It’s rumored that Nero played the fiddle…

…while Rome burned.

ATTRACT Opportunities Instead of Pursuing Them…

…Using Counter-Intuitive Thinking

Whether it’s true or not, we’re witnessing something very similar today.  We’re going to use Step 4, See Similarities, to equate this ancient rumor with today’s politics and the challenges we face.  Then we’re going to apply Step 5, Contrarian Mindset, to remedy the situation.

Here is something I find absolutely amazing.   Despite the that we, Americans, have:

• 30 to 45 million people without healthcare coverage
• 10% of our workforce unemployed
• A trillion budget deficit proposal
• Banks that won’t lend the money needed to help stimulate the recovery

Our congressional leaders have chosen to hold hearings over Toyota’s recent spate of recalls.  If I were coaching this group I’d say that they were using Toyota to avoid dealing with the tough issues they’re facing.  While that may a natural human tendency, it’s one of the obstacles to our success.

I’d love to tell you that I’ve never fallen into that trap, but you’d know that I was lying.  I don’t know anyone that hasn’t.  But here’s the reality, the challenge doesn’t go away.  The longer we avoid it the greater the stress we experience.  It’s a two-fold negative experience.  We continue to experience the pain of what isn’t working plus we feel badly about ourselves because we’re avoiding dealing with something that won’t go away.

It’s counter-intuitive, but when faced with challenging situations the best thing to do is begin working on them.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to find a solution quickly.  But the mere fact that you’re devoting time and energy to pursuing a solution will, at the very least, help you feel good about the fact that you’re not avoiding the situation.

If you want to distinguish yourself, become the person in your organization who recognizes that the organization is in denial or at least avoiding the issues it needs to address.  Ask those whose help you need to effect a change “Is this situation going to get better on its own?  If we don’t so something soon to rectify the situation, how much is avoiding the issues going to cost us?”

Would you like to learn how to develop these counter-intuitive thought approaches?  Check out my 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE self-study program.  It’s a modest investment with life-time returns.  Just click on the 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE book cover and learn how easy it is for you to become INVALUABLE.

Attracting opportunities is only the beginning.  Visit www.pricingforprofitbook.com to discover how to get compensated well for the value you provide.  Enjoy!

None of us wants to be average.

Or do we?

One of my favorite authors is Robert Cialdini , a social psychologist who teaches at Arizona State University. His latest book, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, offers new and fascinating insights into human nature.

He and several other researchers did a study of 300 California households’ energy usage. They communicated the results to the participants. While they expected the results to cause the highest users to cut their energy consumption. They didn’t expect the lowest users to raise their power usage, but they did.

This and other studies he and his colleagues have done demonstrate that there is a natural human tendency to move to what he calls “the magnetic middle” – to become average. Can that be true? Do we really strive to be average? Let’s consider some common behaviors and see whether or not Dr. Cialdini’s observations apply to us.

Do you discount your talents, abilities and experience by assuming that, because they come naturally to you, everyone possesses those abilities? Have you presumed that the “facts” you possess are self-evident – that everyone has those facts?

It’s these presumptions that we’re “normal” and, consequently, the rest of the population is just like us that often gets us into trouble. It’s the reason others get the feeling that we aren’t listening to them, that we don’t care about their perspectives, that we’re arrogant or stubborn for standing so firmly on our beliefs.

How do we overcome this natural tendency? The first step is awareness. We have to understand that we’re not like everyone else – that we possess skills and abilities that others don’t possess and that we may be fighting different demons than they are. This knowledge allows us to see, and command fair compensation, for the value we bring to the table. It also allows us aid others in the fights with their demons and, in doing so, helps us build an army to help us fight our own.

Second, as we enter conversations, we need to remind ourselves that others have different backgrounds and experiences than we do; consequently, they’re going to have perspectives that are dramatically different than ours. Relish this diversity! It affords us wonderful opportunities to grow, personally and professionally.

Third, we need to acknowledge that our goals in life, our dreams, are not the same as theirs. We need to respect the fact that others want different things in life than we do. This will help us avoid setting unreasonable expectations of others – expectations that are likely to be the source of great frustration for both of us.

It’s counter-intuitive, but if you want to stop discounting your offerings, if you want better relationships with family, friends, coworkers and bosses, you need to stop presuming that everyone is just like you. You have to avoid the magnetic middle.

The 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE program I offer is designed to help you see more effective ways of doing business – ways that dramatically improve your bottom line while making your life easier. In today’s blog I used Step 4, Seeing Similarities, to combine an insight from a social psychologist’s experiment with my observations of the natural tendency my consulting and coaching clients have to devalue their offerings to help you avoid this pitfall. I also employed Step 5, Contrarian Mindset, to help you see the value of varying perspectives have both for your personal and professional growth and in strengthening your relationships with others. For more information on the 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE visit www.furtwengler.com/7steps.htm.

If you’d like to receive a weekly email reminder with a link to The Invaluable Leader blog or if you’d like me to address specific topics, please send me an email at dale@furtwengler.com. Please share your experience with our readers by posting a comment.

Good news – My latest book, Pricing for Profit, was released 9.9.09 in the United States, Canada, U.K., Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands.  Pick up your copy today!  It’s available in all the major bookstores – Borders, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

For more information on Dr. Cialdini and his fascinating work, visit http://www.influenceatwork.com/

Are newspapers really becoming passé?

If so, what lessons can we learn from their apparent demise?

A few weeks ago National Public Radio hosted a panel of journalists and journalism academicians to discuss the plight of the newspaper.  Most of the panelists expressed concern that readers aren’t aware of what they were giving up by not supporting newspapers.

In particular, the panelists are concerned that the public doesn’t realize that they are:

• sacrificing accuracy in reporting
• losing access to local news

The panelists saw the loss of accuracy as a byproduct of lost revenues which means that there are fewer reporters available to check the facts on the stories they cover.  The same lost revenues also result in fewer reporters available for local news coverage.  In both instances the panelists believed the public to be naive in its understanding of what it is truly giving up.

Unfortunately I was in my car driving to an appointment when I heard this discussion.  I would have loved to addressed this panel.  Here are the questions I would have asked:

• How important is fact checking when sensationalism is your primary goal?
• Where exactly does one find this “local coverage” on important issues?

My experience has been that, while newspapers may report facts, they put such a spin on them that the facts get overlooked by the readers.

I remember one particularly vivid example during the height of the economic meltdown when headlines stated that Sony’s earnings were down 56%.  While the facts were accurate, these headlines were designed to fuel the fear that readers were already experiencing.  It would have been just as easy to say, “despite a 56% decline in earnings, Sony remains profitable and is generating positive cash flow.”

Newspaper people tell us that sensationalism sells – that’s what the market wants.  Please don’t tell me that the readers cited above really wanted to experience more fear than they already were.  I haven’t seen any indications that we, as a society, have become masochistic.  Nor does the decline in newspaper revenues substantiate their claim that sensationalism sells.

Let’s shift our attention to the local news coverage we’re foregoing.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell you how many hours I spend trying to find background information on candidates and issues in local elections.  That information certainly is not available in my local newspapers.  More importantly, this isn’t a recent phenomenon.  I’ve been voting for four decades and I can never recall a time when the information I sought was readily available in the newspaper or, if I did find it, that I didn’t feel that the newspaper was pushing its own agenda.

So what’s the message for you.  If your customers are abandoning you, stop bemoaning their naiveté and start listening to them.  They’ll tell you what you need to know if they think you’ll actually change your way of doing business.  It’s counter-intuitive, but, when you’re losing business it’s not the customer who is naive, it’s you.  You’re in denial and you need to take a long, hard look at what your doing and why it’s so objectionable to your customers.  If you don’t, your business will go the way of the newspaper.

The 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE program is designed to help you see more effective ways of doing business – ways that dramatically improve your bottom line while making your life easier.  In today’s blog Step 1, Contributory Negligence, was used to help you see how costly ignoring your contribution to the problem can be when you ignore the market’s messages.  For more information on the 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE visit www.furtwengler.com/7steps.htm.

If you’d like to receive a weekly email reminder with a link to The Invaluable Leader blog or if you’d like me to address specific topics, please send me an email at dale@furtwengler.com.  Please share your experience with our readers by posting a comment.

Why the sudden interest in unionization?

Is it in America’s best interest?

This is one of the most controversial acts being considered today.  Why?  Two reasons. 

There is concern among business owners and leaders that the new rules, which eliminate the need for secret ballot votes by employees, could result in some employees being coerced by their colleagues into signing.  The second concern is the 120-day mandatory arbitration rules which could leave businesses with economically untenable contracts.

Before we get into these issues, let’s take a look at what’s spawned this interest in unionization.  For decades we’ve been seeing the erosion of the middle class.  When the middle ground is washed away you’re left with a chasm bordered by competing factions on each side of the chasm.  Part of the interest in unionization is the desire to stop the erosion of the middle class and avoid a much costlier “economic civil war” later.

This interest in rejuvenating the middle class has been heightened by the recent outrage over rising CEO pay and executive bonuses despite poor performance, something that Fortune magazine has been railing about since at least 2006. 

Whether or not it will achieve this goal the Free Choice Act is an attempt to reconstitute the middle class and avoid the inevitable civil war that’s developing.  If anyone doubts that a war is coming, review some of the recent news broadcasts highlighting threats of violence against the AIG executives who received bonuses.

With such a lofty goal, why would the business community fight unionization?  They fear loss of control.  Unfortunately, these leaders fail to realize that control is an illusion.  We can’t control anyone’s activity unless they grant us permission to do so.  Anyone who’s spent more than a few hours in a management role knows how readily employees ignore our requests, and even more so, our demands.  If they feel sufficiently threatened, they’ll “agree” to our demands and provide what we requested instead of what we wanted.  

What’s the solution?  It’s counter-intuitive, but whether you’re dealing with a CEO, individual workers or a union, the issue of compensation revolves around one question.  That question is “How are you going to produce results in excess of the compensation you’re requesting?”  You see it doesn’t really make any difference how much a person makes as long as the value of what they produce exceeds what they make.

For those who have grown up in the union environment the concept of providing more than what your being compensated may seem foreign, but in business we realize that we have to provide more value than the consumer is paying for if we want them to part with their dollars.  The same should be true of workers, after all the companies that employ them are their customers.

With those thoughts in mind, let’s assume you’re a business owner sitting at the table with the union representatives and they say they want their workers to get a 6% annual increase in pay and benefits each year for the next three years.  Your response should be “That’s fine, we’re happy to honor that request if you can tell us how you’re going to increase productivity by 6.5% per year.  What’s your plan?”

Let’s say that the union doesn’t come up with a plan, the 120 days elapse and you’re forced to go to arbitration.  The union states its demands as it did to you.  You, again, state that you’re willing to agree to those raises if the union could demonstrate how it was going to increase employee productivity by 6.5%.  After all, any fair exchange requires that each party receive comparable value.  What’s the likelihood that, if the union fails to present a plan, their demands will be granted?  Arbitrators are schooled in the art of creating equity between competing parties and they look at the reasonableness of each party’s position.  The party that seems to be doing the most to create equity, in this case you, typically gains the arbitrator’s favor. 

You can further enhance your position with the union if you use the same question in negotiating pay with non-union employees.  If your records show that pay increases in your company are always accompanied by the employees’ indication of how they can improve their performance to produce more than their increase, you go along way to building a strong case for the arbitrator and a stronger company as well.

The 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE program I offer is designed to help you see more effective ways of doing business – ways that dramatically improve your bottom line while making your life easier.  In today’s blog I used Step 3, Suspend judgment, to demonstrate how to avoid judging unionization as being either good or bad.  Judgment leads to bias which limits the number of alternative solutions you see.

Then I used Step 2, The Persuasion Myth, to show you how to craft a negotiation that makes sense for both parties.  The Persuasion Myth is equally effective in demonstrating to an arbitrator that you’re approach is fair and equitable, thereby increasing your odds of gaining an economically feasible contract.  You can learn more about how the 7 Steps to Becoming INVALUABLE program and how it can help you deal with the business challenges you face by clicking on http://www.furtwengler.com/7steps.htm

Please share your thoughts, whether you agree or not, by posting a comment.  If there are topics you’d like me to address, send me an email at dale@furtwengler.com.