A Long Time Ago Is Last Year

Nowadays, a long time ago is last year. That is how fast things are changing.
~ Datuk Nazir Razak, CIMB Group Chief Executive

Three Obstacles To A Innovative, Evolving & Ever-Effective Management Culture

From Gary Hamel’s “The Future of Management” via Brand Autopsy:

Hamel suggests there are three obstacles for why businesses fail in creating a management culture that is innovative, evolving, and ever-effective:

Creating the Inspiration (Part 1) by Gordon Quick

Got this via Fast Company:

Are vision statements really necessary? Does anyone really take them seriously? If the majority of vision statements are any indication, the answer to both questions is no. But are these companies missing something?

Paul was very direct: “All the vision statements I’ve ever seen are worthless. Just go on any company website and read theirs — it’s all fluff.” When I agreed wholeheartedly with him, he roared back — “So why are we talking about a vision statement?” My response was equally direct: “Just because most companies don’t understand the purpose of a vision statement, or don’t take the time to craft a meaningful one, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t useful when properly done.”

Ideas Are Easy, Doing Stuff Is Hard

From my marketing hero, Seth Godin:

…ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard.

My feeling is that the more often you create and share ideas, the better you get at it. The process of manipulating and ultimately spreading ideas improves both the quality and the quantity of what you create, at least it does for me.

History is littered with inventors who had “great” ideas but kept them quiet and then poorly executed them. And history is lit up with do-ers who took ideas that were floating around in the ether and actually made something happen. In fact, just about every successful venture is based on an unoriginal idea, beautifully executed.

So, if you’ve got ideas, let them go. They’re probably holding you back from the hard work of actually executing.

Is Good Enough, Good Enough?

I remember coming across this quote from somewhere else before and really loving it. Then, Seth Godin comes up with this fantastic (and somewhat frightening) thought:

Is good enough enough?

Most marketing efforts are projects in response to problems. “We need a box for the product launch.” “We need a press release for the tour the boss is doing.” “We need an ad campaign for the Super Bowl.”

In response to projects, many organizations figure out the resources they’ve got and then work hard to do something good enough. On time, within budget. Meeting spec, after all, is your job.

You end up, if you’re talented, with something good enough.

Is that enough? Is good enough enough to win? To change the game? To reinvent your organization and your career? In a crowded market, when all the competition is good enough, not much happens.

Tapping The Power Of Your Morning Routine

How disciplined are you about your early-morning routine?

If you want to maximize your success while achieving the best possible balance in your life, you may want to take a fresh look at what time you wake up and what you do with your time before getting to the office.

A Wakeup Call

Last week, I contacted some of the business leaders I greatly admire and inquired about their early-morning schedules.

Specifically, I asked 20 CEOs and top executives what time they wake up, when they have their first cup of coffee, when they start on email, what if anything they do for exercise, what time they leave for the office, and what else they do before walking out the door.

I heard back from half a dozen of them within 10 minutes, and, in a matter of a few hours, I received answers from a total of 17 out of the 20 — a response rate that would be the envy of any market researcher.

It didn’t take long for the patterns to emerge. Based on an analysis of the executives’ schedules and activities, I discovered seven practices you should seriously consider adopting in order to make the most of your morning.

1. Start early.This is the part of your morning routine over which you have the greatest control. To fit it all in, it’s a must to start early. The latest any of the surveyed executives wake up is 6 a.m., and almost 80 percent wake up at 5:30 or earlier.

   The early-bird-gets-the-worm award goes to Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer for Motorola, who rises at 4:30 a.m., spends an hour on email, reads most of the news online, and then does an hour of either cardio or resistance training each morning. This allows her to get her son ready for school and drop him off, and still get to work by 8 or 8:30 in the morning.

2. Get a jump on email.If you think you’re alone in feeling overwhelmed by email, take comfort: even top CEOs and the most senior executives feel compelled to stay on top of their email, and most of them find time in the early morning to do so.

   Ursula Burns, the No. 2 executive at technology giant Xerox, says, “I do email from the minute I get up [5:15 a.m.] and all day long, finishing around midnight.” Haim Saban, chairman and CEO of investment firm Saban Capital Group, starts email right after his first cup of coffee “at 6:02 a.m.” and works on it for about an hour before his 75-minute morning exercise regimen.

   Lou D’Ambrosio, chief executive officer at telecommunications equipment leader Avaya Communications, is “on email literally within one minute after waking up. I spend about an hour at home in the morning doing email to jump-start the day. This allows me to have a clear mind when I set priorities for the day.” Lou also does email from 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at night.

   Several executives wait until they get to the office before they start working on email. Matt Ouimet, president of the hotel group for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, for example, rises at 5:30 a.m. and leaves the house at 6 a.m. to get to the office very early — “I’ve always been anxious to get to work: game time” — and responds to email undisturbed for an hour while the office is very quiet.

3. Exercise every morning.It’s often difficult to find a way to fit exercise into your busy schedule, but knowing that some of the most successful businesspeople do so might motivate you to find a way to work it into your routine.

   More than 70 percent of the business leaders in my survey perform their exercise in the morning, while 15 percent find a way to do it during the day (one does it late at night before turning in). Only two of the executives admit to not exercising on a regular basis, although one said, “I know I should.”

   The individual who demonstrates the greatest exercise discipline is the CEO of a high-performing global technology company (I promised him anonymity so as not to blow his cover). “I exercise at lunchtime,” he says. “I block the time every single day. This is because I’m a runner and that’s the best time to run outside all year long.”

4. Be thoughtful about the source, form, and timing of your news.Much has been written about the demise of the newspaper, and, along those lines, about a quarter of the executives I spoke with has switched to online news. Yet most of the others maintain the morning newspaper as a central part of their routine.

   Steve Reinemund, the CEO of PepsiCo, reads the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and the Dallas Morning News. Rafe Sagalyn, CEO of the prestigious Sagalyn Literary Agency of Bethesda, Md., blends traditional and new media. He says, “I simultaneously skim online newspapers from Boston to Los Angeles and half a dozen blogs one really has to keep up with. At about 6:30 a.m., I fetch three morning papers — the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.”

5. Problem-solve.The quiet of the morning is often the time when your mind is at its clearest and most well-suited to solving important problems.

   Steve Murphy, CEO of publishing company Rodale, says, “A line in a William Blake poem inspired me to think differently about my day: ‘Think in the morning, act in the noon, read in the evening, and sleep at night.’ This has made a huge difference in my life. Now, I take out a yellow pad every morning and write my thoughts for the day, which allows me to be much more strategic and proactive than reactive.”

6. Make family time.
   Many business leaders find that the morning encourages important family time. Some have breakfast with their families or make taking kids to school a central part of the morning routine.
   Clayton, Dubilier & Rice managing partner Kevin Conway lingers at home when he can to help send off all three kids to school. Greg Maffei, CEO of Liberty Media Corporation, says, “I try to talk one of my kids into going outside to get the paper, but end up getting it myself. I then have breakfast with my wife and kids, help the latter get dressed, and drive the older boys to the bus stop at 7:40 a.m.”
7. Be creative with your morning routine.Despite all the discipline and structure described in the above best practices, it doesn’t mean you can’t be creative with your morning rituals. Gerry Laybourne, founder, chairman, and CEO of Oxygen Media, maintains a routine similar to other business leaders.

   However, she adds a unique twist to her schedule: “Once or twice a week, I go for a walk in Central Park with a young person seeking my advice. This is my way of helping bring along the next generation. I can’t take time at the office to do this, but doing it in the morning allows me to get exercise and stay connected with young people at the same time.”

The examples cited here have led me to reassess how I structure my early-morning time, and I hope they help you in making the most of your daily routine as well.

[From Jim Citrin's Leadership By Example, via Yahoo! Finance] 

The Most Successful Companies in the World: What Do They Have In Common?

According to Shel Horowitz in this article, here are the top five things the most successful companies in the world have in common:

1. They have a cause, not a wimpy, committee-driven “mission statement.”
   People who work there know they’re part of a big, bold, meaningful idea to fix a problem or make the world better.
2. They let go of things that aren’t working — even entire companies.
   Let go of “yesterday’s breadwinners” and of doing things the way they’ve always been done.
3. They understand that success is not about mere customer satisfaction — but about utterly delighting the right customers…and choosing not to do business with the wrong customers.
   You learn how to utterly satisfy your customers simply by asking them.
4. Everyone in the company thinks and acts like an owner.
   They know — and evangelize — the value of the company, and they know what value they add. They are empowered to make decisions and compensated for the value they add.
5. The leaders see themselves as stewards.
   They share information freely, make themselves accessible, avoid artificial barriers (like fancy offices and fancy suits), and pitch in whenever and wherever they’re needed. In general, they do this out of the public eye; they don’t seek publicity, and they don’t have an exit strategy, because they love what they do.

Do you need a boss?

From Seth Godin:

You don’t realize how much you need a boss until you don’t have one. Bosses don’t always do the following, especially when they’re not very good bosses, but here’s what we know about good bosses:

• Bosses organize your time for you.
• Bosses decide what’s urgent.
• Bosses give you cover when you work on something stupid (“she told me to!”)
• Bosses pay you even when the client doesn’t honor the invoice.
• Bosses can be sued.
• Bosses create deadlines, and stick with them.
• Bosses make sure you show up in the morning.
• Bosses pay for the Postits.
• Bosses give you someone to complain about.
• Bosses carve up the work and give you just that piece you signed up to do.
• Bosses give you a role model. (Sometimes one to work against, but that’s a different story).

The main thing a boss does, though, is give you the momentum you need to get through the stuff that takes perseverance. The main thing that ends the career of a Free Agent is the lack of a hand pushing on the back, someone handing out assignments and waiting for the deliverables. Who keeps you going when you don’t feel like doing it?

If you don’t have a boss, you may need to invent one.