“Well, I’m gonna’ get out of bed every morning… breath in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out.” – Sam Baldwin, Sleepless in Seattle (Tristar – 1993) 

Hopping out of bed, checking voicemail, checking our email, checking a few gotta’ see Web sites, having a cup of coffee is the fairly typical start of most people’s day around the globe, around the calendar.

Two billion plus computers, four billion plus plus mobile devices, a gazillion (and growing) Web sites, blogs, social nets and instant in-touch services have shrunk the world–and the clock–to fit nicely in our screen(s).

That’s one of the reasons we savor the few hours every few months we spend underwater.  Gliding through the water…exploring nooks and crannies…watching the varieties of sea life floating by…listening to our bubbles from our regulator and watching them rise.

Sure, it’s flat cool. 

It also has another benefit.

It’s pretty much guaranteed to be one of the few places we cannot use a cellphone or computer.  We can’t reach out to and can’t be reached by people who absolutely, positively must get ahold of us right NOW!!! Anywhere else you and we (actually about 20 percent of the total world population) are connected.

Big Pipes, Longer Time
The bigger the pipes’ bandwidth in a an area, the more people are connected.

At work and at school, being able to connect is expected. 

It turns out 8, 10, 12 hours staring at the screen isn’t enough.

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This may not be the first time that your CEO has sliced your training budget and I am sure it will not be the last. If you already run a lean and mean training function, then congratulations on your efforts. You may find, though, that your previous good management will not slow the CEO from asking you to shed some more expenses. Whether you have already optimized your training function in the past or you realize that you have a long way to go, here are ten practical steps that you can take to weather any financial storm.

1. Provide more self-help workbooks and on-the-job aids.
Replace some of the high cost training sessions with materials and aids placed where people do the work. Laminated procedures, checklists, tips’n’tricks, lists of shortcut keys, ready reckoners, and so on, may be effective replacements for full-blown training sessions. If somebody is having difficulty handling angry customers or using Microsoft Excel, check out your local training publishers for self-paced workbooks.

2. Conscript local experts or coaches to take the place of some training sessions.
If people have some knowledge and skills about the subject, identify one or two local experts in each area to act as a central point for all questions. Make sure that the experts and coaches you nominate have the required communication and interpersonal skills.

3. Cut training sessions that do not add value to the organization.
Does your organization really need that assertiveness skills training course? What tangible benefit did your organization achieve from it? Drop courses that do not show a demonstrable advantage to your organization. I’m not saying that these kinds of courses are never worthwhile. During difficult periods is the time to review whether they are of real benefit to your organization now.

4.

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We all want that sense of achievement that comes with reaching our goals. Whether we are working for ourselves or working within a larger organization, we get a deep sense of satisfaction when we accomplish what we set out to do. Some people seem to achieve their objectives without much effort. Others never quite seem to get there. Have you experienced frustrations such as these?

• Only half of your managers are using the new system after spending over one million dollars on its implementation.
• The incidence of customer complaints continues to rise even after the latest product redesign.
• Members of your department continually change focus so nothing gets finished.

If so, then you may need to revisit how you set goals and plan for their accomplishment. From my years of working in a number of organizations and on a variety of projects, I have condensed the lessons I have learned into a simple five step process. I call this process the Five Cs approach. This approach does not use any rocket science, just the basics needed for getting things done in your organization. By using the Five Cs process steps you will improve the chances of achieving your and your organization’s objectives.

The Five Cs approach can be used for activities as basic as organizing your team’s leave calendar to the more complex planning and rollout of your organization’s annual fundraiser. The approach consists of these five basic steps:

Create   >>   Commit   >>   Communicate   >>   Carry Out   >>   Check

The steps in the process are essentially sequential, meaning that you will need mostly to complete an earlier step before proceeding to the next. Shortcutting steps in the process will only increase the amount of rework that you will need to do later on.

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Many organizations muddle through change. How is your organization progressing at implementing that new accounting system or moving to a new employee performance management process? Are your managers nodding approval in public but sabotaging the initiative in private? Are your employees shell-shocked and just giving up? Do you have no money left over for post-implementation support?

Whatever change your organization is trying to implement, knowing about and working through the necessary steps will go a long way to making your change initiative a success. I have distilled these crucial steps into a process model for change. The model is called the CHANGE Approach, with each letter signifying a step in the process. I have summarized below the key features of each step leading to a successful change transition.

Create tension
With this first step, articulate why change needs to happen and why it needs to happen within the planned timeframe. Many change programs start with a big bang, but then peter out ending in a whimper. Other programs struggle to develop the initial momentum. Think about the immediate force that will get your people moving in the right direction. This could be impending legislative changes, new entrants to the market, high levels of customer dissatisfaction, etcetera. Think also about the impacts of not changing, such as loss of market share or fines from regulators. To prepare your company for the impending objections, collect as much data as you can to back your assertions.

Harness support
Next, get on board the key decision makers, resource holders and those with the potential to subvert your change process. Start by identifying the key stakeholder groups; the people with something to lose or gain from your change proposal. Include in your analysis the end receivers of the new products or services, such as suppliers, customers and end users of software.

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“I was just wondering if you wanted to chase this tornado, or if you just wanted to catch the next one.”  - Beltzer – Twister (Warner Bros, 1996)

Larry Ellison (Oracle’s CEO) was right!  The computer / communications industry is really just a huge fashion industry.  When Grace Hopper (the Navy’s computing genius) couldn’t explain what was going on inside the Mark I computer to her Navy bosses, she probably drew a soft, fluffy cloud.  It’s the way IT people have been explaining their systems to their bosses for years.  When all the country’s computers were connected to keep data flowing even after someone dropped the BIG ONE, they drew a cloud.

When Microsoft wanted to show they were hip, with it, Ballmer started showing people how the real cloud was going to function.  Larry?  Oh yeah!  Each time the cloud has been introduced, it’s been better … it’s been faster … it’s been more expensive.  As Dusty said as they raced down the “IT” road, “That’s awesome! That’s AWESOME!”  It is all part of the never-ending computing / communications information evolution.  All of the components for cloud computing have been around for a long time.  They’ve just been expensive, difficult to set up, tough to use unless you were some whiz IT person or a true nerd.

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As a manager, executive or business owner your top priority today is exceeding company goals. You can’t do it yourself, so the best way to exceed your goals is to have what we call “High Performance Teams” working for you. Your goals may include growing your business, increasing revenue, improving business efficiency, doing more with less, creating competitive advantage, improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs or leveraging intellectual assets. Your team, which may include (sales, marketing, finance, strategy, HR, IT, operations, shop floor, etc.) represents a very powerful mechanism for getting significant results in organizations today.

High performance teams are a special class of team that has the ability to easily adapt in a rapidly changing environment and is an essential element for highly successful organizations. The first step in building a high performance team is understanding the essential team ingredients that create a recipe for success. Building high performance teams is a top priority for many executives. The benefits and value produced by these teams are very clear and being viewed as essential tools in their business strategy. High performance teams produce many benefits.

1. Increased sales revenue
2. Increased productivity
3. Improved customer service
4. Ability to do more with less
5. Increased innovation
6. Ability to quickly adapt to change
7. Ability to solve difficult, critical problems

Sales Team Essentials – The Ingredients

So where do you begin? Like a great chef making the perfect soufflé, you must follow a recipe that will deliver the best possible outcome. This recipe includes the ingredients, preparation and the process for making the perfect soufflé.

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“Have no fear! Doc Savage is here!” - Monk, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975)

Admit it. You missed Steve opening WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference). You missed him walking out at the end of Phil Schiller’s keynote where Steve walks from behind the curtain and says , “One more thing!”

No Show - Despite all of the wild speculation, Steve Jobs didn’t show up at WWDC and according to his earlier statements plans to be back at 1 Infinity Circle late this month. Oh yes, the team put on a very good event focusing on business, not personalities. There was no colored water to dazzle folks. No one sat down on the chair, whipped off the shoes and socks, held them in the air and said “today we’re unveiling iSox.” And five million people ran to the Apple store scooping up pairs at $50 per. There was no rush to roll-out matching laces, iSox cases, a dizzying array of toenail colors mixed. My gawd you had to focus on the announcements rather than the man. Maybe - just maybe - the PC/CE/communications industry has passed thru another stage of growth, dare we say maturation?

The business world goes through phases and the technologies industry has gone from techie gee whiz stuff to fashion statements. The business and consumer industry today changes fast. It changes more frequently than skirt length. In the ‘90s Jack Welch said the wind was at business’ back and he admits it was pretty easy to run GE.  Jeff Immelt is having a tougher time.

Team Behind the Man

While Jobs aura overshadows the fact, he has built an executive team other firms want to use as a recruiting pool … ok so Palm did but they need every little edge they can get. What the industry needs is to dip into the talent pool to find some new crusaders, some new standard bearers.

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This year, management has enhanced its vocabulary with words and phrases such as “downsizing,” “career regression,” “fiscal consolidation,” “asset realignment” and “negative career development.”  They were developed by some MBA-types to say that a company down like the economy and entire industry, had missed its projections, fired people and made cutbacks.

There’s a new business climate and sense of urgency in every sector of industry and commerce.  The “good old days” are gone forever.  It wasn’t that many years ago that nearly anyone could make money in business and consumer PC/CE marketing.  Almost no one could fail. 

To put it another way … in a hurricane even turkeys can fly.

Well, the hurricane has passed.  It has changed the landscape.  Our emphasis on product innovation has placed us at the mercy of a constantly changing customer base. Profit margins for “brands” are being driven down by the high cost of marketing (PR, sales literature, advertising, promotion, etc.), defensive product line extensions and the competition.

In this new environment, management is confronted with the need to survive in conditions that they often don’t understand, and generally cannot control.

The New Marketing Strategy

When many think they have a marketing problem, the first thing they do is a barrage of news releases, an editorial tour, a brochure or a corporate ad campaign. 

Wrong.

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