Fill in the blank. "My company could be better if ___"

Message board. Blogs. Social Networks.

For some of us (I also point the finger at myself here!), public information has become some cross between a habit and an obsession. Lawsuits get filed over the wrong people sharing the wrong information. People get hired and fired over recruiters finding them or their bosses staring at their web-resume advertising themselves for immediate hire.

I was reading a message board last night and someone posed the question to the world: Fill in the blank. "My company could be better if ___". Responses were mostly negative, and I assume that's one of the unfortunate by products of the question. Given the market and how many executives and politicians have been in the news in the last 5 years, it's hard for a lot of people to feel good about where they work.

So here's the real question... what would happen if the company asked its own employees that question, took no retribution on scathing comments, and made changes to reflect the better?

I've just finished a book called Say It and Live It http://www.amazon.com/Say-Live-Patricia-Jones/dp/0385476302 that talks about 50 companies' mission statements and how they're committed to them. It got me thinking - virtually every company I've ever worked for has said its people are its greatest asset, which I've come to realize is the equivalent of workers saying perfectionism is their greatest weakness.

Has your company ever posted a profitability challenge, where every department scans itself for waste? Prizes for the winners. What about feedback for ways the company can make itself a better place to work at low or no cost? Flex time, work from home options and little things like the ability to give your vacation days to coworkers if desired create a strong bond to the brand.

My dream for my own company is that we would have a work force so incredibly loyal that we could publish their contact info on the home page and no recruiters would get their calls returned.

A few ideas your employees will be happy to give you on running a better mousetrap:

1) Ask what they like the least about their current job responsibilities. Challenge them to come up with a way to get it done more easily. If they don't like a task that must be done, look at your entire department - can you pair up a detail-oriented and a creative person to share responsibilities vs. assigning the task to each, 50/50?

2) Ask what they like the least about their current environment. Are engineers trying to work quietly while boisterous sales people are talking on the phone all day? Are departments who interact all day physically close to one another? If not, can one be moved?

3) Ask how they feel their compensation package compares to the competition. Employees overwhelmingly don't expect to be paid ridiculous amounts over the expectation for the job, but do become vulnerable to recruiting when they feel (and especially if they actually are) underpaid. Your more experienced people know what the national averages are, and particularly the local ones. The average cost of replacing an employee is ~25-40% of their annual pay, so paying them 10% more might be one of the best moves a company can make.

4) Ask if your employees understand the resources available to them. Here, internal marketing is particularly important. If not, make a point to step up the availibility.

5) Do employees get to engage with management one level above their supervisor and beyond? A CEO doing a bi-annual meeting is huge in helping build credibility. Likewise, it's worth a senior VP stopping in for a quarterly lunch with people from various departments. It keeps everybody accountable and motivated.

6) AOB. Any other business. If there's an open door for employees to share their questions, ideas, concerns or complaints, they're much more likely to be happy and productive.

Professional Education and Career ROI

The first boss I ever had in my professional career gave me some pretty sound advice that I've thought of often over the years:

"To make it in finance, you have to know stuff or you have to know people. You're 22, you don't know anybody, and the people you do know don't have any money. So, grad school for you!" and he handed me a copy of our company educational reimbursement policy. "There are two types of programs," he explained "the easy way for people who just want letters after their name, and the hard program that will get you respect industry wide. Which one do you want to do?"

I took the hard one. The rest was history.

I raced through the classes in a year, becoming the youngest person in my firm to get them, and ironically wasn't able to use the designation for several months afterward since I didn't have enough career experience. But those three letters, and all the other designations I've earned since then, have tagged on the end of my name on my email signature and stationary and every resume I've written. I don't use my middle initial anymore... it seemed odd to have a letter in the middle of my name when I had so many at the end.

Here's the $64,000 question: was it worth it?

In a word: YES.

To know if grad school is right for you, take this True/False quiz: (Come on... we're talking about school here! Of course there's going to be a test at the end...)

1) I know specifically how this program will help me.
2) I have a rough idea of what topics will be covered.
3) I have investigated professional certificates, industry-specific licensing and other options.
4) I have done informational interviews with people who have the job I think I want. They also agree this schooling is necessary.
5) I can afford it on my current income, or I know what the future loan payments vs. future income will be and I'll be better off.
6) I'm not anticipating any other major life expenses during or immediately after grad school that would prevent me from finishing.
7) I've spent at least three (preferably five) years working in my chosen field.
8) I can handle the academic workload.
9) I can handle the strain the extra work may put on my current job (if you have one), my marriage, family, social life, etc.
10) I chose my program for a specific reason relevant to me, not purely on a general ranking or family legacy.

If you answered most of the above questions True, you've probably done enough research to go to grad school.

Finally, there's a possibility grad school may make you undesirable. If you're a lawyer, people may be concerned you're not able to innovate. If you're an MBA, you may have the "Vice President Syndrome." (See point number 1, knowing specifically how your program will help you.)

Studies have shown consistently that more education equals more money over a lifetime and grad school may be the time of your life! Being around a dynamic, focused group of colleagues who are moving in the same direction you are is good for everybody.

Be focused, be sure and be on with it!

Virtual Couches

I woke up this morning to a tongue in my eye and hearty bacon breath panting at me, and realized two things. 1) Dogs and beds should not be the same height. 2) I see a hugely excellent reason to have a pet you can keep in a file folder.

I was having dinner with three close friends on New Year's Eve, and one of them was telling me about her virtual pet on Facebook. I, having proudly resisted the urge to open up an account for several years, officially caved to peer pressure after she told me that.

Although I haven't spent much time on it yet, I'm interested in the rest of the things it can do. Is there a virtual couch you can sit on? What about a virtual cup of coffee? What applications have amateurs developed, considering there were almost 200 hits for virtual pet program applications on Facebook when I searched tonight.

Personally, I've gone from being a consumer only to a producer-consumer. More and more, the line between amateur and professional content is getting blurred. When blogs are getting more hits than professional newspapers, with equal and sometimes superior quality, I think it's time to ask ourselves what is the role of the producing consumer in today's business model?

ITunes is another great example. Just a few years ago, Ipods didn't exist. Now, ITunes is the second largest retailer in the US, trailing only Wal-Mart. Local bands, without the ability to promote themselves in the same way that major labels do, can nonetheless get benefits out of being available to download.

If you haven't read Chris Anderson's book and blog The Long Tail, http://www.thelongtail.com/, I highly recommend it. It's a fascinating theory that proposes if, given infinite choices, consumers' demand will swell to meet that number of choices.

So, back to Facebook. While I've been writing this entry, three people have written on my wall, I commented on two of their statuses, made plans with another for dinner next week and considered adopting a virtual penguin. As Facebook's corporate image has always been that they don't care about money, the tide is starting to turn - you have ages, genders, interest groups, localities - about everything you need to run a successful marketing program. Now the only question is how will they use it in a way that the commercial aspect doesn't take over?

Is Chris correct? Are there infinite demands for infinite choices?

If virtual penguins didn't exist, would we ever have known that we needed them?

The Giving Fund

New Year's is a time for reflection. A time to consider (however briefly) the opportunity to stop smoking, start working out, redo the budget. Prioritize what's important. Clean out the closets. Organize your birthday cards a year in advance and call your grandmother more often. All kinds of dreams, all kinds of ideas.

I know of very few people who have any luck successfully transforming themselves into something different. It's by no means undoable, but unlike far too many self help books that preach the gospel of changing yourself and the actions will follow, I propose a different method. "You are," said Aristotle "what you repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an action but a habit." So change your behavior now, and your heart, mind and soul will follow.

Giving for me was the hardest. I wanted to be the kind of person who gave. I wanted to give because Jesus was the ultimate giver. But it was hard. I had bills. I had a mortgage. And I had an overwhelming amount of guilt because there were people who had it so much worse off than I did, and many of them gave generously. A friend of mine from college had to struggle through her final exams back and forth going to the school's hospital to sit with her mom as she lay dying of cancer. This extraordinarily faithful woman put her hope in the Lord and even as she struggled to raise children alone, she gave faithfully.

Financially, giving was something that I worshipped. It took on a place of importance that turned into a prideful issue. I would most certainly give, but always with a careful eye on my tax write-off, and particularly would give to causes when I felt they were worthy of my gift and I would be properly credited.

As I've grown in my giving, I find those things less important. I make a list of causes that I care about and I give generously. I don't try to give everything to every cause. I don't make excuses that my gift is too little to count, or that the charity can't be trusted. I find charities that I can trust, then I trust them. In its purest form, giving to charity is buying nothing. But if you've ever given regularly, you'll understand that giving will buy you something that no thing can replace.

I challenge all of you who budget to put money in your giving fund. If you can write the check now, then you should. If you can't (and the reason stopping you is almost always fear or greed), then don't write it. But put the money aside and pray about it. Think about the people in your life who have been generous with you, or if you don't have any, break that cycle.

My causes are varied. I care about church, Junior Achievement, Toastmasters, the library and politics. My giving is reflected accordingly. I want you to give boldly, as you've already received. When you give in line with your values, you'll be free.

What I most want is for my life to be an inspiration to the ones I hold the closest. For all the differences you may be able to come up with between Donald Trump and Billy Graham, there's really only one: if you glorify yourself, you must win as somebody loses. If you glorify Him through your sacrificial love and praise, others will lift you up. Look to the Ultimate Giver, for He is the only one who will ever and always out give you.

How can corporate training be more effective?

Training. It can be viewed as vitally necessary, a waste of budget, and everything in between. In this era of cost cutting and the mad scramble for profitability, how can companies be more strategic in their approach?

Before costs or any other factor can be considered, I would ask what the employees look like on the other side of the training. What new benefit are they bringing to the company? What skills do they have now that they didn't have before, and how will that make the company more efficient (or profitable or whatever other goal the company had in mind). Are the employees going to need on-going monitoring and assistance? Does the training require company-specific longevity and expertise?

Most companies either use full time in-house trainers or freelance consultants. Both have merit, however this isn't just a bottom-line issue. Training should always be viewed as a source of revenue for the company. If the training won't significantly improve the employee's bottom line to the company, skip it. One of the worst things a company can discover is that it spent time, money and effort making sure its employees are absolutely world-class at a skill set they didn't need at all.

A few ideas to leverage your training department:

1) Do intra-team (or departmental training). Do you have a small number of employees with a great skill set you want to replicate? Do a brown bag lunch/panel discussion on best practices.

2) If you have a large number of people to deploy information to, give it to them with a virtual presentation. It's particularly helpful if you have the ability to archive it for later reuse and replay.

3) Ask the employees where they feel weakest. Companies that view training as a cost center vs. a profit center may be delivering the wrong programs, not be able to see the benefits from them and assume they're not working.

4) Ask management for feedback. What skills do they want their employees to have? Viral training can also be effective as a cost-cutting tool - train a select group of employees who can then deliver the training to their teams.

Training is extremely valuable and if done correctly, can reduce the need for external recruits vs. internal promotions, raise morale as employees are given the opportunity to grow in their skills sets and generate more revenue than it cost through a general improvement in efficiency, technology, revenue generation or any of a number of objectives.

Credit Cards and Conformity

I've been teaching a budgeting class for several years and I'm passionate about financial literacy for both kids and adults. I've seen first hand how bad decisions regarding credit can turn an otherwise productive life into a merry-go-round of stress, depression and anger. Before the early 1950's, credit cards didn't exist at all, and then they were only for the most credit worthy consumers.

As the credit industry expanded, Citi made its mark by soliciting customers with credit just barely below the industry standards, charging them considerably higher rates but still achieving relatively low default risks. Throughout the 90's and 2000's, the expansive availability of credit was everywhere. Jokes popped up about dogs getting offers. Business boomed. Housing boomed. And we spent and spent.

As with television, I know many people who recognize the problems of credit cards but very few are willing to do without them. Today's average order at McDonald's is 25-50% larger than before they took credit cards, even adjusted for inflation. We have racked up more ways to spend more money on more stuff that we need less than any other time in history.

So, what does it mean to jump off that merry-go-round? Pay cash. Even sitting in the restaurant where I'm writing this blog entry, I overhear a father telling a small child he can't have a soda because they didn't pay for sodas. Tough to imagine adults having the same hard conversations with their spouses about what they can and can't afford, or pay for.

In my class, I teach people to go off the grid. Cut up their credit cards- physically shred them if they're unwilling to close the account. Pay cash for everything possible, checks only when cash isn't an option. Reduce their bills by eliminating unnecessary spending. Be strategic about the spending they must do. And above all, recognize what emotional triggers get set off by money.

Credit, post-2008 Apocalypse, is going to be tougher to convince people to live without. I urge people, therefore, to consider these steps:

1) Do the math on what you're spending. If you're three months into a $150/month cell phone contract that will cost you $200 to cancel, paying the fee and waiting for 5 weeks puts you financially ahead. If your actual concern is safety, consider a pre-paid phone or the lowest possible number of minutes (30). Saying you control the cost of the meals by eating them all out only makes sense if you refuse to keep staples on hand and have to buy everything (including spices) new each time. Strategic meal planning can be extremely beneficial to know what to buy and to not end up with meat balls, feta and grape juice as a meal.

2) Give yourself permission to jump out of the world's expectations. The world wants you to have a credit card. They want you to spend, spend, spend! In the mid-1990's, the Japanese government created billions of yen out of thin air to devalue their currency and keep Japanese exports cheap compared to American dollars. Unfortunately, our government decided to follow suit, disregarding the fact that (as a non-manufacturing economy) we want a strong dollar. Weakness, when your economy thrives on consumption, leads to short term bubbles and extreme pain when they reliably burst. Not only does using credit give you psychological permission to spend more, marketing of everything from burgers to LCD TVs beckons you to do so. Then, you can look forward to paying usurious interest rates as you strive to pay them off with deflated dollars. The world doesn't want you to live debt free! But, to quote America's favorite no-debt guru Dave Ramsey, "if you live like no one else, you can live like no one else!"

The Layoff Question (Part 2)

In my last post, I addressed layoffs from the company's standpoint. Now, I wanted to flip the coin and talk briefly about them from the employee's side. Being laid off has three problems: the emotional cost, the financial cost and the opportunity cost. I'd like to offer a solution for how to address each if you've recently been laid off, or want to improve your chances of being the one they keep.

Think of this as Personal Performance Optimization.

Let's start with the emotional cost. You didn't get fired for cause (at least I'm assuming, and if you did, that's a different post!), you got laid off. Think of yourself as a bill that didn't get paid, and now you need to provide your service to someone who has more money. There might be relief if you hated your job or anger or sadness if you loved it. Maybe it was just pleasant. First things first. Unless you have a year's liquid savings (liquid = money market accounts or CD ladders and NOT your 401(k), home equity loan, etc), you should consider your new full time job looking for a full time job. By that, I mean to take the following steps:

1) Make a list of everyone you know. And I mean everyone! Neighbors, the mailman, your stylist, your accountant, your favorite barista. Your weaker social connections, folks that you see a few times a year or friends of friends, are most likely to help you get jobs. Your best friends and immediate family probably know most of the same people you do. Get the word out you're looking for a new job. You never know who knows who unless you ask, and they know what you do and who you're looking to meet. Social networking sites like LinkedIn and FaceBook are helpful for keeping track of and making new connections. 70-80% of jobs are filled on personal connections. So let's get you connected!

2) Update your resume, and make sure you strip all the meaningless wording out of it. The objective "A strategic position using my strengths to create win-win opportunities" (by the way, taken off an actual resume I received!) makes me think that not only do I have no idea what you want to do, you don't either. A better objective is "A full time position as a tax lawyer" or "Telecommuting Contract Work as an Adobe Flash/Flex developer."

3) Take stock of your current (or most recently had) position. What did you like? Hate? Think was fascinating or completely boring? Talk to friends in your field and ask them what they think you'd be good at. Take an IDAK test (a career assessment test that helps you mine out your strengths/likes and dislikes/weaknesses and then gives you a subscription to a job board).

4) DON'T get in the trap of either thinking of this as a rut or an extended vacation. And don't worry! Even in the worst markets, there are still a lot of people out there hiring.

Second, let's talk about the financial cost. If you have plenty of savings and no debt, well done! If you don't, I recommend taking your severance package (if you got one), and budgeting out as many complete months of bills as it will pay, then write the checks out and act like the money's not in your account. Being laid off in January and knowing that you're okay until March is of tremendous comfort. Then, start paring down your life. Being laid off is a great time to think about what you actually want to spend money on. Cancel any misc. services like cable, extra phone/fax (if you have a cell and a land line both), housekeeping, massages. If you're in big trouble, get a night job driving pizzas or bar tending, and concentrate your days on scouting out companies you want to work for.

Be realistic in the jobs you're looking for. Be prepared to negotiate an offer that you'll be happy with for a year. Prospective employers will give you some freshman forgiveness if you job-hop a lot in your early 20's. But if you're still doing it in your early 40's, it makes you seem unstable. Think about the benefits that are most valuable to you. Money is important, but so is the quality of your outside life. Are you a mom who wants to be home every day by 3:00? Are you a community activist who considers a company's philanthropy as important as their product? Are you a road warrior? Think through the atmosphere of the job as much as the comp package.

But... don't be afraid to try something new! If you've always been an employee, try independent contracting. If you're mobile, try a new city. I moved from my hometown Cincinnati to Columbus to Cleveland to Denver. It wasn't a path I expected but I made some wonderful friends along the way.

Lastly, let's talk about the opportunity cost. If you're holding out for the perfect job, it doesn't exist. But you can make any job a great job by following these three rules:

1) Get your boss promoted. If you interview with someone who comes across as someone you wouldn't want to push up the corporate ladder, don't work for him. Trust your instincts here. I either have the luckiest streak in the world or just decent instincts about this because I've truly liked and respected every boss I've ever worked for, and they've all been promoted while I was on the team.

2) Make lots of acquaintances. If you work in a larger company, organize a round-table lunch with other departments. Talking to people on the phone or through memos for a year can't do as much for a relationship as getting to know them face to face.

3) Learn about how you can make other people look good. Get in the habit of sending short (1-2 sentence) emails to people's bosses if they do a particularly great job or a favor for you. Sending it to them is nice, but most bosses will send it to them anyway with an additional kudos or more. If you have a good idea, talk about it with co-workers and if they can add to it or make it better, present it jointly.

I love helping other people get connected to jobs they love. If I can help you, please ask! :)