"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy
HEADLINES: (All About Employees!)
How Do You Handle Dress Codes -- FORTUNE Small Business Magazine is looking for small business owners who would like to share the challenges they have experienced and/or the solutions they've come up with in dealing with their employees' dress codes. Whether it's tattoos that are covered up or out in the open, jeans or slacks, lawsuits or wardrobe allowances, we want to hear about it. By small business we mean 1 to 100 employees and/or $1 million to $100 million in annual revenues. We also prefer businesses located outside the New York area. If you have something to contribute to the story, please contact fsb_mail@timeinc.com with the subject heading: "DRESS CODE IN THE WORKPLACE."
How to Know if Someone Has to Go? -- Wallace Brumley, CEO of Brumley Professional Employer Services, has a simple way to know if an employee should go. Annually he sends out a letter commemorating an employee on their employment anniversary -- and it includes hotel and dinner. If he doesn't feel like sending the letter, it tells him it's time for the employee to go.
The Southwest Airlines of the Portable Storage Industry -- A Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a key tool for motivating employees. Stephen Shang, CEO of Falcon Storage sent me the following note on Monday "Our BHAG is "To be the Southwest Airlines of the portable storage industry." I had always thought that this was just a 'rallying cry' for our Boxperts (what we call our employees). What I didn't realize was that it was a way to share the dream of Falcon Storage with the world, and when they are on board, they help make that dream come true in ways I never dreamed possible."
Enter Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines -- continues Shang "You see, I've been doing a lecture at the University of Texas Entrepreneurship program. When asked where I envisioned our company in 30 years, it was only logical to mention our BHAG. Well one of the professors knew Herb Kelleher, and recommended that we meet. We had lunch this past Friday and needless to say, it added JET FUEL to our BHAG!!! The meeting helped us really flesh out what it means to be the Southwest Airlines of our industry; we gained so many nuggets of wisdom from Herb. For Falcon's culture, this meeting will be one of those legends that we tell for many years to come. Most importantly, it helps us gain a laser like focus on this Big Hairy Audacious Goal." Here are a couple photos of Herb and Shang's team and a poster they presented to Herb with all their Boxperts' signatures.
Best Tagline -- and I love Falcon Storage's tagline "It's a box... you put stuff in it!" You don't get any more basic than this!
Capturing Employee Intellectual Capital -- Lee Rosen, President of Raleigh-Durham based Rosen Law Firm, launched an internal company wiki. Note's Rosen "I used a $1000 contest to encourage our lawyers and staff to contribute to the wiki and within a year we had over 4000 pages of intellectual content!" Rosen also pointed me to the recent Inc. article about how companies are using wikis which provides more details behind Rosen's use of their wiki. BTW, check out Lee's video segment on their home page -- an excellent example of how to use imbedded video to help your customers and establish credibility.
Less Employees Paid More Even for Schools! -- my favorite article since my last insight (and my personal favorite so far in 2008) is this NY Times piece on Lee Vanderhoek's bold experiment with a new charter school in NY where he's cutting out administration, laptops, elective courses, and increasing student/teacher ratios and then taking the savings and offering teachers six figure salaries, in many cases twice what they make now. Quoting Vanderhoek in the NY Times article "I would much rather put a phenomenal, great teacher in a field with 30 kids and nothing else than take the mediocre teacher and give them half the number of students and give them all the technology in the world." BTW, Vanderhoek, a 31 year old Yale graduate and former middle school teacher, built a test preparation company that pays its tutors far more than the competition -- once again, showing the power of entrepreneurs to lead and change the world.
Employee Education -- and this note this week from David Rich, founder of ICC/Decision Services, a leading customer experience management and measurement company, "Wanted to let you know that we bought your Rockefeller Habits DVD and have put it to good use. At the beginning of each weekly staff meeting we show a section. It is a great review for those who have attended the workshop and a great introduction for those who have not. Over the years I probably have had 80 hours of Rockefeller Habits (BOG, YEO, EO, plus THREE Gazelles 2-Day Rockefeller workshops)....HOWEVER I always gain motivation to do something a little better with each viewing/exposure." Repetition is the key to mastery.
Principles of Persuasion -- persuasive skills are crucial in dealing with employees, customers, and the rest of your stakeholders/people. For everyone that raved about Dr. Robert Cialdini's two-hour presentation at the last Growth Summit (the finest presentation I've EVER seen), I encourage you to participate in one of their two-day workshops. I sent three of my team members to their workshop this week in Phoenix. They are also hosting a workshop in Montreal April 10 -- 11 in conjunction with the McGill International Executive Institute. FYI, it's a workshop highly recommended by Charles Munger, Warren Buffett's partner. Enough said! For more information, please visit www.hrdpop.com.
Verne, an update for you on my health situation: http://internetinc.com/boulder-magic
and a big thank you!! the Rockefeller habits helped my company pull through my health crisis and a year of chaos and semi-neglect.
Posted by: Eric Shannon | March 27, 2008 at 11:23 AM
Thanks Verne for this information.It was great to read and i hope that i would get more good articles.
Thanks,
Moveable Cubicle,
http://www.moveablecubicle.com/
Posted by: Moveable Cubicle | July 14, 2009 at 05:33 PM