Firm Leadership

Rants, Raves, Rebuttals, Reflections, Revelations & Ruminations

I was reminded the other day of the pleasure I had in spending some quality time with my two nephews over the holiday season. At dinner the first evening, I asked, "So guys, what was the funest thing you did today?" Jason and Joshua each told of something fun and interesting they did that day. I contributed by relating to them something weird and funny that had happened during my day (something weird is happening for me almost every day, it seems). We laughed at each other's stories and went on to enjoy a delightful dinner together.

The next evening, I again asked them, "Guys, so what was the funest thing you did today?" This time, they each had one ready to tell. And I once again told them about something weird and funny that had happened to me. As the first evening, we laughed and had a good time with this. Each evening at dinner, I asked the same question. By the end of the week, the boys came to the dinner table already knowing what their evening's story would be. It almost seemed that these boys were making fun things happen during the day, just so they could tell about it at dinner. We laughed a lot and enjoyed each story.

Where was their focus? That's right; on the positive things that were going on with them. During this time of their lives, do you suppose that either Jason or Joshua had any unpleasant things happening to them or around them? Of course they did! We all have negative events and negative people in our lives. I just didn't want the negatives to be their primary focus. I wanted them to focus on the positives. How many times do you end your day stewin g about the report that didn't get finished, people who haven't returned your calls, a client deal that drags on, or why your computer software's not working correctly?

I am not suggesting that you ignore the challenges in your life. I am suggesting that you not make that your permanent residence. Successful professionals develop their positive attitudes because they feed on progress. As you're reading this, think about the three most positive, interesting things that happened to you (the funest things) today.

Here's a little something I picked up from FORTUNE editor-at-large Brent Schlender. The title of the piece is "GURUS: Peter Drucker Sets Us Straight" To a question: Does the U.S. still set the tone for the world economy?

Drucker answers as follows:

"The dominance of the U.S. is already over. What is emerging is a world economy of blocs represented by NAFTA, the European Union, ASEAN. There's no one center in this world economy. India is becoming a powerhouse very fast. The medical school in New Delhi is now perhaps the best in the world. And the technical graduates of the Institute of Technology in Bangalore are as good as any in the world. Also, India has 150 million people for whom English is their main language. So India is indeed becoming a knowledge center.

In contrast, the greatest weakness of China is its incredibly small proportion of educated people. China has only 1.5 million college students, out of a total population of over 1.3 billion. If they had the American proportion, they'd have 12 million or more in college. Those who are educated are well trained, but there are so few of them. And then there is the enormous undeveloped hinterland with excess rural population. Yes, that means there is enormous manufacturing potential. In China, however, the likelihood of the absorption of rural workers into the cities witho ut upheaval seems very dubious. You don't have that problem in India because they have already done an amazing job of absorbing excess rural population into the cities - its rural population has gone from 90% to 54% without any upheaval.

Everybody says China has 8% growth and India only 3%, but that is a total misconception. We don't really know. I think India's progress is far more impressive than China's."

There's a lot of talk about what's happening in the workplace and economy today, tomorrow and maybe the next year or so. But what's the picture expected to look like 10 to 25 years from now? Here's what four futurists expect to see:

* John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks workplace trends: The "corporate age adviser" will emerge. As the work force ages -- with baby boomers forgoing retirement and seniors over 65 returning to work -- companies may have workers of ages that span four generations. A consultant may be needed to mediate conflicts and "develop programs to increase the harmony between groups."

* Watts Wacker, futurist with Connecticut-based FirstMatter: Companies will look for "creative employees" instead of "knowledge employees." During the information age, businesses focused on developing processes and out-thinking everyone else. In the next 10 years, companies will focus on taking these processes to another level.

* Joyce L. Gioia, futurist and president of Herman Group in Greensboro, N.C.: Career opportunities for "assistants" will grow. The demand for physician's assistants, legal assistants and other support workers will increase. The goal will be to remove administrative burdens from doctors, lawyers and other professionals -- who are tough to recruit -- so they won't get burned out and leave their jobs.

* Roger Selbert, futurist and publisher of Growth Strategies, a monthly newsletter on socioeconomic and demographi c workplace trends: Teleworking will take off. "It's finally going to happen. Today 28 million people telework under formal company policies, a leap from 4 million in 1990. By 2010, more than half the American wage-earners will spend at least two days a week working outside the office."

Happy New Year!

America's largest companies are in a race to relocate many of their operations to overseas markets like China, Southeast Asia, Russia, and India where the highest skilled engineers and scientists can be owned for $500 a month -- no benefits, no overtime, no pension plan requirements.

The U.S. manufacturing sector -- both low tech and high tech; upper end and bottom end; even the most sophisticated manufacturing is quickly vanishing. In the last two years, Microsoft, IBM, GE, Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computers, Procter & Gamble, Motorola, Intel, Delphi and a host of others have quietly been "outsourcing" their high-tech, research and development, computer programming, business processing, customer services, and even executive jobs overseas.

Concurrently, Boeing is no longer the world's largest commercial jet manufacturer; Europe's Airbus is. America no longer builds the world's ships. Asia does. Maytag is closing down its U.S. appliance business and moving their factories to China. Even "all-American" Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer gets 85% of the items it sells from overseas, mostly China, where it has massive operations. From cell phones to plasma screen TVs to the latest microchip manufacturing techniques, the U.S. is out of the game. The manufacturing, R&D, and engineering jobs are elsewhere. It is estimated that nearly 4 million jobs will be lost in the next few years, with a loss in wages to American workers (and professionals) of $136 billion.

So my question, in case you were wondering, which you weren't, is . . . Where will the money come from to buy those cheap things if everyone in the U.S. is out of work? And why is Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN's daily news pr ogram now maintaining and publicizing a growing list of those companies that have been exporting massive numbers of jobs overseas?

Unemployment is said to be declining . . . stocks are said to be going up . . . the economy is said to be growing at a near- record pace. If you don't look too hard, it could pass for a 'recovery.' However the unemployment numbers appear pathetic for this stage of a real recovery -- while our ability to make and sell things - is being exported (or dare I say outsourced) overseas!

For example, Oracle pleased everyone with an announcement this week that sales had risen 8%. Many of the sales were made overseas but no one seemed to mind. Nor did anyone seem to mind the accompanying announcement that Oracle was letting 1,364 employees in the U.S. go. It will, meanwhile, add 1,334 employees overseas. I didn't check, but wouldn't be surprised if many of these new employees were hired in India, which seems to be picking up more and more jobs in the software / service sector.

You can find much to like about this economy of ours, as long as you don't examine it too closely. Initial jobless claims are trending downward . . . and that's a good thing. But the quality of the employment growth leaves something to be desired.

"It is important to examine the quality of the jobs gained relative to those lost," the Economic Policy Institute observes. "Over the course of the recovery (from November 2001 to November 2003), 1.3 million jobs in manufacturing have been lost, 272,000 jobs in information services, and 93,000 jobs in professional / technical services, all sectors that pay above-average wages. At the same time, jobs have been added in administrative services and accommodations / food services, two lower-wage sectors."

For those of you who are trend watchers, mark my words when I say that 2004 could very well be the year when outsourcing is seen to be . . . well, anti-American.

Stay tuned . . . there's much more to come!

We all have heard of Buzzword Bingo. Score a 'Bingo' out of your string of clichés in a typical meeting -- paradigm, synergy and core competency are great words to start with -- and you win! Marshall McLuhan proposed 'probing' these clichés, turning cynicism into a probe that quickens the pace of creative thinking.

McLuhan's technique involved turning the language of the cliché onto itself through plays of words, misspellings, puns and changes of order and then exploring the new meanings that result. In such ways, the cliché Mental Models becomes 'Mental Motels', a place where we arrive after crossing great distances only to go to sleep on our thoughts for a very long time.

Now if there is anything that a no-brainer dude like myself really likes, it is someone telling me how to play with words so . . . in his wonderful book, McLuhan for Managers, author Mark Federman, suggests the following:

State-of-the-art becomes 'fate-of-the-start'.

New Media becomes 'New Mania'.

Client Focused becomes 'Client Hocus Pocus'.

Through such word-plays we begin to erode our well-trodden mental pathways. We begin to explode our meanings. We challenge our assumptions. At the very least, we become far more cynical and critical in our use of clichés.

Recently, I was speaking at an off-site partner's meeting and was scheduled to present immediately following the Executive Director. When I arrived, the room was dark and this individual was reading to his audience from the screen. I saw a few heads nodding and other partners dozing. He was on slide 23 and had 22 more to go! His audience had a handout on which each of the slides was printed and numbered, and those still awake, read along with him.

Happily for Microsoft, many presenters and trainers have become addicted to this technology. PowerPoint® has become so popular it is now a synonym for a presentation. Instead of asking for a copy of the salient points in a training program or presentation, people now say, "Please send me the PowerPoint® from Wednesday's meeting."

Scott Adams is even doing cartoons about it. In the first frame Dilbert is using a pointer and says, "As you can clearly see in slide 397..." In the next frame the audience is tearing their hair out and one of the employees falls over on the floor. In the final frame, Wally looks down at him and exclaims, "PowerPoint® Poisoning!"

I long ago discovered that the more you use this crutch, the harder it is to stop. And, there's a price to pay. Your audience tunes out or falls asleep. Productivity drops, learning doesn't happen and humans disconnect. It seems presenters and trainers have for gotten how important it is to communicate with a group rather than just read to them, and how important it is to connect with an audience rather than just dazzle them with special visual effects.

I say: Why bother? If you would prefer that there be no interaction and that people be discouraged from asking questions, just distribute your handout and go home. Instead, too many presenters seem content to simply read to a group who were in the dark to begin with and who they ultimately leave in the dark.

I'm getting so jaded here lately that I am not shocked at anything anymore, and this floored me when I read it . . .

Southern California law enforcement professionals assigned to detect new threats to personal security issues, recently discovered what type of information is embedded in the credit card type hotel room keys used through-ou t the industry. Although room keys differ from hotel to hotel, a key obtained from the "Double Tree" chain that was being used for a regional Identity Theft Presentation was found to contain the following the information:

a. Customer's (your) name

b. Customer's (your) partial home address

c. Hotel room number

d. Check in date and check out date

AND HERE THE KICKER:

e. Customer's (your) credit card number and expiration date!

When you turn them in to the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner. An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense. Simply put, hotels do not erase these cards until an employee issues the card to the next hotel guest. It is usually kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT. The bottom line is, keep the cards or destroy them! NEVER leave them behind and NEVER turn them in to the front desk when you check out of a room. The Hotel will not charge you for the card.

. . . and while I was down there on the floor waiting for the ambulance to arrive I noticed that there was this huge dust bunny under my desk . . .

KPMG LLP, the accounting and tax firm, has again been selected as part of Working Mother Magazine's annual list of "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers." This is the seventh time KPMG has been named on the list.

KPMG was cited for its growing number of initiatives and polices that support flexible workplace scheduling, paid time off for new parents, and the advancement of women, including the formation of a Multicultural Women's Advisory Board. Kathy Hannan, Vice Chair of Human Resources, is particularly proud of KPMG's support for the advancement of women and mothers. As a mother of two children herself, Hannan utilizes many of the programs to help her be effective, both in her personal and professional life.

Hannan said establishing programs that support women and mothers is part of a broader long-term culture change initiative put in place a few years ago to address such issues as work-life effectiveness, aligning performance, advancement and reward systems, building an inclusive community and treating everyone with respect and dignity.

Additionally, the firm uses more than 30 local action councils in offices across the country to help generate ideas to make KPMG a better place to work and instill change. Maintaining an inclusive work environment is an ongoing process that must be ingrained in the culture of a firm. To continually maintain a presence on the, "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" sends a loud message that KPMG LLP is a preferred work environment. As the economy turns, this will create several additional competitive advantages for KPMG LLP.

Just as most clients have had it with language and terms like repurposeable, value added knowledge capital and robust, leveragable mindshare; enter Bullfighterâ„¢, a new program developed by Deloitte Consulting that searches documents for jargon and unnecessarily complex language.

Once installed, the Bullfighter toolbar appears in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, and works much like the spell check feature. The software scans documents for egregious bull, flogs the author for trying to use those words, suggests replacements, and then assigns a Bull Composite score.

Deloitte used the tool to examine a wide range of communications from companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and found that straight-talking companies outperform companies that use vague, unclear communications.

Deloitte's conclusion - that straightforward communications can be linked to financial performance - mirrors the findings of two accounting and finance professors, Malcolm Smith of the University of South Australia and Richard Taffler of England's Cranfield University. Their independent study concluded that clarity of communications can be a very good indicator of corporate performance.

"We're hoping Bullfighter will shatter the credibility of business jargon, and make business communications safer for all of us," said Brian Fugere, a partner at Deloitte. "We're just as guilty as the next consultant when it comes to using words like paradigm, bandwidth, and leverage, but we're committed to straight talk as a way of doing business - and Bullfighter is helping us get there."

For a closer look at this new software, visit: www.dc.com/insights/bullfighter