A Practical Joke

It Could Be Worse

What Will the Return of Steve Jobs Mean for Apple?

In some ways, Steve Jobs hearkened back to the ’80s and ’90s, when corporations were run by celebrity CEOs like Lee Iacocca and Steve Jobs. However, it stands to reason that when your CEO is a household name and something happens to his health, there is bound to be an impact in the markets. It seems that Apple is learning that lesson and trying to adapt to the challenge. While it’s nice to have a public face to your company, you’re also subject to the public’s fickle tastes.

Friday Clean-Up

Here’s a bunch of interesting articles that I didn’t have time to get to this week:

Nestle’s grand opening is sweet for Anderson. In the current economy, this is good news for a city hit hard by plant closings.

Cops’ personal data plundered. This may not seem like a big deal, until you get to the middle of the article and learn that Google and Yahoo house backup servers at this site.

Why Are Employees Wasting Time? It’s interesting to see that some people still seem to have an entitlement attitude towards their job, even in this economy.

These last several links are from Seth’s Blog. I would highly recommend reading Seth Godin’s work. He mostly writes about marketing and has published several books on just that subject, but many of his topics apply to more than marketing. I think he would be a must-read for any entrepreneur or manager. Most of what he says is common sense, but maybe we just need a reminder these days.

The panhandler’s secret – an awesome story

Personal branding in the age of Google – “Everything you do now [on the internet] ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.”

Looking for yes – Is it more productive in business to be obstructive or cooperative?

The two elements of a great presenter – “Respect (from the audience), love (to the audience)”

Direct from consumer marketing – “Drug companies have coined an acronym for the marketing they do that bypasses doctors: DTC. Direct to consumer… What they are totally unprepared for, and what your organization may be unprepared for is Direct from consumer. If someone takes your medicine and gets sick, do you want to hear from them, or would you rather have them blog about it or make a video?”

Enjoy, and have a good weekend!

Motivating Your Team to Take Ownership

A lot of leaders are control freaks. Sometimes, it’s with good reason. After all, the buck stops with the leader, and if somebody screws up something, who’s job is really on the line?

On the other hand, a lot of followers don’t step up to take responsibility on their own. Maybe they’re afraid of being in the firing line. Maybe they are comfortable enough with what they’re doing.

It requires give and take from both sides to allow employees a chance for growth while not simply handing out growth opportunities to those with the most seniority but the least drive.

Many people on your team would love to be the person asked to step up. They just don’t get a chance. We don’t hand over enough responsibility. We believe we are the only ones who can do it. And yet, if we could let go of that belief, we would discover so many great people who would love to take ownership.

I wish I had a nickel for every up-and-coming leader who has told me that he simply can’t get away from his business. He doesn’t have anyone who can run things while he takes on the roles that only he should be doing. That might be a greater communications role, spending more time with clients, prospects, business partners, speaking at conferences, or doing media interviews. They stay in their businesses, instead of getting out there, because they believe there is no one on the team who can take over.

The reason I am skeptical because I’ve seen it happen when push comes to shove–motivated employees step up and deliver. When there is a crisis, and you really have to count on people (and you’ve hired and trained them well) they get it done. Motivating your team to take ownership starts with you; it’s a matter of letting go. Yes you have to prepare them. You have to tell them you believe in them. And then you have to let them fly.

People are motivated when they know you have confidence in them to do the job their way. They are motivated because they understand what’s on the line, and they are glad to have a chance to prove themselves.

Try it. Start by believing your way isn’t the only way. Give someone a chance. You won’t believe how motivated people can be, when you give them the opportunity to show you.

New CEOs: Why So Many Fail

This is kind of a continuation about the apprenticeship stuff I was talking about earlier. A lot of people come to school with big dreams of becoming a CEO one day, but how does one get meaningful on-the-job training for that?

“One … study found that almost half of US companies with more than $500 million dollars of annual revenue had no meaningful succession plan,” says Charan. And when CEOs fail? ”The direct and indirect costs of this to both individual companies and the economy as a whole are simply enormous.”

Charan says any board or company that fails to put in place a decent succession plan is ignoring one of their most important responsibilities. At minimum, the board should ensure that at least two sessions a year are devoted to reviewing a minium of five potential candidates – both internal and external.

He also observes, in my view very importantly, that in preparing executives for the next big job, a classroom is not a management development program. Executives need real experience. ”Management training develops awareness, provides tools and resources, and helps people develop strong professional networks, but the real learning occurs on the job.”

So, the next time you see a CEO bail out with a $45 million parachute, just remember that it is probably a training issue.

Six-Year-Old News Story Causes United Airlines Stock to Plummet

You might have heard about this story yesterday, but it’s a testimony to how effectively news travels on the internet, how such internet-distributed news affects decision making, and how far-reaching internet archives are.

A worker at a Miami investment advisory firm called Income Securities Advisors, which publishes news alerts that get distributed through the Bloomberg News Service, did a Google search on bankruptcies this morning and got back search results that included a six-year-old story published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel about the 2002 bankruptcy filing by United Airlines.

The employee mistook the news for a current story — despite the date clearly marked on it (see update below) and other information in the article “that would clearly lead a reader to the conclusion that it was related to events in 2002″ — and included it in a subscription newsletter that was distributed through Bloomberg.

Panic ensued, as they say, and United Airlines stock price plummeted 75 percent (down from $12.30 to $3 a share) before someone realized it was an old news story and things righted themselves. The stock rebounded to $10.92 a share by Monday’s closing. But not before United Airlines contacted the Sun Sentinel and demanded the newspaper retract its (6-year-old) story.

It’s said that the internet is here to document our mistakes forever. While I doubt the length of time that the intenet is able to do so, it’s a valid point that sensitive news stories ought to be housed somewhere that is date-stamped properly and where aggregators and the like have no access to them.

A Cure for Futility

Scientific management theory is the analysis of processes in order to improve productivity. So, to that end, does God also subscribe to this theory?

I once heard interviews with survivors from World War II. The soldiers recalled how they spent a particular day. One sat in a foxhole; once or twice, a German tank drove by and he shot at it. Others played cards and frittered away the time. A few got involved in furious firefights. Mostly, the day passed like any other. Later, they learned they had just participated in one of the largest, most decisive engagements of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. It didn’t feel decisive at the time because none had the big picture.

Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks.

Perhaps you sense you’re in a spiritual rut. Stay at your assigned task! Obedience to God—and only obedience—offers the way out of our futility.

So, is the body of Christ simply one big spiritual workflow? In the context of this devotion, it sure seems that it is. But God also must subscribe to the human relations theory of management, because He is also concerned with our needs and meeting those needs (1 Peter 5:7–”Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

How NOT to Witness Through Your Business

In previous posts, I’ve discussed how Chick-Fil-A and other businesses use their Christian faith to draw in customers. After all, a good testimony as a trusted servant is a good reputation to have in business.

However, here are four different accounts about how a car dealership in California advertised on the radio to non-Christians: they told non-Christians to “sit down and shut up.”

Lessons of the Fall

One of the aspects that we haven’t discussed as much in class are the functional reasons for communication. In this article from Fortune magazine, the former CEOs of JetBlue, Starbucks, and Motorola explain how the lack of communication was instrumental to them becoming unemployed.

David Neeleman (formerly of JetBlue Airlines): I didn’t have time to update the board on everything. If you don’t, somebody else will. You have to be able to give them an accurate picture of what’s going on, or they develop their own perceptions and start creating their own stories. And then they make their decisions. How do you keep these people up to date and give them the whole picture? That’s the job of the CEO, and I failed.

Jim Donald (formerly of Starbucks): I made it a habit of every other week updating the board through an e-mail on revenue, any store openings, any issues around the world.

Neeleman: When things start going south, communication should increase. Even if you think you’re doing enough, you’re not doing enough. I didn’t do a good enough job because [board members] developed their own perceptions of where things were headed.

It’s an interesting read, both from a communications perspective and from a management perspective.