It's easy to tweet all day. But an effective social media campaign is about the message, not the volume.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a political leader, an
entrepreneur, or a corporate CEO. Regardless of title or industry, your
message matters. All leaders must communicate the right message at all
times.
Here are a few bad decisions from the world of business
that have become famous -- and are downright humorous in hindsight. Some
people learned from their mistakes and moved on (Bill Gates.) Some,
sadly, faded into history (Decca).
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981
"Drill
for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try to find oil? You're
crazy." -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to
drill for oil in 1859
"But what ... is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"There
is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olson,
president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"The
wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay
for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's
associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the
1920s. I hope he fired all of them.
"The concept is interesting
and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must
be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to
Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.[FedEx])
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"Airplanes
are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand
Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre. Wasn't France
bombed in World War Two?
"I'm just glad it will be Clark Gable
falling on his face and not Gary Cooper" -- Gary Cooper on his decision
not to take the leading role in "Gone With the Wind"
And my three favorites:
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
"This
'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a
means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." --
Western-Union internal memo, 1876. Alexander Bell offered the patent
for the Telephone to Western-Union in 1876 for $100,000. They declined.
The telephone patent has been estimated as the most valuable patent of
all time. Bell's Company, AT&T, later aquired Western-Union. Special
Note -- In 1971 AT&T turned down an offer to own the Internet. Oh
well. "So we went to Atari and said, "Hey we've got this amazing
thing, even built with some of your parts, what do you think about
funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our
salary, we'll come work for you." And they said, "No". So then we went
to Hewlett Packard and they said, "Hey, we don't need you; you haven't
even got through college yet." -- Apple Computer Co-Founder Steve Jobs
on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in he and Steve Wozniak's
personal computer. HP recovered nicely (though not quite as nicely, I
suspect as they would have if they'd chanced it) but where is Atari
today.
Special Mention -- Couldn't find a quote for these two, but...
In 1933 Coca-Cola declined an opportunity to buy it's then-bankrupt and insignificant rival Pepsi - Cola
In
1999, Excite declined the opportunity to buy Google for $1 million.
It's possible that ANY quote on this from Excite would be -- a-hum --
unprintable. ;)
About the author: http://www.articlesbase.com/authors/mark-hester/30502
But along the way, as he's invested in startups and advised their
founders, he's seen entrepreneurs continuously making the same mistakes
that crash their companies, he says.
Courtot's first big exit was cc:Mail, an early email program
sold to Lotus in 1991 for $55 million. He took his next company public,
Signio, and also sold it to VeriSign for $1.3 billion. Including his angel investments, he's been involved with 10 startups during his decades in the Valley, he says.
He shared his insights with Business Insider in a recent interview:
Mistake No. 1: Not picking one goal—to sell or IPO. "Some companies make the mistake of a dual strategy thinking, 'We are going to go public or sell the company,'" he says.
You've got to choose, he says. If you'll sell, don't waste money on marketing and sales. "Build your technology and find customers that are relevant and that's a good time to sell your company."
Mistake No. 2: Impatience. Courtot always believed in cloud computing and the
software-as-a-service business model. But Qualys struggled in its early
days. Its customers—IT personnel—didn't trust cloud computing back then.
At best, they thought it wasn't reliable enough for their important
applications. At worst, they thought it would put them out of a job.
"I asked [Salesforce.com
CEO Marc] Benioff in 2001, 'You guys are skyrocketing, you are going to
the moon, what's your secret? We have resistance from customers,'" he
recalls.
Benioff told him that he sidestepped IT and sold to the sales
department. They "had the budgets" and "could override" a veto from the
IT department.
Since Courtot's customers were always going to be the IT
professionals, he couldn't do that. So he waited 14 years to take the
company public, until cloud computing was as hot as he envisioned it
would be.
Mistake No. 3: Infighting. Obstacles are inevitable.
"The market changes, you start to despair," he says. Changing directions isn't a failure, it's a necessity.
The founders need to always have faith that the company will "find a
solution" and to bring people along when changes are made. "If you don't
have the team with you, you will be divided by inside politics and be
hurt from within."
Mistake No. 4: Not being choosy enough with your venture-capital investors. "Once you've taken money, you have made commitments," he says. "You
have to be sensitive" to your investors "and be aligned with them." If
you aren't, find a way to buy them out.
In 2001, Courtot did exactly that, investing $7.5 million of his own
money in Qualys to cash out an investor who wanted the company to retreat to the old enterprise-software model. Ultimately, he invested over $20 million himself and made sure subsequent investors were on board with his vision.
It is an indisputable trend that teams are increasingly
the primary means for organizing work in business. Trust is an
essential contributor to interpersonal cooperation necessary for
successful teamwork, and this is a business investment
that should not be overlooked. Furthermore, based on the recent and
increasing calamities in business, trust is also becoming a central
concept to many of the more recent approaches to leadership. In
essence, trust often involves the "willingness to be vulnerable" and
builds on expectations that are in part emotional. Moods and emotions
interact with values and attitudes to determine the experience of trust.
Often we begin relationships with the assumption of trust;
since it is the easier that way. However, future trust is determined by
subsequent behavioral exchanges. If parties share positive emotions,
it is a strong signal that they have succeeded in building trust.
Provisional trust is the willingness to conduct the transaction as long
as the other party behaves appropriately. Conditional trust is
sufficient to conduct a wide range of activities but not nearly as
powerful as unconditional trust, when relationships become significant
and often involve a sense of mutual identification. Jones & George (1998) have an inter-actionist model
which holds there are three distinct forms of the trust experience:
distrust, conditional trust, and unconditional trust. These are seen as
three different states of the same construct, not three different
constructs. How does trust relate to new ways of performing work like
self-management teams? While conditional trust is sufficient for many
purposes, unconditional trust takes people beyond being mere coworkers
or business acquaintances into colleagues, friends, and team members.
Moving from conditional to unconditional trust allows employees
to move from being a work group, interacting to perform within one's
own area of responsibility, to being work teams, groups whose individual
efforts result in performance greater than the sum of the parts. While
the payoff of high levels of trust within organizations is large, the
cost in time, effort and resources is considerable. For the
organization to build and maintain unconditional trust and organizations
must be willing to make these investments.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Management Is (Still) Not Leadership
by John Kotter | 11:00 AM January 9, 2013
A few weeks ago, the BBC asked me to come in for a radio interview.
They told me they wanted to talk about effective leadership — China had
just elevated Xi Jinping to the role of Communist Party leader; General
David Petraeus had stepped down from his post at the CIA a few days
earlier; the BBC itself was wading through a leadership scandal of its
own — but the conversation quickly veered, as these things often do,
into a discussion about how individuals can keep large, complex,
unwieldy organizations operating reliably and efficiently.
That's not leadership, I explained. That's management — and the two are radically different. In more than four decades of studying businesses and consulting to
organizations on how to implement new strategies, I can't tell you how
many times I've heard people use the words "leadership" and "management" synonymously, and it drives me crazy every time.
The interview reminded me once again that the confusion around these
two terms is massive, and that misunderstanding gets in the way of any
reasonable discussion about how to build a company, position it for
success and win in the twenty-first century. The mistakes people make on
the issue are threefold:
Mistake #1: People use the terms "management" and
"leadership" interchangeably. This shows that they don't see the crucial
difference between the two and the vital functions that each role
plays.
Mistake #2: People use the term "leadership" to
refer to the people at the very top of hierarchies. They then call the
people in the layers below them in the organization "management." And
then all the rest are workers, specialists, and individual contributors.
This is also a mistake and very misleading.
Mistake #3: People often think of "leadership" in
terms of personality characteristics, usually as something they call
charisma. Since few people have great charisma, this leads logically to
the conclusion that few people can provide leadership, which gets us
into increasing trouble.
In fact, management is a set of well-known processes, like planning,
budgeting, structuring jobs, staffing jobs, measuring performance and
problem-solving, which help an organization to predictably do what it
knows how to do well. Management helps you to produce products and
services as you have promised, of consistent quality, on budget, day
after day, week after week. In organizations of any size and complexity,
this is an enormously difficult task. We constantly underestimate how
complex this task really is, especially if we are not in senior
management jobs. So, management is crucial — but it's not leadership.
Leadership is entirely different. It is associated with taking an
organization into the future, finding opportunities that are coming at
it faster and faster and successfully exploiting those opportunities.
Leadership is about vision, about people buying in, about empowerment
and, most of all, about producing useful change. Leadership is not about
attributes, it's about behavior. And in an ever-faster-moving world,
leadership is increasingly needed from more and more people, no matter
where they are in a hierarchy. The notion that a few extraordinary
people at the top can provide all the leadership needed today is
ridiculous, and it's a recipe for failure.
Some people still argue that we must replace management with
leadership. This is obviously not so: they serve different, yet
essential, functions. We need superb management. And we need more superb
leadership. We need to be able to make our complex organizations
reliable and efficient. We need them to jump into the future — the right
future — at an accelerated pace, no matter the size of the changes
required to make that happen.
There are very, very few organizations today that have sufficient
leadership. Until we face this issue, understanding exactly what the
problem is, we're never going to solve it. Unless we recognize that
we're not talking about management when we speak of leadership, all we
will try to do when we do need more leadership is work harder to manage.
At a certain point, we end up with over-managed and under-led
organizations, which are increasingly vulnerable in a fast-moving world.
Dr. John P. Kotter is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of
Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard Business School and the Chief Innovation
Officer at Kotter International, a firm that helps leaders accelerate strategy implementation in their organizations.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Why Fast, Cheap, and Easy Design Is Killing Your Nonprofit’s Brand
A
logo doesn’t equal a brand, and nonprofits would be much better served
trying to formulate a real strategy than trying to use graphics to hide a
lack of true mission.
Technology is fueling a democratization of design, giving
ordinary people the power to create with speed and ease. Among
nonprofits, many feel that technology is leveling the playing field when
it comes to expressing themselves and their brands.
Historically, marketing has been an expensive endeavor, and while
sharing stories, promoting impact, and raising funds are all critical
activities, nonprofits have been challenged to find adequate budgets to
do these things effectively. Even when there was money to invest, there
was also a third party waiting to scrutinize the spending. As a result,
scores of causes had to hold out hope that pro-bono support from
agencies, board members, or volunteers would save the day.That was before the ubiquitous availability of creative technologies changed the game.
With a smartphone and a laptop, you can channel your inner Spielberg
and produce epic videos. Professional themes built for WordPress make
websites a snap, and a host of other do-it-yourself marketing tools can
help you painlessly create everything from email templates to
infographics.
Not a DIY kind of person? No worries. Just have someone else do it
for you for pennies on the dollar. Today’s technology allows you to
crowdsource all your marketing needs. At Fiverr.com, you can get
virtually anything done for $5, like say QR codes built out of Legos.
Meanwhile at 99designs.com, you can start a designer battle royal and
walk away with a “winning logo” or other creative production for a few
hundred bucks.
Technology is indeed empowering those with mini budgets to create
mightily. On the flip side, it’s also producing a surplus of uninspired
websites, flatlining brands, and cookie cutter approaches to
communications. While moving fast and free, nonprofits are trading
originality, vision, and identity for templates, plug-ins, and off the
shelf solutions.
It’s not a question of whether you can get quality design from cheap
(or free) apps and services. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. The
real question is a fundamental one: Do you have a strategy for what
you’re creating?
For 8 out of 10 nonprofits, the answer to that question is no. Only
20% of causes report having a formal, written marketing strategy.
Meanwhile, 100% have logos, websites, and donor communication vehicles.
That’s less than ideal when you consider:
A logo does not equal a brand.
A website does not equal a digital presence.
A Facebook page does not equal an engaged community.
A press release does not equal press coverage.
Strategy leads to things like a distinctive and authentic point of
view, the creation of compelling content, and the development of engaged
communities. Without strategy, you are just making stuff that may or
may not “look pretty.”
But here’s why this strategic deficit is really such a big deal. At a
time when nonprofits need to stand out more than ever, they are at best
blending in and at worst becoming invisible. At a time when they need
their voice the most, they are saying absolutely nothing.
There are more than 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States. That
total has doubled in less than two decades. Meanwhile a $500 billion
bonanza of impact investing is helping pump out a steady flow of social
enterprises. As if the space wasn’t crowded enough, many big
corporations are finding a higher calling and becoming purpose-driven
enterprises themselves, some for real, others for show.
All this good doing is a good thing. But how will your cause stand
out in this overpopulated and chaotic environment? Technology can’t help
you. Fast, cheap, and easy can’t help you. Strategy can. Strategy
provides your organization with a 3-D effect: direction, discernment,
and differentiation.
Direction: It aims you squarely at your goals, and creates a path that guides you to success.
Discernment: It is a filter for your decision making. It
helps you avoid distractions and inconsistencies. It helps you evaluate
the various parts and pieces of your marketing efforts.
Differentiation: It is how you set yourself apart and stand
out from the competition. It ensures you don’t look, sound, feel and act
like everyone else.
Smart strategy is what truly levels the playing field. Strategy helps
you be bigger than you are; to win fights you shouldn’t; to be
surprising, refreshing, and inspirational. Strategy gives you an
advantage over larger organizations. The big boy companies are more
likely to deviate from their strategies. They are more likely to
struggle through internal debates. They also can be slow to move, slow
to adjust, and slow to adapt to changes in the environment. They can be
fearful of innovation.
It’s great that technology provides creative ways to get creative
done. After all, your nonprofit obviously doesn’t have a creative budget
that compares with the likes of Nike or Nissan. But using these
services without the guidance of a strategy is like cooking with no
recipe and no culinary training. Unless you are preparing a feast for
Joey Tribbiani (Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good!) the results are
not going to be all that tasty.
If you’re a nonprofit, ask yourself these questions. Do you want to
fit in, or do you want to stand out? Do you want to “look pretty” or do
you want to be effective?
If you’re a foundation, an investor, a strategic donor, a corporate
sponsor, or a board member supporting a cause, ask yourself these
questions. Would a marketing strategy benefit the causes I support? If
so, how do I help them develop one? What obstacles can I remove?
Strategy isn’t easy, or cheap. But it is well worth the investment.
In the end, five bucks is a great price for a foot-long sub, or a rave
review of a product or service. But what price is your organization
paying if you are creating without a strategy to guide you? It’s hard to
quantify, to be honest. But you could probably buy quite a few
sandwiches.
Having recently gone through an employment change at 55, I battled my
own demons as I thought about the possibility that somebody would
actually hire me, versus the options a potential employer has to fill
their openings with someone younger and cheaper. It wasn’t just about finding a job. It was about finding a job I
wanted. It was about taking whatever steps necessary to “stand out”
among the candidates being considered for the role I was interested
in. Preparing myself to compete in a tight job market required me to
take stock of the factors that were motivating me to action. The first was reflecting on the question, “Why am I still looking to
be gainfully employed at my age?” My dad retired at 59, and he’s
enjoyed his retirement to this very day (he turns 84 this year). In the
generation of my parents, with life expectancy a decade less than it is
today, retiring between 60 and 65 years of age was the norm. Looking at
my generation, many of us “Baby Boomers” lead healthier lives than our
parents did. We eat better, exercise more, smoke less, and take better
care of ourselves. We can expect to live longer. Given this, why not
extend our professional careers at least a decade beyond that of our
parents? Another factor influencing people to remain employed longer is a financial one.
Not being children of the Depression Era, our spending and saving
habits were not as rigorous as our parents, and many of us extended
ourselves, having taken on bigger mortgages, and paid to put our
children through private high schools and college. Additionally, we may
have gone overboard with the wedding plans for our children. The list of
financial commitments made over the years is staggering. Whether by choice or necessity, many of us who may have wanted to
retire at the age our parents did could be facing another 10 years of
employment, with retirement more likely closer to 70 years of age versus
60, particularly if we want to live comfortably in our “Golden Years”.
There are many things you can do to strengthen your candidacy when you
are faced with finding employment in your fifties or later. Here are
four areas to focus on:
1) Research the market rates for the positions that you plan to apply for
You need to understand what the market is willing to pay for a person
with your background and experience. Know that your most recent total
compensation package may not represent what the market is willing to
pay. This is particularly true if you were released from a company that
employed you for many years, providing you with annual increases that
brought your total income to a level that is no longer “marked to
market”. This is important. While you may feel you deserve every dollar that you made,
you need to understand that if your goal is to earn “not a penny less”
in your next job, you may be searching for a job for a long time. Make
an effort to understand what the market is willing to pay for a person
with your experience, and prepare yourself to be willing to accept this
level of compensation.
It may be overstating the obvious to remind you that who you know is
more important than what you know. Don’t confuse this point, because
what you know is in fact important, it’s just that who you know is more
important first. Today, the internet is an easy and effective way to identify
employment opportunities (Monster, Dice, CareerBuilder, Indeed, etc).
Research the companies offering the jobs by perusing their websites.
Find out who is employed at those companies by scouring a source like
LinkedIn and research what is being said about the quality of those
firms as an employer (Glassdoor is a good site
for gathering this intelligence.) Once you have done your research
submit your resume and cover letter. Sounds easy, right? It is not. If everybody is looking for a job in this manner, you need to
differentiate yourself from everyone else. How can you do so? Use your
social networks! Do you know anybody who is employed at the company
where you are a candidate? Would they recommend you? Have you worked
with them in the past? Have you kept up with them, so they would be
comfortable recommending you? If you’re not great about keeping up with
current and former work colleagues, professional acquaintances,
fraternity or sorority brothers and sisters, etc., then make a renewed
effort at this, as it will most likely pay off for you when you most
need it.
3) Don’t become obsolete
As you age, you must embrace technology and its rapid daily
evolvement. I know you have no idea what makes a “smart phone” smart,
and for the life of you, you don’t understand why your daughter keeps
insisting on installing something called a “router” in your house. Here’s the best advice that I can give you: Don’t become your
father. Remember how after they stopped making vinyl records, he stopped
having an interest in music? Think about how every time he comes to
your house, he pushes every button on your remote controls, to the point
it takes you an hour to get everything back to normal. It’s safe to say
that at some point, he made a decision to stop embracing technological
change, and now he’s become an outlier when it comes to understanding
how the advances in technology enable and empower the world in which we
live and work. It is imperative you keep up with technological change
and embrace it. Don’t allow yourself to become the equivalent of a
“technology dinosaur.” Today’s companies embrace technology and use it
to their advantage when competing for business. Don’t allow yourself to
be eliminated from consideration for a job you desire because you have
lost touch with technology.
The great basketball coach John Wooden said, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”. I couldn’t agree more, nor could I give better advice. Here are several key components to being prepared:
Have your resume professionally done for you – There are
dozens of companies willing to help you with this, many of whom will do
it for free. Most employment companies have a “resume production” team
or capability, and can work with you to create a resume that is germane to your experience and highlights your greatest competencies.
Check your wardrobe – Have you been working in a “business
casual” environment for years? Does your suit or blouse no longer fit
the way it did when you purchased it? Is the style of your clothing
representative of a different time? Spend a little money to make certain
the first impression you make is a quality one.
Have you researched the company you will be interviewing with – Do
you know what their annual revenue is? Do you know what their primary
product and service offerings are? Are they a public company? If so,
what is their stock trading at? Do you know where their primary offices
are? Do you know who their main competitors are? Have you read their
website? Do you know who the members of the leadership team are? Take
the time to learn this information, as it may distinguish you from your
competitors during your interview.
Interview your interviewer - This is a must! When the
interviewer finally asks you if you have any questions, it is not ok to
say, “No, not at this time.” Be prepared to ask your interviewer two or
three questions. Asking questions expresses genuine interest on your
part. Here are a few you can ask:
“What are the strategic plans for growth for the company over the next three years?”
“Who are your main competitors, and how do you go about beating them, in the markets where you compete with them directly?”
“What is the company’s commitment to community service?”
“Does your company have a Mission Statement or Core Values statement?”
“How would you describe the culture of your organization?”
Conclusion
While the “Baby Boomer generation” is more inclined to seek permanent
employment, the workplace has evolved to a point where most companies
now employ a mix of consultants and contractors as a strategic component
to their workforce. Many staffing companies work with their clients to
place both permanent and temporary workers with them, and can be a
terrific resource in helping you find that next great job. These tips
are equally useful should you desire to pursue contract work instead of
permanent employment. Hopefully I have given you enough information to
encourage you to tackle the employment marketplace with
confidence. Great luck and success in landing your next big role, even
though you’ve moved well through your 50s and your 60s are fast
approaching! Author: Thomas Hart joined Eliassen Group
as its Staffing Business Development Leader and CMO in October 2012. He
also served as the senior executive for Fidelity’s HR Access Solutions
in Paris, France, from 2004 through 2006.
Despite stereotypes of entrepreneurs as fresh-faced youngsters, new
research has found that older workers are more likely to innovate than
their under-35 counterparts.
Image Source-Getty Images
Peach-fuzzed entrepreneurs
like Mark Zuckerberg, 19 when he founded Facebook, and Larry Page and
Sergey Brin, both 23 when they developed Google, have created a
collective image of the successful innovator as youthful, brash, and
brilliant. In turn, we’ve been taught that with middle age come
calcified habits, outdated skills, and an aversion to risk. Sounds bad,
right? Hey, it gets even worse when you consider that, by 2030, the
average age will rise from 37 to 39 in the United States, from 40 to 45
in the European Union, and from 45 to 49 in Japan. The implication is
that such figures, plus the post–baby boomer decline in birthrates,
could leave swaths of the world with a deficit in creative potential.
The question then becomes whether these places can continue to compete,
grow, and create wealth with an aging pool of prospective entrepreneurs
and workers. According to several new studies, the surprising answer is
yes.
And
the age at which entrepreneurs are more innovative and willing to take
risks seems to be going up. According to data from the Kauffman
Foundation, the highest rate of entrepreneurship in America has shifted
to the 55–64 age group, with people over 55 almost twice as likely to
found successful companies than those between 20 and 34. And while the
entrepreneurship rate has gone up since 1996 in most other age brackets
as well, it has actually declined among Americans under 35. That’s good
news for one very simple reason: baby boomers are now in their prime,
startup-founding years, which will unleash what Kauffman researcher Dane
Stangler expects to be an entrepreneurship boom. Since new companies
create the vast majority of jobs, the positive impact on a
post-recession economy could be great.
Part
of the reason that companies started by older workers don’t get much
recognition is because they don’t generally produce hot Web apps or
other easily understood products. Instead, they tend to involve more
complex technologies like biotech, energy, or IT hardware. They also
tend to sell products and services to other businesses, which consumers
rarely see but which do most of the heavy lifting in powering innovation
and economic growth. In fact, America’s fastest-growing tech startup,
according to Forbes Magazine’s Fast Tech 500, is First Solar,
founded by a 68-year-old serial inventor in 1984. The founders of No. 2
on the Forbes list, Riverbed Technology, were 51 and 33 when they
started their networking company. Even the Internet is no longer just
the province of young adults. Zynga, the company behind Farmville and
other infectiously popular games, will likely pass a billion dollars in
revenue next year. Its founder and CEO, Mark Pincus, is a
stereotype-defying 44. In sectors such as biotech and energy, Wadhwa
estimates the average entrepreneur to be even older.
So
if entrepreneurs don’t necessarily fade out with age, what about
regular workers? One of Germany’s largest companies had a researcher
examine its system for continuous improvement, expecting the findings to
back up its policy of pushing workers into early retirement. The
numbers, however, showed that older workers not only had great ideas for
making procedures and processes more efficient, but their innovations
also produced significantly higher returns for the company than those of
workers in younger age groups. Birgit Verwonk, a Dresden University of
Applied Sciences economist and author of the study, says the findings
were so surprising for the company (which wasn’t named in the study)
that it is now phasing out its early retirement program.
The
way companies tend to be organized is also to blame. Companies often
put new hires fresh out of college on their most innovative projects,
while making older workers do routine jobs with existing systems, says
Verwonk. Also, too few companies spend enough on continuous training to
keep their employees’ expertise up to date. But workers themselves are
at fault as well. Many older workers coast into premature obsolescence
instead of keeping their skills current. In the European Union, for
example, only 30 percent of employees over 55 participate in any kind of
job-related training, compared to 50 percent of their younger
colleagues.
One
thing is clear: a change in the prevailing mindset about older
entrepreneurs and workers won’t happen by itself. Mixed-age teams, such
as the ones automaker BMW is using, are one possible approach and have
the added benefit of minimizing the loss of knowledge that occurs when
older workers retire. Siemens, the Munich-based technology conglomerate,
has instituted a “cross-mentoring” system under which older employees
show younger ones the ropes while getting an update on the latest skills
from these new hires. These shifts are a start, but a lot still has to
be done, says Verwonk. Demographic and economic pressures will soon
force workers, businesses, and entire economies to rethink certain
stereotypes; in a post-recession world, assuming that someone can be
phased out due to age will be a luxury no one can afford.
Conquering The Enemies of Innovation: Silence and Fear
by David K. Williams and Mary Michelle Scott |
What's the biggest impediment to innovation within an organization? Fear.
As early as 2004, research
from Elizabeth Wolf Morrison and Frances J. Milliken for the Academy
of Management Review and Stern Business pegged fear — and the resulting
silence when employees operate within a culture of fear — as the biggest
roadblock to innovation.
A recent survey by the Robert Half Group confirms that in 2012, the problem remains. What makes employees afraid?
In their survey, employees cite the following issues:
1. Fear of making a mistake tops the list (cited by 30%)
2. Fear of getting fired. In fact, not only the fear of getting fired
outright, but the fear of appearing less dedicated or vital if they
actually take earned vacation days is a big issue in a slow economy. The
data shows employees left an average of 11 vacation days untaken in
2011.
3. Fear of dealing with difficult customers or clients
4. Fear of conflict with a manager
5. Fear of speaking in front of a group
6. Fear of disagreements with co-workers
Only 3% of employees consider themselves "fearless." We shouldn't be surprised that their innovation is gone.
What can we do to turn this deadly equation around? Open
communication is critical to ending organizational fear. As Morrison and
Milliken note, in a fearful environment, front-line employees are
unwilling to share because they are afraid somebody will "kill the
messenger." Genuine communication happens only behind closed door or in
whispers, and outward communication becomes shallow or disappears.
Without a healthy feedback loop, the organization loses the focus
required for problem solving efforts and innovative new developments and
productivity gains.
How can we help employees to conquer their fears, and to bring their innovation forward? We suggest the following three steps:
1. We must learn to truly trust our employees. We
must trust their inherent powers and strengths. We must trust them to
find and deliver their finest nature, which is only possible if leaders
regard and treat their employees as fully creative and capable people.
We must trust them to care about each other, and about their customers.
In Overcoming Worry and Fear,
psychologist and author Paul A. Hauck points out that genuine trust is
beyond empowerment. When leadership thinks in terms of "giving power,"
to employees, they are giving employees something they (and employees)
inherently know that they also have the power to take back. A leader who
genuinely trusts their people believes and communicates that employees
already have all of the power they need within them, and communicates
that he or she trusts them to use their power honorably and well.
2. We must rely on principles, not policies, to govern our decisions and acts.
Instead of managing employees through policies and rules, consider the
possibility of agreeing on guiding principles instead. For us, the
principles are our 7 Non Negotiables: Respect, Belief, Trust, Loyalty,
Courage, Gratitude and Commitment. By adhering to these foundational
traits, employees can govern their own decisions without manager
oversight or performance appraisals. More importantly, they are no
longer fearful about the possibility they will make a mistake.
3. Employees must experiment before they create. A
fearful employee can never experiment. In an environment of trust,
however, individuals and teams thrive on the opportunity to create and
try new approaches. They understand the opportunities that can only come
from mistakes. Interestingly, Amazon's Jeff Bezos--Fortune Magazine's
2012 Businessman of the Year--has noted that organizations weaken
themselves most through sins of omission, primarily their failure to
experiment. Why do they not experiment? Yet again, the fear of making
mistakes. Experiments--and failures--are vital (and along with obsessive
dedication to customer support are the single biggest cause, he says,
of Amazon's world-changing success.)
In summary, employees who feel supported and appreciated will feel
sufficiently secure to devote their full energy, creativity and passion
to the company and its goals. They will naturally innovate in every area
within their influence.
We must move away from work environments that are based on command
and control. We must eliminate fear for innovation to truly occur. If
you are willing to take this challenge, the changes you see will astound
you.
“People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a
year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a
year.”
―
Peter F. Drucker
