Ordinary People Who Achieve Extraordinary Success

What would successful people say if asked, “Would you like to have your story written in book about you and your extraordinary accomplishments?”

Some might respond with “A book about me? Why me? What would it be about? Who would be interested in reading about me?”

But they could be thinking, “Wow, that would really be exciting! Getting a chance to tell the world what I know, what I’ve done, and how I’ve done it. My story could help a lot of young people in my industry. My story could be an opportunity to begin to establish my legacy, my impact on business, my profession, or my community. Hmmm…tell me some more.”

Many people consider themselves “ordinary” even after they have achieved the extraordinary. Successful people know at some level that they have accomplished more than most others and they are proud of it even though they may consider themselves to be just like everyone else.

I’ve now written four books in my Values in America series. (I’m on my way to a dozen…it’s my personal twelve-step program.) The last two books have been real-life stories about one of the world’s greatest jet fighter pilots (Lieutenant Commander Scott Beare, USN, retired) and a world-class winemaker (Bill Williamson). I believe these stories are inspirational with important lessons about personal values and values-based business decisions.

I want to continue writing true stories about ordinary people who have achieved extraordinary success. There are certainly individuals out there who deserve to have their stories told. These people don’t have to be famous like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. There are plenty of “next tier successes” whose story could be told in an easy-to-read and entertaining style.

My guess is you already know someone who would like his or her story told in a book that could be a gift to family and friends and possibly sold to large audiences through Amazon and other outlets. If you do know someone who has achieved extraordinary success--someone whose inspiring story you believe needs to be told--send me his or her contact information. Thanks!

A Culture of Hope is a Strategic Advantage

Hope is not a strategy. You’ve no doubt heard this bit of wisdom and it’s likely to be true if that’s all you do—sit around and hope for the best. In reality, however, a culture of hope is essential during this economic crisis. You must have faith that “this, too, shall pass”…and it will. And, as a leader, it’s your job to ensure your people believe in the future as well.

As Napoleon said, "A leader is a dealer in hope." And, noted leadership expert, Joe Batten adds, “The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.” Helen Keller may have said it best of all: “ Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope…”

Will your company be ready to hit the ground running with the right people with the right frame of mind to jump on the opportunities that are around the corner? Have you created a culture of hope in your company?

Scott Lochridge and Jennifer Rosenzweig, founding partners of Dragonfly (www.dragonflyORG.com), support the notion that hope is a powerful force in the world in their new book, enlightenment, incorporated. They also point out that in tough times, people and organizations lose hope and they get scared. When they get scared, they fall into negative, fearful behavior. People spend more time complaining and sharing their fears which cuts into their productive work.

This can be the beginning of a downward spiral. The negativity places a pall on the organization causing the best people to leave. And if they can’t afford to leave now, they will when the economy turns around. Lochridge and Rosenzweig warn us, “Once the good talent leaves, the organization is left with staff that is usually frightened, risk averse, and by definition, less talented.” In these difficult times, and when the good times roll again, the last thing you want to do is drive the good talent away.

A sure way to keep top talent (and maintain high productivity) is to create and manage a culture of hope for the future. Hope is what sustains us as humans and a culture of hope in your organization is what will enable you to focus your team on your vision and implement your business strategy with an aligned, positive workforce that pulls together.

Values-Based Decision Making

I'm finishing up my new book, Way Beyond Wine. It's a true story about a remarkable Aussie immigrant who in a short time has become an award-winning vintner in Healdsburg, CA. Bill Williamson (www.WilliamsonWines.com) attributes his business and entrepreneurial success to his values-driven decision making (including selling his premier wine, Sovereign, at $1000 per bottle/magnum).

If you'd like to review a prepublication draft of Way Beyond Wine, send me an email and I will forward you a pdf version. It's a fun story and you'll learn a bit about wine making as well as Bill's secret to business success! ken@kenmajer.com

Social Networking is a Cultural Revolution

We’ve always networked socially. It is an inherent characteristic of being human. It’s in our genes. We are communication animals…from around the campfire to Twitter. Connecting is the foundation of human culture. Different generations simply do it differently.

Joshua Michele Ross, a social networking luminary, stated it this way in Forbes Magazine: “Human beings are innately social. We are designed to share and connect with others. Period. What's more, we are born into cultures that provide a blueprint for how to communicate and organize.”

Josh believes we are seeing a democratization and acceleration of communications. Everyone has a broadcast tower that is real-time across the planet. Since communication is the foundation of government, business, and culture, when you scale up communications, you change the world.

If you want a new, creative idea every nanosecond about social and generational impacts on modern day culture—meet Lance Dublin (www.dublinconsulting.net). Lance is one of the few over 50-somethings who understands generational differences in terms of how people communicate.

Boomers are One-to-One Communicators. Telephones, network TV, CNN pushing the news 24/7, are examples of how Boomers are comfortable getting information from reliable sources. The communication (cultural) revolution that changed their world was CNN getting and reporting the news during the first Gulf War.

Gen Xers are One-to-Many Communicators. Blast emails, webinars, webcasts, You Tube, and other web-based outlets are preferred modes for getting and using information for this group. Google and Wikipedia are children of the Gen X Web-based revolution.

Millenniums are One-to-Many-to-Many Communicators. When Capt. Sullenberger crashed US Airways 1549 safely into the Hudson River, the news spread through social networks like wildfire. People learned what happened long before Charlie Gibson summarized the day.

The trick is to understand your target user's medium of choice—and to try and tailor your communications and communications style with that medium.

Social networking is a cultural and generational revolution. People are choosing to get and share information not just from an expert source nor only from the people they know and trust. They are getting it from social networks of thousands of people they may not even know.

It’s not about the technology. It’s about the commonality among these generational differences and the need for human connection. There will always be a new technology—that’s inevitable. Therefore, the technology itself is not what this revolution is all about. How we use new technologies to communicate, to keep in touch, and to stay connected is what it’s all about. New ways we think and communicate with each other is the essence of how cultures transform.

Five Compelling Reasons to Invest in Training for Your Workforce During the Recession

Friend and colleague, Jim Kennedy of Technically Speaking (http://www.technically-speaking.net/) and I met to discuss why smart companies are investing in training now—even in this recession. Jim pointed out that his clients are investing now because they realize that this business slump is not going to last forever (see my May 4 Blog post).

An expert and sought-after trainer in all aspects of management and workforce training Jim’s clients are telling him there are five good reasons they are compelled to invest in upgrading the skills of their workforces now.

1. Many have had to downsize and they are cross-training the employees they retained to do multiple jobs. Fewer people may have to work harder, but it’s important to give them the skills to work smarter as well.

2. In these tough times, it is important to protect margins. It is imperative to train your sales people to have good negotiation skills to get the best deals while maintaining your customer base.

3. Morale can sink during times of stress and potential hardship. Sales are completed by teams. Build team cohesion by focusing on how teamwork can enhance sales and build morale.

4. Conflicts arise when workload pressures and resource limitations cause competition between departments. Train your managers in conflict resolution.

5. Customers can be demanding because they know everyone is scrambling for business. They expect higher levels of technical expertise in sales people. Train your technical people in sales techniques to enable them to be an integral part of the sales team.

These areas of focus for training now will help you in the short run. When times get better, these enhanced skills in your workforce will put you at the front of the pack.

Get Ready for the Upswing: Manage Your Values-Driven Culture

If you heard Warren Buffett on the news this morning, he said we’re out of the quicksand; but we’re a little bruised from ropes that were needed to pull us out.
Point is: there are positive signs this economic crisis won’t last forever. There will be a sustained business upswing—there always has been and likely always will be. We don't know when it will turn around but my advice is not to wait too long. Get prepared now.

It’s long been known that if you manage your culture effectively, it will have a positive impact on your bottom line. (Do a Google search for corporate culture and performance.) Consider these research findings:

· Almost one-half of earnings are attributable to how much employees “buy into” the company’s corporate culture.

· Companies that manage their culture have revenue increases of 682% vs. 166% for those who don’t.

· Stock prices for companies that manage their cultures increase by 901% vs. 74% for those who don’t; net income increases compare 756% vs. 1%; and ROI increases twice as much.

· In another generally poor economic climate (1972-92) five top-performing companies were those that managed the culture of their workforces well.

It's easy to lose focus under the stress and pressure of tough times. Here are five ways to manage your culture now.

1. When in survival mode, it’s easy lose sight of your market focus, your core values, and who you are. Now is the time to reestablish your company’s critical uniqueness.

2. Conflict and stress rear their ugly heads when business pressures increase. Rumor mongering, passive aggressive behavior, open interpersonal conflict, and other ill effects undermine team cohesion. Now is the time to root out dysfunctional behaviors and reward values-based expected actions.

3. Tough times increase self-interest vs. team collaboration. Now is the time to revitalize your team, clarify company ground rules for behavior, and do everything you can to keep your best people.

4. When threatened (and these are threatening times) people circle the wagons, horde information, and stop sharing openly. Now is the time to promote trust and facilitate healthy communication.

5. Fear diminishes creativity and the organization becomes risk-averse. Now is the time to revitalize innovation, stress adapting to change and encourage creativity without the fear of failure.

Prepare now so you can reap all of the bottom-line benefits of a well-managed culture with a positively aligned workforce.

Culture Is A Key Success Factor

My friend and colleague, Richard Bell, is one of the exceptional group chairmen of Vistage International, the world’s largest CEO membership organization. In a conversation just yesterday, Richard confirmed that the work I’m doing building values-driven corporate cultures is becoming more and more relevant in today’s challenging business climate.

Richard’s experience working daily with leading CEOs in Silicon Valley suggests that it is getting harder and harder for business leaders to find “True North.” The vagaries in the market, radical changes in customer bases, and trying to predict the future in uncertain times are making it difficult for business leaders to maintain perspective.

“In the absence of landmarks and an external compass, successful business leaders are turning inward to rediscover their inner compasses. They are looking for a decision template so they can make thoughtful choices about how to lead with intention,” Richard explained.

He’s right, and when mindful leaders turn inward for guidance, they intuitively rediscover their own personal values. This process of rediscovering personal values is the first step in getting clarity. President Obama summed it up nicely in the second chapter of The Audacity of Hope:

"It is the language of values that people use to map their world. It is what can inspire them to take action… "

Personal values are the foundation for creating a values-driven corporate culture. Everyone knows how important it is to have the right people committed to the vision, strategy, and goals of the organization. In addition, a more subtle determinate of success is creating a culture of cooperation and collaboration wherein everyone in the company agrees on “how we do things around here.” This is the essence of an aligned corporate culture that is focused on success.

Companies with cultures based on positive values outperform their competition. They have greater retention of high performers who “fit” into the organization. They have better internal and external communication, more teamwork, greater employee and customer satisfaction, and higher productivity—all of which lead to increased profitability.

How to Destroy a Culture. If your culture is undermined—even by a just few employees in key positions—your company will most certainly face tough times. Today’s economic climate is difficult enough without having to deal with ineffective leadership and managers who look outward and blame others and external circumstances for poor performance rather than take responsibility for achieving the company’s goals. Now, more than ever, pulling together as a disciplined team is requisite for success.

Signs of a Dysfunctional Culture. Do any of these sound familiar?

• Old ways of working that are not results-oriented.


• Lack of accountability.


• When facing barriers to success, blame is externalized to circumstances (e.g., the economy) or others (someone else’s fault).


• Non-compliance with executive and senior management directives.


• A functional bias, not a business bias. Managers use narrow metrics to show performance in their areas without regard to overall corporate performance.


• A “not invented here” syndrome leading to an attitude of “I’ll do it myself.”


• A prevailing mindset of “I have nothing to learn from anyone unless they are a demonstrated superstar performer.”

These cultural artifacts are signs of a dysfunctional organization. If you don't pay attention to them now, you could have serious productivity and business performance problems in the long run.

Smart companies are regrouping in this tough business climate. They are committing to a set of core principles to cement organizational cohesiveness. They are preparing to meet today’s challenges and lay a foundation for the next upswing in the business cycle.

Here is a high-level outline of a proven approach for developing a values-driven culture that will align your workforce around a solid set of core principles, behaviors, and shared goals. These elements are the ingredients for a high-performing organization.

A Phased Approach to a Values-Driven Culture. This approach will align your executive team, management, and individual contributors across your entire workforce. It will provide the guiding principles and set expectations for how you want people to work toward achieving corporate, professional, and personal goals. Most important, it will establish a foundation for guiding positive actions at all levels in the organization, i.e., “The way we do things around here.”

Phase I engages the executive team and other influential employees to obtain buy-in for a culture change initiative. These leaders create and ratify the core values of the company with input from everyone in the organization.

Phase II engages key influencers at all levels in the organization to identify values-based behaviors that will be expected in the new culture. A corporate scorecard is also developed at this time to reinforce the appropriate on-the-job behaviors.

Phase III is a full-scale campaign rollout of the values and processes of the new corporate culture. Activities are designed to embed the new culture into all aspects of the regular business processes throughout the company, e.g., recruitment, hiring, reward & recognition, promotion, succession planning, strategic planning, etc.

Restructuring your corporate culture is a lot of work. But don’t forget: companies with values-driven cultures outperform their competition.

I welcome your comments.

Capturing Tacit Knowledge

It's not your father's knowledge management anymore. The concept of retaining and building an archive of knowledge in companies has been around for decades. It’s about capturing, maintaining, and sharing the best practices and wisdom in an organization to maintain continuity and build upon the learning that has taken place over time.

Here's the issue: When talented people in your organization leave—be it for another opportunity, retirement, or even death—before you've been able to capture the tacit knowledge resident in their brains, you’ve lost an asset that could be crippling to your business. Can we be more efficient and effective at knowledge management these days?

I was discussing this problem with Corey Olynik*, author of The Mentor’s Mentor, and he pointed out another trend that intensifies the problem: young people today plan on working for 6-8 companies during their careers. It’s no longer “IBM forever,” rather it’s “what I can learn here today to propel me into a better opportunity somewhere else?”

Knowledge Out the Door. The net result is that many companies are faced with people leaving the organization and taking their vast experience and knowledge with them. The company would be much better off if that know-how were captured and transferred to others in the organization before the knowledgeable employee leaves. If you can’t retain the people, be wise, and retain their tacit knowledge!

Here’s a related concern: What happens if your 45 year-old employee with 15 years of experience leaves and the only person you have to replace the one leaving is a 27 year-old with only two years of experience? The answer is this: the wisdom walks away right after the “thank-you-we-wish-you-all-the-best party” if you’ve not captured the senior person’s tacit knowledge.
Corey posed the challenge this way: “What if you could create a program where a 27 year-old with only two years of experience could function with the same wisdom and proficiency of the long-term 45 year-old? What if you could capture the knowledge of the experienced person and transfer that wisdom and functional capability into the younger employee? What would that do for the company?

By the way, this is not just a problem at the manager and senior leadership levels. This situation may even be worse when you lose the first-line delivery person on the shop floor—the one employee who understands how to keep the nail press running because of years maintaining and repairing the machine. That person may have an intimate understanding of the idiosyncrasies of the machine that goes well beyond the manual. We’re talking about critical information that cannot be reflected in a job description.

An Expanded Solution. Retaining the best employees is obviously one way to combat the problem of wisdom drain. One area to focus on, of course, is hiring people who
“fit” into your company. My continued recommendation is to have a clearly stated set of core values and a values-driven reward & recognition system to keep a like-minded workforce aligned. Realities, such as the trends mentioned above, however, suggest that no matter what we do to try to hire and retain the best people who will love working in our companies, attrition will still occur. So let’s deal with it.

Step 1: Use core values to select like-minded talent and build values-based reward systems to retain the best of the best.

Step 2: Engage your best and most productive seasoned employees as mentors to share their knowledge on a one-to-one basis with younger talent.

Step 3: Engage your mentors in group mentoring sessions to spread the wealth of knowledge among greater numbers of people in the organization.

Step 4: Use social networking and participative technologies to engage everyone in the organization—long-term and bright up-and-coming talent alike—to share their growing knowledge and experience.

The Key. The key to success with this multi-tiered mentoring approach is the medium for the transferring knowledge: use stories. Interesting, fun, even embarrassing stories can be an enormously effective way to transfer knowledge. The lessons coming out of the stories, the best practices, will evolve…and grow…especially when profiles and stories are shared via an internal community network.

Here’s the thesis: Values can help us to hire and retain the people who best fit into our companies. These values beget corporate habits. High-quality corporate habits yield best practices. Best practices can be readily transferred using lo-tech (mentoring) and hi-tech (participative technologies) story telling methods to capture and retain knowledge and know-how from all corners of your organization—even after the experienced story teller has “left the building.” (Thank you, Frasier.)

I welcome your comments.

*More about Corey Olynik: www.coreyolynik.com

What Does a Business Leader Do After a RIF?

Greg Robin and I had lunch this week and found ourselves discussing the stresses companies are under during this difficult economic period. Almost every company is feeling the pinch and many have suffered reductions in force (RIFs) or layoffs. American and worldwide statistics are staggering.

What does a business leader do after he or she has downsized or laid off employees? Two things: (1) attack other costs, and (2) focus on retaining and keeping your best people from getting discouraged.

Saving Money. If you want to contain costs, look at all of your processes and analyze them systematically with an eye toward streamlining—especially those processes that require data sharing. For example, if order taking data is accurately transferred to service delivery personnel, you will avoid costly errors in the field. Minimize errors with a collaborative data sharing process. Greg uses Quick Base, a web-based Intuit product, to enhance the efficiency of processes across the spectrum including accounting, project management, HR, order management, knowledge management, marketing and more. (See Greg’s Productivity Advisors).

Saving People. After a RIF, there is usually more work to be done with fewer people. Making sure they are secure, productive, and don’t burn out is essential. After a layoff, employees are nervous and concerned about when the next shoe is going to drop. That alone can lead to lower productivity as people lose focus and spend unnecessary time and energy singing “Woe is Me” and complaining about the company. Hopefully, you’ve retained the best and the brightest…but will you be able to keep them? Even in the worst of times, good people find opportunities—or opportunities come looking for them. Unwanted turnover (losing the best people) is very costly.

Here are some things you can do after a RIF.

--Communicate openly and honestly…over and over again. People appreciate accurate information. Rumors are deadly.

--Reaffirm your company values. Employees whose values match the company’s values are loyal, they like where they are, they work hard and stick around.

--Align your team by rewarding those who live the values of your company. Public recognition for collaborative actions (teamwork); getting things done on schedule as promised (integrity); sharing best practices (communication), for example, shows how much you appreciate values-based performance. A verbal pat on the back is a powerful motivator and costs nothing but your thoughtful attention.

Remember: the best employees stay in companies where their personal values match the values of the company where they work. In tough economic times it’s a good time to reaffirm your company’s values-driven corporate culture: the way we do things around here.

The Future of the Internet and When to Use Technology

Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP, Product Management, at Google, extended his thoughts about the future in a Google Blog recently (see Rosenberg Blog). He predicted four trends that will undoubtedly have tremendous impact on the way we think and communicate with one another:

(1) All the world's information will be accessible from the palm of every person
(2) Everyone can publish, and everyone will
(3) When data is (sic) abundant, intelligence will win
(4) The vast majority of computing will occur in the cloud

My colleague, Jim Kennedy (Partner, TechSpeak, San Francisco), and I were discussing the impact of these trends, and I was once again struck by the increasing importance of person-to-person interaction to deliver and receive information accurately as intended.

In today's world, for example, "email wars" can start at the drop of a keystroke when people hide behind the veil of technology. It's very easy to criticize, complain, or even insult someone with whom you may disagree via email. Making a hostile, destructive, crude, or hurtful comment via cyberspace is a lot easier if you don't have to deal with the consequences of the immediate feedback of a pained expression, reciprocal hostility, challenge to your argument, or a punch in the nose.

In today's corporate world, inappropriate use of technology can further a sense of isolation, create psychological distance, reduce team effectiveness and ultimately lower productivity and profitability. We've all witnessed companies where people are working in cubicles right next to each other, and yet they engage in email wars instead of simply standing up and talking to each other.

Corporate culture, "the way people do things around here," can grow like fungus in the dark if it is not created thoughtfully...and you may not like the behaviors that become part of the norm. Simple guidelines for communicating within a company, however, can establish productive and efficient habits. If communicating clearly, civility, productivity, and profitability are values you want to drive your corporate culture, here are a few guidelines for communicating effectively. These are based on this premise: the more intimate or complicated the message, the less you should use technology to deliver it.

(1) Use email (or other technologies) for communicating objective, unbiased information.
(2) Use the telephone when dialogue is required and when voice inflection and responsiveness can help to clarify the intent of the message.
(3) Get face-to -face if the communication has nuance or is important enough that serious negative consequences could result from misinterpretation.

As the Internet becomes even more ubiquitous, as Rosenberg suggests, and, as we are already witnessing with web-based social communities (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many others), the guidelines may need to be changed or adapted. But for now, the values of civility, efficiency, and clear communication, suggest that these simple guidelines can help to support an effective and positive corporate culture.

I welcome your thoughts.