The Right and Left Brain Blog

In accepting a Golden Globes Award in 2009, Stephen Spielberg made a comment that has been echoed by many creative geniuses in a variety of ways. It was that with every project he challenges himself to push the envelope by asking “am I going to get away with this?” Similar perspectives are as follows:

• Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker write in The Deviant’s Advantage “Let’s recap our thesis: Innovation-all innovation, positive and negative-begins as a deviant idea germinating in the mind of a person dwelling on the fringe of society.”
• W. Edwards Demming is quoted in a great line about leadership: “It is the ability to drive fear out of the organization so that employees will feel comfortable to make decisions on their own.”
• Billy Joel at a commencement address: “If you love what you do, you’ll always do what you love. And if you’re doing what you love, you’re going to become very good at it.” And this is a country that rewards excellence.
• Emerson: “to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius.”
• The statement by John F. Kennedy, “some people see things as they are and I see them as they could be.”
• Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were in a televised seminar with college students. They were asked about the biggest mistakes they made. Both responded that the opportunities they missed, like Warren Buffet not investing more in Microsoft, were their key mistakes. The openness and seeking out opportunities rather than worrying about making mistakes is what was so impressive.
• In a magazine article about Google an incident was related about a subordinate relating a several million mistake to the president. What was important was that the president was more pleased that the environment encouraged openness about acknowledging mistakes which also resulted in tremendous breakthroughs than the consequences of the mistakes.

These examples illustrate how we are afraid of failure and avoid great ideas that are not slam dunks. It is well known that we are less willing to take risks even if the probability of success says we should in many cases. Think of how many reorganizations and thousands of firings are occurring because companies refuse to face the realities of the current environment. The auto and banking businesses are probably the best examples of not having the guts to make inevitable changes. Google, Facebook, Amazon and other internet companies except Yahoo are examples of companies that have the vision to look forward.

My colleague, Susan Payton of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, blogs about internet marketing. While it certainly has its relevance and place for businesses, I believe there are other elements of a business that can do as much, if not more than internet marketing to grow a business.

Internet marketing experts provide seminars, webinars, online conferences, etc., which are designed to improve response rates, inquires, and conversions at lower costs. If we believe much of what they argue, our profitability would virtually increase in leaps and bounds every month. We sometimes get so excited about web marketing tools that we forget some of the basic marketing tools, particularly for smaller businesses. My experience is that there are some general realities about our marketing efforts that need to be integrated with our internet ideas to achieve better results:

1. The characteristics of your brand, product, price, and marketing are the most important aspect of a great website. Great marketing or web design is hard to overcome a lousy product.
2. Price, value and competitiveness are underestimated in their importance. Consumers frequently use the internet to compare and look at multiple sites. Lowering price and offering free shipping are the easiest and most effective way to increase sales.
3. Better, not fancier, customer service can dramatically affect sales. Responding quickly, empowering customer service, liberal return policies, and operators who are knowledgeable and speak English are more important than gimmicks like 24-7 responses from representatives in foreign countries that have no clue.
4. Being in stock and shipping quickly is a requirement and not an advantage.
5. Clear, concise explanations can have a dramatic impact. Customers want clear information on the characteristics of the products. Understandable text, sizes, specs, dimensions are all critical elements of a product description.
6. Excellent photography is more important than multiple views that are unattractive or redundant.
7. Improving web design with exotic characteristics like flash, videos, long openings etc. can be counter productive in terms of conveying a simple message. For example, if you have a “skip intro” option on the website, it probably shouldn’t be there.
8. Google and its reporting tools are incredible products and do not need supplements if you are a small to moderate user.
9. Great products and excellent brands are more important than SEO in generating clicks.
10. In general, expensive custom products or totally generic efforts are equally disappointing. There are great models and templates out there to purchase inexpensively. However, they need to be tempered with individual analysis and decision making.

In short, basic management and marketing is a fundamental that must be developed before one tacks on exotic internet marketing tools. In addition they may show much better results than all the dog and pony shows of your competitors.

I am a social psychologist who is now a business executive and was fascinated by Gladwell’s Outliers book. His book is one of a few in recent years such as Freakonomics and The Drunkard’s Walk that cause us to challenge our assumptions in both our business and personal lives.

Many of the economic problems in the last year are a function of erroneous assumptions about things like housing prices, incomes and credit. In general, we like to make simple linear assumptions about cause and effect. For example, Gladwell challenges beliefs of those who think variables like effort, IQ, passion, red states/blue states, or socio- economic background are the sole cause of everything.

While Gladwell does a great job in showing the complexity and interaction among factors, he sometimes downplays the importance of some underlying variables:

• In discussing the impact of other variables besides IQ on success, he seems to downplay the fundamental requirement of IQ in many endeavors. The reality is that certain levels are a requirement but not the determinant for success in fields like nuclear physics, getting into Harvard, etc.

• The interesting aspect is who makes it and who doesn’t with the requisite IQ, skills, background, passion and timing. For example, he describes the importance of being born in January for success in Canadian hockey. However, he does not differentiate why only a small portion of Canadians born in January are successful hockey players.

The most interesting aspect of the book, which does not receive enough attention is passion. He argues that success does require effort and talks about 10,000 hours of experience (including some failure) as an important perquisite of success. However, he does not explain why some of us love to spend the 10,000 hours and others are happy playing video games, drinking, watching sports on T.V. etc.

This is particularly evident in the rise of women today in America. They now represent 46% of the labor force compared to 33% in 1960. Given the opportunity in the last few decades, women are simply taking over although they still lag in hard sciences.

There are two obvious implied recommendations from Gladwell and these other books. First, we need to analyze our opportunities and assumptions about our selves and organizations. Second, we should do a SWOT analysis or something like it (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) to help determine which and how we should pursue opportunities. In particular, we need to assess ways to take advantage of the struggling economy over the next few years.

The lack of understanding goals is a critical factor in management errors. We frequently think of goals like sports, where winning is presumably everything.

However even in sports, finances, long-term development, ethics, point spreads etc. can affect the winning goal. For organizations and individuals, the issues are even more complex.

• In most efforts and organizations, there are multiple goals and demands. Prioritization, comparison and measurement become critical issues. If goals are too simple they can ignore many aspects of a situation but if there are too many, there can be a lack of focus. We also frequently focus on measurement and may ignore more subjective goals. Educational goals such as test scores versus social development face this problem every day.

• Short term versus long term goals is the best example where goals may be conflicting. Much of the financial crises in 2008 were a function of short term greed versus long term rationality. I knew there was something wrong with the model when a young very talented graphic artist quit our company to sell mortgages to potentially make twice as much money. He had zero skills, interest, capability or experience in mortgages but the short-term lure was to enticing.

• The level of goals can also change. On one hand goals need to be realistic so that they can be achieved and not strain operational, financial or organizational resources. On the other hand, there needs to be some stretch to provide some challenge and growth. In particular, virtually every organization needs to downsize their goals for the next year or so at least. .

A very complex analytical tool, linear programming, provides a rather simple tool for examining goals. While few people understand the math of linear programming or its applicability, the logical model is very insightful. First, you simply detail the various goals and priorities .Second, you list the constraints. Going through the exercise in even a simple subjective manner forces one to understand the goals, consider the trade-offs and understand the barriers.

A major dilemma in our day-to-day experiences is that we all want to be effective at whatever we are doing. Few of us start our days saying “I am going to do a lousy job today,” I am going to be a lousy parent today,” or “I am going to make my day miserable.” However, many times our aspirations, goals, efforts, etc. become frustrated. Two diverse examples of excellence illustrate how it can be achieved.

An article in Fortune Magazine on the most powerful women in business (October 13, 2008) illustrates how people are achieving excellence. Only 2 of the women were over 60 years old but 20 were under 50 and 3 under 40. The article emphasizes the intelligence, skills and networking of these leaders. In other words the authoritative , “good old boy” work your way up executive is being replaced with the people with superb capabilities and the ability to bring people together to achieve success.

The most interesting aspect is where they work. In general, they are more prevalent in consumer products, health and the internet than the economy as a whole. This may be a caused by growing industries that are more open to women. However, they are also more prevalent in heading up key groups such as international or technology than traditional business executives. Fifteen of them are in untraditional or emerging companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Harpo and TJX. These women simply seek out and take advantage of opportunities in exciting environments rather being held back in more traditional companies like autos, manufacturing or banks.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the experience of many companies in creating excellent customer service. While many consumers complain about poor quality, “I got you,” return polices, unhelpful agents, delays etc. there are some companies that have built their reputations on excellent customer service. Land’s End, Ritz Carlton Hotels, Nordstrom and L.L.Bean are prominent examples. There are several common factors in these diverse companies that illustrate the components of excellence:

• The first aspect is a commitment to excellent customer service that pervades their statements and execution throughout the organization.

• What is sometimes missed is the impact the commitment has throughout the companies in developing excellent practices. In order to offer unlimited returns you need to exercise excellent quality. Service companies like Nordstrom and Ritz Carlton both recruit and train staff to be excellent. Companies like Google offer sales and analytical tools to help clients achieve better results.

• Excellent and empowered people are a requirement for excellence in customer service. Most consumers are honest and if companies are preoccupied with the few cheaters, they will not satisfy many legitimate complaints. In contrast empowering employees both encourages satisfied customers and motivates employees that they can experience success.

• Finally, excellent customer service involves respect. Many of these jobs are repetitive and stressful. However, training, rewards and simple recognition provide pride and performance in these functions. One of the most useful efforts I experienced was having general management listen in on customer service phone calls.

It is not impossible to achieve excellence. It just takes careful planning, awareness, and execution.

The most effective leadership and motivation I have witnessed occurs every day with a parent teaching a child to ride a two wheeler.

• First, you can’t teach a child until they are ready and want to learn. While these vary in intensity and levels, the child must have the physical skills, the desire to learn and the confidence that they can learn before they are successful.
• Everything in the process is geared towards giving the child experience, confidence, support and success. The child and the process are usually the focus of the experience. The parent runs up and down the street, without worrying about getting tired, giving the child confidence and support.

• When the child falls, the parent takes the responsibility and supports another try.

• When success is finally achieved, the child gets all the credit and applause while the parents are trying to recover from doing much of the work.

Despite all the books and research, leadership and motivation are simple. As evidenced by the bicycle example they involve building support, experience and confidence. This has been supported from writings and research ranging from Pygmalion, to Rothlegberger, to McGregor, to Peters. What is difficult is the execution and some of that is even easy.

For some reason time, stress, pressure, priorities, etc. cause us to forget everyday decency. As a result, the simple impact of every day courtesy, politeness, concern, and understanding are vastly underestimated as ways to develop leadership and motivation. For example, some simple everyday phrases that are used infrequently could vastly improve organizational effectiveness:

• Please
• Thank you
• You did a good job
• How are you doing?

These simple phrases can do a lot to take the edge off a situation or simply demonstrate that human feelings are important. They provide a sense of support and caring. They also take the edge of the pressure of today’s stressful environment.

In recent years marketers have stressed actions such creating a buzz or reaching a Tipping Point. While these are new, explosive and fun, they may not be the most appropriate strategies in today’s environment.

Specifically, we need to revert to a back to basics formula in these difficult times. For example, luxury goods and bells and whistles on products are clearly not the buzz of the moment. Rather discounts, value, and cheap seem to be the new mantras. The Chairman of Google even acknowledged how many more price comparisons consumers are making. Several retailers have commented that 20% off seems to be the new regular price. Stores like Wal-Mart and Costco are prospering while luxury retailers are struggling. This should not mean an end to innovation and creativity but rather simply a change in tactics:

• A few weeks ago I went to buy a plain navy blue suit at a well known department store. They had stripes, plaids, colors, etc. but no plain blue suit in my size. Retailers need to consider what customers want rather than what their whim wants to create. The little black dress, clothes that fit, khaki pants, etc. with great value and quality can still be done creatively. For example, Spanx and Not Your Mothers Jeans have built successful businesses by simply stressing fit.

• Quality and value need more attention and can be creatively approached. Suppliers generally do a horrible job describing quality and value features. They simply need to change from slapping a designer name on a mediocre product and charging more money.

• Customer service can be a critical differentiator in marketing. Geek Squad, internet store pickup with no cost, and Lands End’s no questions asked return policy are examples of customer service excellence. Many auto insurers have simplified the estimate and repair process with both better service and lower costs. In contrast, companies like Dell are charging extra if you want to talk to an American customer service agent.

• Organizations need more collaboration, openness and communication to improve the entire product process. Suppliers say retailers are out to get them. Retailers say they care about their suppliers but that they don’t change. Somehow these discussions need to change from dividing the pie to maximizing the process and mailing the sum more than the parts.

In short we need to focus on maximizing the entire supply process rather than simply developing new marketing or product approaches that simply result in increasing expenses and not increasing total sales and profits.

There is no question that there is more communication than ever today. Many of us receive some combination of more than 100 emails, 2-3 hours of T.V., 2-3 hours of listening to an iPod, 3-5 hours of interaction with the computer, reading numerous books, magazines and other papers, 1-2 hours of phone conversations, 1-2 hours with the Blackberry, 1-2 hours of blogging, podcasts or networking sites like MySpace, 2-3 hours of meetings, and even a little social time with our family and friends. The problem is, what do we really hear? The answer is, despite all the great efforts of these communications, we hear very little:

• Just think of the loss in communication when we are multi-tasking on the web, talking on the phone and thinking about something else at the same time, and being with our family kids, which are often the case.

• The option of “reply all” on our internet programs has probably encouraged more useless communication that we don’t need or care about than any other simple vehicle.

• Similarly, voicemail, Tivo, and other recording devices allow us to catalog even more communication that we mostly didn’t need in the first place.

• Answering cell phones while in a meeting and can’t talk to the person anyway is so annoying. People are so paranoid that they answer the phone in a meeting, and say they can’t talk rather than not answering and letting the person simply leave a message.

One of the obvious characteristics of communication is the perceptions of the presenter and environment of the communication. What we all know and seldom acknowledge is that our perceptions of the presenter have a dramatic effect on our understanding and acceptance of the communication. However, we frequently ignore this fact, which has been well proven in what is called the “Theory of Cognitive Dissonance,” which articulates this view and has been affirmed through years of research. We all know better appearance, clearer communication, a pleasant environment, and respect for the presenter affect our acceptance of communication. This is one of the rationales for using celebrities, pretty girls or experts in much of our advertising.

In short, it is not just what we say but to whom we say it that affects our success. As a personal example, I am constantly bothered that readers of my communication will correct my spelling and grammar and ignore my message. Do you have a good example? Let’s hear it.

Have you heard of Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Chad Hurley, or Jawed Karim? They are under 40 years old and the founders of companies like Google, YouTube, Facebook and PayPal. All of these entrepreneurs and thousands of others have tremendous skills, have developed revolutionary concepts, bucked the system, followed their dreams and devoted unending energy to make their efforts successful.

This is not a new phenomenon. America was built by great innovative entrepreneurs such as Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison. The challenge is to change our individual, organizational, and cultural norms to focus on encouraging rather than diluting exceptional performance. In today’s challenging environment, we need to explore ways to overcome the bleak the realities and step out to face new challenges. How do we really promote excellence at the individual, organizational and social level? There are easily doable actions:

1. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses and pursue the strengths. In particular, it is the weaknesses that are frequently ignored.
2. Seek opportunities where you can succeed. People are frequently loathe to quit many dead end jobs or admit they are wasting their careers.
3. Have the confidence to pursue what you should be doing. Many times both individuals and organizations minimize risk even if the payoffs more than the justify risk. Similarly, we need to work on the factors that reduce confidence. For example, working in troubled organizations can simply be deadly.
4. Spending too much time trying to correct weaknesses rather than exploiting advantages can result in significant lost opportunities. Organizations continue to feed lost causes and ignore realities.
5. You cannot achieve excellence or meet goals if you are not measuring the result and getting and receiving feedback. In particular, rewarding success both small and big in terms of both psychological and career rewards becomes a self fulfilling prophecy in creating more excellence.
6. If you don’t mistakes, you aren’t trying hard enough. This is the best phrase I have heard in terms of learning to accept risk. The key issue is not to encourage failure but do the successes justify then total effort.
7. We must recognize the importance of upgrading ourselves, our organizations and our society.

In summary, it is clear that both individuals and organizations have over emphasized the risk of failure versus the rewards of success. One need only look at the old line industries such as automobiles, and furniture to realize that many of them are simply not adapting to their changing environments and taking the necessary risks to survive. Similarly, individuals underestimate the risk of staying in poor situations and the rewards of trying to maximize their capabilities.