Discovering Innovation

My son, an aspiring video game designer, was one of some 65,000 attendees a couple weeks ago at the PAX East trade show in Boston. In case you're not familiar with it (I wasn’t), PAX is short for Penny Arcade Exposition. 

            It may be an antiquated name and, no doubt, dates back to the days of mechanical pinball machines, which is probably why it has been shortened to three letters. But the show, its exhibitors and attendees were anything but old-fashioned.

            A sophomore studying interactive media and game development at the university level, my son used the opportunity the show provided to mix with people he soon hopes to be working with. He dropped his business card around and picked up a few. He got insights into jobs in the industry, tried to meet the right people, attended various relevant forums on the state of the video game industry – which is exploding – and learned about where the new ideas and evolving companies are taking the state of the art.

            One forum allowed audience members to question some of the leading lights in the industry, including some of the most respected reviewers, people who can make or break newly introduced games. My son asked one reviewer what kind of games he thought would be the big sellers in the near future, the kind of games designers should be concentrating on.

            The answer was not what my son expected, but I think it revealed a lot about this person’s good business sense. In essence, he told my son not to focus on improving or expanding the current genre but rather to be innovative, to take risks, to try something new. He insisted that the industry has always thrived because of the unexpected and innovative ideas from daring pioneers.

            That points up what is truly special about this business and why it is booming. His answer intrigued and excited my 20-year-old son, and gave him hope that the oddball ideas he has that may in fact come to fruition some day.

            Do you remember that point in your career when you realized that those who are truly successful are those that take risks, rather than play follow-the-leader? I think that’s what dawned on my son. I could hear it in his retelling of the encounter. In fact, his experience provides a lesson to us all in business, no matter what we do for a living.

            As businesspeople, we can try continually to one-up our competitors by doing what they are doing, but just a little bit better, differently, faster, more cheaply, or with better marketing.

            What makes customers and prospects sit up and take notice, however, is when innovators shake up the world with something completely out of left field, something unexpected, exciting, and daring, something that challenges the status quo and our definition of “good.” Instead, they give the world something GREAT, something that blows our minds, that makes the chattering class chatter.

            My personal favorite, of course, is Apple, a company that has done this so many times that we are disappointed when they fail to startle us. Even when they just introduce updates and improvements to existing products, they excite their fans, and confound their competitors.

            But Apple doesn’t just introduce new products. They shake up and turn entire industries on their heads, in particular, the record/CD music business.

            What does it take to stimulate this kind of innovation and risk-taking in an organization? It starts at the top with leaders who lead by example rather than words. Words on their own are just words. Action gives them meaning.

            I remember once following a semi-tractor-trailer going down the highway. On the back door of the trailer were the company’s name, logo and tagline. I had never heard of the company, and its tagline didn’t reveal much about it either: “Service is Our Business.” The truck could have contained auto parts, foodstuffs, clothing, or any number of other consumer or industrial products.

            Whether the company provided remarkable service or not is beside the point. It is akin to the company that plasters “Innovation” on its signage and advertising. Is that company trying to pass itself off as innovative by including the word in its signage, or is the nomenclature in fact driven by the internal innovative climate? I suspect it’s the former case.

            “Innovation” is a fact about an organization discovered by its customers. It is not something to brag about, or to incorporate into a logo. Let the management lead by example, by being innovative leaders, by taking acceptable risks, and by allowing failure in the quest for greatness. That is how innovation happens.Not by calling one's self innovative.

            That, I hope, is the experience that my son gets to have in his chosen profession.

When "Bringing the Outside In" Means China

"Bringing the outside in" is a recurrent topic in this blog because of its central importance to a business' long-term success.

                  But these days, for an American-based manufacturing company, it can mean so much more than just keeping your employees apprised of what the competition is up to, or the state of the economy and its impact on them and your company.

            It can also mean helping them understand the people they're competing against—particularly the Chinese, who recently surpassed the Japanese to become the world's second largest economy, second to the USA.

            American workers are paid more than Chinese workers and have a better standard of living. But do they work better, harder and smarter, too? Can they make better products at lower cost than their Chinese counterparts who are paid far less and live in less desirable circumstances? If so, how soon will it be before the Chinese surpass us in productivity, quality and sophistication?

            How (and why) do we communicate that difference to our organizations? Frankly, that's a picture that has never (or rarely) been presented to most American workers. Instead, they are urged to work harder and smarter because their company is struggling to compete against cheaper Chinese imports. Or, worse, one day they learn their jobs have gone to China—or Thailand, or India, or Vietnam, or....

            The other day, I caught a snippet of a radio commentary that insisted America's manufacturing base, while not what it once was, still leads the world in productivity and output. Assuming that's true, it's not too late to save what's left, and make it better and more competitive. I believe we can always do better, and that communications can play a big role by helping raise awareness and understanding among our employees of exactly who they are competing against.

            American workers are not competing against some amorphous, nefarious Chinese company. They are competing against people not unlike themselves: people with families to support; people able and willing to work hard; people who may have low short-term expectations, but high long-term hopes and dreams.

            Let's imagine we're living in a modest hovel in central China. The government announces it is going to build a new factory in the nearby village. Instantly, thousands of new jobs will become available. No longer will we have to scrape out a living. There are real jobs coming to our corner of the world.

            As the factory is built, we and many of our neighbors are trained, prepared for a new career on a manufacturing line. And pretty soon, we're part of a large operation to manufacture a modern product for sale in the global marketplace.

            We may still be living in our hovel, but we can foresee the day when we will move into a government housing complex now under construction near the factory, and we can hope for a better life for our children.

            Back to America... We must help ourselves and our employees examine and understand this lifestyle of the people we are competing against, how it differs from our own, the life of the people who work for our foreign competitors, the workers in foreign lands who do what we do.

            Americans have a lifestyle that is the envy of the rest of the world. Is it in danger, threatened by people who today live in hovels, who aspire to government-built housing? Will these people, or their children and grandchildren be leading the lives of comfort and health comparable to that with which Americans have long been accustomed?

            We need to better understand their lifestyle, and their aspirations, their history, culture and background that they bring with them to the 21^st century. To what do they aspire? How much money do they make? What does that buy them? What are their benefits?

            We can educate ourselves by reading books about China and its recent history, by staying abreast of the news, and by seeking documentaries about modern China. Fact-based films, too, can enlighten us.

            I like the Chinese film, "To Live." The story follows the lives of a man and his wife through the various transformations of 20^th century Chinese society, the Maoist revolution and the subsequent cultural revolutions—from the 1940s through the 1970s to their old age, just prior to the nation’s emergence into the modern world. They were survivors. These people, or rather their grandchildren, today, are our competitors.

            In fact, their little granddaughter, who is born toward the end of the film, could well be a peer of Yu Shui, the central character in another excellent and relevant film, “Up the Yangtze.” A fictional story of the impact of the Three Gorges Dam on the people of the Yangtze River valley, it’s the tale how a young woman, Yu Shui, must take a job aboard a cruise ship to help her struggling family. There, she enters into a dizzying microcosm of modern China. She’s an unsophisticated country girl, swept up, and confused and overwhelmed by modernity. Meanwhile, her parents face the rising waters of the Yangtze, dependent on the meager wages she sends home.

            Educating and exposing ourselves to this outside world by reading and staying abreast of cultural differences by watching such films and documentaries is an important exercise. While yesterday the Chinese were manufacturing cheap toys and trinkets, today they are making our iPhones and computers, designed by Westerners.

            Tomorrow, no doubt, they will design, develop, and produce advanced jet aircraft and avionics, robotic medical devices, advanced medicines, and numerous other cutting edge technologies—the very businesses that will have to drive America’s future economy, too.

            We need better, more complete knowledge of what’s driving China and its people as well as other developing nations in order to understand how best to prepare for and respond to this evolving and improving competition. Only through those means will we be better prepared to share that understanding with our employees and excel in our increasingly competitive world.

Farewell to the Daily Newspaper

My household subscribes to four daily newspapers. No, I'm not talking about on-line, iPad or Kindle subscriptions. These are the conventional paper versions.

            Maybe I am old-fashioned, but yes, I still like to read newspapers in the flesh, so to speak, ink on paper, with the pages spread out on my breakfast table and a mug of coffee within reach.

            I'm afraid, however, that our newspaper delivery service is forcing me to change my morning reading habits and switch to the electronic versions. That’s not to say I’m not current with technology, unable or unwilling to get my news on-line. It’s just that this old habit of mine—born as a one-time newspaper reporter and editor—is dying hard. The habit’s demise, however, is being aided and abetted by those who can least afford the loss of the business of such a faithful patron.

            A single service delivers all the morning papers here, which for us includes the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Herald and Boston Globe.

            I'm an early riser, usually up and about by 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. I like to have my newspapers shortly thereafter. For many years, I relied on a conscientious carrier who rarely failed to put the papers on my front porch before 5. Often, the thump of the papers woke me.

            Unfortunately, the guy who's been delivering my papers the past year or so can't seem to get them on my porch (or anywhere near it) before 6:30—sometimes as late as 7:00 or even 7:30.

            And the convenient porch deliveries, which I have tried to encourage via monthly cash tips, often fall short. So I am forced to pad down the driveway in slippered feet to retrieve the papers.

            While I await my tardy newsprint, I peruse said papers’ offerings on-line with my laptop computer. It has gotten so common lately and I have become so accustomed to the on-line versions that by the time the papers are delivered, I will have already read my favorite columnists and the main news of the day. The web even enables me to finish the daily crossword puzzles. So when the hard copies arrive, they often go straight to the recycling bin unopened as I head off to start my day.

            I'm sure it's not their intention, but what the delivery service is doing is helping increase my comfort level with reading their products on-line and alienating me from the print versions. They are furthering that by continually bumping up their prices of the delivered products. I see the day coming soon when cancellation of all newspaper deliveries will be an easy decision.

            I hate to do it, but it seems inevitable. The Times will likely go first—not only because it is the most expensive of the four, but also because it long ago ceased being “the paper of record,” instead becoming the most partisan voice in American news media, with all the news fit to spin and slant. The Wall Street Journal is my favorite of the four. But as a long-time on-line subscriber, that will likely be the easiest print version to forego.

            In truth, this blog entry started life as a letter to the news delivery service as an attempt to get them to improve their service. However, I could not find any means of contacting them. They remain stubbornly anonymous and unreachable. The proffered phone number leads to a frustrating daisy chain of pre-recorded choices—but no human being—and there is no available street address for snail mail. Instead, I vent here.

            It does seem ironic in the midst of a weak economy that a business would apparently be going out of its way to provide poor service and not give its customers a way to help them correct that, especially in light of the emerging technologies that are making their product increasingly irrelevant. It’s their loss, and our gain.

            If this is the experience of such a die-hard newspaper fan as me, what must be the effect of such treatment on its more casual customers? Likely they have far less patience than I.

            The recent flood tide of newspaper failures seems to have crested. But is this experience of mine foretelling the next wave of multiplying folded dailies? It’s a safe bet, if you ask me.

Hearing the Voice of the Customer

The role of a company’s employee communications operation is, by its name and nature, almost exclusively focused inside the organization. Yet, expanding its responsibilities to the company’s other critical audience – its customers – can reap benefits beyond measure.

            That’s not to say that communications managers should take on marketing communications, too. Rather, they should serve as a dialogue facilitator and conduit to the customers’ world to help the internal audience gain a better appreciation for and greater insights into the world of the customer.

            Consider your own experiences receiving shoddy treatment at a retail store, versus the outstanding service you may have gotten elsewhere. Why the difference? It’s not purely happenstance that one experience is consistently great while the other is often lousy.

            The difference between the two is likely the success (or lack thereof) that the respective organizations have had in getting their employees to appreciate the needs and desires of their customers; the challenges those customers face; and the reason those customers come to them in the first place for fulfillment of their needs or solutions to their challenges.

            The purpose of a business is to provide greater ease and comfort for its customers by making their lives simpler on some level, satisfying some desire or need they may have or solving challenges they can’t do on their own. And if the people in your organization that deal directly with your customers aren’t doing that effectively, consistently and courteously, if they are in fact doing the opposite, then organizational failure can’t be far behind.

            Think back to bad experiences you’ve had with businesses, big and small. Are those organizations still in business? Have they declared bankruptcy, been acquired or just folded? Without naming names, I can think of a few that I think got their just deserts.

            In helping my clients improve their employees’ appreciation for the world of the customer, I’ve done the legwork on their behalf in a few cases. The pay-off in each instance was huge – far bigger than the client had expected.

            In two different cases, both industrial companies selling products and services to other businesses, I worked with the sales managers to bring the real world of their customers to the sales team.

            I grabbed my home videocam and conducted interviews with a dozen or so different customers at their sites, asking them about their needs, frustrations, and challenges, as well as how our clients and their competitors were or were not measuring up. The raw footage was edited down to cohesive 15-minute videos for sales meetings.

            The impact was stunning. Both videos stimulated robust and productive discussions. Salesmen who called on these people were hearing things they’d never heard before – or perhaps they hadn’t listened closely enough.

            This doesn’t pertain only to salespeople and those with direct customer contact. It applies equally to all, to back office support personnel, to product developers and manufacturing employees, and everyone else in the company. How better for people to get a sense of why they do what they do, and how they might do it better?

            There was another case where I did a similar customer video that was shown across the organization, even to people without direct customer contact. Especially telling was how the IT department gleaned some important insights into the customers’ world. As a result, they enacted some changes to the company’s software that would improve the customers’ experience when they went online to check their account status.

            Businesses are launched with a vision of meeting previously unsatisfied needs. If that business succeeds at doing that to the point where it grows, loses touch with its original purpose, and gets too big to continue doing that effectively, then what’s the point of being in business?

            The most difficult challenge any company faces in a growth mode, or even just staying ahead of the competition, can be maintaining that awareness and insight into the customer experience among its entire employee population, month after month, year after year.

            To the extent that the company’s employee communications professionals can help sustain and enhance that could be its most valuable contribution to the perpetuation and success of that organization.

Steve Jobs Health Scare, The Sequel

We had a sense of déjà vu this week with the announcement that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave of absence.

            This is the second time he has taken time off for health issues. The first time, in January 2009, it was attributed to a “hormone imbalance.”  Later, we learned that, in fact, Jobs had received a liver transplant. Some hormone imbalance! And that was five years after he had overcome pancreatic cancer.

            Apple spokespeople are mum on the reasons behind Jobs’ temporary departure this time, saying it’s a private matter. We can assume that, based on his history of pancreatic cancer and liver transplant—neither of which is a small matter—he’s not doing well. Otherwise, why take another leave of absence? Why not cut back on the office hours, if he’s just feeling out of sorts?

            Steve Jobs is not just a CEO. He is Apple’s founding genius and Zen master. He is the heart and soul of Apple, and its primary generator of new ideas. He is the motivator-in-chief. Steve Jobs is Apple.

            Apple’s able #2, COO Tim Cook, will assume temporary duties in Jobs’ stead. Cook is a good man, talented, and certainly a strong operational guy. But he’s no substitute for Jobs.

            The first entry in this blog, “Steve Jobs and the CEO Succession Issue,” on July 23, 2008, was on this very topic. Six months after that posting came the leave of absence that would lead to the liver transplant.

            The CEO succession question persists. What amazes me is that, even with the knowledge of Jobs’ true condition the first time, Apple’s Board of Directors has continued to let this question slide. Two years later, Apple still has no CEO succession plan. Even if he returns after this latest health crisis, the Board should assume that Jobs is nearing the end of his tenure and a suitable successor must be identified.

            This latest news created an email discussion between a friend and myself. My friend asked, what would happen to the company if Jobs doesn’t come back this time? Put another way, what is Apple with Steve Jobs? Apple without Steve Jobs would be like the Declaration of Independence without Thomas Jefferson.

            His value to Apple is multifaceted. He’s one of the most creative people in American executive suites today. This inspirational genius has an uncanny ability to get the best out of his people, to drive them to desire the same perfection he does. He serves as the guiding beacon for Apple’s thousands of worldwide employees, setting towering standards for quality and excellence in product development, manufacturing, packaging and marketing.

            Under his direction and inspiration, the past decade has seen Apple invent new categories and reinvent old ones. Meanwhile, competitors have played catch-up while essentially copying Apple’s latest forays.

            Think of all the echoes of Apple’s output: iPod (Microsoft Zune), Apple Store (Sony Style), iPhone (Motorola Droid, etc.), and iPad (Samsung Galaxy Tab, etc.).

            In response, while they worked on their next blockbuster, Apple and Jobs stayed a few steps ahead of the copycats by playing defense, a defense that consisted largely of improving existing products and expanding their capabilities.

            In essence, that is Jobs’ genius: identifying the new niches and creating products that blow the doors off (iMac, iPod, iTunes, Apple Store, iPad, and App Store), and then making them better year over year. (By the way, rumor has it that the second iteration of the iPad, due this spring, is heads and shoulders above the original.)

            But without Jobs’ physical presence and his ideas, drive and constant motivational push, where will the next Apple blockbuster come from? Are there any Steve Jobs clones at Infinity Loop? Not likely. As I said, Tim Cook is capable and congenial. But he’s no Steve Jobs.

            We’ve seen this movie before, when then-CEO John Sculley fired Jobs in 1985. Apple foundered and lost its core identity. Many key employees got discouraged and left. It went through a series of lackluster CEOs. Then, in late 1996, it acquired Steve Jobs’ new company, NeXT, which brought him back into the fold. His return reinvigorated the company, its culture, brand and, especially, stock price.

            Without Steve Jobs, Apple will become just another Silicon Valley company. It will continue to pump out new, improved iterations of old products. Momentum will sustain the Apple aura for a few years. But then, without another smash hit, Apple will slowly slip into the standard corporate routine of protecting its copyrights and patents while managing profit margins.

            I hope I’m wrong. I sincerely wish for Steve Jobs’ return to Apple at full strength, in good health. I’m eagerly awaiting Apple’s next blockbuster, whatever it may be.

Economic Realities in the Workplace

This blog has expended a lot of words on the importance of bringing knowledge and awareness of the outside world into organizations. The struggling economy we’ve been experiencing for the past 27 months (or more) has put a variety of strains on business, adding a new imperative in this regard.

Companies struggle to maintain profitability (or even stay in business) amid feeble market conditions, never mind trying to grow the business. Meanwhile, it's difficult for their employees to be at their best when they worry about the potential loss of their jobs (or those of co-workers) in the context of a 10 percent unemployment rate.

This particular period in our history has been made all the more difficult for businesses by the additional burdens and uncertainties spawned largely in the political arena around issues like:

• The possibility of increased business and personal taxes at federal, state and local levels;
• A growing thicket of federal and state regulations and red tape;
• The rising cost of health care insurance; and
• Looming energy policy changes (various efforts to “regulate carbon emissions” and/or reduce the use of fossil fuels).

Individually and collectively, these add to the cost, complexity and challenge of doing business, both today and in the future, putting further constraints on businesses’ ability to focus on what they do best and to expand by hiring and retaining qualified people, buying new equipment, and building new facilities.

As Congress, state legislatures and other political leaders debate whether to increase taxes or to impose new taxes and regulations, business leaders and owners hesitate, paralyzed by the uncertainties of additional costs that could arise in the coming months and years. They know it's dangerous to spend money they may not have a year from now. That translates into postponement of hiring new people – since additional employees represent long-term investments – or incurring debt to build plants that may not run at capacity in a weak economy.

Instead, businesses hoard cash against the possibility that they will have to spend it later on things like elevated taxes, higher energy costs and/or increased health care premiums.

Unfortunately, employees are too often divorced from these external economic realities. Within many companies, certain myths tend to persist: that the company is immune to natural economic forces; that it has infinitely deep pockets with which to pay ever-rising wages and benefits; that company management is over-stating the impact of external forces on the business; and that they can always raise prices to maintain profitability.

Though tempting, the answer does not lie in passing along increased costs in the form of higher prices. While some price increases might be possible, this route is never the only solution. Besides, customers can find less expensive sources, postpone their purchases, or to do without altogether.

Employees need to have a solid understanding of things like revenues, cash flow, and profits. They must appreciate that increased expenses – whether in the form of taxes, energy costs or health care premiums – impede the company’s ability to earn a profit, and that profits assure that an organization can continue to operate well into the future.

Put another way, a business’ future is contingent on whether it can update plants and equipment, maintain those plants and that equipment, recruit new talent, and improve and update its employees’ talents and skills – all of which are impossible in the absence of profits. A stagnant organization – one unable (or unwilling) to reinvest in itself and its people – is an organization in its early death throes.

Those harsh economic realities and the uncertainties of our times must be part of the ongoing internal dialogue. This imperative to bring outside realities inside bears repeating now as 2010 comes to a close and we look forward to (and hope for) an improving economy in the New Year.

All employees need to understand that the environment in which their employer operates has a direct impact on its ability to continue to employ them, pay them what they deserve, allow them to pursue self-improvement and personal career goals within the organization, and to make the capital investments that will help maintain productive, cost-effective operations.

To do otherwise, to keep employees in the dark to guess and make assumptions, is dangerous on many levels. But at base, it isn’t fair or honest. Have a conversation with your employees about these simple facts:

• Higher corporate taxes and increased energy costs mean less money to invest in our people and plants.
• These same increased costs also affect our suppliers, which means the price of the goods and services we buy from them will likely go up, too.
• Higher taxes and energy costs also impede our customers’ ability or willingness to buy our products.
• More regulations mean a further shifting of resources away from productive investments in our people, plants and equipment.
• Higher health care costs will necessitate some reduction of benefits and/or increased co-pays.
• There is no deep, infinite well of money for salary and benefit increases, or for structural investments and capital improvements. It all comes from a business’ ability to turn a profit on revenues after expenses. And if expenses like taxes, health care and energy go up, profits decline.

It’s your responsibility as a business leader and manager of people to make sure employees appreciate the direct links between public policy decisions by our elected representatives and a business’ ability to prosper, as well as the people that that business employs.

“Because it’s there”

Knowing my love of adventure, a friend recently sent me a newspaper article about a twenty-nine-year-old family friend named Eli Andersen who had circumnavigated Graham Island standing atop and paddling a large surfboard. I’d never heard of Graham Island, but thanks to Google maps, I found out, and I was even more impressed by the feat.

      Graham comprises about half of the landmass of the Queen Charlotte Islands, BC, north of Vancouver Island, south of the Alaskan panhandle. It took Eli six weeks to paddle around Graham.

      The notion of a wild adventure like that appeals to something deep in me and I was fascinated. I think that this young man touched on what appealed to me when he said, “I like to lie down in my sleeping bag at night after I have made camp. I congratulate myself on a long paddle, or finding the ideal campsite, or had made good decisions. I pat myself on the back and say 'good job Eli, you did it.' I enjoy that feeling.”

      I know that feeling, too. It's an ineffable sense of accomplishment. It’s reaching well beyond what you believe you are capable of doing and then doing it. It's deep fatigue, that feeling of tired, aching muscles telling you how difficult it was, and the comforting knowledge that you did it, a truth that no one can take away, proven by the fact of where you are at that moment.

      It’s crazy, isn’t it, to engage in such dangerous ventures as paddling solo around an island in the northern Pacific Ocean. Why do we do it? As a college kid, much to my mother's horror, I hitchhiked and freight-hopped my way from Salem, OR, to the Grand Canyon, a distance of about 1,500 miles. And when I got there, I hiked to the bottom of the canyon.

      Over the years, I’ve camped out under the stars in a remote corner of the Isle of Skye in Scotland; trained for and run six marathons; climbed Mt. Hood; nearly drowned while canoeing the St. Croix River in Maine overflowing its banks due to spring floods; climbed vertical rock walls; and hiked into the High Sierras numerous times. They were all tough, physically trying and sometimes-dangerous experiences, some more so than others. But, as we press to the edge of our own abilities and strengths, we gain confidence and a better understanding of our personal limits.

      Why do I do it? In the case of the High Sierras, it’s because when you can camp out at 11,000 feet, you get unbroken vistas of a hundred miles; a night sky full of trillions of bright stars; cold glacial melt water to drink; crisp, clean air to breathe; complete silence, save any wind; utter solitude; and the harsh beauty of sheer granite cliffs and high altitude, aquamarine lakes. You congratulate yourself in the knowledge of your accomplishment, how hard you worked to be able to see and experience it all, knowing that you are among the few people up to it.

Photo: Bill LeMenager

      Mountaineers always respond to the “Why?” question by saying, “Because it's there.” Seems as good a reason as any. In fact, what that answer says is that they can imagine themselves atop a particular mountain, just as Eli could imagine himself circumnavigating Graham Island alone. To picture one’s self doing something is tantamount to doing it. It’s throwing down the gauntlet and daring one’s self to do it. Failing is one thing, but failing to try is not acceptable.

      That’s the nub. Not trying is unacceptable.

      Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, himself an avid and fearless adventurer, understood this truth. He once said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Another president, John F. Kennedy, challenged the nation to go to the moon, at the time a tremendously and unthinkably difficult test. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade,” he said, “not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. . ."

      That statement, in a nutshell, defined for an era who we were as a nation, what our goals were; that we were fully aware of the risks of the mission, in the context of our confidence in our ability to do it. But to fail to try was not acceptable to the American spirit, and the nation as one eagerly rose to the president’s challenge.

      One's mountain needn't be a moon mission or an Alpine peak to conquer, or an island to paddle around. It can be something as close to home as a painting to conceive of and finish, a gourmet meal to plan, cook and serve, or a book to write and publish. And, it might be overcoming a job-related challenge.

      Tales of adventures are merely internal human struggles writ large, and literally played out on a real life canvas. Edward Whymper, a late-nineteenth century English mountaineer and explorer, answered the “Why?” question with remarkable clarity:

“We who go mountain-scrambling have constantly set before us the superiority of fixed purposes or perseverance to brute force. . . [W]e know where there's a will there's a way; and we come back to our daily occupations better fitted to fight the battle of life, and to overcome the impediments which obstruct our paths, strengthened and cheered by the recollection of past labours, and by the memories of victories gained in other fields.”

In the overly formal language of the Victorian era, those words neatly sum up what I’ve long struggled to verbalize succinctly. After those exertions spent overcoming uniquely difficult obstacles, after stressing our bodies to the limit, after testing our will against the challenges we put before ourselves, we return to “fight the battle” of everyday life. The barriers and difficulties we confront there can seem so paltry in comparison as we recall our “past labours.” We can picture ourselves similarly overcoming our everyday battles.

      We are well prepared for life’s daily tests, because we know ourselves so much better than had we not confronted the “superiority of fixed purposes, or the perseverance of brute force.”

Why Passion Equals Success

What kinds of people do we most envy? I'm not talking about envy in the negative, covetous sense of desiring someone else’s luxurious car or palatial home. This isn’t about yearning for material wealth. This is a more positive envy, about admiring the people who are doing what they want, whose profession is their passion.

Think of it another way. What are the qualities of your ideal manager, someone you’d be eager to work for and with?

A friend of mine, who I'll call Tim, is such a person, someone I’ve long admired. Early in his career, he aimed high. He chose his path, the business he wanted to be in, and identified the appropriate milestones he needed to hit along the way to reach his goal. It was never easy. He built his company from scratch, putting in long hours for many years, while taking a lot of risks along the way to achieve it. But he has arrived.

The business Tim owns is thriving today. Over the years, he hired and cultivated competent managers, which ultimately freed him from much of the day-to-day hassles of running the business, while giving him more free time. He has assumed a senior advisory role in his company, which allows him time to travel extensively and play lots of golf. Once, I asked him what exactly it is that he does, now that he has achieved his intended goal.

“I manage the life of Tim,” he replied.

What a perfect reply. While on its face it seems self-centered, in fact, it says in six simple words what we all crave at our core… the sense of “I’m in control of my life.”

In the end, that's what we envy most about the people we deem worthy of our respect: they are in control of their lives. How they spend their time and what they choose to do with it is not dictated every day by the ebb and flow of the business, or by the whims of the marketplace. They worked hard to lift themselves above the daily fray. They were able to do so because they were (and still are) driven by their passions to be their best and achieve their goals.

Consider a different example. Think about certain sports stars in the limelight, those whose energy and dedication to excellence are so intense that it fairly oozes from their pores. The one that pops into my head is Dustin Pedroia, the Boston Red Sox’s All-Star second baseman. Pedroia is so plugged into the game, so excited to play baseball, it seems as though he would play for no salary.

Sidelined for much of the 2010 season with a broken foot, he nevertheless was in the dugout for every game, on crutches. You could sense his frustration at being sidelined, yet you could also see on his face the same eagerness and engagement that he has when he’s on the field. He was champing at the bit to be back playing the game he loves and excels at, the game for which he won Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards in consecutive years (2007 and 2008, respectively).

What goes into that attitude? What shapes that approach to our chosen field? What makes people like Dustin Pedroia and Tim excel while another guy in the same field just plugs along, not deriving a lot of joy from his workaday life? The core driver may seem ineffable. But I think it’s essentially a positive attitude toward life, an innate optimism, and a passion at one’s core that makes it unthinkable to do anything halfway.

Ian Bostridge, the English tenor, opera star, and lieder singer, perhaps said it best when explaining to an interviewer how he approaches his art: “You can't stand there singing prettily. You have to seize the audience and not let go until you leave the stage. You have to burn. If you don't, it's a waste of time. Why bother?”

Exactly.

What kind of people do you want to associate with? What kind of people do you want to work for, to have on your team? Don’t you want a guy like Dustin Pedroia, Ian Bostridge or my friend Tim? Absolutely.

You do because you connect to and want to share in their passion, enthusiasm, and optimism. And frankly, that enthusiasm, that passion for doing what they love, and their optimism are contagious. Imagine being part of a team led by a guy like one of them, aiming for perfection in everything they do.

They don’t strive for perfection for its own sake, but rather because they know they’re always capable of doing something better – with perfection as the ultimate aim. They go all out for that new level of excellence the next time they try. So even when they fall short in their own eyes, you know the result is going to be pretty damn good.

Does Pedroia bat 1.000? No. Does he ever make an error in the infield? Sure he does. Does Bostridge ever miss a note or fail to satisfy himself with a given performance? Of course. But the energy each expends in striving for his own version of perfection is, for them, a reward in itself.

It’s also a beacon for their future journeys toward perfection, a baseline on which to build their next quest for success. Fueling that effort, always, is their optimism, their enthusiasm, and their passion for doing what they love. I say, God bless them.

Modern Day Pen Pals

As a member of Miss Beyers’ sixth grade class at Proctor Terrace Elementary School in Santa Rosa, Calif., I became part of a project in which she engaged the class in a pen pal effort to connect us all with kids our age from around the world.

My pen pal was a girl from Adelaide, Australia. I’ve forgotten her name but remember the thrust of our correspondence: comparing and contrasting our schoolwork, what we were studying, how we spent our free time, what it was like living in Santa Rosa versus Adelaide, what we aspired to, and the like. We exchanged photos of one another and wrote about our pets and friends. I eagerly looked forward to each of her letters and enjoyed the correspondence, as long it lasted – about a year – tailing off when we’d exhausted our troves of cultural idiosyncrasies from our respective countries.

This recollection came back to me recently when I found myself engaged in an online discussion on the topic of the relative differences between internal and external communications. In such instances, I “converse” with strangers around the world – like modern day pen pals.

In this particular discussion, I am arguing a point with a fellow from Mumbai, India, about a topic started by a woman in Moscow, who works for a company headquartered in Norwich, UK. Others involved in the discussion include people from Ottawa and Rochester, UK. So far, I’m the only American.

And all this is done in real time. What would Miss Beyers think? It’s not like my pen pal days when letters would take up to two weeks to traverse the Pacific. These are instantaneous communications. (Does anyone even have “pen pals” anymore? I guess that’s what Facebook is for.)

How far we’ve come – in just my lifetime. It makes me wonder what’s next. What further technological advancements can we expect in communications? And, more important, what will be their impact on our ability to expand our knowledge, to engage other people in topics of interest to ourselves? What will be their impact on improving cross-cultural understanding?

Meanwhile, my college-age son has made lasting friendships via real-time, on-line video games with people from around the world: France, Germany, Israel, Japan, and Russia, as well as Massachusetts. No doubt he has learned far more about those people’s personalities and interests than I did in the entire year of my pen pal correspondence.

In making my point with the gentleman from Mumbai, I was able to look him up on Linked Up and learn that he is head of corporate communications with a software company there. So I was able to make my comments more relevant than they might otherwise have been.

These new social media are having profound effects on the way we do business today, both inside and outside our companies. The wiser companies are tapping into “the conversation” that is occurring out there about them. An Oct. 26, 2010 article in The Wall Street Journal told how Delta Air Lines has begun eavesdropping on Twitter conversations when the topic is Delta. 

The effort has proved fruitful and enabled the company to short-circuit a number of negative discussions, and correct gross inaccuracies about Delta. At the same time, Delta has developed greater loyalty and understanding among its customers by responding directly and promptly to their very real complaints about service.

At the annual “Best Practices in Change and Employee Engagement Summit” last month, co-sponsors Edelman Change & Employee Engagement, and Edelman Digital brought together a number of senior communications professionals in their New York City offices to discuss both the implications of social media like Twitter and Facebook on corporate communications, and their potential. In addition to the 100 guests present in New York, some 1000 people participated via webcast.

One of the 10 speakers, the former head of communications for Comcast, explained how the company successfully put the web site “ComcastMustDie.com” out of business by responding proactively to contributors’ actual complaints about shoddy service.

According to the Edelman web site, “While a number of valuable experiences and lessons came from the 10 presenters, the over-arching and recurring theme centered on the opportunities that lie in mining and translating the rich information embedded in various social media into organizational knowledge, action, innovation and development.”

I would urge you to take the time to visit the Summit web pages. In addition to a full report, it includes complete videos of each of the presentations.

Venues such as Edelman’s Summit web pages magnify the capabilities of the worldwide web, which today is limitless. I would expect ever-greater synergies and spread of advanced ideas about social media to continue in that manner as people leverage such events and web sites to share and spread new ideas and new thinking on a range of topics. 

You, too, can become part of that conversation, or any conversation, if you wish, no matter where you are: New York, Mumbai, Ottawa, Santa Rosa or Adelaide.

Reaching Employees Where They Are

Much of my work involves helping clients better understand and appreciate how people within their organizations communicate, and how they prefer to get information. Insights into that is the first step towards developing a communications model that effectively reaches the internal audiences.

There is no single solution, not even within one individual company. The legwork must be done, preferably by getting out and talking directly to the employees at all levels. One of my first lines of inquiry when talking with employees in that context is to determine their reading habits and how they get the information they want and need, both for personal and business purposes. (In fact, their personal habits likely echo their preferences within the business environment, which is why I ask.)

Where do they go to get their news? When there’s a big breaking news story, to what source do they turn first? Which sources do they trust most (and least), and how do they stay informed about the issues that concern them? How does that parallel the ways they get the information they need on the job – or does it? How would they prefer to get the kind of on-the-job information that helps them perform their jobs?

Establishing a pattern among a particular employee audience is critical in developing a communications strategy that reaches them in a timely fashion to assure that important management messages are getting through, and that those messages are relevant to them and their world.

But what are we to make of the growing reality that the general population is apparently becoming reading- and information-averse? Not only that, but the sharp audience declines experienced by various print and broadcast news media seem to indicate a growing distaste for conventional news sources. So where are people going now for their news? Or do they even care?

Of course, the answer largely depends on which demographic you’re talking about. Gauging by the types of advertising that predominate the evening network newscasts – geriatric medications, mobility devices, and such  – it’s safe to conclude that the older demographic is tuning in. I don’t need to point out why the evening newscasts’ audience continues to shrink.

Many among the younger demographic – the fastest growing demographic and the one that increasingly comprises your company’s internal audience – get much of their news from faux news programs, such as Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” as well as the late night talk show hosts’ opening monologues. That helps explain the scramble among politicians to be guests on those shows: that’s where their target audience is.

I raise the subject because I just read a “rant” by prolific blogger and marketer Seth Godin on the subject. It led me to do a little online research. It’s troubling to me, an inveterate book reader and newspaper consumer, to learn that the average person spends about 70 seconds each day reading the news online; that an Associated Press poll found that one-in-four people did not read a single book in 2006.

According to an August 21, 2007 article in the Washington Post, that number has been declining for more than a decade. It’s probably safe to assume that, four years later, we are likely approaching a one-in-three ratio. That’s scary stuff, and a real danger to our republican form of government.

These facts depress me, knowing that people are less well informed, apparently deliberately ignorant of current affairs. At the same time, these facts tell us that we need to adjust our approach to internal communications vehicles if we are to reach our employees with any regularity, if we are to make sure they get the information we want them to have. We must delve deeply to learn their reading habits (or lack thereof) and strive to be ever more creative in our selection and use of communications channels and tools available to us, as well as how we craft our messages.

No longer can we assume that printed newsletters, mass distribution of emails, or even “town hall meetings” are the best (or only) way to reach the broad employee audience with our critical messages. (I cringe at the recollection of a client for whom the only means of reaching its worldwide employee audience was through emails. We actually discovered that a number of employees used their spam filters to sift out the frequent emails from their CEO.)

Instead, we must tailor our communications approach to accommodate our reading-averse audience, to meet our people on territory that is familiar and comfortable to them, but that may not be for us, the communicators. Simply put, we need to connect with them where they actually are, not where we think they are or where we want them to be.

That may mean overcoming our discomfort with and lack of trust in the social media where many of our younger employees spend so much time: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the like. If we want to have an on-going dialogue with them about what’s important to the business, that’s where we need to engage them.