2. Know the right people, and be friendly with them. (This is called sucking up. Do it the right way, and management will like you. Do it the wrong way, and management will despise you.)

3. Don’t be afraid to tell people when they are wrong, especially management. They will respect you for having a spine. (Once again, do it the right way‚ the wrong way will get you labeled a trouble-maker)

4. Appear competent. (Notice I didn’t say be competent. Perception > reality, especially in corporations.)

5. Notice I’ve given conditional statements to 2,3 and 4 above‚ I can’t tell you *how* to do these things‚ either you’ve learned them through your interpersonal working relationships over the past 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, or you haven’t.

6. Be a problem solver, not a problem creator. (There are two types of employees, period. Make sure you know which one you are. You’d be surprised how many bad employees think they are good employees. This is coming from someone with extensive management experience.)

OR, you can ignore all the above, and become a complete sociopath in the corporate arena. Backstab, belittle, undermine, flatter, lie, scheme, circumvent, lie some more‚ in other words, do whatever it takes. Soon, you will be an executive.

You might read the Statement above and think it is meant as humor. It isn’t.

An objective assessment using output metrics from your processes offers a complete view of your company’s health, assuming the metrics directly link to your strategy. If they don’t, you may be measuring the wrong things. A strategy road map that is linked to a balanced scorecard is the tool BIC companies use to monitor the state of their business. If you are missing one or both, or if they are not linked, you need to create them as soon as possible! If you have both but the balanced scorecard does not roll up to the strategy, you need to align them.

A strategy road map usually has five elements that are common to most companies. You can have more elements, but make sure they are truly things that are critical to your business. If you are not willing to put the effort into tracking an element, then it must not be absolutely critical to the running of your company. Even manual monitoring is better than nothing. The five common strategic elements are:

1. Improve operations quality and efficiency.
2. Grow through innovation and technology.
3. Increase customer satisfaction and retention.
4. Improve financial performance.
5. Empower the organization.

Within each of the strategic elements listed, more specific actions need to be implemented to impact the outcome. These actions are measured, and they are what make up the balanced scorecard. For example, a balanced scorecard action that would impact the first item, improve operations quality and efficiency, could be to become certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) at all the manufacturing plants in the company or to make enterprise resource planning (ERP) the standard platform across the company. These changes are very easy to measure and track, and they clearly tie to the strategic element of improving operational quality and efficiency.

Another way to improve operational efficiency is through the use of systems and improved service from information technology (IT). This is where an IT balanced scorecard at the subprocess level is critical to meet the balanced scorecard action of improved service from IT.

A balanced scorecard action that ties to the third strategy road map element, increase customer satisfaction and retention, might be: Provide on-time warranty service personnel. For example, customers might say they are willing to wait up to 15 additional minutes after the scheduled time of service. If someone does not arrive within the 15 minutes, the metric would indicate that they were not on time, therefore impacting your customer satisfaction level. If you are able to provide personnel to a customer location for warranty repair or service on time, your satisfaction levels will increase, and that in turn will drive customer retention.

Our final example of a balanced scorecard action that ties to a strategic road map element is something that not all companies feel is important but is actually what differentiates great companies from good companies. It falls under the fifth strategic element, empower the organization, and involves the training and development of employees. Having a balanced scorecard action to “Provide the best training programs so our employees can be empowered,” for example, goes a long way toward quicker decision making and employee-driven process improvements.

This action could have projects under it that detail the types of training necessary to allow the employees to be empowered. For example, technical training empowers the employee to be a better service technician. Another project could be to train personnel on change acceleration program (CAP) and facilitation skills, which gives them tools to act in an empowered way.

In the end, we spend a good deal of our putative computing time trying to learn new tricks–and that’s not always easy for some of us old dogs. In my case, for example, I’m limited by the fact that I have only a finite (and steadily decreasing, apparently) number of functioning brain cells. It’s obvious that the reason it’s difficult to learn new technology is that our brains are cluttered with old technology.

For example, I still know how to program a VCR. I will never again program a VCR. I may never again even see a VCR. I simply don’t need to know this, and yet I do know it. Why is this still taking up space in my brain? Similarly, I remember perfectly well how to test and replace a vacuum tube. Do I need to know that? Of course not! Why would I want a vacuum tube? And where would I find one of those tube-testing stations that for years were standard in every drugstore and hardware emporium in America?

There’s almost no end to the list of technology-related stuff I still recall but for which I now have absolutely no use. I still remember how to change a typewriter ribbon; double-clutch a car; tune the antenna on a CB radio; thread a reel-to-reel tape recorder; place a tone arm on a vinyl record without scratching it; retouch a film negative; use a cassette tape-equipped answering machine; rebuild a carburetor; use a slide-rule to calculate the volume of a room; copy a document using a “wet” photocopier; and adjust the hue, tone, and contrast on a color television set. In the meantime, I can’t for the life of me remember how to add a network connection in Windows XP without looking it up each time. All of these skills of dubious value are using up brain cells; frankly, I’m in no position to be wasting them.

Of course, my brain is also full of obsolete and irrelevant (but amazingly persistent) facts related specifically to older computers; naturally, these serve only to confuse me when I’m dealing with newer systems: Why should I be expected to recall how to insert an em dash in Microsoft Word when I still know the embedded dot-codes we used to invoke formatting in WordStar? How am I supposed to burn CDs and DVDs when I can still remember how to connect and search a Commodore 1530 tape drive? Why is it that I can remember exactly how to set an environment variable in a DOS batch file, but I have to consult a manual in order to invoke a simple Office macro?

Why should I be expected to remember how to connect my laptop’s modem, when the last real modem I used came with an acoustic coupler? And how can I be expected to remember which one of my four hard drives contains a specific application when I still vividly remember “notching” the reverse side of single-sided diskettes so that we could save data on both sides? This technique worked roughly 90% of the time, which meant that there was a one-in-10 chance that when you went to look for it, your Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet would have been reduced to random ASCII characters.

Then again, there was already a one-in-10 chance of that happening, apparently based either on your proximity to any large magnets or on the phase of the moon. Hmmm . . . so, does that mean that, considered together, there was actually a one in five chance, overall, of your spreadsheet self-destructing? Rats. I guess I’ll have to go dig out my slide rule, because I can’t remember how to use this fancy new calculator they gave me.

Talking straight doesn’t mean you have to make others defensive. People get uptight when their control is removed or when their self-esteem is under attack. When you speak up, use clear, descriptive language. Avoid words such as “always” and “never” — even if you are complimenting someone. It’s a no-brainer that it’s infuriating to say to someone, “You never say anything nice.” But think about the impact of saying to someone, “You always do a great job!” You might be implying that the person better not have a “bad day.”

If you can describe someone’s behavior — without interpreting it — you will be far more likely to address the problem without offending the person. Better to say, “You are not letting me finish” than “You don’t care what I have to say, do you?” In addition, don’t control the solution by saying something like “We must stay within our budget,” when you could share the problem by saying, “I’m worried that we are over budget. What can we do about it?”

Let’s apply this advice to an everyday situation at work. Imagine that you have been upset about an overly friendly co-worker (a “schmoozer”) who hangs around you a lot, chatting about matters that are not work related, and doesn’t give you enough privacy or time to get your work done. Sometimes you try to get rid of the schmoozer with some excuse, but he doesn’t pick up on your hints. You realize that the time has come to address the problem. How might you deal with this situation?

You might continue hinting with words like “Boy, is it 11 o’clock already?” Or you might try to gamely continue working in his presence, giving him just the slightest attention until he picks up the hint. Or, in frustration, you might try a little veiled ridicule or embarrassment with words like “Don’t you ever have work to do?” Instead, consider a more straightforward approach. Concentrate on what you are experiencing because of his schmoozing: “I have a problem. When you come to visit me, I enjoy our conversations, but I get behind in my work. It would help me if we could ‘shoot the breeze’ over lunch instead.”

It’s hard enough to speak freely about your ideas and feelings. It’s even tougher when you are asserting your needs. For example, others may want something from you and you would rather not do it (your boss wants you to undertake an assignment that is not a good use of your talents), or you want something from others that may be an imposition (assistance in completing a project).

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are. It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.

But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep movin forward. It’s about how much you can take and keep movin forward.

That’s how winning is done.

Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits and not be pointing fingers and saying ‘it’s because of him, or her, or anybody’. Cowards do that, and that ain’t you. You’re better than that.

Here is a great rule for success: Think on paper. Only about 3% of adults have clear, written goals. These people accomplish five and ten times as much as people of equal or better education and ability but who have never taken the time to write out exactly what it is they want.

There’s a powerful formula for setting and achieving goals that you can use for the rest of your life. It consists of seven simple steps. Taking any one of these steps can double or triple your productivity if you’re not currently using it. Many graduates of my training programs have increased their incomes dramatically in a matter of a few years, or even a few months, with this simple, seven-step method.

Step 1: Decide exactly what you want. It’s amazing how many people are working away, day after day, on low-value tasks because they’ve not decided what they want.

Step 2: Write it down. Think on paper. When you write down your goal, you crystallize it and give it tangible form. You create something that you can touch and see. On the other hand, a goal or objective that’s not in writing is merely a wish or fantasy. It has no energy behind it. Unwritten goals lead to confusion, vagueness, misdirection and numerous mistakes.

Step 3: Set a deadline with your goal. A goal or decision without a deadline has no urgency. It has no real beginning or end. Without a definite deadline, you’ll naturally procrastinate and get little done.

Step 4: Make a list of everything you can think of that you’re going to have to do to achieve your goal. As you think of new activities, add them to your list. Keep building your list until it is complete. A list gives you a visual picture of the larger objective. It dramatically increases the likelihood that you’ll achieve your goals as you have defined it and on schedule.

Step 5: Organize your list into a plan. Organize your list by priority and sequence. Take a few minutes to decide what you need to do first and what you can do later. Even better, lay out your plan visually, in the form of a series of boxes and circles on a sheet of paper. You’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to achieve your goal when you break it down into individual tasks. With a written goal and an organized plan of action, you’ll be far more productive than someone who’s carrying his goals in his mind.

Step 6: Take action on your plan immediately. An average plan vigorously executedis far better than a brilliant plan on which nothing is done. For you to achieve any kind of success, execution is everything.

Step 7: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal. Read a specific number of pages on a key subject. Call on a specific number of prospects or customers. Engage in a specific period of physical exercise. Learn a certain number of new words in a foreign language. Never miss a day. Keep pushing forward. Once you start moving, keep moving. Don’t stop. This decision, this discipline alone, can make you one of the most productive and successful people of your generation.

Clear written goals have a wonderful effect on your thinking. They motivate you and galvanize you into action. Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. The bigger your goals and the clearer they are, the more excited you become about achieving your goals, the greater becomes your inner drive and desire to accomplish them.

by Brian Tracy

Three researchers are beginning to get a handle on measurable and meaningful characteristics through which corporate culture manifests. Corporate policies captured by investment and financial styles and operational budgeting provide windows into a company’s culture. In their January 2007 working paper, Does Corporate Culture Matter for Firm Policies?, Henrik Cronqvist and Mattias Nilsson, assistant professors of finance at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, respectively, and Angie Low, a Ph.D. student at Ohio State University and Nanyang Technological University, suggest that when companies spin off new business units, those new corporations will inherit their parent companies’ culture. This inheritance, the authors propose, is evident in the comparison of the corporate policies of parents with their spinoffs. They looked at 217 spinoffs (excluding those forced by mergers and those owned by multiple parents) from 1980 through mid-2005 to see whether those companies’ policies more closely resembled those of their parents or their industry peers.

The authors’ findings confirmed that the apple does not fall far from the tree: The spinoffs’ policies tended to be more similar to those of their parents than to industry norms. This held true for each of the dozen policies that the researchers studied, including those in the categories of investment styles (such as preferences for growth by acquisition), financial policies (such as financial leverage, cash holdings and dividend policies) and budgeting practices (such as research and development spending and advertising budgets).

The authors also found that culture tends to be more evident in spinoffs’ policies when the parent companies are older. Additionally, the cultural resemblance between parent and spinoff lasts a long time: “Up to 10 years from the date of the spinoff, parents and spinoffs still have significant similarities,” reports Cronqvist. These findings support the notion that companies’ cultures become more ingrained and distinct over time. As a result, culture is likely to persist — and resist management efforts to change it.

Of course, culture is just one factor that could be inherited from a parent company. Other factors include written procedures, tools such as Six Sigma and even the people themselves. But, notes Cronqvist, “Some of the variables that we look at are influenced by the chief executive officer or other top executives.” In order to distinguish between culture and top managers’ individual styles, the researchers looked at whether the spinoffs in their study had new CEOs. They found that even when a spinoff ‘s CEO is relatively new to the organization, the company tended to be similar to its parent. This suggests that it is the corporate culture, not the style of the CEO, that is inherited.

Of course, corporations tend to hire CEOs that “fit” with the company’s culture, so, from that perspective, the cultural norms are self-perpetuating. Indeed, the fact that culture persists, for better or for worse, is among the researchers’ major conclusions. “Even if [senior managers] recognize there is something about firm behavior that is not the way they’d like it to be, they have to respect the fact that the shared norms, beliefs and values of different employees will take a long time to change,” says Cronqvist.

In Cronqvist’s view, the high-level policies measured in the study are symptoms of the underlying culture — the shared norms, beliefs and values of a company’s employees, as he defines culture. These policies thus are representative of the culture as a whole. “We would expect the inherited policies to apply not only to these high-level corporate policies that we study,” says Cronqvist, “but perhaps to other aspects of culture as well.” For example, if a spinoff inherits its parent’s attitudes toward mergers and acquisitions and dividends, the similarities most probably would carry over into more difficult-to-measure areas such as the formality of reporting structures or the entrepreneurial culture.

For two companies considering a merger, it’s possible that these corporate policies provide a proxy for the fit of the companies’ overall cultures — a vital hint as to the merits of the merger and the potential ease of integration. So even if corporate policies are just a part of the corporate culture — along with, say, dress codes and work hours — they might help identify that culture in a more tangible and measurable way.

To obtain more information, download the paper from here.

While some business strategies analyze the affects of change on the bottom line, change management focuses on people and how they resist, cope with, and ultimately accept change in the workplace. Executive leaders use change-management strategies to create a culture that embraces change, and often find that these strategies make the difference between the success and failure of new management processes and system implementations.

The Elephant in the Room

People resist change for many reasons. They may not understand the objectives driving the change or they may not agree with the organization’s new direction. Or, they may simply be anxious about how the changes will affect their jobs. There are three critical steps that executives must follow to implement change in the workplace.

Focus on people.

Managers who ignore potential resistance to change learn quickly how the human element can crush a project. Employees need to be part of the process, and they need to be heard. Staff will be much more likely to accept and support the new process if they know what to expect at each phase. An added benefit of this process is that staff members are able to contribute ideas drawn from their varied experience that improve planned processes, save money, and avoid potential obstacles.

Communicate strategic messages.

Once employees understand the reason for the change, managers must reinforce cooperation with timely, practical, and even inspirational messages. By including partners and the global salesforce in the design of the program, the company was able to recognize this barrier and develop a program that explained the need for adopting the new contract process. The team also created a feedback loop for ongoing input from the field. Appropriate messaging ensures that employees understand what is happening, how they will be affected by the change, and what they need to do differently.

Combine communication and training.

New company management, systems, and processes affect how people perform on the job so it makes sense to incorporate training with the change management strategy. With the contract adoption program mentioned earlier, a key element was specific training in a variety of media directed toward teams in different business units and geographic locations. The training included online self-help, e-learning, and local experts to provide group or individual assistance as needed.

Action Learning

Elham Assadi, managing partner of Sedaa Consulting in Lafayette, California, incorporates action learning into her change-management practice. Action learning creates a laboratory where staff and managers work together as they learn new processes and solve problems. Assadi applied action-learning techniques to help one of her technology clients move from a segmented, cubicle-based office space to a more inclusive, collaborative environment.

From the simulation, an office emerged that provided spaces for group projects and private meetings, as well as areas for employees to relax and brainstorm. At the end of the project, only eight of the 150 staff members wanted to return to their cubicles. The rest of the staff continued to work in the inclusive, more personal, environment.

ROI Metrics

The cost of change-management programs depends on the size of the organization, its corporate culture, geography, and other business factors. Successful learning environments budget between nine and 17 percent of their total payroll for change management and training. Initially, this may seem overwhelming, but consider the cost of a failed implementation.

Focused, organizational change management is the prescription that leads to successful programs. Executive teams must understand the organization’s needs and budget resources, and must address these as part of their plan. Include metrics in your change management plan to justify the budget. To track metrics throughout the program, executive teams need a baseline and a goal that measure what the process costs, how long it takes, what results are achieved currently, and the expectations after adoption.

There are as many approaches to change management as there are consulting firms. The key tools are simple and derive from longstanding instructional systems design. Much of this should be familiar territory. The coordination of these activities into an integrated plan that prepares and informs staff, provides ongoing support when needed, and provides clear ROI metrics at the end are what define effective change management.

Adapted from T+D November 2007

• A new idea.
• A really great new product.
• Something different from the competition.
• Something that makes real money.
• Something that is so radically different.

Some people tend to emphasize the creativity aspect of innovation; others stress the need for commercial success; yet others highlight the importance of being radical.

Innovation as a Process

Lets first think of innovation as a process. Certainly, the heart of innovation is the creative act, that spark of inspiration (or whatever it is) that triggers that fantastic new idea. Now, if you work in a university, for example, that could well be enough -– you can think about the idea for a while, discuss it with colleagues, speak about it at conferences, write some journal articles, maybe even write a book.

But in a commercial or organizational context, having a great idea just is not enough. Something has to happen to that idea –- others have to be persuaded of its relevance; perhaps money has to be spent trying it out, maybe building some models, or testing a prototype; if the new idea is a new product, then perhaps some new manufacturing plant has to be built, and there will certainly have to be some sort of marketing campaign around the product launch. Bringing a new idea to full fruition, so that something real actually happens, requires much more work than just having the idea in the first place.

In the commercial world, innovation is a process which starts with an idea, and results in something real actually having happened, such as the launch of a new product or the implementation of a new process.

Innovation in business is a sequence of four stages:

1. Idea generation – in which the initial ideas are created.
2. Evaluation – in which a decision is taken as to which ideas to progress, and which to discard, at least for the present.
3. Development – in which an idea is made fully fit-for-purpose.
4. Implementation – in which the idea is brought to full fruition.

Domains of Application

Most people think of innovation in the context of a better mousetrap -– a new product or service that outstrips all its predecessors.

Innovation is the whole of this space: the four-stage process, plus the application domains. So, if you want to be better at innovation, and to manage innovation as an organizational competence, then all of these aspects need to be encompassed. Since the process stages underpin all the applications, let me describe each of these four stages more fully.

The application of innovation to the creation of new products and services is shown in the top right-hand segment, but, following the diagram around, innovation also applies to:

• processes – as exemplified by the best examples of business process re-engineering
• structures – in terms of new forms of organization
• relationships – for example, new forms of external relationships with customers or suppliers, or new forms of internal relationships within your own organization
• strategy – in the form of not only new innovative strategies, but also as regards the process of strategy formulation
• you! – for maybe the most fundamental form of innovation is the acceptance, within my mind – or indeed your mind – that maybe there really is a better idea out there!

Managing these is complex and difficult, but it can be done! This will give you great insights into the tools and techniques of deliberate and systematic idea generation, and into the cultural requirements for success overall, but especially in evaluation, development, and implementation. As a starting point, you might like to ask these questions of your organization.

It’s true that this kind of shortsightedness may temporarily fool the stock market by giving the appearance of improved prospects. However, in their study, firms that appeared to make short-term expense adjustments to inflate earnings when they issued equity ended up losing profits in the long run, causing their market value to drop by more than 20% four years out.

Because the amount of capital collected by a firm depends on the stock price on the day the equity is issued, managers have an acute interest in that price and may be tempted to give it a quick boost by inflating earnings through cost cutting. After all, investors rely on current earnings measures when they form their expectations of future performance and, therefore, when they value equity.

Even though market participants realize that all companies have incentives to inflate earnings to increase their SEO proceeds, they cannot tell with certainty which ones are actually doing so. As a result, they tend to give less credence to all earnings reported at these times. But only after expense cuts result in inferior profits for individual companies do the consequences materialize in lower stock prices.

If the financial markets properly valued the management strategies implemented in the year a firm issued an SEO, that company’s share price would not be adjusted (either up or down) in subsequent years. This was essentially the case for firms in the nonmyopic portfolio -– the ones that didn’t simultaneously report a spike in profits and a dip in SG&A expenditures.

For those companies, abnormal stock returns were consistently level in the years following the SEO. That was not true, though, for the potentially myopic portfolio. This group initially fooled the market, realizing an average positive abnormal stock return of 15.7% the year an SEO was issued. The next year, however, cumulative returns dropped, and they continued to decline. By the fourth year after their SEOs, the group of potentially myopic companies had abysmally abnormal returns of –22.3%.

It’s clear that managing for the short term comes at the expense of firms’ long-term value. But what can be done to limit this type of behavior?

One reason that managers engage in myopic management is that they are evaluated on current financial performance. Often, managers are rewarded for the gains but not penalized for the losses, or they are able to move on before negative consequences transpire.

Companies can reduce incentives for myopic behavior by increasing vesting periods and delaying payoffs to departing executives. Firms should also look beyond their current earnings and share prices when setting performance evaluation standards. Consideration should be given to a variety of factors, both financial and nonfinancial.

The nonfinancial ones need to reflect strategies with long-term value implications. Long-term performance measures will motivate executives to manage with an eye to the future.