Executive Wisdom for Business

Innovate ... Now!

In late February this year (2009), Gary Hamel made a presentation to a Boston Business School symposium. Major points Gary made that reinforce my messages to you all over the last five years:

• Management is bankrupt. We are looking to our employees to innovate.
• Our customers are not number one. Our employees are. The customer is number two. Shareholders are number three.
• We should not be prisoners of precedence.
• Management has not changed its ideas for 70 years (as long as the internal combustion engine). Only in the face of crisis (oil supply) have we started to innovate (hybrid cars).
• Advice to business school graduates: "If you are looking for new management ideas, don't read any books because the ideas are all outdated."
• Management principles are outdated because information is a commodity now. No longer should we rely on a leader at the top to make decisions.
• Definition of a leader: Someone who can lead without authority and punitive powers.
• Highest number of disengaged employees (people in the wrong job and not motivated) is INDIA!

What do you do?

• Innovate don't imitate
• Create
• Rock the boat
• Question
• Ask "What if?"
• Ask "Why?"
• Ask "Why not?"
• Challenge
• Take prudent risks
• Take a chance

Join me in making this the best time ever for your business and your career, if you dare!

Ric Willmot

Appreciate your own value and be paid what you're worth

Thanks to my friend, Sean Carpenter (The Realtor's Toolbox) in the U.S. for the heads up on this video link.

Many a time professional service firms buckle under pressure when questioned on the fees. My advice to my clients and members of my Mentor Program is that you have to believe you are worth your fees before your clients ever will. It takes high self-esteem to look a client in the eye and say, "The fee is $50,000".

And, to have the chutzpah not to concede and reduce the fees when the prospect says it's too much.

Write-offs are a significant challenge for professionals, especially accountants and lawyers. While ever professional services charge by the hour, they are doomed to a life of write-offs. So how do you combat this ogre in your business?

• Value-pricing
• Menu-style pricing
• Retainer fees
• Project fees
• and more

Some professionals have said to me that it's too tough-a-sale to talk to clients about value-pricing in the current economic climate. That everyone is seeking reduced fees.

• How many dentists have offered you a discount since the economic turmoil started?
• How many doctors have scaled back their scheduled consultation fee?
• When did you last take your dog to the vet and negotiate a discount?

You get my point.

Connecticut University basketball coach, Jim Calhoun provides a great lesson on value-pricing. This guy is in control, doesn't suffer fools, and represents his contribution based upon the value of the outcome and results delivered. Perfect value-based pricing thinking!


By the way, if you want to learn how to attract more clients, make more sales and, charge and be paid what you're worth; then you must attend the Professional Services College in May this year on the Gold Coast. Download the brochure from this link.

You can also order the Value-Pricing Teleconference CD through our online store.



Ric Willmot

No We Don't Need Money, Thanks

Here's another one of those modern guru phrases you hear: "Work on the business, not in the business." The basic message is that executives should spend their time looking at the overall strategy and direction of a company. They shouldn't spend so much time on the everyday details of running the business.

We all know about processes, and that they're very important to a business. Having a good policies and procedures manual is part of writing out those business processes. Employees should follow those processes, and many times that includes the managers in the company, right? And nobody knows why, really; it's a mystery.

But how about when it comes to retail? Should centralized corporate management dictate process all the way down to the managers in each separate store?

A friend of mine went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts, a chain of craft stores in the US. She needed a new iron, one that would support heavy-duty usage. The chosen iron would be a Rowenta Professional, listing at around $100 at Bed, Bath & Beyond (BB&B), and $109 at Jo-Ann.

She was the perfect customer; mind made up, choice determined, money in hand, ready to buy. The transaction would likely take just long enough to grab an iron, go to the checkout counter, pay the money, and leave. But my friend had two coupons, one for each store.

One coupon was for 50% off at Jo-Ann. The other was for 20% off at BB&B. Obviously, half off the list price would be better than twenty-percent off a slightly lower price. Unfortunately, Jo-Ann excluded almost all useful merchandise from the coupon.

Arriving at Jo-Ann, my friend spoke with the manager. She said that she was ready to purchase the iron, and had seen that the coupon excluded the item. However, before she went down the street to BB&B, she wondered if Jo-Ann might like to at least take the $55.

The manager said no. And so my friend left, drove the short distance and spent the $80 at Bed, Bath & Beyond. The Jo-Ann manager apologized, but what struck me about the story is that it wasn't an issue of my friend being concerned about an apology. Either way, she would get the iron she wanted, at a price lower than listed retail. It was only a question of saving even more money, and offering Jo-Ann stores an option to earn some money.

Now; it's true that the wholesale cost of the iron may have been high enough that Jo-Ann couldn't accept the deal and still make any kind of profit. But even so, wouldn't it have made sense for the manager to say that although the coupon couldn't be honored in exactly that way, would my friend be interested in perhaps a 35% discount?

This is a perfect example of how mindlessly following procedure loses money for a company. Managers presumably are hired on the basis of their experience, judgment, and initiative. The intent is for the manager to increase sales, not blindly follow orders from on high. And yet this sort of thing is taking place more and more, these days.

The never-ending quest for the cheapest possible goods and lowest possible costs has spilled over into the realm of employee hiring and wages. With employees now listed as statistical units of "cost," being simply a "resource" assigned to a cost center, the strategy is to hire the cheapest possible employees. The result is the lowest possible quality employees.

We don't often think about the law, and so we rarely think about how the law is meant to be the minimum standard of social behavior. It isn't meant to replace individual morality and honor.

So too, we've become cavalier about business processes, policies, and procedures. Instead of setting them as a "floor" for basic management behavior, they've become a replacement for doing business.

All employees should understand that the basic function of a business is to earn money. To do so requires not only engaging and persuading potential customers to purchase goods or services. It also requires some room to maneuver, in terms of procedures.

Too bad for Jo-Ann. They lost the sale. Sadly, just down the road this year (4th quarter 2008) a number of large chain stores are going out of business. Linens & Things, a direct competitor to Bed, Bath & Beyond is closing. People say it's the "tough economic times." No, it's more probably the miserable working conditions, rock-bottom salaries, lack of any kind of internal store initiatives, and cookie-cutter inventory. All decisions made by a centralized management system.

Corporate senior staff sets the tone for the entire descending ladder of command, along with the overall "tone" of the company. As such, executive leadership can mean either hiring skilled professionals and letting them do their job, or it can mean a pleasure ride of ego, hiring sycophantic drones who never care at all about the bottom line.

Changing Economic Theory

Hurrah, huzzah, hallelujah and golly-that's-great, a fundamental shift is taking place in the world of economists and their theories. Lest we forget, just about everything that happens in terms of business climate, development, regulation, taxation, tariffs, and the list goes on, all begins with an Economic Theory.

For a long time, economists felt that societies act as a group based on the individual actions of each citizen within that society. They gave a passing thought to the nature of mankind (personkind?), assigned fundamental motivational drivers, then created the "aggregate." That's essentially the statistical "person" of an overall group or society and how it functions.

The "passing thought" is what matters here. Somewhere in the dim corridors of learned theory, economists came to believe that the fundamental driver in all human beings is a desire to help others. The concept of altruism means that I give up something I value to someone in exchange for a lesser value or for no value at all. Altruism isn't charity, it's a demand founded on need and carried along on a moral proposition.

Altruism rests on a moral structure. If someone needs something or claims they need something, their need (and claim) takes moral precedence to all else. Need becomes a priority, and eventually becomes codified in a communist manifesto: From those who have: To those who need.

All this is generated by a belief that human beings have a genetic mandate to help one another. Unfortunately, reality proves this to be a false belief. Communism and socialism have failed, everywhere in the world where they've been allowed to define an economy. One year, five year, or fifty year plans don't matter: If they're based on altruism and claims of need, they fail.

The economists have come to understand this, a little bit. They've now redefined the bedrock of human behavior, saying that the genetic core of all human motivation is greed! Is that true?

What's the difference between greed and self interest? Let's not even bother with that feisty little word "rational," and stick with only the most broad brushstrokes. If I want to keep most of the money I earn each week, is that greed or self interest? If I'd rather not spend the country's treasury into oblivion with universal care for everyone and unlimited happiness, am I greedy?

Suppose I spent half my life inventing a device that will rejuvenate heart cells. Let's even say that I'm part of a small group of people who've pooled money and resources to perfect this device. When I decide to sell that device and lots of people can't afford it, am I greedy? Or rather, should I just donate the device to the world in exchange for a pat on the back, a hearty handshake, and a certificate of appreciation?

To disagree with a thesis doesn't automatically mean to subscribe to its antithesis. If I disagree with altruism, that doesn't automatically mean I'm greedy. If I disagree with unlimited funds to feed every hungry child, that doesn't mean I'm an active proponent of starving children to death!

When a philosophic premise fails, that does NOT automatically mean the opposite premise "must be" true. It simply means the premise failed. We may not even know the correct premise yet.

The basic concept of ownership means having the capability not only to sell something, but also to keep the value exchanged. Most often that exchange value is money, and whomever owns something should have the moral right to keep the bulk of that money. Private ownership and the ensuing decisions as to what to do with owned assets is the basic definition of capitalism.

And yet, we continue to hear the term "greedy capitalists." The expression ties greed and capitalism (ownership) together inextricably. It goes back to "greedy businessmen," and "greedy owners." Yet we don't hear so much about "greedy aristocrats." For those, the term "evil" comes into play.

The best defense for any business owner, executive, or manager is to have a clear understanding of the meaning of the word "capitalism." Today's global economy and move toward globalization isn't something someone caused. It's the result of natural self interest. Greed is an irrational accumulation of excess, to the point where whatever is being accumulated serves no function at all.

Self interest is the exercise of rational thought toward improving one's life, the surrounding environment, and also the lives of many surrounding people whose circumstances are less successful. To build a strong business, self interest dictates happy, satisfied employees not starving scarecrows on the verge of death.

Socialism and communism have failed. The exemplary economics of the People's Republic of China and the former Soviet Union demonstrate the core antithesis to human nature. Capitalism remains standing, continuing as a model for natural economics. But capitalism is NOT founded on greed as the only natural human motivation!

Would you Bookmark your Own Site?

I recently generated a topic on a busy forum, asking the title question. It arises from the technique of using different forms of the same question to uncover hidden biases. We could ask someone if they think their web site is very interesting, and almost everyone would say yes.

Objective analysis doesn't ordinarily come easily, particularly these days. By asking about bookmarking, we extract "interesting," making it an inferred references, not directly part of the question. To bookmark a site means the site must also be interesting, but we're not directly asking if someone thinks their own site is interesting.

The results were astonishing! Setting aside the very limited participation in the topic, the people who did respond couldn't understand why the topic was up for discussion. Their take on the question had to do with the fact that they never (or rarely) bookmark any site, so what's the point of the question.

Stipulate, for the moment, that people always act toward their own interests. We might say "their own best interests," but that would introduce an evaluation. The proposition centers on the idea of perception: People will act in such a way as they perceive to be their own (best) interests. The problem is that perception is biased by feelings, but also can be determined by values.

We're all of us noticing more and more that sales people, even business owners, seem to be acting much like the story of the water-tank in the recently posted, "You Talkin' to Me?" On the surface, it seems these people are acting against their own best interests. But when the same thing happens over and over again, we can't so casually dismiss it with a set of assumptions about foolishness.

Why are so many people paying so little attention to their existing and potential customers? Is there a magic number, where the amount of money suddenly converts from "peanuts" to "worthwhile?" What about the fact that if you treat a small customer well, they may become a large customer—or they may recommend you to a large customer?

It doesn't matter if it's water tanks or real estate; we're constantly hearing about an attitude that a given business transaction doesn't seem worthy of the sales person's time and effort. We also know that objectively, this runs contrary to that person's best interests. And yet, it continues to happen. To that end, there must be a psychological component hiding under the superficial events.

Many psychologists and psychiatrists have written that the past century could be called The Age of Narcissism. The term basically means an inability to form clear personality borders. The narcissist "leaks" into everything and everyone in their surrounding environment, unable to separate their own "self" from objective reality.

A great example speaks about the mother who brings her young son to a restaurant. The waitress comes to the table, asking what they'd like to eat. The mother orders a salad and some coffee. The waitress then turns to the boy, asking what he'd like. The mother interrupts, telling the waitress that the boy would like a burger and some fries.

The waitress pauses, then says to the mother that she was asking the boy. At that point, the boy turns to his mother and says, "Mommy, mommy! That lady thinks I'm real!"

To bookmark a web site is the modern-day equivalent of folding over the corner of a page in a book. It indicates that you have an interest in returning to that particular location, for whatever reason. What we don't ordinarily think of is the concept of "interest." Before anyone can develop an interest in anything, they first must fundamentally understand that the object of that interest exists, separately and entirely on its own.

What would happen if we tweak that assumption? Suppose nothing exists on its own; that everything is a part of our own self? Another example of this would be where someone is talking with their friend. Asked how they're doing, the person says, "Oh...my leg hurts really bad!"

In response, the narcissist would say something like, "I don't understand: MY leg feels fine!"

Taken together, we can begin to see that narcissism offers a better explanation than the logic of value, increased sales, customer service, and other such objective expressions. A potential customer only can be of value if they first exist in their own right. Accepting that separation, the customer easily can think independently, act unexpectedly, feel differently, and require convincing persuasion. If the customer does not exist separately, then whatever the narcissist thinks and feels automatically translates to what the customer is thinking and feeling.

Would you bookmark your own site? The question asks whether or not you find your own web site interesting. Additionally, it proposes a capacity to perceive that web site independently, as a separate event from one's own feelings and thoughts. That requires the capacity to understand empathy, metaphors, symbols, and abstractions.

Not long ago, a survey asked people if they thought they were important. Back in the 1950s, approximately 1 out of 10 people answered that, yes, they thought they were important. At the turn of the century, the number has risen to 6 out of 10 who think they're important. At the same time, we see the rising sense of entitlement, where a web site or business "deserves" to happen.

All of these observations and thoughts begin with an elemental assumption that the self is one thing, and reality (including other living beings) is something else—different and separate from the self. Without that separation, nothing actually exists, including customers.

Is your web site interesting from someone else's perspective? Do they care if you like green text on a purple background? Are they interested that you love animals and walks in the park? All these questions begin with the understanding that what someone else thinks and feels is absolutely separated from what you think and feel.

Most of us just assume that's completely obvious. Is it?

Learn from my mistakes

I am regularly surprised at how little I knew a month ago.

I am always learning; and one of the benefits of you having me, is that you can learn from my mistakes and not suffer the anxiety of those same mistakes.

Many years ago I accepted the advice of a high profile consultant who advised me not to become a specialist but to remain a generalist. His philosophy was that you don't want to be "de-selected" by a prospective client. In many instances, this would be sage advice. However, if you are new to your profession without a mature database to support your venture, you need to become known for something, else you will be looked over for everything.

Once you have established a base of customers who continually refer and recommend you, as well as providing you with their own repeat business, then you can brand yourself as a generalist if that suits your strategic vision for your business future.

So, why be a specialist?

Being unique and 'the best' at a chosen specialty, eliminates a substantial amount of your competition. You have heard me say before, you do not sell to monoliths, you sell to people. You are in the 'people business'! This is especially true for the professional and personal services, such as: consultants, lawyers, recruiters, coaches, speakers, accountants, financial advisers and alike.

Most of you know that when CEOs, senior executives and business owners need strategic help, I am in the top twenty consultants who would be considered in Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East. But even more specifically, when accountants and lawyers want to increase revenues in their firm, or when recruiters and financial advisers need to drive business results, or when consultants, coaches and speakers want to generate significant growth for their practice, I would be in the top three. No questions asked!

Why? Because I am known as the Strategist for Professionals.

What can you do to differentiate your business from your competitors and attract clients with ease and grace? How can you become unique for a niche market that makes perfect sense for your business? Uniqueness doesn't require an Alice Cooper look, you don't have to be strange or unusual but it does require a brand that is instantly recognizable to your target market.

It's one thing for you to be recognized as a recruiter of senior management level roles. It's better when an executive needs to be hired, and your name is thrown into the hat of possible recruiters to assist. But you are at your best when a CEO says: "Get me that Mary Gilmore who is the Executive Recruiter, we need her help!"

Ric's Tips:

1. Make sure there is a need for what you will specialize in.
2. Be very good at what you do, and make sure that you are perceived as being very good.
3. Be unique, be special, be interesting.
4. Be honest and authentic.
5. Build your brand around this.

You don't want to blend in with the background; you want to stand out in a crowd. The good news is, it's really not that hard!

© Ric Willmot 2008 All rights reserved.

Beware of False Profits

When you get right down to it, business is a pretty straightforward concept: You have something someone wants; they offer to exchange something of value; you get the thing to them; and in between, you track all the details. If you get a higher value (to you) than what you used to get the thing, you make a profit.

Everything was moving along fine with all this, until around the 1980s and the whole mergers and acquisitions rage. If you wanted more money, you sold more things. You could raise your prices, but there's always a reality ceiling to that, where customers won't pay the next higher price. And then came the "new" idea of operational profits.

In a nutshell, we know that it costs us money to buy or produce something. It also costs us money to pay for labor, part of which is the tracking and shipping of merchandise. Then there are the day-to-day costs of maintaining a building, paying utilities, buying office equipment and supplies, and marketing. All of that goes into operating costs and we account for it with cost centers.

This new idea came down to simply saying that if you spent less on office supplies or other operations, you therefore had more money at the end of the day than you'd initially set aside to pay for those things. And, of course, everybody knows that if you have more money than you started with, ipso facto presto change-oh, you have...a profit.

The idea caught on like wildfire, particularly in tough economic times. Yes, Virginia, there is a cycle to economic times, and there have been tough times in the past. There likely will even be tough times ahead. In that particular cycle, with less money coming in, companies still needed to show their stockholders that they were making money. By continually saving money on operations, they could continually show...a profit.

In the beginning, all this smoke and mirror magic was easy to accomplish. Lots of big companies had grown fat and lazy with easy revenues, solid markets, expanding customer bases, and plenty of research and development. That led to new products, never-before seen, and science was coming up with fantastic new toys and devices all the time, like personal computers, for example.

Shaving off the fat and making the company "lean and mean" was easy to accomplish: Until they ran out of things to cut. And, so yet another brilliant idea came into play: the concept of human beings as work resources. From there, it was easy to create "human resources" that could be quantified and measured as easily as energy resources, logistics resources, and other functional resources.

Taking the aggregate of all man-hours worked (person hours...resource hours?), a company could propose time budgets, effort budgets, and cost-benefit analyses based on work. Here the engineers helped by bringing along energy formulas for work in terms of natural forces. We can only cut back on actual things to a finite level, but with something as ephemeral as "resource hours" the sky's the limit.

Outsourcing, contract workers, consulting, and overseas labor markets came into play. Suddenly, companies could demonstrate enormous profits based on tremendous cuts in all sorts of things nobody could actually see. Robotics, information systems, global economies; all of it came to the forefront for the sake of showing never-ending profits.

The only problem was that nobody was creating anything new anymore, and nobody was selling more product.

So here we are, circa 2008, with energy prices going through the roof. We've laid off and outsourced everyone who could be classed as a resource, which means everyone on an hourly wage system. Even there with the emergence of "middle management," the last fraction of a dried-out pool went into the operational profits magic machine.

Companies have eliminated research and development, and schools are following suit. With the costs of art, music, science, and extracurricular activities taken out of the mix, even school systems were showing a profit. To what end?

"Mall America" has come to pass, with everything a copy of everything. Sameness abounds, which explains why the entrepreneurial spirit is growing. On a competitive level, large enterprises have forgotten that making more money should mean selling more product. Profit should be based on reasonable costs and increased sales.

The rising oil prices are like the child in the story of the emperor's new clothes. With the constant increase in fuel, operations are costing more, thereby unable to show a continuing profit. With nothing else to account for profits, suddenly everyone is talking about hard times, business failures, and the necessity to either increase prices or worse, initiate wage and price controls.

The airline industry rather than improving service and attracting more passengers wants to charge for everything that ought to be included in the price of a ticket. The assumption is that with a permanent number of passengers, never to increase again, the only possible way to show a profit is through operational savings.

Is that true, though? Have we so saturated every market that never again will be able to sell more product? Are you falling into the same trap, wanting to increase your shipping charges, reduce your quality, and cut customer service?

How about taking a look at how to sell more product or services, expand your market, or diversify your product line. That means creative development, not buying an existing company and cutting costs in the new acquisition.

Nor does it mean always searching for a cheaper way to get a copy of what everyone else is selling. And let's not forget the crossover point between corporate human resources and slave resources. Resources are resources after all, and the cheaper the better, right?

Judgements, Feelings, Opinions & Absolutes

At about the start of the 20th century, so-called modern education began to make certain fundamental changes to how we educate our children. Those changes moved away from memorizing facts, analytic studies, and scored competition. Instead, educators began to focus on how a child's stress level and feelings "caused" their performance and eventual database of knowledge.

Excepting for a slight regression in the 1960s, education, for the most part, has moved solidly toward removing competition, removing scores and grades, eliminating personal differences, and blending everything into a massive, all-consuming average. It's become the triumph of mediocrity. Okay, but so what? How does that matter, really, in the business world?

Take the case of a friend of ours, who owns and operates a small business manufacturing textile products. These products each require pieces of fabric, cut to specific sizes. The variance might be within a half an inch, but for the most part, should be exactly cut. To increase production, the company began using pieceworkers. They would cut a yard or so of fabric into specific pieces for different items.

One such job required cutting blue and red fabric into a number of 7"x11" pieces. Given the measurements of the raw fabric, there should be 18 pieces at the end of the job, for both the red and the blue. In fact, less than 20% of the pieces were within half an inch of specs, and there were only 12-14 final pieces of each color. Why?

In the course of firing the cutting person, the dialog brought out a fundamental conflict between the worldviews of reality-based thinking, versus feelings-based "something" (it isn't really thinking). The cutter felt that our friend was being far too judgmental, demanding, obstinate, and was seeing the world in black and white. They demanded that our friend see things in shades of gray, be more considerate of the problems and difficulties involved, and so on, ad nauseum.

When we say that an item must measure 7"x11" many of us would assume this to be a simple fact. It's an absolute, based on the requirements of geometry and the mathematics of the end product. But in today's world, a majority of younger workers no longer hold that "facts" are immutable. They've been taught from an early (impressionable) age that facts are simply opinions with a large consensus.

Take a moment to look at your own business and manufacturing needs. How many of your product requirements are based on physics, science, mathematics, and logic? Now consider what will happen when most of your employees no longer "subscribe" to logic, analysis, science and math? The resulting chaos will be based on arguments over whether or not you're being too judgmental when you use logic.

We could propose that nature and reality function on coincidence. By an astonishing good bit of luck, it seems that every time it gets light out, somehow it also gets dark in a while. The "fact" that it gets lighter and darker at different times "must prove," therefore, that it's all just random coincidence. Absurd? Not in today's world of educated youth.

How long will it be before fair labor practices and government regulation disallow firing an employee who doesn't agree with science? At what point will our friend be deemed antisocial and not part of the mainstream? Every time you tell someone that they're being too judgmental; that they should see things in shades of gray, not being so black and white, aren't you furthering the problem?

When we demand that an item should measure 7" by 11" based on its end use, we have two different absolutes. The first is that 7" means exactly that many inches, not 6-1/2" or 7-1/4". For the moment, most people still will agree that 7=7 and not whatever they feel it means. The much larger problem is that the demand for the measurement is based on the desired final product.

Note that because the final product is a choice, a desire, and an individual decision, the entire construct comes under discussion. Without taking into account the underlying stages of measurement, today's employees "feel" that nobody has the moral right to demand something unusual, difficult, or specific. There should be a vote, based on how difficult it is to reach that judgmental, highly opinionated, demanding goal.

What can we do about it? Unfortunately, not a whole lot. Preparation may be the best option, as we still have (for the moment) some freedom in choosing whom to hire at the outset. Pre-employment screening, interviews, and initial trial periods can serve as a testing ground to uncover this basic worldview that nothing is absolute.

Eschew the Evil of Enron

The movie Wall Street was a hit in 1987. The main character played by Michael Douglas was Gordon Gekko:

"The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed - for lack of  better word - is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms - greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed - you mark my words - will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."

Humans are tribal beings, xenophobic if you will, and therefore in all of us is an ability to be evil if we allow it. The good news is that our natural evolution as a species means we are also pro-social and cooperative. My opinion is that Enron and 'Gordon Gekko' are the exceptions to the rule.

President George W. Bush publicly claimed that Enron's failings was due to "a few bad apples," which happened to also be his reason for prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. This would be a nice if it were that easy, however, it doesn't explain what actually happened at Enron.

1986 - 1996 Enron had a highly effective managerial system including transparency of corporate governance. Richard Kinder was then the president.
1996 - 2001 under the presidency of Jeffrey Skilling, Enron changed and became secretive and almost covert regarding corporate governance.

Kinder was involved at every level of Enron's business dealings under under his stewardship revenues surged from $5.3 billion to $13.4 billion. Richard Kinder was renowned for his photographic memory and his "Bullshit Barometer." As an Enron unit leader said: "Kinder was impossible to bullshit. If managers lied to him about their numbers, Rich would eat them for lunch."

Evil often occurs in hidden places, devoid from social accountability, such as in the deep recesses of Abu Ghraib. The first line of defense against corporate evil, then, is transparency, open communication and continual management of the business systems.

As leader, managers and entrepreneurs we must accentuate trust and accountability; embrace challenges made of our opinions and assumptions; promote healthy debate around decisions; and demand transparency so as to be less susceptible to corruption, fraud and mismanagement. As leaders, managers and entrepreneurs we must foster camaraderie, cooperation and pro-social behavior. As leaders, managers and entrepreneurs we must seek respect and loyalty.

It's nothing personal, just business. But the business will prosper if the people in charge are personable.

© Ric Willmot 2008 All rights reserved.

What's doing?

What will you be doing today to attract more clients, increase revenues  and build your business?

Here are eleven ways to do what has to be done to achieve those goals:

1. Send a letter (not an e-mail, a letter in the post) to three potential clients that would gain value from your expertise.
2. Make the three follow-up telephone calls to the three people you wrote letters to last week.
3. Arrange to speak to a group of people. Some of my clients and mentees are professional speakers, so this is a no-brainer for them. However, accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, recruitment consultants, business coaches, training consultants, interior designers, HR consultants, etc have wonderful ideas and unique concepts that would be of interest to a business group, rotary, networking club, etc. And, these groups are always looking for a speaker who can give an interesting twenty minute talk that shares some tips and techniques that will assist their members.
4. Public Relations. You do not necessarily need to hire the services of a PR person, although you may. You can create your own PR by sponsoring an event that will put you in front of your target market, contributing a sample of your product, or offering a gift certificate for your services through a strategic alliance. There are a plethora of avenues to generate low-cost PR.
5. Reach out laterally to an existing client. What can you do to provide an additional service or product to an existing client. You know everything you do or can offer, but do your customers?
6. Read a chapter of a book. Knowledge is a wonderful tool. It broadens you intellect, your vocabulary and makes you an interesting person to speak to because you have broadened your sphere of awareness.
7. Attend a conference, seminar or training course.
8. Write a press release that is interesting, or valuable, or provocative. It will then have a greater chance of being published.
9. Leverage a trip. What else might you do, or who else could you visit? This is as appropriate whether you are traveling overseas, interstate, intrastate or just across town. Make an extra contact when you travel.
10. Make a creative offer to an opportune prospect. Is there  potential piece of business that hasn't crossed the line for you yet. How might you creatively entice the prospect to take action and write you a check (cheque)?
11. Learn or improve a skill. Improve your communication skills, get better at networking, learn more about Generation Y, mergers and acquisitions, etc. You get the idea.

Create your own ideas and lists, but do something every single day that keeps the momentum building. You want to be riding a wave of good business not being dragged to sea by an under-current.

© Ric Willmot 2008 All rights reserved.