In “Pendulum” by Roy Williams and Michael Drew, societal trends throughout history repeat themselves.  The historical perspective is fascinating and thoughts on how to apply this theory are even better.

“Pulling people into a positive relationship through positive attraction as opposed to pushing them” towards into a decision through analysis and justification is a better approach.

Society is driving the transparent information gathering that is being fostered by Google, Facebook and Wikipedia.  Giving up your privacy in exchange for information is all the rage.

So then how does a business owner apply this knowledge of “pull marketing” to create better customer relationships and the related increase in sales?  By understanding your audience well enough to create a messaging strategy that’s relevant to them and transparent in a way that reveals both your strengths and weaknesses.  This can also be stated as the complete and unbiased truth.  This is who we are, this is who we are not.

Are you interested in reviewing your marketing and messaging strategy to position your company for the next upswing into the “We” period that will shape our history and your customer relationships?  Contact me to schedule a time to talk.  We are positioned to help you gain a competitive advantage by building better customer relationships.  We are not an expensive ad agency with lots of overhead and inexperience.  We’re a marketing firm that is focused on helping small business owners increase sales.

Don’t let logical thinking get in the way of common sense.

Or should I say,  “don’t let common sense get in the way of logical thinking”?

Either way they are similar.

Faulty logic appeals to common sense as an authority; experience per se.

I guess that’s just the way I try to navigate the world.  We can think anything and our past influences our forward thinking and beliefs.  Experience has a big impact on this.

Logic alone can’t get it done.  Great decisions are based on both logic and common sense, drawn from our experiences.

Creating new processes and service takes courage.  You can do market research and determine how to design something new, or you can follow your instinct and just do it!  Innovate!  Wikipedia says innovation is, “the creation of better or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society. Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a new idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.

A new idea doesn’t have to be a new product or service.  It could be a different way of looking at something that already exists.  Sometimes you can’t see the end result.  But you know if you don’t create some new energy and a new approach, nothing will change.  When things stay the same, competition passes you by.

So change is good.  Don’t be afraid of change.  Welcome change.  Learn how to channel the energy that change brings into positive experiences.

Innovate!  Do something different!  Do something new!  Don’t be afraid.

1.     Play it safe
Listen to that inner voice. “Why should I stick my neck out?” “I’m not going to go out on a limb…” “Safer to let someone else champion that.”
2.     Know your limitations: Don’t be afraid to pigeonhole yourself.
“I’m not an artist.” “I’m not creative.” “I’m not an innovator.”
3.     Remind yourself: It’s just a job.
“I don’t get paid to come up with ideas.” “I’m keeping my mouth shut.” “There’s nothing in it for me.” “When’s lunch?”
4.     Show you’re the smartest guy in the room: make Skepticism your middle name.
“Here’s why that idea won’t work.” “You won’t be able to execute on that.” “Our organization’s not set up for that.”
5.     Be the tough guy: Demand to see the data.
“What does the market research say?” “There’s no evidence it’s going to work.” “That didn’t come out of the focus group.” “Show me the spreadsheet.”
6.     Respect history: Always give the past the benefit of the doubt.
“We’ve always done it this way.” “If it’s such a good idea, why hasn’t anyone thought of it yet?” “That wasn’t part of the original plan.”
7.     Stop the madness before it can get started: Crush early-stage ideas with your business savvy.
“You haven’t made the business case.” “I don’t buy your assumptions.” “There’s no immediate R.O.I.”
8.     Been there, done that: Use experience as a weapon.
“We tried that a few years ago and it didn’t work.” “You haven’t been around long enough to know how things work.” “Let’s not reinvent the wheel, guys.”
9.     Keep your eyes closed. Your mind, too.
“The world isn’t changing. The media just wants us to think it is.” “I refuse to get caught up in all these technology fads.” “Don’t tell me how to run my business.”
10.  Assume there is no problem.
“It was a tough year, but we can blame the economy.” “We think next quarter we’ll see a rebound.” “We’re doing okay.”
11.  Underestimate your customers.
“Our customers aren’t going anywhere.” “They’re not ready for that.” “That’s not what they’re asking for.”
12.  Be a mentor: Give sound advice to the people who work for you.
“Just keep your head down and do your job.” “I got where I am by not rocking the boat.” “Choose your battles, kid. This isn’t one of them.”
13.  Be suspicious of the “Creatives” in your organization: the liberal arts majors, the poets, the anthropologists and other wackos. “Those guys don’t understand business.” “I can’t believe we’re keeping them on the payroll.” “Who invited them to this meeting?”
14.  When all else fails, act like a grown-up.
“I really don’t have time for this.” “Do you have an appointment?” “Back to work, everyone.”

A company’s culture is its personality.  It determines how people contribute to teamwork, problem solving, innovation, customer service, productivity and quality.  It makes work safe or not safe for a person to raise issues and solve problems or to move in a new direction.  A company’s culture is often the cause for people related problems.

Culture is the real bottom line.  A company with a well developed culture, open to all that its members want to bring easily outperforms competitors.  People might say a culture is “friendly or tough, driven or aggressive, active or analytic or open.”

A company is a culture.

Leaders get culture they ask for.  If a leader wants people to be engaged, engage them.  Want involvement, involve them.  Want good communications, and relationships, communicate and establish good relationships.

A well developed culture is highly profitable.  Leaders directly change their workplace culture by changing how they do what they do.  Everybody will see the change, like it and respond.  When you create a workplace where employees can better meet their desires around their work and their personal life, high performance follows.  That’s why culture is the real bottom line.

5 LEVELS OF CULTURE
1.  Equipment and Physical Objects:  tools, structures, products, art all cherished and loved objects important to do a job well done.

2.  Systems:  processes, procedures and methods
In most companies there is plenty of room for process and systems improvements.  Systems are well known to each closest, and this level is a golden opportunity for involvement.  This is a good place to start to begin the company culture development process by involving employees in improving their systems.

3. Authority Structure that Connects People:  Productivity and profits.
Key aspect here is power and control.  The crude form is dominance and submission.  Often emotional and difficult to discuss.  Work on system issues and discover that problems around power and control will gradually diminish.

4. Communication To Connect People
Listening, understanding, dialogue, relationships and teamwork.  Also includes empathy and win-win consensus.  This is where leaders have the most potential leverage.  Improving communications has a powerful effect on the culture.

5. Experience Creating Motivation and Trust
The quality of human experience.  What we cherish in life, and feelings such as trust, caring, safety, satisfaction, pride and engagement.  Also includes the spiritual side.  Leaders cannot directly affect another’s experience, but you can affect another person by actions at the other four levels.

Academic fields are analytic and experience is synthetic or personal that comes with time.

FORMAL CULTURAL CHANGE PROCESS

Formal actions to quickly develop company culture.

1.  Involve and empower the leadership team
a.  identify formal values

b.  list the opportunities to strengthen values

c.  act on values and opportunity

2.  Conduct Cultural Interviews

3.  Involve the next level of management

4.  Organize problem solving groups

Involve the leadership team

Cultural change must begin at the top

Meetings could include discussion on:

a. employees communications and relationships

b. their leadership of the company’s culture

c. Planning and managing the human side of the workplace, the cultural change process.

CULTURAL LEADERSHIP MEETINGS

Focus on the top half of the culture, the Human Half, not the bottom, operations half.

After 3-4 meetings interpersonal issues are raised and resolved

Draw out each person’s desires of a better workplace

FOCUS YOURSELF ON THE PROCESS

I’d like to hear your thoughts, how it is for you here and what you like.  If you have ideas you would like me to consider, I’m interested in knowing how we can improve.  If you’ve had good experiences elsewhere, I’d like to hear about those also.

The Leaders Role

Help the employees feel comfortable discussing their relationships, the work experiences and themselves as a team.

“What kind of workplace would you like to have?”

More trust?  Openness?

Stronger teamwork and cooperation?

Better communication levels?

People speaking up and participating more?

People taking responsibility for solving their own problems?

Higher morale?

Improved productivity and customer service?

Less interference and directives from above?

Ask each person to write down their answers to, “what kind of a workplace would you like to have?  What qualities, values and behavior would you like to see more of?  Less of?

Take one item from each person and post on the wall…title the list VALUES WE WANT TO SUPPORT AT (COMPANY NAME)

List the opportunities to strengthen the values

Discuss actions they can take to strengthen the values (process)

More planning without action won’t advance the cultural change process.
(need to ask yourself, “do I want change?”  What changes do I want?  Need?

If one item on the list is “better communications between departments, ask, “what do we do here or what is coming up in your area that by doing it a little bit differently we would improve communications between departments?

What is happening now that is good?  What is happening that is lacking in positive outcomes?

Combine Cultural Values with Opportunities

Ask employees how they will connect values to actions.(process)

GET THE PEOPLE MORE INVOLVED

Have people volunteer to apply new ideas.  Invite them to apply the ideas.

“Next time we get together, let’s hear what you did and what happened.  Remember we are trying to learn about the culture and what happens when we take action for change.

Trial change through new actions and new results.  Does the outcome warrant a permanent change that translates to a new operating standard.(process)

“So What Happened?”

After a few weeks, ask the employees to describe what they did and what the experience was like.  Involvement will vary.  Be prepared to report on your work as the leader so they know you are serious about this but do not be confrontational, only resolute.  Confrontation at this stage drives culture into the negative, as people will withdraw.  You need to demonstrate your experience, as the leader advances the process, so will others.

How is your relationship with other departments?

3.  Conduct Cultural Interviews

4. Involve the Next Level of Management…down one level below management.  Owner…..Management….Employees

5.  Organize Problem Solving Groups at the First Level(employees)

Jumps in company performance when this group becomes deeply involved.  Empowered to act on what they know, when their creativity, responsibility and ideas are wanted, appreciated and most importantly acted on for positive change.(maximizing each persons talent and full capabilities)

Employees at all levels want to have a better workplace.  Even if it’s not perfect, employees appreciate the effort and step forward to join in the new venture.

Maintaining high levels of communication with your team is essential to creating the energy necessary to achieve momentum through innovation.  Company information needs to flow from person to person and top to bottom across all internal company operations.  From financial updates to in-field sales reports and market observations, a steady flow of information in real time creates the opportunity for adapting and shifting of products and service offerings based on market demand and conditions.  This open communications creates conversations between employees on new actions that need to be taken to support the various company functions and meet client needs.  The actions that result create momentum and innovation.

How does hiring a professional interior designer impact the appeal of your workspace?  As a designer learns about your corporate culture and mission, he or she will be able to show how design can help achieve corporate goals. A businesslike approach to workplace design means getting key decision-makers to think about how a workplace can reflect the organization’s brand, image and vision.  Interior designers today are actually part designer and part management consultants.

To meet employees’ needs for a stimulating, energizing workplace that enhances productivity, efficiency and satisfaction, integrate interior design into strategic planning.  Hire a professional designer to reflect or help change your company’s culture, environment and work habits.  A designer can help clients turn their offices into tools that will yield long-term benefits including happy employees and ultimately increased profits.

By:  Brenda L. Brady, ASID

BRENDA BRADY DESIGN LLC

http://www.brendabradydesign.com

It wasn’t until I actually worked in a design firm that I started to become more aware of design.  Design is defined as:

1a. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent: design a good excuse for not attending the conference.b. To formulate a plan for; devise: designed a marketing strategy for the new product.
2. To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form: design a building; design a computer program.
3. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect: a game designed to appeal to all ages.
4. To have as a goal or purpose; intend.
5. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner

When I started learning about design I began to ask questions about how design impacts business.  If I took a little from each definition above, I could say design means,

“To conceive in the mind, to formulate a plan systematically for a particular purpose, with a goal in mind, in a highly skilled manner.”

Then I began to think about how design impacts the customer development process.  In other words, how can an entrepreneur or business owner design a process to increase sales.  So I spoke with my director of research, Fran Ray and he set out to learn what the best minds in the country think about this subject.  His white paper is a bit esoteric, but the impact that design has on business and how leaders set plans and execute them is clearly evident.  Email me if you’d like a copy.

So my curiosity continues.  Soon I’ll share with you, what another designer friend of mine thinks about the business of commercial interior design.

Christmas 2009

Year after year we anticipate the change of season’s and welcome each holiday with joy and anticipation.  Several holidays’ stand out each year as national events giving everyone a much needed break.  There’s one holiday that stands out above them all.  Christian’s around the world come together to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus.  It’s Christmas time!  It’s about the time I write this Christmas letter I swing into full Christmas spirit and cheer.

Christmas allows us to reflect on who we are spiritually and realigns our thinking about the true meaning of Christmas.   Christmas reminds us of our faith in Jesus.  His birth gives us hope.  The star of Bethlehem, also known as the Christmas Star, can guide us, just as it did the three wise men.  They traveled east bearing gifts to worship the Christ child, born King of the Jews.  You can follow your Christmas Star and along your journey you can share your gifts.  We all have much to give, especially friendship.

We have much to celebrate.  While life is a never ending journey filled with struggle and pain along the way, we stay committed to our families, our friends, our work and our education.  The people around me and the client’s and companies we’ve developed relationships with have been extraordinary and continue to develop their own successful company cultures.

So in spite of the fact that my truck got dinged, the washing machine broke, my hot tub heater is on the fritz, and I stubbed my toe….MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It’s the holidays!  The perfect time to look past all life’s little hurdles and enjoy this special time with family and friends.  Candy, chocolate, cookies, egg nog, ham… bring it on.  A little snow never hurt neither.

May this holiday season find you looking forward with Christmas in your hearts.

John Russell

Having just returned from 4 days in the Wisconsin north woods to participate in the annual deer hunt, time spent in the forest brings the opportunity to reflect and clear the mind.  For me the highest quality thinking time requires a sense of solitude and quiet while observing the natural order.

Traditional Wisconsin deer camps are steeped in tradition with a strong connection to family bonding ever strengthening our allure with the North Country and our family cultures.   Stories and legends of trophy bucks and tags filled over the past decades connect generations and the commitment between grandfathers and grandsons form the familial bonds that make these tribal gatherings required seasonal events.

Over huge meals of wild game and all the comfort foods you could imagine, plans are made, pecking orders are reviewed and confirmed while tomorrows hunt gets planned.

After dinner deer camp members wander down country and forest roads to visit neighbors to talk about deer sightings, bucks that got away and stories of misses.

On Thanksgiving Day, we celebrate our culture and our traditions as well as all the friends and family that are woven together to make up our lives.  Each family has its’ own traditions for the annual celebration and recognition of our appreciation for each other.

What cultures and traditions exist within your business?