are central to all aspects of business. I am going to continue in that vein here, although possibly in a direction that may not be expected. I think that it may be time for us to start practicing and working on our talking skills to each other.

The other day I was talking with a friend. It was a bit of a free form discussion. The unscripted type where you are doing one of the most dangerous things on the planet: talking and thinking at the same time. Even though it seems I have no shortage of opinions, I also try to make a concerted effort to listen as well. In this instance I actually spent a little time listening to myself, as well as my friend during our discourse. What I heard out of my own mouth concerned me.

It appears that I had gotten a little lazy when it came to talking.

I caught myself using too many “crutch” words when talking. I think, you know, it’s like, those seriously annoying words, those obvious verbal “tics” that we are all guilty of, actually. I started listening even closer to the way my friend was speaking, and he was doing it too. He had his own pet phrases and words that he liked to use as well. It seemed that when he was unsure of what he wanted to say he would fall back to one of these words or phrases to get himself started.

I got to thinking about my own use of my crutch words and phrases as well and came up with the same conclusion. When I have an idea that I want to express, the most difficult aspect for me in expressing it is the same most difficult aspect of any other endeavor, that of getting it started. I had fallen into the habit of using one of these comfort phrases or crutch words to get my speaking process going.

A little self-analysis like this can go a long way. Having become aware of my own tendencies in this area has also made me aware of it in others. I started to not only listen to what others were saying, but how they were saying it as well. I think most of us, but not all of us have this comfort phrase tendency to some level.


The most common comfort phrases that I have picked up are (I am sure there are many others, but these are some of the most common that leap to the forefront, at least in my mind):

• “uh…”, “ah…”, “hmm…” Nothing says I don’t know what to say better than one of these words.
• “Like” – It’s like this, or like that… How can so many things be like something else? Why don’t you just tell me about it, not something that is “like” it?
• “You know” – It’s like you know, or just, you know… If I know, then you don’t need to tell me. If I don’t know, you don’t need to ask me. I think we all know what I mean here.
• “Obviously” – one of my personal favorites. If it’s so obvious, then don’t make a mockery of your audience’s intelligence by bringing it up. If it’s obvious to you it’s probably obvious to them. If it’s not, it sounds like you are talking down to them.
• “Actually” – It’s actually this, or you know actually… Let’s get this straight. I am probably going to assume whatever you are telling me is “actual” unless you tell me otherwise. There is no need to emphasize its actuality.

I mentioned that many but not all people used these speaking process kick starting phrases. I started to pay especially close attention to those people who did not have any noticeable tendency toward using favorite words or phrases. I wanted to understand what they said and how they sounded. It was very interesting.

They didn’t say anything particularly smarter or deeper that anyone else. They didn’t speak noticeably faster or slower than anyone else. They just didn’t sound as repetitive. They sounded (gulp) more intelligent. This was especially disconcerting as one of the primary groups that avoid these verbal tics is the politicians. I don’t know if we all could go on if I had to cede greater intelligence to them.

Contrary to popular opinion, it is very difficult to get ahead in business without some reasonable level of intelligence. It is a pretty good assumption that most business executives to one level or another are pretty smart. However some “sound” smarter than others. How do they do it?

They don’t use crutch words or have as many of those verbal “tics”.

Instead, they pause. And how to people sound when they periodically pause when they are speaking during a conversation? The general consensus that they sound intelligent.

Don’t believe me? We are now in the middle of what is known as the off-year primary political election cycle. This is the time of year when all of our media, news, and communications are polluted with messages from this year’s crop of ultra-sincere sounding political hacks, or their news agency supporters, trying to convince us that they are the true representatives of the people, and their opponents are in fact prevaricating, bloviating morons.

What these messages all have in common is that they are devoid of all verbal crutches. Listen not to what these people say, but to how they say it. They all sound sincere and intelligent. Regardless of the veracity or outlandishness of the claims that they are making on their own behalf, or against their opponents. Despite any semblance of anything resembling substance, they all sound believable and intelligent.

It is probably not fair to compare politicians to executives. Really. No, I mean really.

However, the executives that do not use the standard catch-phrases sound better and more believable when the talk. Instead of starting off a sentence with some favorite or comfortable word or phrase, they seem to pause instead.

I think this sort of talking activity has been well documented. The idea is to listen for your own comfort phrases and then consciously trying to eliminate them from your speaking and talking styles. The process is to pause when you are about use one of your favorite pet phrases or words, and instead of using those words, pick up with the thought you would convey after those words.

This is what I mean by the intelligent pause. You don’t have to eliminate the crutch. You just don’t verbalize it. It is there in your head, where it will probably always be, you just don’t verbalize it.

I think we all probably know people that either consciously or unconsciously do this. They are the ones that seem to be thinking before they say anything. They appear to be weighing the value of their words before they speak them. Their opinions seem to be more readily sought out or valued.

It has been a frustrating process for me as I try to re-kick the catch-phrase habit. I had not realized how ingrained they had become. But I am working on it. There are several of my friends who might comment that the best way for me to appear more intelligent would be for me to extend my own efforts at an intelligent pause out indefinitely to the point where I just shut up. Unfortunately this just won’t do. I do however suggest that we all try to listen to how we say things as mush what we are saying.

Like, you know, it obviously might actually help us communicate good..er.