Posted by: Shawn | 11/19/2009

Leaders – Check your Mood

That pulsating ache in my neck and shoulders is telling me something.  It’s telling me something physical, something mental, and something emotional.  It’s setting off all kinds of warning bells in my head, here are a few…

Physically, the ache is telling me I am tired, I am not getting enough rest, and my exercise routine has evaporated. It’s telling me that if I am not careful, I am headed for a bugger of a backache that can put me down for days. 

Mentally, the ache is telling me that my patience is shorter, I cannot communicate ideas as well, and I am developing tunnel vision instead of remaining strategic.  It’s telling me I need watch out for unnecessary risks, keep a close check on my “command” characteristic, and double check my critical thinking.

Emotionally, the ache is telling me that my positive outlook is at risk and my capacity to maintain relationships has diminished.  It’s telling me to force the smile, crack the joke, and soften the message because I am not “Full On”.

This week I read a blog post by Larry Senn called “Lead From the Top of the Mood Elevator”. In the article Larry reminds us that it’s critically important to be aware of your moods and to manage them appropriately.

Authors Sigal Barsade and Donald Gibson examined how employees’ moods and overall dispositions have an impact on job performance, decision-making, creativity, teamwork and leadership. Leaders’ displays of emotions, they noted, influence followers through emotional contagion: “Positive, upbeat emotions of the leader are emulated by followers, resulting in positive outcomes.” (Wharton study)

Senn gives five tips for dealing with the swings:

1. Become aware of your state of mind and use your feelings as your guide to the quality of your thinking.

2. Take better care of yourself. Our physical state plays a role in our thinking.

3. Know your thoughts are unreliable when your mood drops.

4. Maintain your perspective through gratitude and a sense of humor.

5. Be aware of your leadership shadow. Moods are contagious.

For me, after writing this post I am feeling better already, but regardless, I am going for a run when I get home and I am adding “mood” to my daily metrics.

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Posted by: Shawn | 11/14/2009

Death of Ueli Gegenschatz

Forgive me, this is really off topic, but I had to put this one out there.  I first read about Ueli Gegenschatz a few years ago after a friend of mine and I went paragliding in Switzerland.  I was saddened to learn of his death earlier this week.

Some call this guy and his mates crazy, but its people like Ueli Gegenschatz who pushed the envelope so the rest of us may someday enjoy the fruits of their labor, and their loss.

Don’t quite agree?  Watch the video below and then tell me if you think Orville and Wilbur Wright were viewed as the most sensible people in their time? I rather doubt it.

Thanks for bringing us closer to real flight Ueli, and rest in peace.

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Posted by: Shawn | 11/08/2009

Tough Converstations

Last week I had a tough conversation.  I knew it was going to be tough so I spent a good three or 4 hours prepping for the it and the one inevitable question that was going to come up.  Unfortunately, it was as tough as I thought it would be, but it went nothing like I expected it to. 

Reflecting back on the prep work, I should have spent more time considering all the questions and issues that might have been brought up instead of focusing primarily on the one question that never came up. Darn darn darn…

Anyway, I read a great post this evening from Peter Bregman that gave one hint that would have helped:   Whenever I’m surprised and I don’t know what to say, I now ask a question. Even if that question is: “Can you tell me more?”

I am putting that one in my learning journal… a nice little bit of conversational judo.

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Posted by: Shawn | 11/06/2009

Why Twitter matters

Look I admit it; I am not the most social-media savvy person.  I don’t “get” Twitter and last month I canceled my Facebook account.  These behaviors aside, the weak signals of social media combined with the pending influx of millennials paints a clear picture.  Marketers and managers, prepare yourselves for the pending onslaught of millennial workers who will change the way we work, the way we buy and the way we think.

Let’s start with the HBR article “Are you ready to manage five generations of workers” by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd from Oct 16 2009.  The most telling point of the story is the graph that shows that by 2015, millennial will be the dominant generation in the workforce finally wedging the baby boomers out.  Thinking back to how the tidal wave of boomers shaped the way we did…well, everything, we can expect that this next swollen generation to make its presence known in ways we cannot imagine.

2009_11_Whytwittermatters

Moving to social media, for any of you exposed to millennials, you will recognize they are arguably more engaged into the virtual environment than they are in the physical.  How many teens do you see playing outside in your neighborhood?  How will the way the play WOW translate into managing real teams in the workplace, how they manage projects?  This will have an impact and it’s going to be fascinating to see it happen.

Turning to social media, an article posted earlier this week titled “Six Social Media Trends for 2010” by David Armano argues that we are about to see the “noise” become targeted, companies will take social media seriously, and e-mail will take a back seat to social media as a means of communication.  These trends in play, you, me and the rest of our Gen X colleagues need to get over our hang-ups and… well “get it”.

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/bloomport (although I have no idea why). 

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Posted by: Shawn | 10/18/2009

The Pending Price Point Nightmare

Imagine back 18 months ago, imagine you were the Brand Manager of the wildly popular “i-Widget” that had been enjoying differentiated success in the marketplace, it flew off the shelf, and any marketing effort was really just to sustain the buzz.  The i-Widget commanded a premium price was a major driver of growth for the company that Wall Street just loved to talk about it .  Sure, it may not be exportable to the developing world (too expensive, market was too small) but for the moment, the developed world was paying your bonus.

Flash forward to today.  Imagine the world in a recession so deep that double digit unemployment has plagued the developed world.  Middle class status-brands (like the i-Widget) have become such a pariah; people use it discreetly to avoid ridicule for such an abstentious luxury when colleagues are out of work.

Remember, you are the Brand Manager of the I-widget.  Your brand is taking a beating and you are up late every night working the right “value equation” that will slow the hemorrhaging without diluting the prestige of the brand too much.  You recognize your bonus is gone (so much for Europe this summer) but the design folks now say a fighter brand (half the features, 20% the cost) might be just 6 months off.  Ah.. hope, and to make it even better Corp Intelligence suggests we just need to get it out before our competition launches theirs.

And then it happens.

Out of nowhere, from some strange and far-off land, some new company launches a competitive product with 90% of your features, at 30% the cost.  Tata-who?  For a moment you are bewildered, where did these people come from, why hadn’t we heard of them and how can they afford these prices?

Engineering confirms it, there is no way even your fighter brand can touch the price.  Design has no idea how to even start designing based on the constraints and the target cost people come up with only negative profitability models. Is this a massive loss leader?  A sense of dread has set in.

You visualize your most loyal customers defecting overnight and imagine the inevitable free fall as market share evaporates.  Nothing comparable in the pipeline, no back up brand, this will mean your job.  And a lot of other peoples job.  How will you pay for your daughter’s college next year?  How many people will be laid off?

This scenario flashed before my eyes when I read Vijay Govindarajans latest blog post titled “What is Reverse Innovation”.  For those of you who have not seen it, it’s related to his latest article (along with Jeffrey Immelt) in the HBR titled “How GE is disrupting itself”.  Vijay’s post was essentially about the stages of innovation and the relationship the developing world has with the developed world however, I see this scenario playing out something like the story above.  As the developing world continues to mature and the investments in higher education begin to pay off (China graduated twice as many university students as the US in 2008), the developed world will lose ground in the innovation market place, and those caught unaware are in for a frightful nightmare.

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Posted by: Shawn | 10/14/2009

Visualizing A Trillion

When I had a small business back in California, I used to spend countless hours working on a single poster/flyer to make sure every element of the document was, well perfect.  The exact right font, perfect spacing, the right colors, boarders that made the text pop and graphics that embodied the message as well as the emotion, it all had to fit together seamlessly.  Overboard in other words.

Call me thick, but it was only in the past two or thr2009_10_Visualize to Understand 2ee years that I really came to understand why I spent so much time working those materials.  I did it because somehow I knew that the visualization of the message was one trillion times more important than what could be written or explained; the reader needed to be able to glance at the message, become intrigued (within the first half second) and then “get it” in about three more seconds.  The more important he message, the more that every little font, frame, color, graphic needs to make the message pop.  Perhaps not overboard?

I am always looking for creative ways to get the message out (the creative side of my strategic brain) and last weekend I came across a visual I thought was magnificent.  Think for a moment, can you visualize a trillion dollars?  This document from http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-billion-dollar-gram/  is presents a way to help you visualize how much a trillion is and underscores the importance of data presentation.  In my mind, there is no way you can effectively describe all of the information that is contained in this little document, but through a simple visualization your brain quickly connect the shapes and colors in a way that first intrigues you, and then just makes sense.  Brilliance through simplicity.

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Posted by: Shawn | 10/04/2009

VUCA Victims and Masters

Been thinking about doing this one for a while… finally got the time to punch it out.  Should be doing my MGMT 601 instead!!  A follow up from my earlier post on Managing the Volitility of Vuca and the first one on Positive VUCA.

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Posted by: Shawn | 09/20/2009

Thought-leaders: to whom do you listen?

Part of my self-imposed education is figuring out whom to listen. There is a TON of hacks out there and you can find any number of self-prophesying opportunists with a pretty model and an MBA.  I think the trick is, figuring out who is worth following.2009_09 Seth Godin

This morning I was following links and I ran into Seth Goden and his post “If TV ads were free” challenging marketers to think like TV advertising was free.  Now, I admit, I do not remember ever hearing of this guy but when I read his post, I was thinking “hmm… I like how this guy thinks”.  So I did some checking and he was number 43 on the Top 50 list of thinkers, written a couple good books, and is pretty much a internet marketing guru, so aside from being embarrassed that I had never heard of him… he still just made sense. 

This got me to thinking, how do I select my “Professors” and why wasn’t Seth on my list? 

Selecting my Professors 

I realized that when it came to selecting “who” I listened to, I had no real criteria.  This first came to me when I was building my “links” list and I was trying to figure out who I should list, but the problem never really manifested itself.  Realizing now, the downside of not having an approach is that I could select the wrong thought-leaders and waste time.  In this post I am going to systematize my selection criteria (because that is what I do, I add order when there is none) and try to crystallize my thought process for selecting who I listen to in the world of Environmental Scanning.

My inital selection criteria:

  • Did I hear about the person in business school? (Hamel, Porter, Kaplan, Norton, etc)
  • Have I read one of their books (and was it good): (Covey, Drucker, Ferazzi, Groppel, Goleman, Buckingham, Goleman, etc)
  • Is the person a personal icon: (Drucker, Demming, Carnegie, etc)
  • Did the person have an article in the HBR: (…)
  • Do they have a blog I follow in HBR voices (Sviokla, Baldoni, Bregman)

 New criteria added today:

  • Are they on the Top 50 Business Thinkers?

Based on this, my action steps are to build a page for my “Top Ten” Professors and why… perhaps in the form of order qualifiers and order winners?   Great, another item on my “to do” list.

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