Based upon that definition, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ranked by historians as the greatest president behind Abraham Lincoln, was one of the greatest extortionists ever, in the history of the United States.  He is the first president ever to use the Bureau of Internal Revenue, later named the Internal Revenue Service to go after his enemies and protect his friends.  He is the first president to be granted, by Congress, Billions in funds to apply to his Public Works Programs, the WPA, the AAA, and the CCC all of which were patronage jobs.  He is the first president to deny federal funds to any governor or mayor who did not support his policies and programs.  He was the first president to use shake down tactics to get money out of those workers for whom jobs were being provided.  He was the closest thing to an absolute dictator this country has ever seen.

I asked the question why, in spite of his programs and policies failing and unemployment rising one year after the next, was he so overwhelmingly popular and won the 1936 election by a landslide.  Well, he did not only win the 1936 election, but the Democrats actually gained seats in both the Senate and Congress in the mid-term election in 1934.  How in the hell was that even possible, in spite of everything bad that was happening to the economy and the American voters?

Turns out he did not achieve these victories based upon his massive popularity, he achieved these victories based upon threats and misuse of his authority.  In other words, he extorted his way to victory.  Here’s how:

Let’s start with Huey Long who started out in favor of Roosevelt and The New Deal and soon turned against him.  The problem with Long, as far as Roosevelt was concerned, was that he was every bit as dynamic, charismatic and inspirational as Roosevelt and was gaining in popularity by the minute.  Roosevelt tried everything to shut The Kingfish down, including cutting off Federal Funds and patronage jobs.  Long survived.  Roosevelt figured that for Long to be able to do that, funds had to coming in the back door.  With that, he put the IRS on Long via his good friend Morgenthau, the new Secretary of the Treasury and one of Roosevelt’s key henchman.  Morgenthau contacted Irey, the head of the BIR (IRS) and said GET HIM!  By 1935, many of Long’s key people had been indicted.  Long was assassinated, but it didn’t stop there, either.  The “deal” was, if the Long supporters came out in support of Roosevelt, all further investigation would be dropped.  With that, Earl Long, Huey’s brother, about whom the movie Blaze was made a few years back with Paul Newman, came out in full support of Roosevelt.

Once Roosevelt realized the power he had with the IRS as a weapon, he then went after Hearst, Hamilton Fish, Johnson (the political boss in Atlantic City, NJ), Senator Wheeler of Montana, Andrew Mellon, Boake Carter, a radio commentator, and Moe Annenberg of the Philadelphia Enquirer.  Friends he protected from the IRS included Lyndon Johnson and Frank Hague, the Boss of Jersey City, NJ.   Point blank, if you screwed with FDR, he was going to screw you right back, only harder!

As for patronage, Roosevelt created the AAA, FERA, CCC and the WPA.  Funding for the WPA alone in 1935, as passed by Congress, amounted to $4.8 Billion in 1935 dollars!!  These programs provided Roosevelt with more federal money to distribute than all of the previous presidents combined!!!  Also keep in mind that it was during FDRs time that the building of public works was federalized and the states no longer had that power.  So,with all of these programs, Roosevelt and the New Dealers had the congressmen and governors over a barrel.  If they wanted something built or done within their state, they had to kiss Roosevelt’s ass.  The plain and simple fact was that these programs represented millions of government appointed jobs and the jobs were selectively handed out based solely upon how they best served the Democratic Party and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 1934, unemployment stood at 22%.  Republicans were down 3:1 in Congress and, like today’s mid-term coming up in November, were expecting large gains.  Maine, being an important state at the time, was flooded with Federal Tax dollars.  Or, as Hamilton Fish said, “funds distributed in Main amounted to nearly $350 a vote for registered Democrats.” The idea caught on so well in Maine, they took it to other states, bribing voters with jobs, provided they supported the Democratic Party.  To make a long story short, the Democrats didn’t lose seats in the mid-term election, they actually gained nine seats in the Senate and another nine seats in Congress!!

Then came 1936.  Early on it was looking grim for Roosevelt to be re-elected.  In late July, some Gallup polls actually showed Alf Landon ahead of Roosevelt.  There were high prices as a result of his programs, high taxes and more and more government power.  Unemployment had gone up from 3.6 million in ’33 to 4.3 million in ’34 to 4.7 million in ’35.  Apparently, 1936 wasn’t looking any better.

But what Roosevelt had was power and clout.  If a governor or congressman wanted something, he had to come begging to Roosevelt.  If someone wanted a job, they better be in support of the Democratic Party.  Roosevelt also had the $4.8 Billion Congress funded the WPA with.  Which is why four months before the 1936 presidential election, 300,000 men were added to the WPA. And the vast majority of those jobs were given in key swing states like Pennsylvania. A month AFTER the election, 300,000 men were removed from the WPA.  But who do you think they voted for in November?  He also made certain that the farmers all received their Soil Conservation Service checks jus before the election.

And, isn’t it interesting that prior to Roosevelt, the vast majority of Black Americans were Republicans, NOT Democrats.  (Remember Lincoln?)  Between FERA, the WPA, the CCC and the PWA FDR and Harold Ickes, another one of FDR’s key henchmen, targeted the Black Voter with money, jobs, hospitals, low rent housing projects, etc. and won their hearts.

Now add to this mix in 1936 the fact that Alf Landon was not the most dynamic candidates or brilliant politicians.

The Result:  Roosevelt wins by 523 electoral college votes to Landon’s 8 and by a margin of 11 Million in popular votes.  A study of the election was made that found wherever funding by one of Roosevelt’s programs were low or non-existent, Alf Landon did very well.  But, the higher the funding, the more votes for Roosevelt.  To sum it all up, in Hudson County, New Jersey, for example, where Mayor Frank Hague, FDR’s buddy controlled 90,000 WPA jobs and about $47Million in various program funds, Roosevelt won 233,390 to Landon’s 65,110.   Do keep in mind that the funding, as it is referred to, was with Federally Collected Tax Dollars!!!

And just think, had these programs not existed, had Roosevelt not had the funds and the leverage these funds provided him, he more than likely would have been a one-term president.  So, that’s your history lesson for today.

If you want to know a lot more, I encourage you to read the book, New Deal or Raw Deal by Burton Folsom, Jr. that documents every piece of information acquired.

Thank you!

Henry Morgenthau, Jr.

Secretary of the Treasury

May 9, 1939

We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us… Walt Kelly

In 1935, Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma, who had been a senator since 1907 when Oklahoma became a state, was the only Nay vote on funding the WPA with $4.8 Billion (1935 dollars, by the way.)  Gore had previously stated “The day on which we begin to make these loans by the Federal Government to States, counties, and cities was a more evil day in the history of the Republic than the day on which the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter.” In spite of thousands of his constituents demanding he bring the New Deal to Oklahoma, Gore held to his principles and remained the one lone No vote on the Senate floor.

His response to his constituents was this:  “Your action shows how the dole spoils the soul.  Your telegram intimates that your votes are for sale.  Much as I value votes, I am not in the market.  I cannot consent to buy votes with the people’s money.  I owe a debt to the tax payer as well as to the unemployed.”

Gore was soundly defeated in the next election coming in fourth and his political career was over.  So the question is, is it the politicians, or is it us?  Is it our greed that allows them to be greedy?  Is it our desires that allow them to do what they do?  Do we then get enraged when it suits us or whenever we feel we’ve been neglected or cut out of the bargain?

My feeling is this.  I can control but two things in my life… my credit and my integrity.  The moment I compromise either one of those, I have failed.  All of us, not just politicians need to come to that understanding.

One would normally assume that there is a positive correlation between customer satisfaction and customer buying behavior. We know that dissatisfaction comes from the difference between what we expect to occur and what actually happens. Yet, in spite of customers telling you that they are quite satisfied with your services, they often turn around and leave you anyway.

Recent studies confirm that current satisfaction measurement systems, such as surveys, are not a reliable predictor of repeat purchase. Which is why you will so often hear bosses making statements like, “It’s great to know that our customer satisfaction score is up again for the fourth straight year. Now, can someone tell me why profitability and market share are down again?”

Preventing Erosion:

To keep customers from leaving requires a determined mindset and a long-term commitment to the customer.

What you must look for are:

• customer retention

• total share of the customer’s business

• recency

• frequency

• dollar amount

• life time value

• loyalty

• referral

• opportunity

• profitability

REMEMBER: Your Best Customers are Your Competitor’s Best Prospects.

Which is why it is imperative that you do everything possible to turn your first time buyers into repeat buyers and eventually loyal customers.

To accomplish that feat means having to make the experience of doing business with you, especially that first experience, as pleasant and overwhelming for the customer as is possible.

Five reasons for making a first time customer a lifetime buyer:

1. Sales go up because the customer is buying more from you

2. You strengthen your position in the marketplace when customers are buying from you instead of your competition

3. Marketing costs go down when you don’t have to spend money to attract a repeat customer, since you already have him. In addition, as a satisfied customer he tells his friends thereby decreasing your need to promote yourself.

4. You are better insulated from price competition because a loyal customer is less likely to be lured away by a discount of a few dollars.

5. Finally, a happy customer is likely to sample your other services thus helping you achieve a larger share of the customer.

A Five-Step Progression:

Each time a customer buys, he progresses through a buying cycle. A first time buyer goes through the following five steps:

1. Becomes aware of your services

2. Makes an initial investment

3. Post purchase evaluation

4. Decision to repurchase

5. Repurchase or not

Whether or not the customer feels an attachment to you is dependent upon two factors:

1. The customer’s degree of preference

2. The customer’s degree of perceived differentiation.

Four Reasons First Time Buyers Do Not Return

1. Early problems sour the relationship

2. No formal servicing system – no account management program

3. Communication breakdown with the decision makers

4. Easy return to the other supplier

STORY:

A man died and went to heaven, where he was told he had a choice between Heaven and Hell.

He decided to take up the offer to look around. What he found was a serene heaven, bathed in a wonderful white light. He found the people in Heaven to be very friendly. They were all walking around in white robes and singing hymns. “Nice”, he thought, “but a tad boring.”

On his visit to Hell, he was surprised to find people having fun. They were playing golf, playing cards, dancing, partying and it wasn’t even hot. He went back to the Pearly Gates and told St. Peter he’d take Hell. But, when he arrived in Hell this time, everything was different. It was hot and horrible. People were miserable, in pain and screaming. “What happened?” he asked the Devil. “This isn’t at all what I saw when I visited the first time.”

“When you visited the first time,” replied the Devil, “you were a prospect. Now my good man, you’re a CUSTOMER!”

This article is taken from Chapter Six of the Altfeld Inc. Sales Training Manual.

You were born into Generation Y.  I was born into the Y Generation.  Big Difference.  You’re young and full of yourself, just as we were forty years ago.  We were just as ignorant, naïve and inexperienced as you are now.  Only the world we were born into was far different than the one that exists today.  There was no Internet, no cell phones, text messaging, 24 hour news, no microwaves and no instantaneous anything.  You wanted the news, you bought the paper for 7¢ in the morning and the evening addition at night.  Then you turned on Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, or Walter Cronkite when you arrived home at night.  At dinner, the entire family, sat around the dinner table and talked about what went on with everyone during the day and what was going on in the country and maybe the world.  You have to remember, the world was a much larger place back then.  Going to Hawaii was a very big deal!  Going to Europe, Russia, Africa, South America, Asia was huge!  (Well, for everyone except my adventuresome Mom!)

But allow me to explain how we became the Y Generation.  We grew up on Ozzie & Harriot, Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, and a host of radio shows before that.  We grew up with Super Man who promoted Truth, Justice and the American Way!  And, not only did we believe it, our parents believed it.  After all, they had just come out of the real Great Depression and World War II.  They knew what it was like to have to survive both in an incomprehensible economic downturn and a war.  And the beauty was that they passed those stories of what they went through down to my generation, because, in my case, my parents wanted me to be prepared.

Ok, so maybe you’re rolling your eyes and thinking, “Do I puke now or later?”  But there’s more.  Hiroshima may have ended the war with Japan, but it began a whole new era called the Arm’s Race.  In grade school we had to learn and practice a drill called Duck and Roll.  It may sound like an old Rock N’Roll dance step, but it wasn’t.  It was what we practiced in case of nuclear attack.  Someone had the bright idea that if we hit the floor and ducked under our desks, we might be saved from a nuclear explosion should Russia decide to attack us.  At the same time, there was a Senator from Wisconsin named McCarthy who was off his rocker and a drunk, but because he was a US Senator, had a voice that started McCarthyism.  Basically, he created a nationwide witch hunt to find Communists everywhere throughout the United States.  And by gum, he did!  Whether they existed or not.  It was a pure case of guilty until proven innocent and a lot of good people had their lives ruined because of it.  It took the likes of Edward R. Murrow and others to finally stand up to this maniac, but by then, it was too, late.  He had done his damage, including helping to get us into the Korean War.  There was this imaginary line called the 34rd Parallel and we determined that NO COMMUNIST was ever going to cross it!  But then, things went wrong.  Actually they went very wrong.  President Truman forgot a very important rule of war called the Munich Analogy.  This is where you are only suppose to go so far in war and no further, but further he went.  Our troops crossed the line and invaded deeper into Korea which resulted in our awakening the Chinese who didn’t like it at all.  But that was Ok, because while we were in a Cold War with Russia, and Eisenhower (I Like Ike) trounced Adlai Stevenson for the presidency, there came another raucous in Southeast Asia in a country called Viet Nam.  You may or may not know this, but Eisenhower, the General of the Allied Forces in WWII, and the key person in charge of D-Day, was known for playing a lot of golf during his eight years in office.  But, he was a crafty, old S.O.B, because it was a ploy.  He figured that if the nation saw him playing golf and looking relaxed, then all must be right with the world.  Well, it wasn’t.  Because first and foremost the Russians decided to take the Arms Race up a notch and add in the Race for Space.  Which, by the way is another thing you have to keep in mind.  At the end of WWII, there was this guy named Werner von Braun who was Hitler’s number one scientist for creating missiles and weapons of mass destruction like the V-1 that was notorious for destroying building and killing Brits.  Von Braun had other things he’d been working on, but fortunately, VE Day came before he could produce them.  But, when the war ended, it was a big deal as to who would get von Braun and his fellow scientists.. the USA or Russia.  Fortunately, von Braun was smart enough to know NOT to go with the Russians and surrendered to the United States where he was taken to Alamogordo and White Sands Missile Base to do his thing.  But, that’s another story.

Oh, did I mention that while all of that was going on, some guy name Fidel Castro, a lawyer from Cuba, teamed up with a Guerilla fighter named Che Guevara to overthrow Batista in Cuba.  Cuba was that little country, much like Puerto Rico, full of fun and a lot of poverty and not that far from Miami.  Like right next door!

Jumping forward, we had another presidential election in 1960 with Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard M. Nixon versus the upstart new kid, John F. Kennedy.  It was one helluva time and the vote was damn close.  Mayor Daley of Chicago handed the election to Kennedy on a platter by delivering Chicago and much of Illinois, in spite of a good part of Illinois being very Republican back then.  Then Kennedy, brand new in office, started making some very bad decisions, like the Bay of Pigs.  Invading Cuba and trying to overthrow Castro sounded like a great idea at the time.  But it ended very badly.  But that was soon forgotten about because things then got worse.  Kruschev, in between pounding his shoe on the table at the UN saying Russia was going to bury the United States, suddenly had the brilliant idea to establish a missile base in Cuba.  You know, Cuba?  That little country, kind of like Puerto Rico only even closer to Miami!!  Well… let me tell you..  EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE was scared shitless.  It was the first time in my short life that I could ever remember seeing fear in my parents’ faces.  Because President Kennedy, now smarter and a little more experienced in these matters since the Bay of Pigs, called for a blockade around Cuba, causing the entire world to hold its breath.  (I can still remember my brother and I trying to dig a huge hole in our backyard to build a bomb shelter to protect us from the impending nuclear war.  That old duck and roll stuff was out.  Bomb Shelters were in!  Only in our case, our house was located so close to the DesPlaines River that every time we dug down more than six feet, the hole would fill up with river water!)

Well, whistling in the dark, scared to death, every one breathed a sigh of relief when Kruschev pulled out his missiles from Cuba and went home.  The concessions he got out of Kennedy were never completely determined, but on paper, Kennedy looked great.  In reality, Kruschev won the stare down.

Jumping forward again I take you to November 22, 1963.  I was in gym class in the wrestling room in high school when the announcement came over the PA system.  Everyone was to go home immediately.  The school is closed.   President John F. Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas by a lone gunman. Just writing this still gives me the chills.  We were glued to our television sets.  We watched it all.  We even saw Jack Ruby step up and kill Lee Harvey Oswald live on national television.  We saw a blood splattered Jackie Kennedy standing next to Lyndon Banes Johnson as he was sworn into office.  Then came the presidential election of Barry Goldwater, the first Conservative Republican going up against the now incumbent, Lyndon Johnson.  Johnson actually ran ads of nuclear explosions implying that Goldwater’s plans for Viet Nam would lead to just that. (Keep in mind that this is 1964, not 2010.  Keep in mind that we just came off the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy Assassination.  Now we’re watching nuclear mushroom clouds on our television sets!)  Johnson won and ended up escalating the Viet Nam War calling for more troops each month.  Simultaneously, America is experiencing major racial problems and the Race for Space continues.  Johnson was being spread very thin and the country was now prepared to give up the Race for Space in order to deal with RACE.  Negroes were no longer Negroes.  They were now Blacks.  The Black Muslims, lead by Allejah Muhammed rose up, and Cassius Clay suddenly became Muhammed Ali. Muhammed Ali made a stand and said he would not serve and not be drafted and gave up is Heavyweight Title.  (By the way, he won that title as Cassius Clay by knocking out a guy named Sonny Liston who was virtually incapable of being knocked out.  The fact that he owed a lot of money and his life to the mob and had an occasional drug problem, may have had something to do with the outcome, but no one will ever know.  Liston was certainly not going to talk, since he showed up dead not much longer after that.)

Next came February 21, 1965 in New York City when Malcom X, the militant Black Muslim was gunned down.  Then in August of 1965 racial tensions exploded in Watts, a section of Los Angeles that came to be known as the Watts Riots.

Again moving forward… the Viet Nam War was in our living rooms and on our television sets from 1963 to 1972.  In 1968  President Johnson, on national television, announced he would not seek a second full term of office.  Chances are, he would not have won anyway.  Johnson was a lot of things, but what he was BEST at was being a politician.  And he had learned from the best.  Sam Rayburn, the Speaker of the House.  Although, in spite of political skills and craftiness, he was outfoxed by a craftier John F. Kennedy back in 1960.  Johnson wanted the presidency, but Kennedy outmaneuvered him for the candidacy.  Then turned around and named him the vice presidential candidate.  But that, too is another story.

With Johnson out of the race, the 1968 Presidential election became a free for all.  But, I have to have you hold that thought for a moment, because something else occurred on April 4^th of that year.  James Earl Ray, a white man in Memphis, Tennessee shot down Martin Luther King, Jr. and the country went riotous!  The Martin Luther King riots were nasty nationwide and you had to see them to believe it.  I was in Chicago when Mayor Daley and Fire Commisioner Quinn, in a helicopter over the West Side of Chicago gave the Shoot to Kill Order.  It was scary.  So scary that my dad would not allow our factory employees to go home.  He brought in cots and food for everyone rather than try to get back to their homes on the West Side and South Side of Chicago that night.

Getting back to the political race, Bobby Kennedy was the Democratic Frontrunner with Nixon going in for the Republicans.  But then in Los Angeles, after winning the California Primary on June 5, 1968 on live national television, we witnessed Sirhan Sirhan gundown Bobby Kennedy as he went through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel.  This was just four months after Martin Luther King’s assassination.  Simply stated, the country was in a state of emotional and psychological shock.  But wait, there’s more.  In August of 1968, the Democrats held their national convention in Chicago where Mayor Daley decided to hold court.  It turned out to be a riot.  Literally.  The SDS (Headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin and known for blowing up things like buildings) and the Chicago Seven showed up with umpteen thousand of their closest friends to protest the Viet Nam War.  Turns out that Mayor Daley didn’t care much for that idea and didn’t like hippies in the first place, so he had his cops beat the helloutta them in Grant Park.  I was in Chicago at the time.  The Democratic candidates, McCarthy (not the Communist baiter, but a different one) was expected to stand up for the kids and their protest but did nothing.  Humbert Humphrey, the Happy Warrior from Minnesota, received the nomination, but did nothing either.  The kids got their asses kicked.  Dick Gregory, a well known Black comedian of the era, may have done more.  When approached by an army of Chicago Police and asked where he was going with an army of protestors behind him, Gregory said, I’m taking all these kids over to my house for a beer!  It was ugly.  It was brutal and it was what caused Humphrey to lose the election, narrowly, to Nixon.  (Oh, I forgot to mention that in 1964, Humphrey, a presidential candidate, was shown in Life Magazine, standing in front of his campaign bus that had run out of gas, looking frumpy with his pockets turned inside out because he was broke.  Between 1964 and 1968 there was a thing called the Milk Scandal in Minnesota and suddenly Humphrey was a multi-Millionaire.  Oh, well.  I digress.)

On August 15, 1969 as fighting raged in Vietnam, a group of 400,000+ converged on a dairy farm in New York State for three days of frolicking in the spirit of peace, love and music. It was called Woodstock.  I didn’t attend, but I certainly knew about it.  And I am proud to say I just recently visited the museum in Bethel.  It was a very emotional experience that brought back far more memories than I ever thought it would.  Again, I digress.

I graduated from college in May of 1971 with a draft number of 147.  There was a major recession going on and I found myself competing with PhD.s for jobs.  Plus, the first question I was always asked was, “What’s your draft number?” I’d tell them and it would be the end of the interview.  So, long about July, I was drafted and took my physical, which I passed.  About two weeks later, they no longer wanted my draft number and I was told the government would not be needing my services.  In the meantime, I had a brother (who had won the Silver Star) on his second tour of duty and friends coming home in body bags.

Well, Nixon, in a sense, finally had the good sense to declare the War over, announced that we won and brought everyone home.  We didn’t win and we knew it.  It was a stupid war because it was fought with our hands tied behind our backs.  Friends and family lost their lives and so many others were never quite right after that war that it just wasn’t worth it.  Even dumber is the fact that the French, who had been there before us, told us not to go there.  But, because of the Communist Hunting McCarthyism Era, Eisenhower encouraged Kennedy to pursue Viet Nam and Johnson took it to a whole nother level.

Moving forward again, I take you to 1972.  Governor Wallace of Alabama, well known for his segregationist thinking, decided to make a run for the presidency.  But on May 15 of that year, his dreams and aspirations came to an end when a 21 year old kid shot him.  Wallace ended up paralyzed and in a wheelchair thereafter and that was pretty much the end of him.  But there’s more…

I now take you to June 17, 1972 and the Watergate Break In.  Did Nixon do it?  Was he involved?  Could he have done it?  The hearings went on and on.  Everyone was glued to their television sets in disbelief.  People lying, people going to prison, Liddy threatening to kill Dean with a pencil to the forehead on behalf of the president.  The missing tapes, the undermining of America.  “I am not a crook!” The wave with the both hands up in the air holding the victory sign as he departs the presidency on a helicopter.  It was unbelievable.

Gerald Ford, Nixon’s second VP (his first one, Spiro T. Agnew ended up in prison) replaced Nixon and immediately pardoned him.  Ford was pretty much a do-nothing president, and his claim to fame was probably making SNL’s Chevy Chase a household name.  Next came a peanut farmer and nuclear physicist named Jimmy Carter who was beyond inept.  With him we had the Russians invading Afghanistan, for which we boycotted the Olympics that year.  But, the biggest thing happened on November 4, 1979.  Well it actually started in October.  The Shah of Iran came to the United States for cancer treatment.  (Did I mention that the CIA basically put the Shah in office?  Well, that too is another story.  Anyway, when the Shah came to America for his cancer treatment, the Ayatollah incited Iranian militants to attack the U.S.  On November 4, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive that lasted 444 days. The exiled Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran in February 1979 and whipped popular discontent into rabid anti-Americanism that went on for a long while.  Actually it went on long enough to make Ted Koppel a household name because he seized upon the situation to start his own show called Nightline covering the hostage situation.  Oh, yes.  Carter also gave the Panama Canal back to Panama.  I’m sure that didn’t sit too well with Teddy Roosevelt, but then again, he had been dead for a very long time.

So, what’s my point with this historical journey I’ve just taken you through?  My generation is not a very trusting lot, especially when it comes to the U.S. Government.  Which explains why we are truly the Y Generation.  We question everything and believe very little.  Nothing is as it appears to be.  We have lived through and experienced things that have caused us to be circumspect, cynical and downright suspicious.

Another thing I wish to point out is this.  Like you, I sat in college with my peers and we were all in agreement on what was wrong with the world.  The problem was that not only were we short on life experiences, but we were all the same.  There was no other voice of reason to tell us we were flat out wrong or too naïve, or too one-sided.  But, at least we had seen things going on this country that caused us to question everything.  We had seen and lived through racial violence and riots.  We had seen presidents, candidates and major figures shot and killed.  We lived Viet Nam from eighth grade through one year after graduation from college. But, at least we were involved!

So far, from what I’ve seen of your Generation Y, I can foresee that you are winning and my generation has lost the good fight.  You don’t want to do anything, you want to be paid for doing nothing, you have entitlement issues, you believe in nothing, you have no true loyalty to the United States and feel you can flee the country at the drop of a hat. You don’t want to commit to a job or a company because it will interfere with your social life and you want to be vice presidents with no experience while making $100k right out of school.  And that is exactly the direction this country is headed.  Personally, I am glad I am at the head of the Boomer Line and on my way out.

And when the time comes when your generation takes over, all I can say is Good night, good luck and you’re on your own.  I hope there is something left for you to take over.

Sincerely,

Jim Altfeld

Following the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers drafted a constitution that was 180 degrees from the pyramid mentality, which they had despised.  What they created in its place was a “Leaderless, No One’s in Charge” society.  It was a brilliantly designed system of checks and balances that separated the powers of government.

One thing is for certain, this did not occur by happenstance.  The intention was to prevent and deny any one part of the federal government from having too much power at the expense of the other parts, and especially of the people the government was to be serving.

Like an unstable Stealth Bomber inflight, the system of government the Founding Fathers created would forever require tweaking to keep it functioning.  It was purposefully designed to create a continuous condition of give and take between the parts of the federal government as well as between the states and the federal government.  No one part of what they proposed was ever to win all the power.  Their mantra was “sovereignty for the people” and the system they created was unprecedented.

According to Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to a friend in 1820, he wrote, “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.”

Sovereignty, according to Webster is “supreme authority, complete independence and self-government.”

In other words, our Founding Fathers built a government whose purpose was not to control the people, but one that the people controlled.  They created an anti-pyramid structure in which no one person, entity or party was in charge, while giving the ultimate authority to the people, making each person partially in charge.

In Alfred Sloan’s book, My Years with General Motors he talks at length of how he, as part of the anti-pyramid, anti-centralization, anti-top-down management philosophy, went through great pains to decentralize and create an entirely new culture throughout GM.

The problem Sloan and the rest of American Management ran into, was that de-centralization proved to be merely another aspect of centralization.  In spite of Sloan’s efforts, his decentralization philosophy remained a top down culture.  The primary difference between the two was that instead of being told what to do and how to do it, his people were still told what to do, but permitted to figure out how to do it on their own.

Perhaps the opposite of centralization is not decentralization but anti-centralization, which is a far cry closer to where the Founding Fathers were headed.  Unlike decentralization, anti-centralization is more of a leaderless, “no-one-in-charge” system.  According to the Founding Fathers, the intent of government was not to control the people, but to exercise and carry out their sovereign authority. The trick to making a “leaderless, no one in charge” system work, is to create a system that minimizes and clearly defines what everyone must agree on.  To do that, the Founding Fathers understood that they would have to create common norms and standards.

An example of their brilliance can be realized at every street corner.  Let’s say you are one of some thirty pedestrians standing at a busy intersection with another thirty or so also waiting to cross when the light changes.  The walk light goes on.  Do you and 59 other pedestrians collide into one another or do you instinctively avoid bumping into each other?  It works because the people involved in the process are cooperating enough to make certain it works.    According to political scientist Charles Lindblom, this phenomenon is called mutual adjustment.  “In a generally understood environment of moral rules, norms, conventions and mores, very large numbers of people watch each other, then modify their own behavior just enough to accommodate the differing purposes of others, but not so much that the mutual adjusters lose sight of where they themselves want to go.”

Simply stated, rules work when nearly all those who need to abide by the rules do so because the rules make sense to them.  Take a look at our driving rules.  The light is red so you stop.  The light is green and you proceed.  You are expected to drive on the right hand side of the road and most cars are built with left side steering to encourage you to do so.  Should you not agree with either the traffic signal or driving on the right hand side of the road rule, you can try to drive through a red light and drive on the left-hand side of the road.  Chances are you are likely to kill someone or be killed in the process.  Therefore, as a matter of common sense and safety, you choose to obey the rules.

Consider this.  There are not enough police in the world to enforce these two driving laws.  It would be impossible.  Therefore, when you get right down to it, enforcement of these laws is the prevailing sentiment of the people who all share the roads.

Therefore, anti-centralization cannot happen unless there is mutual agreement regarding the standards on whatever is central to the system.  It is a system whereby no one is in charge, yet everyone is in charge.  The Internet is another prime example of anti-centralization.  No one is in charge, yet everyone is in charge.  There is worldwide, mutual agreement on the standards central to the system.

The primary reason why anti-centralization can work better today than ever before lies in the abundance and accessibility of data and information.  With the advent of the computer and the world-wide web it is everywhere.  It moves and spreads like a Montana wildfire.  Like dust or sand in the wind, it’s difficult, if not impossible to contain.  No one can own it.   You can only choose to deliver it or not deliver it.   And even when you choose not to, you can bet it will somehow make its way somewhere else, whether you want it to or not.

To understand the difference between data and information, let’s take a restaurant menu.  Data is a restaurant menu when you are not hungry.  Information is that same restaurant menu when you are.  With information people can make intelligent decisions.  Without it, they can’t.  Therefore, from data comes information.  But it does not end there.  From information comes knowledge and from knowledge comes wisdom.

What then is the successful formula for making a “no one’s in charge” system work?  It’s what the Founding Fathers understood when they created The Constitution.  It’s having a mix of informed, knowledgeable, wise and aware people,

To implement an anti-centralized, no one’s in charge system in your business:

1.     Accept the fact that everyone in your company is partly in charge and no one person, including yourself is completely in charge.  When you are in control you are actually out of control.  And when you are out of control, you are really in control.  Trying to control everything and micro-manage is like trying to teach a pig to sing.  You’ll only frustrate yourself and exacerbate the pig.

2.     Understand that most of what each of us does every day does not happen because someone told us to do it.

3.     Accept the premise that how big a part any one person within the company plays depends upon how responsible they feel for the general outcome of the collective effort.

4.     People only support what they have helped create.  Involve as many of your people as possible.  The more people affected by a decision feel that they were consulted about it, rather than told about it, the more likely it is that the you will get their buy-in and increase its chances for success.

5.     Make certain your people understand your company’s values and that the company truly lives by the values it has established.

6.     Keep your policies, procedures, standards, practices and protocols simple and un-complicated.  The fewer and less constringent your company rules are, the better.  The tighter the rules the greater the frustration level and the less likely you are to either involve or inspire your people.  The more room there is for individual discretion, insight and initiative the better.

7.     Grow your people.  The more educated, aware and knowledgeable your people are, the better off your business becomes.  Encourage them to read, grow, experiment and further their education.  Encourage them to learn, share and expand their horizons.  Think in terms of being a boundaryless organization accepting ideas and input from all corners.

8.     Do not plan in isolation.  To be effective, planning requires involvement and input from the many.  Involve your people in the planning process.  One, they will have a much better understanding of what they need to do once they understand the plan.  Two, they will have a much better understanding of the plan if they contributed to its creation in the first place.

9.     Eliminate secrets.  One way or another you can count on information being shared throughout the company.  Information, whether accurate or inaccurate, usually gets created by way of the grapevine.   To circumvent and/or eliminate the grapevine, it is best that all, or at least as much accurate information as possible is shared in the first place.

By adopting and implementing our Founding Father’s original, “no one’s in charge” approach, you can actually create a horizontally integrated, interdependent, teamwork-minded, completely aligned infrastructure, with all of your employees pulling on the same rope in the same direction.

If you found this article of interest, kindly pass it on to your suppliers’ management.  Should you wish to learn more about strategically aligning your own company’s objectives, the benefits of strategic planning, and how to get your employees pulling on the same rope in the same direction, visit www.altfeldinc.com or contact Jim Altfeld at jaltfeld@altfeldinc.com, or call 1-800-397-0010.

The CEO as the chief strategist, visionary and leader.

“Leadership is not about sitting in your office and dreaming up strategy.  It is about touching your organization through values, personal presence and relationships.”  Jack Welch, Chairman, General Electric Co.

There are both tactical and strategic ceo’s.  Whether the CEO is one or the other, s/he is always looked upon as the chief strategist.  The CEO is always the one person who can speak for the entire organization and no major changes within the company can ever be made without him or her.  Being a CEO of any company today has become a more demanding job than ever before.  The massive volatility and rapidity of change combined with the speed of the communications revolution can be quite taxing.   And just as the company is in constant motion, so must be the CEO.  Both the company and the CEO must constantly be reinventing and renewing themselves on the fly.  As former GE Chairman Jack Welch so aptly put it, “You have to change the tires while the car’s still moving.”

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  As our case is new so we must think a new and act a new.  We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”  A. Lincoln

Whether tactical or strategic, all CEO’s must be restless, impatient, never content and above all, focused.   What differentiates the strategic from the tactical leader is that the strategic leader knows the principles s/he wants to follow and inspires others to pursue those principles with him or her.  “Important principles may and must be inflexible.” Said Lincoln in his last public address. Strategic leaders serve as powerful role models whose actions and personal energy demonstrate the desired behaviors.  Their behavior and standards are above reproach.  Through their commitment, effectiveness and consistency, strategic leaders build a personal bond between themselves and the organization.  They provide a psychological focal point for the energies, hopes and aspirations of their people.

Keep in mind, too that strategic leadership is not infallible.  There are always policy failures.  The difference is that in spite of failure the strategic leader never loses sight of the real goal.  Countries can survive a tactical leader.  Companies cannot.

Strategic planning then becomes the guide for the strategic CEO.  It enables the company to look at the chain of cause and effect over time. It is a planning process that lets you fight on two fronts simultaneously.  It allows you to confront today’s challenges while probing tomorrow’s opportunities and preparing for tomorrow’s predictable problems.  And like the organization itself, the plan is in constant motion.  It too must be flexible enough to be reviewed, reinvented and renewed on the fly.   Whether the plan holds together for a quarter of a year or a quarter century, it is the planning process that allows the strategic management team to look at alternatives.  It develops the mindset for and encourages opportunity management.  Yes, there is always the outside chance that an asteroid will come out of nowhere, completely undetected, and slam into your company, your market space or even your entire industry.  Your plan may be obsolete and your company changed forever as a result of it.  But with a planning process in place you can revise and rebuild quickly.

What was important yesterday, may no longer be important today, or especially tomorrow.

CEO’s are well aware that listening and responding to their customers’ needs, however quickly and precisely, is not sufficient for shaping the future of an industry, warding off disruptive technologies, creating major new market opportunities, or attracting the attention of new groups of customers.  There is a need to be out well ahead of your current and future customers.  Your customer’s of today only know their immediate needs and tend to merely ask for refinements – faster, better, cheaper – of what they already have.  By staying such a course, a company, or an entire industry for that matter, will merely plod along making improvements to what currently exists – until some outsider or some new revolutionary technology comes along and changes everything.  Like Federal Express and UPS did.  Before them, every major company had its own shipping department and a fleet of trucks.  The trucks are gone and so is the expense and aggravation of maintaining them.  Did anyone ever ask for a Federal Express or UPS? No.  Or Southwest Airlines.  Before their arrival you either drove or took a bus to the places they fly to.  Rather than take on the airline industry they have successfully revolutionized the ground transportation industry.  Did anyone demand they do that?  No.  How about Quiken’s Intuit.  Its primary competitor was not the computer, it was the pencil.  They saw a need for speed, accuracy, simplicity and low price and filled it.  Was anyone pounding on their door asking them to hurry up?  No. For that matter, who asked for the electric light bulb, or continuous aim gunfire aboard ships?  No one.  Was anyone seen demanding the PC, CD, DVD, the Blackberry, iPhone, iPod, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, eBay, or Amazon.com?  Again, no.  None of us know what someone or some new technology can do for us until we learn about it and see it first hand.  But once we do, nothing is ever the same again.

“It’s not where we stand, but what direction are we heading.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes

There are at least twenty technologies and thirty new tools out there for you to use.  Because our peripheral vision is normally confined to our own immediate areas, we are too often unaware of these technologies and tools being used elsewhere in other industries.  Yet, if applied to your product, service or industry they could actually prove to be revolutionary.  In the words of Wm. Faulkner, “don’t bother being better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”  Quit watching your competitors and move ahead.  Create new offerings, redefine, reinvent and renew.  Keep your eyes, ears and mind open to what is out there.  Go beyond the markets and industries you are currently serving. The only way to predict the future is to invent it.  If you don’t like the way the game is being played, change the rules.  Don’t lose yourself in what you already know.  Give your customers something that they don’t know about because it didn’t even exist until you just created it (whether in your mind, on paper or as a tangible item).  Fighting tomorrow’s battles with today’s products and services is eventually going to be a losing proposition.

In no particular order, a list of recommendations for accomplishing all of the above is listed below.  Reading the list is one thing.  Actual implementation, execution and follow through is quite another.

Dream

Dare

Think

Believe

Be honest enough with yourself to discern your own realities

Achieve actual disclosure

Anticipate an accurate future of your company

Share the dream

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Take appropriate actions to ensure that the vision becomes reality

Do not allow outsiders to shape your future for you

Involve, inform and inspire your people

Use all available technology and your uniqueness to either distance yourself from your competitors, or eliminate them completely

Shift from crisis management to opportunity management

Focus on your customers’ future needs

Focus on your customers’ customers’ future

Prevent tomorrow’s predictable problems from ever occurring

Remain committed

Hold true to your values

Be curious

Be open to new ideas and other ways of doing things

Be consistent

Be flexible

Be aware

Keep in mind that the future remains an invisible place only until you start thinking about it. The result of NOT thinking about it and NOT doing something to shape it can cost you dearly.  It could, in the end, lead to your ultimate demise, if not extinction.

Would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this.  jaltfeld@altfeldinc.com

Thank you!

Nearly fifty years ago, Bob Dylan sang “The Times They Are a Changing”.

Only, no one, not even Bob Dylan could have anticipated just how powerful, long term  and constant that change would be.  Today, change happens so fast, so dramatically and at such a dramatic rate that many are predicting that much of all current knowledge and accepted practices will be obsolete within the next five years. Furthermore, the current life span of new technology that is already down to 18 months will continue to grow shorter.

Whether we like it or not, we are living in an Alice in Wonderland world.  What we thought were croquet mallets were actually flamingos.  Playing cards change suit before our eyes and then get up and walk away from us.  And just like Alice experienced in her croquet tournament, the rules keep changing.  Actually, the game itself keeps changing.  Nothing is constant.  Everything is in flux and a lot at first glance, seems to be unpredictable.  We get the feeling that any resemblance of today’s world to the past is merely coincidental.  And as a result, we share the same frustrations and same fears that Alice did.

As my father used to remind me, “life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.”  None of us can control the unexpected, but we can control our response to it.  We must not resist the unexpected by holding steadfastly to our original plan.  Sticking to conventional formula leads only to extinction.  We need to remain flexible and to move with the change.  It is imperative that we maintain a constant vigil for the unexpected and deal with it making up the rules as we go.

In the movie Fracture, Anthony Hopkins proved the unexpected can sometimes prove deadly.  It could be a new technology that suddenly makes you obsolete.  It could be an old technology used in a new way that causes you to lose business.  Or worse, it could be a disease, bug, scandal, flaw, death or tampering that could put you out of business .  For instance, when scientists cloned sheep, our reaction to it was under-whelming at best.  We are so bombarded with change, that we’ve become immune to it.  That something even that resounding has no effect on us.  It does on the pharmaceutical companies, however.  As a result of that sheep and the study of gene therapy, the day will come when disease will not be cured from the outside in with pharmaceuticals, but from the inside by our own bodies.  Instead of large pharmaceutical companies manufacturing pills, there will be herds of disease specific cows producing milk with the right dna combination to cure specific diseases.   Or, sometimes the unexpected can be a revolutionizing but friendly opportunity (and a threat only if viewed that way) like the internet and social media.

Way back in 1990, Robert D. Tuttle, then CEO of SPX Corp. was quoted as saying, “It is not an exaggeration to say that more scientific and technical advances will happen in the next year, than happened in the entire decade of the ‘70’s.”  Is that what we will be saying in 2010 about the first decade of the ‘00s?

We used to be able to use technology to ward off our competitors.  You could introduce a new product and know it would be years before anyone would introduce a better one, especially one based on “state-of-the-art” technology.  Not anymore.  Today, state-of-the-art is down to “state-of-the-nanosecond.”  It is an entirely new ball game.

“If I take care of the present, the future will take care of itself.”

A philosophy that can kill you.

Scientists believe that millions of years ago a giant asteroid struck the earth and completely wiped out the dinosaurs.  The dinosaurs were busy taking care of the present. They had no concept of a future beyond the now.  As a result, they remained fat, dumb and content for as long as they could.  But what actually proved to be their demise was something OUTSIDE of their peripheral vision.  The same holds true today.  Look at the Internet and social media.  Who saw it coming?  Very few of us.  You could have taken care of the day to day stuff and been on top of it, but all of a sudden you are living in an “Alice in Wonderland” world.  Everything has changed and you’ve never even left your office, much less the planet.  The way things used to be done aren’t done that way anymore.  The future that you thought would exist for you exists no longer.  Not only has everything changed, everything continues to change!  It’s downright volatile.  You can just stand still and feel like you’re in a different world.  The trick then is to look to the future and determine proactively what your company will look like when it and maybe you, get there.

Sure we have vision, we just can’t see.

Unfortunately, history has shown us it is not quite that simple.  Just being smart enough to look out into the future is only the half of it.  The other half has to do with your mindset while you are looking.  IBM, Sears, the Encyclopedia Britannica and Barnes & Noble were all at the top of their game and quite brilliant when they looked toward the future.  They were the T-Rex’s of their respective industries.  But none of them ever saw their own impending asteroids.  None of them chose to see them.  They were all overly confident and content.  They were complacent and suffering from structural inertia – a built-in resistance to change.  These companies were all betting their futures on the fact that the future would be a continuation of the present.  And from a historical perspective, it’s really old news.  Look back to the $750 Million vacuum tubes market of the 50’s.  In a last great act of defiance, both RCA and Sylvania chose to stay with tubes in spite of the introduction of the transistor.  Or the Swiss!  They not only had the reputation as the watchmakers of the world, but they actually invented quartz technology.  They had it but never used it.  Seiko ran with it and the rest is history.

Today, in the scientific world, thanks to new and more powerful telescopes being launched into space, astronomers are now discovering about one new planet every month.  They are even able to watch planets form.  One interesting discovery that will probably not affect any of us living today, was made by a group of astronomers, who are probably the best at looking to the future.  They recently identified an enormous asteroid that is expected to slam into the earth in about a thousand years (you may have seen the movie a few years back).  Not only are they aware of the threat, but they have already begun making plans to do something about it.  Talk about eliminating tomorrow’s problems, today.

Like it or not, the future is coming at us like an enormous wave.  It is unrelenting.  It seems to come faster and faster with each wave larger and more powerful than the one preceding it.  Our ability to adapt quickly to not only the changes in the markets we serve, but the changing needs, wants and desires of the customers within those markets, will determine our survival.

Start looking for tomorrow’s opportunities, today.

The late Walt Kelly once wrote, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  To paraphrase that, “We have met Alice in Wonderland and she is us.”  The times they are a changin’ and the change is constant.  The change each of you reading this article needs to make, if you haven’t already, is to become visionaries.  To look beyond today and start thinking outside the rules.

To witness what I’m talking about first hand, simply watch a group of children play a game.  They spend as much time arguing about the rules, as they do playing the game.  The rules are never cast in stone.  The boundaries are never secure and even the roles of the players are always in question.  Kids are constantly creating and re-creating, never allowing themselves to be bogged down or constrained by some old, established guideline.  They are constantly redesigning the game to fit their needs.

The same needs to hold true in business.  We need to think outside the lines.  By going outside certain parameters, daring to stray beyond certain boundaries, and playing flexible roles under breakable rules, we can stimulate innovation and encourage visionary thinking.  Consider your own product or service.  It is seldom if ever used in a vacuum.  If your customer has an objective, how can your product or service help him or her attain it? Is purchasing your product or service merely satisfying a sub-objective that contributes to yet a larger main objective?  Can you help them meet their main objective?  How do you transform your customer from a caterpillar to a butterfly?  How do you make doing business with you, not just purchasing from you, a wonderful and memorable experience?  (Making it a terrible and memorable experience is easy.  Just treat the customer badly.)  What opportunities and untapped values exist beyond the bounds of your product or service of which you can take advantage? What does the customer have to do before making the purchase and using your product or service?  What does the customer have to go through after making the purchase but before using it?  What is his/her experience when they actually put your product or service to use?  And, what experiences does s/he have they do?  The real question then becomes “What business are you in?”

Next, the playing field itself needs to be changed.  Why play on a level playing field with everyone else?  The trick is to hold the high ground, get the advantage, anticipate, prepare and distance yourself from your competition.  You want to position yourself to make the most of these changes.  Which means you must anticipate them as best you can while simultaneously remaining flexible enough to deal with the force of the unexpected.  Change and the unexpected –  The only two elements you can be absolutely certain of throughout the new millennium.

Unless you are clear about where you are going, any direction is fine.

As we face our “Alice in Wonderland” futures and look beyond today, all of us really do have the ability to begin seizing control of it.  Unfortunately, as business owners, ceo’s, presidents, vice presidents, and managers we constantly fall prey to crisis management.  We get caught up in the day to day challenges that prevent and delay us from taking control of our future.  All too often we find ourselves becoming so entrenched in crisis management that it becomes nearly impossible to even think about solving and/or preventing tomorrow’s predictable problems.  (Remember the asteroid.)  Finding the time to envision your future may be difficult, but it is more of a necessity than ever before, and in most cases, it is far easier to do than having to react to an unexpected reality.  Much like the old Fram filter commercial when the mechanic said, “You can pay me now, or pay me later.”  There are those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.  Waiting, watching and wondering is a formula for disaster.  Taking appropriate actions, on the other hand, and make things happen is the only way to ensure that the future you envision for you company will be achieved.  You must also make certain that your employees at every level are living that vision you’ve created.

By Jim Altfeld

I can’t think of anything much sadder than the words Schopenhauer spoke when he said, It is bad today and every day will get worse until the worst of all happens. Tied closely to that are the words of the faithful pessimists who believe in an afterlife, It will be over soon and there is a perfect life waiting for me in Heaven. My reply to this, “Perhaps.  But, then again, perhaps not.” All any of us know for certain is the life we have right now.  The very one you and I are living.  All I am saying is that we need to take this life seriously, which includes our actions, the decisions we make and the choices we make.

Consider the idea of Eternal Re-Occurrence.  Consider, instead of an afterlife, instead of reincarnation, having to relive every moment of your entire life, with all the joy, pain, ecstasy, agony, hurt, disappointments, thrills, suffering etc. included, over and over and over again.  How would you live your life then?  How would you look at the decisions you make and the choices you’ve made knowing that you will forever, relive the consequences of those decisions ad infinitum?

Add one more thing to the scenario of Eternal Re-Occurrence. Do you live your life in the manner you live it for fear of having to face your Maker and increase your chances of getting into Heaven?  Or, do you live a life of good values and high morals because of who you are?  Indulge me in this and humor me.  Let’s stick with the idea of Eternal Re-Occurrence and eliminate any idea of an afterlife.   What if, what you did and the way you acted in life became a universal law of nature for everyone else to follow? What if your actions and the things you did became a moral maxim?  How would you act then?

Ok, so I now at least have you thinking.  Let’s try this.  Remember when, as a child, teenager, young adult, and for some us, just last week being asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And what was your response?  A policeman, fireman, ballet dancer, doctor, lawyer, bank president, rich by the time you’re 30, etc., etc.   Before you ever gave your answer, did you ever consider the real you and the things that drove and drive the real you?  Did you take into consideration the things the real you is passionate about?  Or, did you just give an answer that was either programmed into you or what you thought those asking the questions wanted to hear?  I ask you, are you now doing what you love to do?  Are you following your passions, or are you doing what you think others think you ought to be doing? Does a rose bloom for us to admire or for its own sake?

Consider this statement: I Want to be Happy! From what I’ve seen in my past sixty years, most of us pursue happiness, (a right granted to all U.S. Citizens by the U.S. Constitution), as though it were some commodity, wrapped up like a Christmas present, waiting to be found by anyone who has the where with all to find it.  And then when we do find it, the happiness we experience is so damn brief.  What it turns out to be, as Goethe explains, is our going from desire, to satisfaction and soon back to desire again.  The point being that this type of happiness is not real happiness.  Rather it is fleeting and merely temporary satisfaction.

So, the question remains, just where does one find happiness?  According to Aristotle, the “Contemplative Life” (Bios Thoretikos) a divine activity resulting in the truest form of happiness and the highest life of all, was the way to go.  I don’t necessarily disagree with him. I believe that happiness comes in the form of self-forgetfulness.  It seems that whenever happiness does occur, I find myself lost and completely immersed in something or someone outside myself and something so much larger than myself.  So much so, that I not only seem to forget about myself and time, but I actually travel beyond and outside of myself in the process.  It is as though I no longer matter.  I no longer focus on me.

I know for a fact that that has happened, but just where in the hell did I find that feeling of happiness and how do I find it again on a continuous, constant and steady basis!?!  The answer lies in identifying and following those things that drive you!  You find happiness in your passions.  Passions can make you forget about yourself and can make time literally stand still.

When John Wesley, the cofounder of the Methodist Church was asked how he was able to attract such large crowds with his preaching, he said “I simply set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn.”  Now that’s what I call passion!

Passion not only affects you, but those around you.

Passion:

• Invigorates
• Inspires
• Sustains
• Comforts
• Initiates
• Completes
• Enhances

Yeah, but I wasn’t born with the advantages some others were born with. Ok, I’ll give you that.  But, give me this…. Each of us is born with advantages, disadvantages, certain aptitudes, certain IQs, as well as physical and mental strengths, weaknesses and disabilities. Some are born healthier than others.  The challenge is to make the best out of what you were given.

Once again, referring to Aristotle, he believed that everything is programmed toward a particular end and purpose.  Aristotle believed that the acorn, for example, was programmed to becoming an oak tree with its entire being devoted to achieving that end.  For man, we are programmed not only to reproduce and keep the species going, but also to ascend ourselves.  As individuals, each of us has, or should have, our own unique purpose and chief aim.

I find it almost uncanny how each and every one of us arrive in this world with inherent gifts. As humans, each of us has a nature about us.  Each of us has limits and potentials.   Then, for whatever reason, we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disillusion us about them.  As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are.  Too often, the expectations of us are held by people who are not trying to discern who we really are, but to fit us into slots.  And, all too often, it is their slots they are trying to fit us in.  If we’re fortunate enough, we then spend the second half of our lives trying to recover from the first half and reclaim the gift or gifts we once had.

Ability determines what you can do.

Aptitude determines what you can learn to do.

Aspiration determines what you hope to do.

Attitude determines what you believe you can do.

But passion determines what you want to do!

The trick, it seems, is to know yourself and the limitations, capabilities and potential that are part of your individual nature.  If you seek out a life without understanding yourself and your own nature – your own limitations, capabilities and potential – you place yourself on the road to possible failure by putting yourself in life situations that your nature is not meant to handle.  Much like a certain material is meant for specific applications, only.  Should you use the material in an application it was not meant for and the material is doomed to failure.

Our deepest calling in life is to grow into our own authentic true self, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we, or someone else thinks we OUGHT to be.  In other words, by not knowing and understanding who we are, we can go through life wearing one or any number of false masks.  We fall prey to what some philosophical men call Oughtiveness.  “You know what you ought to do?”  “You know what you ought to be?”  “You really ought to….” You become what someone or even yourself has convinced yourself, you ought to be, instead of what you really are.   That includes what I consider to be the worst-case scenario, which is wearing someone else’s mask you may have picked up along the way and leading their life instead of your own.

My point being that by not understanding self, not knowing your own nature, not taking the necessary time to determine your personal chief aim in life, one winds up living an ungrounded life.  As a result, one finds him or her self-conforming to a false image and a false sense of self.  And, you can go through life wearing false masks or someone else’s mask without ever getting the opportunity to wear the mask that truly represents you.  The tragedy is that you go through life portraying yourself as someone you really are not, based upon the misconception that this is the someone you think you ought to be, when in fact you really are not that person at all.  Or, in the words of McAnnula, “It is perfectly all right to try to be everything you cannot be when you find that you cannot be everything that you are.”

Which brings me to this:  Become Who You Are!  According to Erich Fromm, Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.  For far too many of us, we do nothing but run, never allowing ourselves to reflect on where we’re running to or what we’re running for.   Life goes on no matter what we do, but personal growth and development happen only if we allow it to happen and then choose wisely.

To become who you are, you first must understand what you have.  Then, it is up to you to decide what you will do with what you have.  The choice is yours.  Do you become an advice-rejecting complainer and a couch potato, or do you become exceptional?  As I pointed out earlier with Eternal Re-Occurrence, it is up to you to be responsible and held accountable for your actions, your decisions and your choices.  You made them, you allowed things to happen and you cannot blame others for them.  The choice is our own to make.  Be a hapless victim or an active participant.

According to Heidegger, the inauthentic life is a life lead unaware.  It is an unconscious life of white water river rafting. In an authentic life I am aware and fully conscious.  I am in a state of enlightenment.  I am my own witness to my own events.

Belief follows need.

What we see and how we interpret what we see confirms what we believe.  And, what we believe shapes what we see.  Right or wrong, true or false, we believe those things we need to believe in order to support our beliefs.  Do I believe what I believe because of what has been instilled in me, or do I believe what I believe because of who I am?  I firmly believe that by being aware of who I am, I am far more aware of what I truly believe.

To lead a life of awareness and authenticity, means being conscious of who we are, what we are doing, why we are acting or reacting the way we are and knowing we are a particle of energy that helps comprise that ocean of energy called Life!  Simply stated, what we are is determined by what we think.  What we think is often a result of what we’ve experienced.  Our experiences are based upon those things to which we are exposed. And the experiences we expose ourselves to are based upon who we are.

Let me ask you this: Have you ever heard the expression you are what you eat?  I don’t know about you, but I am not what I eat. I am not a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!   What I eat is determined by who I am.  I am not my job, either, nor am I my life’s situations, and I am not my experiences. I have the job I have, I have the experiences I have and I have the life situations I have because of who I am.

Whether you believe this or not, life truly IS exciting, or at least it should be.  Life is also scary.  It can also be cruel.  And, without a doubt, it is always dangerous.  To live life fully requires taking risks.  To live it in fear, you can shun it, hide from it and waste it.  You can hide on your couch, buy a bigger TV, not venture out and take no risks.  And what a tragic waste of a human being that is?

Even worse may be discovering that you have just spent the greater part of your life and a great deal of energy on things that, in the bigger picture, were really not very useful or important.

For life to be an extension of yourself and a way to be ourselves, you must deal with life in the present. To do that, however, means saying YES to life.  I accept death and all that comes with it.  I accept that death is the impossibility of all future possibilities.  I accept that death takes away all that I ever had and all that I will ever have.  But, death also plays a crucial role in our awareness of life.  It reminds us that existence cannot be postponed.  It is through death that we see what is at stake.  Any confrontation with death can lead me to rearrange my priorities.  Death is, or can be, wonderful at providing us humans with a greater appreciation of life.  But what if death comes before your real life has started.  How tragic would that be?

Which is why I find it ever so important to enthusiastically say, YES to life.

On the flip side of that same coin, I feel strongly that death is not necessarily The End, nor is it final.  I firmly believe that each of us can live on long after our death and achieve immortality.  We can become immortal through our children and our children’s children.  We can become immortal by having a building named for us, planting a tree, writing a great book, and through our works.  It is all about giving meaning to one’s life.  For, giving meaning to one’s life means going beyond one’s life.

What you are and what you believe you can be goes on well after your death.  Become who you are is about making something out of what you have and what you’ve been given.  To become who you are, however, requires you to LOVE who you are.  Love what you have to work with and make something beautiful and exceptional out of it.  Give shape to yourself.  Create yourself.  Take what you have and make the most out of it.  Play off other people to grow and develop yourself.  Transcend who you are.  Aspire to be more.   Perform a transfiguration!

In the Myth of Sisyphus, Sisyphus was forever condemned to roll a rock up the top of a mountain.  When it would roll back down the other side, he would resume the task, over and over and over again.  The beauty of Sisyphus is that he didn’t bitch and complain.  He didn’t hate himself or the life to which he had been condemned.  Instead, he took it upon himself to know the rock and understand the mountain.  He used the knowledge he acquired to grow, develop and better understand himself, all of which enabled him to become who he was. It allowed him to transcend himself. You and I have the same choice.  We can either, bitch and complain about the hand we’ve been dealt, or can use it to our best ablilties.

I, for one, believe in living life, every day of it, in a perpetual state of wonderment.  And instead of cursing life, be forever grateful for the precious gift of sheer existence.  We’re here.  We’re here right now and what a wonderful opportunity it is to be here!!

I don’t marvel about the way things are, but that they are.  I am not only mindful of the fragility of my being, but too, the responsibility for my own being.  To become who I am means having to be in touch with my own self-creation.

Recognize that no matter how close you, me or any other human being gets to other people, it all comes down to our facing life alone.  For me, that means facing the basic issue of my life and my death and thereby living my life more honestly and being less caught up in the trivialities.  It also means learning that I must take the ultimate responsibility for the way I live my life no matter how much guidance, encouragement and support I get from others.

Which leads me to yet another one of life’s rules.  Regardless of the situation in which you find yourself we all have three choices.  We either come to accept what is, change what is, or walk away from it.  And even in choosing to accept it, you have a choice.  You can accept the reality of things for what it is, (not being in denial) and then elect to change it.

I leave you with these three final thoughts and a pledge:

1. Uncertainty, death and impermanence exist and we must all learn to co-exist with each of them.
2. The measure of your life will be the measure of your courage, contribution, trust, and how much you give back.
3. If you do not take responsibility for your own predicament, you can never expect to change.

Your Pledge to Yourself:

I, ________________, from this day forward, shall no longer accept sorrow, disappointment and victimization to play a part in my life’s situations.  Nor shall I any longer consider myself responsible for fulfilling the lives of others.  I shall instead focus upon the birth of my true self, coming to know that I am life itself, and that I am far more than a mere composite of my past experiences and my life’s situations.

Signed by                                                             Date

Thank you for your time, interest and consideration.  Your feedback is greatly welcomed.

Jim Altfeld

jaltfeld@altfeldinc.com

www.altfeldinc.com/blog

By Jim Altfeld

First and foremost, no company can attract and retain top talent if the company’s culture is going to grind them down, eat them up and spit them out. For example, authoritarian, tightly controlled companies need not bother looking for top talent because they will only stifle and snuff them out like a candle.  Also any company that accepts mediocrity, has few if any measurements in place, holds almost no one accountable, gives cursory annual reviews and does not deal with its non-productive personnel should not be seeking top talent, either.

Therefore, the first step in attracting and retaining top talent is to identify your own company’s culture.  Unfortunately, most small to mid-size companies give little thought to their company’s culture.  It just seems to grow, develop, form and shape itself on its own.  Every company has a culture but not every company knows what it is.

If, after assessing and evaluating your company’s culture you discover that it fosters, encourages and rewards a sense of inquiry and a continuous quest to make things better, your company has a great chance of attracting and retaining top talent.  If you find that you’ve created a learning institution that generates a passion for learning how to do something new, you’ve probably already have top talent beating a path to your company’s door.

Every business has a choice.  It can either be a company consisting of a group of individuals who come to work, punch in, do their job and go home, or it can be a coalition of people with common goals and interests.  The truly great and world class companies that are known for attracting and retaining top talent have created cultures that binds their people together.

Why so much importance needs to be placed upon your company’s culture?  Because it defines not only jobs, roles and rules for proper behavior; it also sets goals and establishes what counts as success. It provides the company with a sense of identity, stability, organizational boundaries and acts as a guide for the types of behavior that will and will not be tolerated.  By establishing these boundaries, your people can gauge the appropriateness of their corporate thoughts, behaviors and actions.  They can determine the norms and values from your cultural rules and beliefs.  And, they can make decisions that positively affect the company.

If your goal is to attract and retain top talent, you company’s culture should generate a shared feeling that its goals and objectives are worth the effort, sacrifice and toil by those who work in it  It’s that “Purpose Beyond Profit” that every company has. The excitement and passion instilled within these great companies has little to do with money, profits, increased sales or market share.  They have created something far greater than that.  Profit, increased sales and greater market share will normally come as a result of it, but it is not what is driving the passion.  There is a tremendous sense of giving, sharing, learning, teaching and personal growth and development going on.  It is that sense of personal growth, mentoring, wanting to know more, wanting to do more and wanting to contribute that has become the spirit, or deeply felt emotion within these companies. Like a tornado or hurricane, they pull in and attract those who want to be a part of it and spit out those who don’t.  There will be A and B players beating a path to your door to get in.

But all of that comes as a result of the company’s willingness to share and a willingness to make information available.  It comes from having wide open communication and encouraging cooperation and collaboration throughout the business.  It stems from the company’s desire to become horizontally integrated, strategically aligned and customer focused.  It comes from having that type of culture and a passion to become truly World Class.  For that matter, when you get right down to it, World Class Performance is predicated on World Class Trust.  And trust is a result of open-ness and the sharing of information, experience and expertise.

Accomplishing all of the above will require you to:

·     Equip your people to make decisions by clearly defining your company’s culture

·     Align the systems, policies, practices and procedures with your values  (just like the systems, polices, practices and procedures you set for your children).

·     Measure, reward and recognize people who protect and promote the culture.

·     Indoctrinate new employees into your culture through one on one teaching and education (at Nickelodeon, all new employees get a Welcome Wagon package).

·     Make the values and your culture center stage (Don’t hide your photos in an album.  Display them on a bulletin board.  Have a photo gallery showing the years and your people).

·     Hire the right talent.

Next, the company next needs to determine what its values really are.  What do you look for in yourselves, your people and those you hire?  What are the primary beliefs, traits and characteristics that the company holds near and dear?  For instance, if integrity is a value, it means that anyone working in the company must have it, without exception.  The values must be made clear to everyone in the company and everyone must believe in them and live them, from the top down and the bottom up.  These must be shared beliefs, with all non-believers extricated from the company to avoid disharmony and disruption.  To make this picture a bit more lucid, imagine if you will a woodpecker on board Noah’s ark drilling holes in the bow.  You can forget about a Hegel’s Dialectic and arriving at any type of synthesis.  It is going to get ugly and completely disruptive.  It is the same in business.  Either everyone believes in the values and the culture of the company or at some point in time, it is going to get ugly.

As long as everyone throughout the company knows and understands the values of the company and what is expected of them regarding those values, there is far less chance of someone doing something contrary to the company’s beliefs.

Finally, you need to determine the type of top talent you are looking to recruit.  Management must set distinct goals for all positions and measure each individual’s performance.  Through this process management can then identify the high and low performers.  Management must also establish a set of competencies required of their managers that includes the skills and behaviors expected.

Create a criteria for each job and determine what would be the highest score required to fill the job with a high quality player.  Be professional.  Be prepared.  Be able to hand them a job descriptions with expectations, goals and objectives.  High quality players want to know first and foremost that you have your act together and that you will be able to challenge them for the long haul, and that they will be actively involved and a contributor to the business.

One of the greatest challenges you’ll face in trying to continuously upgrade your talent pool will be improving and replacing the lowest performers while raising everyone’s game.  To ensure this, the leadership of the business must hold their managers accountable for building a strong talent pool.

“My main job was developing talent”, said GE’s Jack Welch.  “I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people.  Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.”

Five Keys to Successful Top Grading:

1. Make talent management a critical part of every manager’s job
2. Provide a compelling reason for an A or B player to want to join and stay with the company
3. Inject high performers throughout the company in every area and improve or eliminate the non-performers.
4. Implement stretch goals, candid feedback, coaching, mentoring and open communications to grow management’s talents
5. Confirm each individual’s unique contributions to the company and each person’s performance.

If you can create an extraordinary system, operated by involved, informed, inspired and extraordinary talent, you can count on their producing extraordinary, exceptional and world class results.  The choice is yours.

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