Zappos, for example, created its 10 core values as the foundation for the entire company – their culture, their self-image, the benchmark against which each employee is measured.   Values become the collective morale compass for a business.  But its important that they are not owned nor defined by the marketing department.. the goal here should be to define how you and everyone behaves.   They are, after all, what you “value”.

The same is true for you personally.  What do you believe?  What do you represent?  Like I mentioned in my “You are what you do” post, you are not what you “say you are” – you are the sum of your actions.. but also of your beliefs.

Guilt is one of the most powerful emotional responses and occurs when you violate your personal values.  Set the bar low, and you won’t feel guilty.  But you won’t get far in life and you will undoubtedly run into trouble down the road if you do.  Creating a set of values in which you truly believe and are bound to live up to is what forms your character.  And character is the essence of who you are – the morale compass.

I recently came across The Farmer’s Creed.  It was first published in 1915 and was traced back to a farmer named Frank Mann. These days – character, values and purpose seem to be more about your Facebook or Twitter profile and less about what you stand for and so I thought it is pretty powerful, perhaps even more so now.

THE FARMER’S CREED

I believe a man’s greatest possession is his dignity and that no calling bestows this more abundantly than farming.

I believe hard work and honest sweat are the building blocks of a person’s character.

I believe that farmers, despite its hardships and disappointments is the most honest and honorable way a man can spend his days on earth.

I believe my children are learning values that will last a lifetime and can be earned no other way.

I believe farming provides education for life and that no other occupation teaches so much about birth, growth and maturity in such a variety of ways.

I believe many of the best things in life are indeed free: the splendor of a sunrise, the rapture of wide open spaces, and the exhilarating sight of your land greening each spring.

I believe true happiness comes in watching your crops ripen in the filed, your children grow tall in the sun, and your whole family feel the pride that springs from their shared experience.

I believe that by my toil I am giving more to the world than I am taking from it, an honor that does not come to all men.

I believe my life will be measured ultimately by what I have done for my fellow man, and by this standard I fear no judgment.

I believe when a man grows old and sums up his days, he should be able to stand tall and feel pride in the life he’s lived.

I believe in farming because it makes all this possible.

You may not be a farmer, I’m not either — but I appreciate the resonance of pride in your work, a long-term view-point, hard work, giving back to society, and above all else – character.  Perhaps we all need to our own creed –  bankers, marketers, salesman, entrepreneurs, engineers, and so on.   To be able to “stand tall and feel pride in the life” you’ve lived – who wouldn’t want that?

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A likes B too much and B leaves. C and D like each other and think no one knows, they do. C and E like each other and gang up against F. I leaves when G is promoted. H is great at their job which makes J and K jealous. No one likes L. M is letting their team down and causing resentment. N watches, always watches. O hates P and everyone knows, including P. Q is ambitious and “deserves more”. R is too good to listen to anyone. S is exceptional, S is loved by everyone, S is fantastic, S loves their job, S resigns. T is for trying. U thinks they are a god, they are not. V takes chances, gets things done and never asks for anything. W works hard but always fails, everyone loves W. X works hard and is quiet, reliable, loyal, dedicated and great at their job, everyone forgets about X. Y always needs to be first, Z just is.

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Journaling

These are not necessarily “dear diary” moments, but they can be.  The main point is that it provides an opportunity to let rip.  To get all those thoughts out of your head – both negative and positive.  It provides an opportunity for self-reflection and personal growth.  It has been proven to reduce stress.  It helps with problem solving – sometimes when you write the problem out, you start to see the solutions that may have otherwise been blocked.  Its said to enhance intuition in that you can start to better understand how you handle particular types of problems or recognize trends in events or relationships.  And the list of benefits go on and on.

Psychologists, counselors, life coaches and other personal development professionals have been recommending journaling for decades (also sometimes known as “Journalysis“).

So what does this have to do with business or better management?

Applying this technique to business and in particular to managers in your business can have a great impact. Some have called this approach “management by reporting” but I think that phrase can be misunderstood or possibly implemented incorrectly.  The KPI’s that you may normally include in a “report” are important, but the narrative is just as important in my opinion.

Here’s how I use it:

• Each direct report / manager sends me a weekly report.  This can be on a Friday or a Monday – it is their choice but once chosen, that day needs to be adhered to.
• During the week, they should record their achievements, events, progress, issues etc.  (this is phase one of their journaling)
• On their report day, they write a report and send it by email.  It has the following structure:

1. KPI’s ( if applicable )
2. What they achieved, progressed, etc that week, summarizing from their journal (I don’t really want to or need to know the details – this is phase two of their journaling).
3. What they plan to achieve, progress, etc the following week.
4. Any issues that need addressing with me.

It takes a while for people to get used to this approach, but once they do – they find it quite cathartic.  Again, it’s important to place an emphasis on the narrative.  The process of writing out what issues they dealt with, what progress that they achieved, and what problems that occurred in summary form allows them to take stock of their week and plan for the coming week in a more effective way.

This approach gains many of the same benefits of journaling for personal development – reduces stress, self-analysis, awareness of weaknesses and strengths, identify patterns, etc.  I find the reports useful – but they are really for them and it is rare that they don’t see their immense benefit.

This is a simple, yet effective technique that I have found incredibly useful.. perhaps you will too.

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• Recently, Evernote announced that their latest round of funding was not an exit strategy for its founders but a foundation for building a “100 year company”
• I read Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh that describes how Zappos was built and their philosophy to business.
• I’ve been revisiting Good to Great  and Built to Last by Jim Collins
• We’ve reenergized our own focus on culture and values at my company with great effect

Normally, my business planning horizon is 6 months, 12 months, 2 years and 5 years.  I have a solid plan for the next 6 months and 12 months and then have a vision and top line goals for 2 years and 5 years out.  I’ve always worked this way.  It allows me to stay agile in the short term but set course for what I have always considered to be a long-term horizon.

But recently I have had this paradigm shift and I’m not sure if it was serendipity or confirmation bias.. but it seems evident that for a business to stand the test of time it has to rise above the products and services that it offers now and look for what makes it different regardless of what it sells.

For Tony Hsieh and Zappos it was Customer Service / Experience.  They sell shoes, but they seem themselves as a company that provides unrivaled levels of customer service.. the shoes are just the way to make that happen.

For Steve Jobs and Apple it is about innovation and design – Apple could sell cars and you know that they would be beautiful and amazing (and expensive), but Apple is no longer just a computer company.

Its hard to have a long-term product strategy if you are in an industry that changes quickly and continuously such as anything in Tech.  If you don’t innovate and reinvent yourself you will simply fall by the wayside.  IBM has done it (reinvented themselves).  Google are trying to do it.  Microsoft needs to start doing it.  You can plan your product lifecycles in the short and possibly medium-term but anything more than five years out becomes more challenging in any but the most static of industries.

So in order to plan long-term as a business you need to rise above your products and services. The products you sell or the services you offer today won’t be the same in 50, 60 or 70 years from now, so what does your business stand for in the long-term?  Is it your company culture and value-driven business approach?  Is it your innovation?  Your total focus to the customer experience?  This is such a great mental exercise - think about how you can differentiate your business today in a way that is detached from what you actually sell but will stand the test of the time.

Start asking yourself how your business can become a 100-year company – the result will likely be a stronger business in the short-term too.

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Think about your small-medium business as a viking ship.

These amazing crafts were fast, nimble and could travel great distances to deliver the viking “brand”.  They were capable in deep water but were particularly effective in shallow water – places larger ships could not venture (think lean economic times and niche).

The leader (CEO/MD) would steer the ship, navigate the waters, and perhaps beat the drum for motivation.

Unlike other ships with oarsman in the past, the crew were not slaves – they were warriors.  They were all part of the clan.  They were more or less equals.  They drank when they were thirsty, ate when they were hungry and rested when they were tired (they never got tired).

And just like it should be in a small business, the viking ship had no passengers.  Everyone rows.

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If you wanted to describe it to someone, you would say – “it’s like Facebook, but from Google”.  And that it seems is what the vast majority of blogs, tweets, articles and other reviews have been saying.  Everyone is comparing Google+ to the power house that is Facebook.

If you look at how similar the screens are you can understand why (source TechCrunch).

Google+ has some nice tweaks of course – circles seems like a fantastic way to deal with the issue with different groups/personas and the interface is crisp.

But Google+ will not kill Facebook; sorry Google, but it won’t.   Facebook is not just a website, it is a habit and a lifestyle for millions of people.  In order for someone to leave Facebook and move to Google+, all of their friends would need to move en mass and this is simply going to happen.   To compete with Google, Facebook simply needs to match Google’s functionality and that is not going to be hard to be honest.

The company (and their $4.5B valuation) that should be nervous is LinkedIn.  This social networking site targets business users most of who live in the online world that Google dominates.  These users (less than 100 million) are familiar with Google and its peripheral products.  LinkedIn does not have the brand loyalty or user “lock in” that Facebook commands.  Google and Google+ could easily satisfy LinkedIn’s purpose.. and they could do it well.

LinkedIn’s main benefits includes:

• Networking within industry and professional groups
• Prospecting
• Job hunting and recruiting

I would use Google+ to achieve the above, but I would not leave Facebook.

I have watched this past week with fascination.  It seems that everyone (perhaps including Google) is looking in the wrong direction.  They should knock out LinkedIn – build their user base and then, just then – they may have a real chance to challenge Facebook.

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In a book called The Facebook Effect, Mark Zuckerburg is quoted as saying the following.

“You have one identity, the days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.”

A lot of people have dismissed Zuckerburg’s comments as “crazy” and without merit.  Primarily because our psychology allows for us to change identity and persona based on situations (research Jung, Goffman and others for more information).

But that is true in the real world.  Online and on social networking sites like Facebook – especially on Facebook – there is only room for the one self, the single identity.  You can’t befriend your work colleagues and show them a different side of you than your high school friends and vice versa.  Not on Facebook.   And so you either cultivate a persona that becomes incongruous to one group or the other, or both.. or you show your true self.

Having integrity – being true to yourself – does not mean you can’t be the wild and crazy guy to your group of high school friends and at the same time be the serious and total professional to your co-workers.  It is about being consistent.  You must represent yourself honestly.

Think about who and what you represent.  Not just your “personal brand”, but also the other “tribes” / groups that you stand for.

When you go to work for a company, you represent them in far more ways than used to be the case.  Your employer is typically listed on your social profile.  You will probably befriend some of your co-workers.  People – friends and strangers – will associate you with that company.  When you go to work for a company, you agree (implicitly) to become an ambassador for that company.  How you represent yourself online will in many ways be a reflection on your employer and your professional persona.   For example, if you complain about your employer or your workload or your customers on Facebook – then to me, this says more about you than it does about them.

If you are a business owner or manager, you need to also think about who you want to represent you.  It works both ways.  The people you hire are an extension of your company.  Don’t hire anyone who you think will not represent you well.

So employees – start thinking about who you represent when using social media you have a responsibility to both your personal brand and your employer’s brand.  And employers – its time to start thinking about how candidates will represent you when you start to narrow down your selection criteria.

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Customer vs Client – what is the difference?

Both customers and clients spend money with you – but the simple difference is that clients buy services and customers buy products – right?

Well that used to be the case at least.

Back in the mid to late eighties, there was a push to use the term “clients” more.  This was because clients were seen as people you had an on-going relationship with such as those who buy from accountants, lawyers or even hair dressers.  All the management “gurus” of the day pushed companies large and small to start thinking about their customers as clients.  Create relationships.  Consultative Selling. Etc.

Today, the opposite is true I think.  A “customer” is no longer seen as being more short term than a “client”.  A service company can have  “customers” just as easily as it can “clients”.  Mainstream business terminology such as “customer relationship management” (CRM), “customer experience management” and the like have contributed to this shift.

Customer or client – one term is not better than the other.  It comes down to the type of business you are and the type of business you want to be.

Which did we choose – customer or client – and why?

When we went through our web site copy, sales literature and other documentation, we found customer and client being used interchangeably.  I guess because it didn’t matter.  But I think you should be consistent in your language and by intentionally selecting one over the other, we are making a statement about the type of company we are and the type of relationship we have with our.. customers.

If customers buy products and clients buy services, then I would want to use customer every time.   Most service companies should consider “productizing” their services anyway and so perhaps changing your vocabulary will help change your mindset.  I know it has helped me.

To me, clients want a unique, tailored service every time. But in reality, they don’t need a unique service, they just need to feel special and have their perceived “unique” needs met.  Delivering a custom solution to each client is expensive and fraught with problems.  Working to create a systemized (a la The E-Myth) and productized (a la Built to Sell) business should be most of our goals as business owners.. and if that is the case, we should want to sell to and serve customers.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t give them exceptional levels of service – of course you can.  That should be the focus of your “customer experience management” program/process.

But we need to move away from thinking that a “client” is someone we treat well and a customer is a faceless order number in your accounts receivable.

So we chose Customer and are going through the difficult process of lexicon replacement therapy.  I hope you will consider which term you prefer too.

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3. The problem with recruitment agents

Other than getting five cold calls per day from different recruiters – which can be annoying, it is their pricing model that fills me with such disdain.

Here’s why:

Fifteen/twenty years ago, recruitment agents worked for their money. They advertised for positions, collected and sorted cvs/resumes, and actually spoke with – mostly interviewing – the candidates before putting them forward to their clients. They had to advertise in expensive industry magazines such as Computing, Computer Weekly, Advertising Age, etc. The fees they charged could be justified because of the investment of time and money that they put into recruiting staff for their clients.

During the dot-com boom, everything accelerated. Their was a supply and demand issue and clients (myself included) could not get enough cvs/resumes to maintain staffing levels – let alone grow. There was no time for the recruitment agencies to fully interview as the candidate would be gone. We were at or near full employment during that time – both here in the UK and in the States.

The standard of service that recruitment agents offered dropped considerably during this time.. but the fees they charged did not. There wasn’t a lot of choice for the customer – we needed staff. And so we let them do it.

Furthermore, during this period, online recruitment sites / job boards such as Monster.com emerged. It meant that recruitment agents could advertise more cheaply and actually search for candidates with certain skills in a cv/resume database. Admittedly this was at a cost to them, but any cost savings compared with print/display advertising were never passed on to the client.

We are now in a different market once again. Depending on the industry, there are plenty of people looking for work. We are not in the dot com boom, we are in recession. Recruitment agencies rarely actually take out expensive print advertising. They use online resources almost exclusively now (all using the same ones). They might speak with a candidate before putting them forward – but they certainly do not interview them.

Despite all this, the billing model for agents hasn’t changed. They still expect anywhere from 20%-25% of the new hires salary (I have never really understood the logic why you should pay a higher percentage of a higher salary). But this is what bugs me about this industry – they have reduced their costs dramatically and are putting in decreasing levels of effort yet expect a premium price. I can’t think of any other industry where this has occurred.

So let me give you some advice. Stop paying the premium rate! Every recruiter will cut their fee – because they know that they will still make healthy margins at half the rate. They only ask for the higher rate because they always have. I have never come across a company that won’t do this – and you know, if they won’t – there’s another twenty recruiters who will be happy to take their place. So it is down to us – the customer to change this behaviour.. at least until the next boom and the feeding frenzy resumes.

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I see this a lot.  Sometimes people (employees) want to get lost in their work so that they don’t have to do the the stuff they like less or they may find less enjoyable.  They like to do the “busy work”.  The tasks that need doing – sometimes important, sometimes not – but it is rarely the work that would make the difference to the business or their customers.  Filling out paperwork despite a long queue of customers.  Taking inventory.  Meetings.  Reports.  Unnecessary appointments.

The nature of what may constitute “busy work” is different for every business, but it exists in every one.

Busy work usually exists in organisations where there is a lot of bureaucracy or, more importantly, when employees are not empowered to or measured on making the right decisions.  In other words, there is a lack of attention on being effective.  An effective employee is able to prioritise jobs/tasks that are required at the time they are needed.

An effective employee will stop the paper pushing and help his/her colleague reduce the queue of customers.. and then return to the work that they were doing.

An effective employee is able to excuse themselves from or postpone meetings or appointments when other, more important tasks are required.

An effective employee is concerned with results and not just activity for activity sake.

My recommendations on how you can become more effective or get your staff to become more effective are:

1. Empowerment.  Every employee must know that they are responsible and accountable for their day.

2. Responsibilities / roles.  Every employee must understand their purpose and the goals of their job.  Ensure that they take responsibility for their job.

3. Measurement on Results.  Goals, KPI’s, Report Cards, etc – ensure that the primary focus is on results and not necessarily activities.

4. Recognise.  Reward or recognise the behavious that your are trying to encourage – decision making, effectiveness, etc.

Being highly effective is a matter of getting the right things done at the right time.  It is a skill that can be learned and nurtured – but you need to create the right environment for it.

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