My road trip and “Just Listen” by Mark Goulston

I was fortunate enough to take a little Thanksgiving vacation (working vacation) this past week. Monday – Wednesday was pretty much 90% work and 10% play as I had a deadline for our innovations competition. We made it though. I am thankful for a good team of folks…..some of the best I’ve seen in the last 8-10 years.

I was able to run by Barnes & Noble in Murfreesboro TN on Wednesday night and pick up a book titled Just Listen by Mark Goulston. I plan on purchasing a couple of additional copies and loaning them to some of my friends. The book is a must read for managers and anyone that wants to better understand how to ‘get through’ to those folks in your life that are ‘impossible’.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814414036/

I love a quote found in the book from Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, “Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.”

Hope everyone has a good holiday weekend. I’d love to hear your Thanksgiving stories!

kml

2009

Building Relationships

I have found that the pillar of any strong relationship is trust. Most any problem can be worked through if trust is established. This is true in the corporate world (internally within companies) and also when dealing with customers. Today, in addition to trust I picked up a couple of other additional thoughts.

1.)    It is better to ask many questions and give fewer answers. The best way to know how a person feels is to ask them. Assuming that trust has been established, asking people to tell you how they feel builds relationships. I know in my own life (at home, in the family business and at my public job) I find myself guilty of not asking folks their opinion. I believe Scripture to be very accurate as it states “In a multitude of counsel there is safety.”

2.)    It is better to listen more and talk less. Sometimes I find myself talking nonstop about some new project around the house, talking about some new business idea with our Services Group or rambling on about my corporate life. Occasionally, I have to pinch myself and remember that it is important to listen.  Again today I was refreshed to have some time to simply listen to a brilliant young man discuss his approach to business. I wish I had the time to jot notes as he spoke.

Building relationships is no easy task. If it was so easy then there would be less divorce in America. It takes hard work and it takes honest communication. The beauty of building relationships is the value that it adds to each of our lives. As I have stated so many times before when teaching classes on various subjects, “We as people are simply the collective efforts of others on our behalf.”

Anyone have some other points to add regarding building relationships?

kml

2009

Remembering Why I Love My Blackberry

A typical day for me is waking up around 6:00am. I stumble around for a few minutes and attempt to figure out what planet I am on. Within a few minutes my Blackberry Bold 9000 is powered on and 3 email accounts are pushed to my device. By the time I drive an hour to the office, I know my bank account balance, have received my daily Google news updates, and know what I’ll face that day at work in terms of schedules and emails.

My lunch usually happens somewhere between 10:00am-2:00pm. During that short break I am answering emails that I did not have time to address while at my desk. When the weather is nice I try to walk about 30 minutes during lunch. This is also a nice time to answer text messages or catch a quick bit of news as I walk.

By afternoon, I am letting emails that do not need an immediate response sit on my Blackberry while those needing immediate attention get answered at my desk. In the meantime I get a call and while on that call another beeps through. I am prompted for a choice, ‘to answer’ or ‘not to answer’. I choose ‘not to answer’. I continue my call with caller #1 as caller # 2 is speaking to my voicemail. I finish my conversation and realize I have 3 unanswered voicemails. I love Visual Voicemail. I scroll through deciding which voicemails need immediate attention. I scroll to voicemail # 2 and listen to part of it and then fast-forward to the end.

It’s now later in the afternoon. I leave for home. There’s usually at least one stray phone call for the ride home. I finally make it home and go for my daily walk/jog. This is the only time during the day that the Blackberry takes a rest from my side. I finish up my exercise, have a bite to eat and spend time with the family until their bedtime. Then it is one final check of the Blackberry and onto the PC to work another hour or 3. By this time the Blackberry was placed on the charger and the family is snoring. Usually around 11:00pm-12:00pm I wind down and remember just why I love my Blackberry. It is a working man’s tool. How I managed before my Blackberry is beyond me.

Guess what?..........we get to repeat the cycle all over tomorrow.

Your thoughts?

kml

2009

Google Wave……..second glance..

Now my interest has been aroused. Tonight I have been goofing around on Google Wave trying to see if I can get some short terms benefits from this deal. I realized that I can drag Microsoft Word documents right into a created wave. Just for giggles, I thought I would copy a few web links into a wave. I then realized I had the option to embed YouTube videos into a wave. (I suppose this should not be a real shock considering Google owns both)

In fact, the more I use this the better I like it. I can see now that it is easy enough to copy sections of Word documents directly into a wave and collectively modify them. (Can not tell yet if there is a limit on text.) Anyone that figures out a way to insert slides in PowerPoint format into a ‘wave slide show’ let me know.

More to follow! This is exciting!

Your thoughts?

****Note: Windows 7 Ultimate Update**** I am several weeks into Windows 7 now with no reported failure. I had a few minor issues early on that were 3rd party software issues. I am starting to feel like this version may compare to XP......that's a good thing. I'll keep you posted.

kml

2009

Google Wave……a good start….

Well, I finally got my long anticipated invite to Google Wave. The anticipation was more fun than the application…….don’t get me wrong, I think the application has great potential. The key for me is connecting with people that I actually want to share information with. 

I am currently working on a project that could really use a ‘Google Wave’ or ‘Microsoft Groove’ solution. My team has folks attempting to collaborate from several  locations in the USA, Sweden and Switzerland. The real issue in the corporate world is that security is such a high priority, we really suffer when attempting to collaborate. We have weekly conference calls together with numerous emails being exchanged.

Microsoft Groove was ‘out’ in our case as it is not part of our ‘corporately approved’ software package. Had I been issued my Google Wave invite sooner, I suspect we would have test driven the software. The problem now is that we are in a critical phase and under great time restraints and do not have the time to beta-test Google Wave without the risk of missing our deadline.

I did tinker with Wave a bit last night. I’m still curious about bringing in documents and working on them together. It seems easy enough to have a conversation and drag pictures into a wave. I’d like to see  Wave offer the ability to open a PPT presentation (assuming all parties had MS PPT installed on their machines) and modify together as a team, while still maintaining the ability to chat etc.

I’ll definitely report back on this topic frequently as I work through my own learning curve and explore the features in greater detail.

Your thoughts?

kml

2009

Are Entrepreneurs a Dying Breed??

Has the economy finally finished off the entrepreneurs? I hear stories of horror regarding the American and European entrepreneurs. Risk taking is now considered the eighth deadly sin.

You know, the thing that most people forget is that there is a HUGE difference in a calculated risk and reckless spending. Spending money on processes that are proven to produce failure is just plain ignorant. I equate this kind of risk to pumping money into GM knowing that labor unions have sucked every ounce of life out of the company. I say let them fail it will open the marketplace up for innovation. Someone please tell me how Ford was able to make it without government funding while GM sucked their own coffers dry and then pillaged the pockets of the tax payers. What GM needed was a real life entrepreneur to step in and make painful radical decisions.

I find it important to note that many of America’s great companies were born during the Great Depression of the 1920’s-1940’s. This was a time in history that men and women took calculated risks. The future of lives and families were at stake. Every penny was spent as if it were the last. I contend that ‘depressions’ and ‘recessions’ are not the time to repress good entrepreneurs but rather a time to encourage calculated risks.

I’d venture to say that 80% of the companies in America could cut 15-20% of their budget and never lay off one person. Think about where you work. How many processes can you name that add no value directly to the customer? We need to get our priorities back in the right place in America. Globalization of the economy is where it’s at. Successful companies in the future must be able to innovate and merge their processes into the global product chain.

For more study on this topic, e-mail me or make a donation and you will be sent a 5 page quick-study on the promoting of global intrapreneurship within your business.

Your thoughts?

kml

2009

Salesmen – A Means to an End

How many of you have ever ‘bought’ a salesman? How many of you want to pay for the salesman as part of your purchase? I have recently become quite unpopular regarding my approach to ‘selling’ and ‘salesmen’.

The internet has changed the world. We may not agree on if the change was for the better or for the worse but we all agree that the world is not the same place as it was before the internet age of knowledge. Information has become available to ANY person with an internet connection and the will to do a little research.

30 years ago if a person in America wanted to buy a car they found information about the car through someone who already had one or through a local salesman. We had to drive from dealership to dealership mentally comparing what one salesman told us against what another salesman told us. Those days are OVER. (Thankfully) Now we simply get online search every possible configuration of the car and walk into the dealership knowing more than some of the salesmen know.

Times have changed. The salesman is now simply the gatekeeper that introduces the customer to ‘access of knowledge’ channel. The customer does NOT want to pay for the salesman. (Nor have they ever) Customers paid for salesmen in the past because they had no choice. My market research within my industry recently has helped me understand how the customer really feels but sometimes will not tell us simply out of respect. Customers want to buy a quality product and the service to support that product and VERY little else.

Contrary to popular opinion, the customer does not want to buy your lunch, or support your family, or pay the salary of your salesmen, or pay your rising health insurance costs. At the end of the day customers want their money to go towards a quality product and service support.

The sooner we realize this global shift in customer opinion and embrace the change the better off the entire world will be. We need to focus more on directing the customer to the correct portal of knowledge and less on planning a way to prop up a crumbling (and outdated) system.

Think on these things. When was the last time you bought a product and wanted to buy the ‘salesman’ too??

Sometimes we overcomplicate simple things. Your thoughts??

kml

2009