As You Thinketh

"Only the wise man, only he whose thoughts are controlled and purified, makes the winds and the storms of the soul obey him."

--James Allen (1864-1912)

As a Man Thinketh is one of my favorite books to pull from the shelf and read again. The author is James Allen, a British philosophical writer first published in 1903. Thinketh is an example of how a small book (52 pages) can yield great understanding. 

The essay is a reminder of how leadership development courses could improve their outcomes by focusing some time and attention on the direction of thought.  That's because most organizations come up short in teaching the importance of a sound mind when managing the complexities of corporate life.      

It's hard to draw just a few insights when Allen's writing is manifestly insightful. This means we will return to this book of renewal in future posts. For now, here is wisdom worth pondering in a hurried, distracted, and often unfulfilling world:

1. The book's premise is to stimulate men and women to discover and perceive the truth that "They are makers of themselves." 

By the thoughts they choose and encourage the mind is a master weaver, both the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance. If you've been weaving in ignorance and pain, you may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.

2. A person is literally what they think--their character being the complete sum of all thoughts.

3. A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts.

4. We make or unmake ourselves; in the armory of thought, we forge the weapons by which we destroy ourselves.

5. The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears.

6. Men and women do not attract what they want, but what they are.

7. Individuals are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves; they, therefore, remain bound.

Source:  As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen.

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(C) Bredholt & Co.

Don't Forget the Why

"Why" is one of the great questions of all time. 

When we're young, it's often a response to being told to do something--it's time to brush your teeth, do your homework, or don't stay out too late.   

Asking parents for an explanation may or may not get you anywhere. That's a shame because these exchanges can potentially be teachable moments for children and adults.   

Conditioned behavior begins at an early age. For example, not getting answers to simple questions causes curiosity to go away.

That's unfortunate.  

Asking "why" inside corporate cultures can sometimes be a career decision. Employees are often hesitant to seek explanations or clarifications even though their performance depends on clear expectations of a given task. 

What has been learned through poor hiring decisions, business closures, accidents, and loss of life, such as the shuttle Challenger explosion (30th anniversary was 28 January 2016), is that failing to ask the right questions, before not after the fact, is the more significant problem.

In the book The Machine that Changed the World, we hear about Toyota's technique of asking up to "five whys" when something breaks down on the assembly line. Is that approach applicable to the executive suite?

Leaders attempting to introduce change into a business often start with "what" is supposed to happen, not "why." Unfortunately, that approach delays the ability to successfully implement the change, whatever it is. Instead, employees need to know why the latest great idea is being introduced or the corporate system, which they run day-to-day, is being restructured (many times without their input).   

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(C) Bredholt & Co.

 

Is It a Fad or a Trend?

"Trends that can't continue won't."

 —Dr. Herbert Stein, Nobel Laureate

Are you old enough to remember when the marketplace went crazy with people buying lava lamps? 

That was more than 50 years ago, in 1963, when a British accountant, Edward Craven-Walker, invented the lamp. He was watching a homemade egg-timer crafted from a cocktail shaker filled with "alien-looking liquids" bubbling on a hot stove.    

Why did so many people go out and buy the counter-cultural lava lamps? (Or CB radios, bellbottom pants?)

Today, they're selling more lamps than pants.

According to Smithsonian.com, U.S.-based Lava-Lite supplies millions of units annually to retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Recent fad lists might include the Atkins low-carb diet and PDAs (personal digital assistants). 

Is the current political climate and direction of the presidential race in the Republican party a fad or a trend?  

A theory of fads

Since economists tend to view purchases through an analytical lens, it's confounding to those with more structured minds why consumers make such irrational choices.  

One theory of fads suggests that we often imitate others' actions when making choices with limited information about what's best. That type of behavior leads to chain reactions — cascades — of imitation. (Welch/Bikhchandani, UCLA, and Hirshleifer, Michigan)

Go ahead and criticize conformity, but the study concludes it's almost a law of nature.

Does that help explain fad-chasing in business (best practices—overestimated) and misinterpreting specific trends (social media—underestimated)? 

For all the attention given to innovation, top management is still a creature of habit, looking for a sure thing. Take the motion picture industry's practice of producing sequels to box office hits such as Star Wars. That's one example of looking for new profits inside old ideas.

Differences between fads and trends

How can we tell if fresh food is a fad or a trend? Is cable cord-cutting a fad or trend? Walt Disney Co. recently stated that ESPN lost 7 million households over the past 2 years, though 92 million subscribers remain tied to the highly profitable cable channel. 

Here are the results from an EPM Fad Study by Karen Raugust. The characteristic is underlined, followed by a description of a fad or trend:

The underlying reason for the rise

Fad:  None discernible

Trend:  Identifiable and explainable

Life Space

Fad:  Short; typically less than two years

Trend:  Indefinite

Period of build-up

Fad:  Fast rise; typically 6-12 months

Trend:  Slow rise; difficult to pinpoint beginning and end due to evolutionary nature

Scope

Fad:  Usually, one product, property, or theme

Trend:  Several across society

Aftermath

Fad:  Usually disappears or declines steeply, typically after two years

Trend: May fall below the peak, but remain meaningfully present.

Precursor

Fad:  Disconnected from historical precedents

Trend:  Evolves from historical precedents

Impact

Fad:  Has little impact on developments that follow

Trend:  Affects developments that follow

Lifecycles

What's on your company's shelves? Do the offerings include fads, trends, and mature or declining products?  

Whatever's available for public consumption, decision-makers can only hope for at least one lava lamp-like product. The 60s icon began as a fad and has sustained itself through irrational consumer behavior for over half a century.    

Apple reported earlier this year that it has sold 700 million iPhones since launching Steve Jobs's product in 2007. Notwithstanding that fact, what are the chances the iPhone will last as long as escalators, tea bags, and instant coffee, all of which are more than 100 years old?

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© Bredholt & Co.

Two Questions for Leadership

"Although our intellect longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating."

--Carl von Clausewitz

With the year winding down and a new calendar waiting to take place, this might be an excellent time to consider improving your internal communication as preparation for a promising 2016.  

Leadership tends to be clearer among itself than with employees when it comes to communicating priorities and goals and how everyone can work together to achieve those ends. 

Defining purpose (why this business?) should be at the heart of what a CEO wants corporate constituencies to know. But unfortunately, strategy formulation is superficial and imitative without a more profound understanding of why the organization exists.

So what's the problem?

Most people are not mind readers, and guess what a leader or supervisor thinks is a frustrating experience. So what can be done to fill workplace vacuums? 

The power of focus

Here are two straightforward questions to consider asking when attempting to be clear in a cluttered world:

Question No. 1:  What is it you're trying to accomplish?

That may sound like a simple question, but it's difficult to answer. 

A leader knows (or should know) what's in their head but often can't get it out in a way that makes sense to those charged with implementation. It takes lots of practice to be plain-spoken, using candid feedback to improve our thoughts and close information loops.   

If communicating purpose, context, process, and results (a narrative, if you will) are that important to the future of the enterprise, then spending time honing an understandable message is worth the effort.

Without condescending, a leader must explain how the total picture comes together. What needs doing? By when? By whom? What will be the sources of funding? 

The painting of that picture is complex, so few accomplish what they set out to do through others.

Question No. 2: What are you doing to get in your own way?

Instead of rounding up the usual suspects such as attitudes, culture, systems, policies, and procedures, have you ever thought about taking, when appropriate, some responsibility for poor execution?   

All of us are susceptible to "blind spots," such as failing to show appreciation, not sharing credit, and inappropriate emotional responses. Unfortunately, these behavior patterns can get in the way and undermine trust in working relationships.  

Writing about this topic, the late David Viscott, M.D., an American psychiatrist, author, and businessman, said:  "You must sometimes endure a life of pain before you are ready to admit what everyone else can plainly see."  

Those who sign off on hiring decisions, plans, and budgets, can improve those processes by asking the right questions, at the right time, of the right people. Without being pessimistic, probing from a C-suite perspective is the first line of defense in ensuring congruency among business units toward a common goal. 

Failing to show up when it's your turn to engage in the process is one example of getting in your own way.

Are you sometimes the problem? 

It may be hard to get a straight answer to that question from those who serve at your pleasure. However, leaders and experienced leaders are most likely to give permission to subordinates to critique the boss's ideas or offer their own. 

Making candid conversations a safe habit improves everyone's performance, which positively influences outcomes.

One more thing

Too much clarity can be as big a problem as too little. Being highly prescriptive with direct reports is a way to lessen individual initiative, creativity, and responsibility. 

Someone has to pay attention to details. However, micromanaging is a prime example of how to remove initiative. Is there anything less motivating than trying to carry out someone else's plan with most of the details filled in?

How to manage the creative tension between clarity and uncertainty? Add that to your wish list for the holidays. 

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(C) Bredholt & Co.

   

  

   

Millennials and More

"Demography is destiny."

--Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg

What do we really know about millennials, the demographic label which refers to a generation of young adults between 18-34?

First, it's a heavily populated cohort. A news release posted online by the U.S. Census Bureau in June 2015 shows that a portion of the population born between 1982 and 2000 now numbers 83.1 million and represents more than one-quarter of the nation's population. Their size exceeds that of the 76 million baby boomers.

According to the release, millennials are more diverse than the generations that preceded them, with 44.2% being part of a minority race or ethnic group (that is, a group other than non-Hispanic, single-race white). In addition, the youngest Americans are even more diverse than millennials, those more youthful than five years old. In 2014, this group became majority-minority for the first time, with 50.2% being part of a minority race or ethnic group.

The myths

While millennials, the children of baby boomers, may be among the most studied demographic in the nation's history, it's important not to generalize too much and think their behaviors and lifestyles are set for good. Like previous generations, they have unique characteristics (such as taking pets with them to job interviews) but continue to evolve in their tastes and lifestyles. As their finances improve, their consumption patterns will, too.

An article in TIME Magazine observed that "each country's millennials are different, but because of globalization, social media, the exporting of Western culture and the speed of change, millennials worldwide are more similar to one another than to older generations within their nations."

Nationally, more than 53 million workers are 18-34 years of age. Millennials have passed baby boomers and Gen-Xers to comprise the most significant part of the U.S. workforce, constituting 34% of all workers. By 2025, three-quarters of adult workers will be millennials.

Media fascination with any subject can lead to misunderstandings. The facts are not as interesting as the story. For example, here are millennial myths as reported on money.com:

1. Millennials don't like fast food. Fresh food is essential to this generation. Yet surveys indicate younger consumers are far more likely to eat at McDonald's than at Chipotle, Panera Bread, and other fast-casual restaurants. The Wall Street Journal reported that 75% of millennials said they go to McDonald's at least once a month, while only 20% to 25% of millennials visit a fast-casual restaurant that frequently.

2. Millennials want to live in cities, not suburbs. This myth is part of the media attention paid to urban millennials. Riding mass transportation or Uber, bicycles, or walking, is the picture we have of young adults in city centers. They hold college degrees and have the latest tech gadgets. (You don't hear much about 20-year-old single moms in small towns or fast-food workers in the suburbs trying to get by with only a high school diploma because they don't make good copy).   

Even if young people are moving to the cities, it doesn't mean that suburbs are out of bounds. On the contrary, census data show that in 2014 people in their 20s moving out of cities and into suburbs far outnumber those in the opposite direction. 

Two-thirds of millennial homebuyers prefer suburbs for settling down, with 10% choosing the city. 

3. Millennials hate cars. Maybe car buying is slow going in the early stages of a career due primarily to college debt or vehicle cost. Or both. Yet a Deloitte study focusing on Generation Y, another way of saying millennials, shows that more than three-quarters of this age group plan to purchase or lease a car over the next five years. Moreover, nearly two-thirds of millennials are in "love" with their vehicle.

4. Millennials don't want to own homes. Renting is better than owning. Yet a closer look uncovers the fact that millennials want to own homes. Again, the burden of college loans weighs on the home-buying decision initially. Bloomberg News reported that millennials made up 32% of home buyers in 2014, up from 28% in 2012. They are now the largest demographic in the market.

5. Millennials reject careerism and are allergic to being managed. This, too, seems to be contradicted by the facts. CEB, a consulting firm, polls 90,000 American employers each quarter. From reporting in The Economist Magazine, CEB finds millennials to be among the most competitive:  59% said competition is what gets them up in the morning, compared with 50% of baby boomers. They may spend more time messaging other millennials but do not have much faith in them. For example, 37% say they don't trust their peers' input at work.  

Forty-one percent of millennials agreed with the statement: "Employees should do what their manager tells them, even when they can't see the reason for it."   

Workers across different generations have much in common. They want roughly the same things regardless of when they were born: To be given interesting work, rewarded based on their contributions, and given a chance to work hard and get ahead. Those findings come from both CEB and the Center for Creative Leadership.

6. Millennials prefer a single life. But the demographic trends suggest they will increasingly be married, college-educated, well-to-do parents. The trend among young parents, who are now primarily the millennials, will be toward a growing majority of children being born inside marriages, says Demographic Intelligence. DI predicts that ultimately around 60% of the children of millennials will be taken to married parents, up from about 45% today. 

Other habits

We've all read about millennials and their attitudes concerning "entitlements," "work/life balance," and "job-hopping" (not unusual for this age group). Here are some other characteristics and habits:

-Fifteen percent of millennials live with parents. (Census Bureau)

-Millennials watch less TV and spend more time on smartphones than their parents.  

-Older millennials (25-34) watch more TV than their younger counterparts (18-24). 

-Fourteen percent of those 18-34 are cutting the TV cord, and 12% never had a TV subscription.

-Thirty-four percent say they sleep with their smartphones in bed.

-The top mobile news source for this group is the Huffington Post, with 9.2 million unique visitors to the app and site (recorded in March 2015). 

-About 67 million millennials listen to the radio each week. The country is the top format. 

-Only 27% of millennials say they attend religious services every week, compared with 38% of baby boomers and 51% of adults in the silent generation. Nearly one-third aged 25-32 now indicate their religious preference as "none," a nine percentage point jump in this group since 2007. (Pew Study)

In the coming year, we will monitor and report on other studies for Gen-X, baby boomers, and the silent generation. 

Closing thought

Of course, there are more market opportunities than just millennials. Multi-generational consumers are plentiful. The sweet spot for household spending and giving to charitable causes overlap among the 25 million older baby boomers and younger members of the silent generation, those between 65 and 74 years of age.      

Demographic transitions are always bookends--a younger cohort on one end with an aging populous on the other. However, this time the middle is populated by 40 million individuals known as Generation X. 

These combined forces are reshaping cultural norms and, in some cases, causing long-standing businesses to adapt or run the risk of a slow death. 

It's a situation and season that's hard to ignore.

Strategist.com

(C) Bredholt & Co.

   

How to Kill an Idea

Have you ever suggested something in a meeting and had the idea immediately knocked down? 

Several years ago, I was in a small-group setting when someone offered a new way to fix an old problem. The response from one person at the table was a quick dismissal of what was being proposed. Unfortunately, the oxygen for creative thinking often leaves the room after that kind of exchange. 

Who decides whether an idea is good or bad? Is there a need to be more measured in our response to something we are hearing for the first time?  

Just as there's more than one way to skin a cat, there's more than one way to kill an idea.

Here are ten ways to dash even the most promising ideas, courtesy of The Synectics Corporation:

1.   See it coming and quickly change the subject.

2.   Ignore it. Dead silence intimidates all but the most enthusiastic.

3.   Feign interest but do nothing about it. This at least prevents the originator from taking it elsewhere.

4.   Scorn it. "You're joking, of course." Make sure to get your comment in before the idea is fully explained.

5.   Laugh it off. "Ho, ho, ho, that's a good one, Joe. You must have been awake all night thinking that up."

6.   Praise it to death. By the time you have expounded its merits for five minutes everyone else will hate it.

7.   Mention that it has never been tried before. If the idea is genuinely original, this is certain to be true. Alternatively, say, "If the idea's so wonderful, why hasn't someone else already tried it?"

8.   Say, "Oh, we've tried that before"—even if it's not true. Particularly effective with newcomers. It makes them realize what complete outsiders they are.

9.   Come up with a competitive idea. This can be a dangerous tactic, however, as you might still be left with an idea to follow up.

10. Stall it with any of the following: "We're not ready for it yet, but in the fullness of time..." — "I've been wanting to do that for a long time, but right now..." — "Let's wait until the new organization has settled down..."

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© Bredholt & Co.

 

If They Won't Change, You'd Better Move On

Guest Post: Marshall Goldsmith

You know the people I’m talking about: she says she wants to change, but when it comes time to do so, she makes excuses and doesn’t follow through; or he says he’s eager for a new life, and then defends his old ways at every turn. It’s exhausting to keep up with the denial tactics, finger-pointing, arguments, and justifications that people who really don’t want to change can come up with!

If I’ve learned one thing over my 35 years as an executive coach, speaker and author, it’s this: change has to come from within. It can’t be dictated, demanded, or otherwise forced upon people. A man or woman who does not whole-heartedly commit to change will never change.

That seems self-evident, but I didn’t absorb this simple truth until my twelfth year in the “change” business. By then I had done intensive one-on-one coaching with more than a hundred executives, nearly all successes but a smattering of failures too.

As I reviewed my failures, one conclusion leapt out: Some people say they want to change, but they don’t really mean it. I had erred profoundly in client selection. I believed the clients when they said they were committed to changing, but I had not drilled deeper to determine if they were telling the truth.

Not long after this revelation, I was asked to work with Harry, the chief operating officer of a large consulting firm. Harry was a smart, motivated, hard-working deliver-the-numbers alpha male who was also arrogant and over-delighted with himself. He was habitually disrespectful to his direct reports, driving several of them away to work for the competition. This development rattled the CEO, hence the call to me to coach Harry.

Harry talked a good game at first, assuring me that he was eager to get started and get better. I interviewed his colleagues and direct reports, even his wife and teenaged children. They all told the same story. Despite his sterling professional qualities, Harry had an overwhelming need to be the smartest person in the room, always proving that he was right, winning every argument. It was exhausting and off-putting. Who could say how many opportunities had vanished because people loathed being pummeled and brow-beaten?

As Harry and I reviewed his 360° feedback, he claimed to value the opinions of his co-workers and family members. Yet whenever I brought up an area for improvement, Harry would explain point by point how his questionable behavior was actually justified. He’d remind me that he majored in psychology in college and then analyze the behavioral problems of everyone around him, concluding that they needed to change. In a mind-bending display of chutzpah, he asked me for suggestions in helping these people get better.

In my younger days, I would have overlooked Harry’s resistance. Mimicking his arrogance and denial, I would have convinced myself that I could help Harry where lesser mortals would fail. Fortunately I remembered my earlier lesson: Some people say they want to change, but they don’t really mean it.

It was dawning on me that Harry was using our work together as another opportunity to display his superiority and to reverse the misperceptions of all the confused people surrounding him, including his wife and kids. By our fourth meeting I gave up the ghost. I told Harry that my coaching wouldn’t be helpful to him, and we parted ways. (I felt neither joy nor surprise when I later learned that the firm had fired Harry. Evidently the CEO had concluded that an individual who actively resists help has maxed out professionally and personally.)

I often call up my time with Harry as a stark example that, even when altering our behavior represents all reward and no risk – and clinging to the status quo can cost us our careers and relationships – we resist change.

Posted with permission.

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© Bredholt & Co.