There are people I experience in life sometimes face to face other times at a distance that strike me as being exceedingly gifted and special beings. Tim Russert is was one of those people. These are souls who are so clearly and affirmatively doing in life exactly what they were born to do. What a blessing it is to enjoy their glow and bask in their joyous energy so perfectly applied.
Thank you Tim and prayers for your family. We were all truly blessed.
Keep the facts handy folks you never know when you're gonna get the chance to hit someone over the head with em.
I don't care who you are that there's fun!!
Yes indeed it was a good day today. The best part is she never saw it coming. The pure, honest, indisputable facts crushing long held and deeply ingrained false beliefs was greeted by a silent acknowledgment of the clearly apparent truth.
My delight is sourced in the fact that these miss conceptions have had a negative impact on some important people in our company for far too long. My pride and delight swell from the prospect that my intervention may result in these dedicated leaders being treated with more respected in the future. They deserve it.
Keep your facts handy folks you never know when you might need them..........to help somebody.
This message brought to you by Lester the made-up numbers and false belief avenger.
Do you have any questions for the great Lester? I have received an inquiry about questions, will I answer them if they are asked?
Yes, yes I will. As you can see from the above white space I will answer after giving careful thought and consideration to your question. Leave your question as a comment with your email address and I will gladly answer as quickly as possible. Just as a warning I will publish all questions and answers in my blog without the name or email address of the contributor unless you specifically ask me not to.
Here is the standard disclaimer. In order to be consistent with what I have told my children for all these many years understand that I do know a little bit about a lot of stuff. It is my personal rule and commitment that if I do not know the answer to your question I will probably just make something up.
OK the lawyers and happy now. I'm waiting.....................................................
Business Week's June 9, 2008 edition page 66 has a great article by Jane Porter on Coach feeling the pinch in the luxury brands market. The esteemed Chairman & CEO of Coach, Lew Frankfort (that's Lew on the right) decided to change the revenue reporting. In the past the regular store and outlet store sales were reported separately. Makes sense to me. However, sweet Lew decided to combine the two numbers in his latest report. Hummm I wonder why he would do that just now? Is it possible there is something happening the shareholders may not be too pleased with?
This is one of those meetings that I would give my credit card debt to be a fly on the wall in that meeting. OK, I never claimed to be a great negotiator. Anyway, this reminds me of a great bit done by the British comedian Eddie Izzard where he imagines the meeting when record executives decided singer Jerry Dorsey's name should be changed to Engelberg Humperdinck. Eddie re-enacts his version of the brainstorming secession including Jerry's protests along the way. This is funny stuff. A link to the video clip is below.
I would love to see the trial list of reasons sweet Lew's team came up with to rationalize the change in Coach's revenue reporting. Bob in accounting was on vacation so we didn't have time to run the numbers separately. The satellite feed merged the numbers and we couldn't separate them. We decided to go "Green" and save paper by printing one less column on the reports. We're running Windows Vista, what can we do? We are selling a lot more in the outlet stores -- no, no, no, that will look very bad. My favorite and the one they finally settled on is, the combined number better represents the business. Is this really what they think? Probably not, I think they had very few choices.
Obviously things aren't looking all that good for Coach and sweet Lew and he knows it. This last little maneuver is probably just the latest in a litany of moves used to stem the tide, spin the data and control the message. The economy is tough and luxury goods companies like Coach that sold down the market will struggle while people who used credit cards and home equity loans to buy their products struggle to recover. Is it really Lew's fault? The shareholders wanted growth, he delivered growth with the retail and outlet store strategy. Can we blame him for holding on for dear life? Chairman and CEO at Coach has to be a great gig.
I think Lew should hang in there we never know what is going to happen. After the Bear Stearns deal Ben Bernanke may buy a few million Coach briefcases and give them away free to anyone who buys a house and takes out a mortgage in 2009. In which case Lew will look like a hero and comes out smelling like a rose.
If you want a typical mix of personalities on your management team here's the formula.
Start with one descendant from a Nazi concentration camp guard who will follow and implement the rules and guidelines without question or regard for human life, respect or dignity. Next add a process freak who measures their banana slices for uniformity before adding them to their cereal in the morning. After that you need a wild idea person who knows no bounds and has no sense of limitations human or financial. For good entertainment and balance there must be the resident surfer dude or good time Charlie who never met a challenge that could not be delegated or avoided completely. Finally, to have a prayer of making any progress at all you must have one or two painful realist who are pretty sure everything you do will turn into crap before next Thursday. If you like paralyzing debate you will love hanging around with this group.
If you want to be wildly successful I would suggest you find a bunch of visionary, paranoid, optimists with an intense fear of failure who almost finished college. Then call the bank and tell them to get ready for a large deposit into your account. It will be hard to tell if they are running away from failure or towards success but who cares there will be intense movement in a positive direction.
We have an extraordinarily qualified and productive person in our department who is in need of a financial consideration for a reason that is directly related to their employment with our company. That's all I can tell you.
It's really a pretty simple decision. The process in making the decision and the communication required goes like this. First listen to the facts, then... Yep, that makes sense. Nope, we wouldn't want to lose him or her. No, we don't want to be unfair. Yes, no doubt about it we need to give em a raise. Who wants to put the paperwork through? That's it.
Why does it always degenerate to 25 emails, sent by 6 people, a geographic study of comparable wage rates, worrisome discussions about what Joe will do if he finds out, BUDGET!!!!, Blah, Blah, Blah. Why is it the living, breathing, productive, important, inspiring and profitable person in these discussions always becomes a commodity? We leaders behave as if there are perfectly qualified people waiting in the parking lot with resume in hand ready to start work on demand when we have openings. Better yet no training or orientation is required and an instant fit in the organization is guaranteed. Here's the kicker we find data indicating a new person will work for a wage in the lower 30% quartile of the random Smith slide wage scale or for cat food which is 1.7% less than we are paying the current person in the job. Hey, who approved the incumbents exorbitant rate of pay in the first place? We need to investigate. Someone didn't follow procedure here. Was HR in the loop? Was the attorney general consulted? Get the UN on the phone.....
This blogging thing is very new to me but its has been enormously satisfying. I've learned one big secret to blogging is it must be satisfying to the writer to have a prayer of being read or noticed by others. So if I stopped blogging right now I can say it has been a personally satisfying experience.
There are a number of things I like about blogging. First, I can go back and change any post I write anytime. How many times did you turn in a term paper keep a copy, re-read it and then find a thousand things you would like to change? I can change my blog anytime not that anyone would notice. It is a little embarrassing that even with this flexibility I still miss typo's and spelling errors. But, I'm more into thoughts and ideas than mechanics, my brain just doesn't work that way, I'm not detail oriented, blah, blah, blah. Here's the reason. My grade school teachers were not nun's, nuf said. I do love the ability to reconsider my thoughts and amend.
One of my favorite quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all." I LOVE that. I love that quote and I love the person who turned me on to it.
But, there is one dynamic I can't get over. People actually read this crap. I vent my spleen disguised as learned business wisdom and people read it. Well......they also see through it and offer their own observations and wisdom in very insightful and instructive ways by commenting.
Thank you C. You got me. I think this will not end soon however. It will only change with lessons learned and the passage of time. As you well know already, I have a lot to say and it will only get better as it mellows. Oh yes, and I am trolling for teachers, caught one. Very glad you're there.
I am a guy in my 50's who is just entering that stage in life where I am getting fleeting glimpses of how absurd life really is. That's what this Blog is about, I hope.
