About kids and business
May 31, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: jynmeyer
This month’s Business Channel theme was dreamed up by Shannon Cherry over at Startup Spark. Shannon says that she “thought it would be fun to find out how kids teach us things about business.”
Kids were never part of my world and cats don’t count, so I didn’t participate, but did think that you’d enjoy some weekend reading.
For the heck of it I asked my cats their thoughts on business and they very patiently explained that the purpose of business is to supply them, cats in general and, grudgingly, other animals including dogs, with food, shelter and toys. Beyond that, they considered business to be highly over-rated, since it detracted from time better spent lavishing attention on them.
- Blogging is important – even to 2nd graders. Liz Fuller at Business & Blogging shares why this pint-size group uses a blog.
- Kelly Erb at Tax Girl has been inspired by her own daughter and shares all about the lesson she learned.
- Ren Garcia at Accounting Solver shares an inspirational quote about how to embrace your inner child.
- “Go Find a Job!” is what Darlene McDaniel heard when she asked her daughter to guest blog at Interview Chatter.
- Mary Emma Allen, at Home Biz Notes, reminisces about families working together on the family farm, one type of home business.
- It’s all about being resilient at Talk Stock Trading. Tisa Silver shares how she learned about bouncing back from a kid.
- Jean Murray from Small Business Boomers shares tips from Warren Buffet on how to keep your kids truly rich.
- “Eat and enjoy!” says Jennifer Heigl’s one year old daughter over at Daily Blender.
- Eric Eggertson at Common Sense PR shares the rules we learn with our kids.
- What do kids know about networking? A lot, according to Jennifer Gniadecki at Everyday Networking.
- Kids ask a ton of questions. And according to Rico Mossesgeld at Contract Work, so should you!
- Shannon Cherry shares two: What my twins teach us about running a business & a 10 year old entrepreneur shares her success secrets.
Better yet, add your thoughts and stories and ask your kids to add theirs.
Your comments—priceless
This is leadership? Yuk!
May 30, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: hellolapomme
Yesterday’s NYT Bits wondered who is the smarter of two Harvard dropouts, Bill Gates of Microsoft or Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Neither bothered attending class, but Gates caught up “in a single intense burst during a separate reading period at the end of the term.”
Zuckerberg was to busy with Facebook to even do that. “So in an inspired last-minute save, he built a Web site with all of the important paintings and room for annotation. He then sent an e-mail to the students taking the class offering it up as a community resource. In a half an hour, the perfect study guide had self-assembled on the Web.”
Sorry, what Zuckerberg may not have been de facto cheating, but I certainly wouldn’t term it ethical. At lease Gates did the reading himself.
These two men, and other’s like them, are the role models for today’s students. I know, most people think it’s no big deal and a lot of them are very impressed.
I’m not.
No matter how successful they’ve become, they’re attitudes seem to belittle school, essentially saying that it’s OK to not do the schoolwork and pass in any manner you can.
Great examples to set for our future business leaders.
As to the media hype regarding entrepreneurs who start businesses in their dorm rooms, sure, there are a few that make it big. But the great majority of companies are started by seasoned business people and the most successful have advanced degrees.
Am I just a dinosaur, out of touch with acceptable behavior? What do you think?
Your comments—priceless
True leadership isn’t positional
May 29, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: Daniel Voyager from TSL
An interesting post over at Collab@work led me to the Executive Summary of an HBS study on how multiplayer games hone leadership
skills.
“…the authors studied people who headed up teams in online games. They also sought the insights of gamers who have led real-world business teams at IBM.”
“The authors identified three distinctive characteristics of leadership in online games that, as workplaces and the overall business climate become more dynamic and gamelike, will be essential for tomorrow’s leaders: speed, risk taking, and acceptance of leadership roles as temporary.”
It is the last condition, people acceptance that leadership roles are temporary based on the needed skills at that particular moment and for that particular effort, that will be the hardest sell.
In his blog post, Romuald says, “…in those games, leaders are not designated but rather elected… All team members want to win… So they will elect the one leader that can bring them victory.”
The researchers say that “…nonmonetary incentives built into a game economy strongly motivate individuals to accomplish group aims.”
Temporary leadership happens all the time, but because companies, churches and government insist on connecting ‘leadership’ to ‘position’ via assumptions—if you’re in X role then by definition you’re a leader—makes getting ‘leaders’ to admit that leading is a temporary function all the more difficult.
How would you make leadership less positional?
Your comments—priceless
Wordless Wednesday: our future is in their hands
May 28, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: JasonRogers
Be sure to visit my other WW know yourself—know your MAP
Your comments—priceless
Alpha companies don’t always have the best leaders!
May 27, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit:
By Wes Ball, author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success. Read all of Wes’ posts here.
In my fifteen year research project for my book, The Alpha Factor, that finally uncovered the core transferable secrets to creating sustainable market dominance no matter how big or small you are, I discovered something that seemed to fly in the face of most business mythology. I discovered that many companies that are the dominant leaders are not run by extraordinarily gifted visionary “leaders.” I know that the book Good to Great came up with the conclusion that “great” companies had great leaders, but I did not find that to be true across the board.
A prime example: Harley-Davidson. They are clearly the Alpha in the cruiser motorcycle category and have been for many years. In the mid-1990s, Harley-Davidsons were found to be the most desired item in the world. Not the most desired motorcycle; the most desired item.
Yet their leadership is not visionary. It is not inspirational. It is not truly “Alpha” material.
The difference between H-D and many other Alphas, Victoria’s Secret for instance, is that one created its Alpha status, the other had it thrust upon them. Victoria’s Secret very purposefully created the aura and dominance they enjoy. Harley-Davidson discovered that they had that aura after they finally got their quality up to an acceptable level in 1983, after the company was purchased from AMF.
H-D’s “Alphaness” is the result of their customers, not their own marketing or strategic vision.
Because of that difference, we may be watching the beginning of the demise of one of the greatest success stories in American manufacturing, as H-D begins to let its quality slide, as I heard from one distraught factory manager.
Could we see them slide into oblivion over the next decade or so, just because their management doesn’t “get it?”
What a shame. As a long-time, die-hard Harley fan, my hope is that they finally catch their customers’ vision!
Will Harley management wake up in time? What do you think?
Your comments—priceless
Pregnant women need not apply
May 26, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: danaloganphotography
Cynic that I am, I never really bought into the idea of “sisterhood” and that women supported each other because they were all in the same boat. Nice idea, but I just couldn’t swallow it, partly based on my own experience and partly on what I saw happen around me.
For all you doubters I offer more proof from a brief item in Business Week synopsizing a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Researchers at George Mason and Rice universities had 105 people (56 men, 49 women) play the role of interviewer as nonpregnant and visibly pregnant candidates (the researchers, some wearing prosthetic bellies) “applied” for such [traditionally "male"] jobs as corporate lawyer and engineering professor… Hostility toward pregnant applicants was 33% higher than for the other women, with the “interviewers” agreeing afterward with such statements as “she’ll try to get out of doing work” and “she would be too moody.”
Complaints are up 14%, but probably would be higher if more women bothered.
But if that same 105 people had to answer the questions publicly or in front of an audience of predominantly pregnant women, I bet that the general hostility would evaporate, the attitudes change drastically and political correctness would shine through.
Is it right? No. Is it fair? No. is it reality? Unfortunately, yes.
Have you or someone you know experienced pregnancy bias?
What do you think can be done to change it?
Your comments—priceless
Quotable Quotes: Where there’s a Will there’s a way
May 25, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: BaronBrian
The art of the sound bite isn’t a modern concept—it’s as old as human communications. Previously known as one liners, le mot juste or dozens of other terms over the years it involves just a few words that encompass and transmit a specific point or idea.
Will Rogers was a master le mot juste. More than a half a Century ago, he commented on the state of politics and his words are as literally accurate today as when he said them.
“We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.”
“I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.”
“If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, ‘America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership.”
And one more special one to sum up the entire political arena at all levels from local to international.
“If you ever injected truth into politics you’d have no politics.”
Do you have a favorite Will Rogers-ism?
Your comments—priceless
Is all innovation good?
May 24, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: clix
Innovation, like leadership, is grounded in MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)—it’s who you are and how you think, not just what you do.
With innovative MAP it’s the ‘M’ that asks ‘why not’ instead of ‘why’. It’s the ‘A’ that looks for ramifications such as the fun factor (see yesterday’s post) and it’s the ‘P’ that looks at who benefits and how.
Together they work to find the most creative ways to address markets and processes.
But the environmental and societal problems today means MAP needs also to ask “who is hurt and how?”
When potential harm is detected MAP needs to ask “is it worth it” and “how can we avoid or mitigate it?”
And that’s when—hopefully—the ethical parts of your MAP have their say.
What has your MAP told you lately?
Your comments—priceless
Gassing about gas on the Biz Channel
May 23, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn
More Friday Fun here at the Biz Channel.
Join us gassing about gas—it may not change anything, but you’ll feel better after farting around and contributing your rant.
Have Your Driving Habits Changed?
Gas Prices Are Still Rising and It’s Time for Commuters to Revolt
Rising Gas Prices in Australia Affect Business Owners: Where Will It Stop?
Increasing Fuel Costs… Ban or Boom to Life & Business in the US?
Want to be Free From Gas Price Worries?
http://www.doingbizabroad.com/how-many-miles-to-the-gallon-is-that
How Much is Gas Hitting You at the Pump?
And me:)
Typical Short Team Corporate Thinking Enhances Gas Pain
Your comments—priceless
Typical Short-term Corporate Thinking Enhances Gas Pain
May 23, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: JOE M500
I have gas pains, you have gas pains and so we rant.
Rants don’t alleviate gas pain, but they do relieve pressure.
We rant about crude prices and the mean oil producing countries that are more concerned with their own internal economy than with being nice and increasing production.
We rant about the oil companies and accuse them of manipulating prices.
Not that our rants aren’t mostly true, but…
There is something else going on.
Alkylate—or the lack of it.
‘The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of [alkylate] will set the price of summer gasoline – not inventory levels.”
What’s alkylate I hear (most) of you ask.
“…a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.” It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago…”
Where does it come from?
“Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a byproduct of the refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output… “
Of course the effort is recent, planning ahead, AKA, strategic thinking, goes against accepted business practice.
Should the oil companies have seen this coming?
Be sure to check out another other Fun Friday post at Talk Stock Trading
Your comments—priceless