Thanks to @kentlewis for pointing this article out on Inc.com. The list is essentially about wanting to empathize with and being on the same level as your employees.

My experience is that this is a list of items that younger, more “Gen-Y”, managers feel very comfortable sharing. This can make more “traditional” (code for older??) employees uncomfortable. That’s OK though! discomfort bring growth!

10 Things Bosses Never Tell Employees | Inc.com.

A few months ago I was chatting with a very successful friend and I asked her about her strategy for success. She only took a few seconds to answer. When she takes over a new group she figures out the one or two things that they can maximize that will drive success. Just two things that they can do well. Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM’s CEO, is retiring and as he tells the NY Times, he developed four questions to ask his senior managers to drive them:

1. “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”
2. “Why would somebody work for you?”
3. “Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?”
4. “And why would somebody invest their money with you?”

So what are your questions? What are the one or two things that you can always do to a perfection? I like Sam’s questions from IBM. I’m not certain that number 3 applies to the vast majority of small to mid-sized companies. However, they aren’t the questions that I’m going with for myself…

I’m going with:

1. What is the problem that you solve? What is your single differentiator?
2. What is the thing one thing you do better than anyone else?
3. How do you make a profit and how does your profit relate to your customer’s ROI?

We started WaveQ two years ago, and it has been a wild ride. So it has been almost two years without a post. Hanging on for dear life at times, pushing hard the whole time. Christmas is a great time to reflect though. A time to look back, a time to peer into the future. As we look forward into 2012, what is on the horizon? Or more importantly, what can we do to have an effect on what is on the horizon? It is hard enough to look back and figure out how you got to where you are, much less look forward and figure out where you are heading.

So often people say pat little things like, hindsight is 20-20. Really? My experience is that hindsight is filled with the same pitfalls that accompany foresight. The farther away from RIGHT NOW that we get, the foggier our vision, in either direction. What would you have done differently? Can you project where it would have lead you with any more accuracy than your predictions on the path that you took?

Big choices are still big. So what is it that I’m trying to say? I’m saying that wherever you are, there you are. That’s the beauty of the human condition. We have spent the last two years growing a business in the most difficult of times. But it sure didn’t feel that way. Rent prices and office availability were amazing. Competition was down, if not out. Cash flow finance was difficult, for us and for our customers, but attitude allowed that to become our advantage.

Looking back, is there a 20-20 view? What is your prediction for 2012? Mine includes lots of hard work. Fun, but still hard work. I can predict with 100% certainty that I will get up early, put in fulfilling, long days, and come home to help out with family, food and friends.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays,
Ben

Just what is a brand? How does it relate to customer loyalty? Can you control a brand? Can you build customer loyalty? Does it matter?

I argue that brand is what happens when your customers become loyal. A brand is the name that encapsulates customer loyalty. Amazon didn’t have a brand until they had customers who were loyal. That’s the moment when they became Amazon, and were no longer just a cheap bookseller. That brand allowed them to buy into the world of publishing AND while the customer loyalty allowed them to begin selling cleaning supplies.

A brand is like a savings account that pays interest. You make deposits by delivering on your promises. Just like a savings account though, you can draw the funds down. Apple did this in the 90′s by breaking promises. By the time Jobs walked in to rescue the day, Apple’s brand balance was negative. In fact, he used his own “Steve Jobs” brand to loan a bit to Apple.

He was able to take that tiny balance and by sheer force of will, energize the whole company. As a group, they then focused on a single thing. Quality of experience. That is the Apple promise, and that is what they deliver.

Amazon promised a great book buying experience and that’s what they deliver. To this day, buying a book on Amazon is fun. It is painless. So is buying a new home theater. That is their promise and they deliver.

Dell’s promise is very different. Dell promises to be the best deal. They promise to never be a waste of money. They aren’t the quickest. They won’t even guarantee a delivery date, but you always know it’s a good deal. They are the Honda of the PC world. It may not be the flashiest, but damn if it doesn’t start every time!

My experience is that when you tell people what they want to hear, it never works out. Brand is what happens when you tell people what you believe and then you deliver it. Not everyone will want to hear it, but those who do will buy and they will love you.

Two cents worth…

As a spiritual buddhist at heart, I find myself very leery of organized religion and the legislation of actions between consenting adults.  With that said, I agree that a large percentage of Americans (US Citizens too) define the United States as a christian country.  Christian or otherwise, I consider freedom of religion and separation of church and state to be the single thing that has allowed our country to survive for more than 200 years.  What do I really mean by that?  Our legal system identifies morality, separate from religion.  This is what allows two people from differing religious viewpoints to be in the same courtroom.

In the US, many christians have felt the need to equate religion and morality.  The two are overlapping circles on a vin diagram at best though.  Many religions, christianity, judaism and islam especialy, commit incredible acts of oppression in the name of god, yet still feel the right to imply that I am not a moral being because I don’t embrace an organized religion.

When they equate religion and morality, people are abdicating their moral responsibilities to a “higher power”, or worse yet, to a religious entity.  Deaths and atrocities seem to follow.  I just read, “The Places in Between” about a trek from Herat to Kabul undertaken on foot by a single Scottish guy three months after 9/11.  One of the things that stands out the most is the death in the name of islam by people who haven’t ever read the Koran (it can’t really be translated out of Arabic) nor questioned it.

Morality is a complex and layered thing, and religion is about “faith”, often in impossible things (miracles).  Wonderful and Terrible things are and have been done in the name of gods, but few deeply moral solutions to human suffering seem to have come about.  Morality is about loading the scales of justice and using logic, while religion is about the aforementioned miracles and divine intervention.

In many cases, religion may be a great way to become a moral being, but religion and morality take opposing roads regularly (birth control comes to mind quickly as lack of birth control is a direct cause of overpopulation and death by hunger).  People are judged not by who and what they espouse to follow, but by the intentions and results of their actions.

So you can think of the US as a christian nation if it gives you comfort, and I’ll fight for your right to live that way.  But only with the assumption that you will fight for my right to view it as a secular government.  AND, I’ll fight for the right of anyone to have their own religion, as long as it never compels anyone else to join or live under it!

Ben