As I was thinking about what business or economic topic to blog about this week, I could not STOP thinking about some recent experiences I've had with social media. They made me ask myself, "What the heck happened to professional etiquette?" 

In the world of social media with sites like Twitter, Linked In and Facebook, it is easier and easier these days to reach people that we don't know, but want something from. I guess if I break it down to it's a form of solicitation, but much more disruptive because it's passive aggressive. With the veil of a web interface, a person can be as aggressive as they like, without actually having to interact with you. A faceless person, with an agenda or goal, that they need you for, but don't actually want to interact with you.

Now I don't know about you, but that pisses me off. If you want something from me, ask me...personally. Here are some examples of what I mean.

Linked In: This site is sacred to me. Most of the people I have connections with I have worked with as colleagues or clients and I respect their position and experience. It is not something I share willingly with people I don't know. 


Yet, I get Linked in requests from consultants, sales people and job hunters asking me to "accept" them, and I have no idea who these people are! Seriously, consultants from firms looking for connections will ask me to accept so we can "work" together. Let me give you a hint, I know what your hidden agenda is, and i take offense to it. 

I know, some of you are saying, just ignore it, and sometimes I do. But sometimes, if you are an unlucky one, I will respond, and it's not pretty. For me it's about principle. Maybe if they would contact me and say they have a desire to meet some of my contacts because they could add value to them in some way, and would I please have a discussion so I feel comfortable about a possible introduction, that would be fine. But the backdoor approach is the most common, because it's easy. 

Twitter: I am a tweeter, I like to tweet. It makes me laugh sometimes and I love to laugh. So I do it often. However, this has caused me problems with getting people using my name @Carla_Zilka to endorse products and services I never heard of. 

This is plain fraud, granted it's not a crime, but it's still misrepresenting my views and support of companies products and services I have no interaction with. Spamming, in my mind, is very disrespectful. 

I understand that social media is the new marketing channel, but people should use it the way it's meant to be used, not as spam. 

Facebook: I use Facebook for what it's meant to be used for, connections with "friends". That's why it's called a "friend request" not an "acquaintance" request or "I know someone who knows you" request. 

To that end, and because I am a private person,  I have put very clearly on my profile that my Facebook is for "close friends, and you know who you are". Yet I get requests from people I don't know. Again, it's the principle of it all. 

So, my question is: Has life changed so much that the value of our relationships is based on quantity over quality? Is it more important to have thousands of followers, or friends or contacts instead of a small group that have similar content, concepts or relationships, both personal and business?

Steve Jobs tweeted a great quote that I say over and over in my mind, and frankly, believe wholeheartedly in: "A small group of A players will run circles about a large group of B players."  A wise man. 

Sometimes less is more.
4 Comments
 
 
Picture
As I watched the State of the Union address, I couldn’t help but wonder what the millions of unemployed Americans were thinking.  With unemployment numbers barely moving in over a year, I can’t imagine healthcare reform was on the top of the list of things the government should be focused on. Yes, it’s an important subject, but let’s be real, people who are unemployed are in survival mode, they want to know when jobs will become available so they can put food on the table.

This made me conjure up some ideas about solving the significant jobless rate. My mind went to several “What If’s”.

 

What If:  What if the government thought more like a business. I mean, it is the largest company in the world, with many complex, moving parts, that seem to be completely autonomous. President Obama, like any other CEO, is the person who communicates the strategy and progress. The politicians are the board of directors and senior leadership team, who unfortunately, are not aligned. That alone is a recipe for disaster, but I won’t go there.

So back to JOBS GROWTH.

What If :Obama thought more like Warren Buffet?

With the purchase of Burlington Northern Sante Fe (BNSF) by Warren Buffet for $34B, it is a fact that the future of the United States is based on Infrastructure growth. Railroads are not glamorous, but they do what needs to get done for being the biggest distribution channel for the “biggest hauler” of food products, like corn, or energy, like coal for electricity.

This industry grows when an economy is expanding, not typically when an economy is as bad as the one we are in.

But Warren Buffett put a huge bet on the industry. He claims he is looking for an investment that will reap rewards for many years in the future and isn’t too concerned about immediate gains.

This is a great sign of things to come. For Buffet to risk so much, tells me it may not be that risky. As I think about the competencies required for this type of work, it all makes sense why this seems very knowledgeable, and not at all risky.

What If: Buffett invests in technology, and BNSF becomes the first transportation company to execute the fastest train in the world in all aspects: Leisure, Food and Product Transport?  Countries may actually BUY the technology and expertise for their own infrastructure projects.

Even more impactful is the number of jobs that would be needed for such an endeavor. Engineers, Mechanics, Customer Service, are all skills required to ensure a success outcome.

What If: The US had a coalition of competency hubs with just these skills?

What is a Competency Hub?  Basically it is a Center of Excellence that is centered on one core activity. For the purpose of this point of view, we will focus on Infrastructure as a support to a business: Finance, HR, IT, Sourcing, Engineering, Customer Service, etc. The ideal model is that these are for profit companies with costs subsidized by the government based on the number of new jobs they create in the US. Thresholds would be set for number of jobs produced, and if a company reaches the threshold, they get a “bonus” or “abatement”. The more jobs they produce in the US, the more subsidies they receive.

This may seem unrealistic in this capitalistic world, but it’s just a thought. There are already companies that do these activities overseas, but the goal is to bring them back to the US.

But the real benefit isn’t their financial structure. it’s their value in bringing jobs back to the US that have traditionally been outsourced.  The number of outsourcing deals in the last 5 years has soared, showing significant signs of growth in markets with competency hubs like technology in India and manufacturing in China.

Both of those industries are things the US does currently, just not on the scale the emerging markets have exploited. However, Silicon Valley is gaining great traction as the “Innovators” with Apple, Google, Intel, etc.  An incredible opportunity to break away from the pack, and make the US “the” place to go for innovation.

You’re thinking, “a competency hub for Innovation? Yep, it’s the most basic thing companies will need in order to succeed, and as it becomes more and more about technology, it will be the vehicle for new product introduction. Learning to innovate is a process, and most companies don’t do it well, if at all. Providing this process at a reasonable rate, allows companies to spend more on investments on core work.

The theory behind a competency hub is that it is an activity that is standard in nature, with standard processes and templates that allow for quick and efficient output at a cost an individual company can’t replicate.

If you think about all the work every single corporation has to perform that is not necessarily their core, it looks like this:

1.     Finance: Every company needs to track, and manage financial operations

2.     Human Resources: For every corporation, Human Resources is required to manage the workforce

3.     Sourcing: All companies buy products or services through a sourcing /purchasing departments

4.     Legal: All companies require legal advice and actions

5.     Technology: Every corporation uses technology to automate and improve processes

6.     Innovation: As the foundation for “everything new”, this competency includes several sub hubs**.

a.     Engineering

b.     Design

c.      Test

**A sub hub is competency that has verticals with different skill sets within.

For example, Engineering can be represented in Technology, Energy, Transportation, Software, Telecom, etc.

The key is to have career paths for these linked with the university curriculums in order to have pre-trained employees coming out of schools, decreasing the time before a new employee begins to add value to the organization. Or as I call it: the Period of Unproductively. Attached is a chart by Jim Collins on the productivity of a new employee. Imagine the savings and productivity that can be achieved by shorting the curve from 18 months before contributing, to 6 months? The training and on boarding costs alone would decline significantly.

Not only do the competency hubs create long-term sustainability of employment for millions of American’s, but improves the businesses they support. When a business can focus on their core activities, and hire “experts” to do the work that is transactional, repetitive or unique in nature, but not part of their core, they win…in profit and revenue.

Also, this allows college students to focus on specific skills, and be sure of getting a job.  Think of it as career paths” pre-defined.”  This is a long-term strategic goal, and not something that happens overnight, but if we don’t start now, we won’t reap the benefits until it may be too late, and unemployment becomes the rule and not the exception.

This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
7 Comments
 
 
It's no surprise that many company initiatives fall short of their expectations, and most companies blame it on leadership's inability to execute it. This is true, but the underlying factor can be linked to one very important skill...Change Management. While most leaders are experienced in functional specialties, like finance, sales, marketing or operations, the one speciality skill that is required to drive change and make it stick is usually lacking. Why is this?

As a change management expert, I am asked often about "how to" ensure an initiative, project or transformation is successful. I always come back to the same question to them: Do you have a change management strategy and do you have change management expertise in house? 

Almost always the answer comes back, "No, that's why we hired you." I usually laugh, because that's a great answer! My response back is also always the same, "Got it, but we need to build this skill in house, because it is a basic function that you need to run your business, just like finance." 

It starts with understanding the WHO. Who will be trained in the company in Change Management. This is not an easy, quick decision. Most companies put it all on Human Resources...wrong answer. They also think it's someone lower in the company...wrong answer again. Leadership, beginning with the CEO, need to be trained in the tools and processes to drive the right behaviors to deliver on their goals. From there, you can go to the next level of the organization, then the next level again, until each function and layer of the organization has someone trained. And if you are smart, you train several people per function per layer as a contingency plan should people leave. 

The next step is HOW. This is where NexGen comes in. If you went through our services page, you know we have a toolkit to train people, so I'm not going to get into detail of how we do it...call us in and we'll review it with you. The "How" I'd like to discuss is the process for embedding it in your organization as a skill. Like finance, there are certain basics you must learn before you can get to the complex stuff. Tools like a Stakeholders Analysis are easy, it's what to do with it once you have it that's the hard part, and frankly where most companies fall short.

We help you build a program that can be part of your normal Training and Development program that acts as a sort of reward for the people chosen. While Human Resources manages it, they don't own the execution, the people who have been chosen do, acting as Train the Trainers once NexGen has trained them. Of course we monitor to ensure the training is being delivered properly, but this is an example of our philosophy of "teach a man to fish...". If you didn't read my Letter from the Founder, go back to it so you understand what I mean.

So how do you MEASURE the benefits? This is the easy part. As part of your normal metrics (please tell me you have a Balanced Scorecard!) you add an Employee Morale Indicator (EMI) to your scorecard. There are TONS of survey's out there to measure this, it's become a commodity and NexGen has one should you want us to manage it. The key is to get the right questions on the monthly or quarterly survey, and to change them at the right time. Yes, you want to see consistency for trending, but you also want the employees to want to take the survey, and not just click through mindlessly, as some do when the questions are always the same. You can ask the same question in may different ways...its knowing when to change it up so people stay engaged. This is critical when working on specific initiatives, but should become a regular practice in your organization.

While this all seems logical to most, and easy to do, it's the execution of this and the embedding it as a part of how you run your business that's the difficult. Like anything, it's takes a strategy, plan, owner and rigor to make it part of your normal processes. I can guarantee having a skill like Change Management in house will not only save you lots of consulting fees, but will help you reach your strategic and operational goals, and give you a competitive advantage in the market.

Have questions? Contact me: carlazilka@nexgenadvisors.com

5 Comments