Square peg, round hole

Most everyone has taken his or her turn with a mallet in hopes of driving that square peg into the round hole. Swinging with purpose, we are sure we can overcome geometry and physics. But any success is short-lived. The dissonant nature of angles and curves will eventually vibrate the two apart. When will we learn?

The question is more strategic today, particularly in business, than ever before. When the industrial organization was on the rise (thank you, Alfred P. Sloan) it was the trade-off between conformity and security that sealed the deal. In the era of the man in the gray flannel suit, economic and peer-group pressures aligned to help keep the peg in its place no matter how odd.

Today, though, those constructed societal forces are scattered, less aligned, less powerful and the worker/company compact has been abrogated in bankruptcy court. It is a fact of business life that organizations need to accommodate their people. And as the economy improves for the best of those people, organizations need to become more willing to accommodate them.

But how much individualism can a corporation tolerate? At what point will the need to accommodate overwhelm a company's culture? This is not another form of a "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" question without an answer. It is more pressing each day.

A former boss once said "it is a poor family that cannot afford even one sport" when pressed on the subject of a colleague who just did not fit the profile. But now the smart, motivated, results-oriented people we all seek are looking for settings, opportunities and rewards that are as different as their fingerprints. As a result, unless companies are willing to change, they will have a hard time holding onto the talent they seek. But if they change too much or too often, they lose the chance to build a bond with their employees. Ultimately, the choice each makes will have a direct effect on growth, reputation, opportunity and the bottom line.

The hardest problem facing a manager in this environment is whether there should be separate rules for some. Think of people you know personally or in public life. Do they get special dispensation? How does that make you feel? Whether wary, resentful, mad or resigned, it undermines any company's chance for market success. The better answer may come from former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden by way of a comment from former Bruin superstar Bill Walton. In a televison interview, Walton said Wooden did not have one set of rules for the team and another for the superstars -- he treated each player differently. They were pegs of all shapes and sizes who needed to be formed into a team.

He was able to do it because he was consistent, did not play favorites, expressed a clear "business mission" and had a track record of success. Managing today is a lot like his coaching then. The best people have highly developed views of the world and their place in it. If companies want to attract and retain those people, they need to have an equally firm grip of what they are and what they want to be. Success no longer demands that everyone fit the same shaped slot.

Getting the square peg into the round hole is no longer the true test of a manager today. The real test is getting all the round pegs to see the value of diversity.

Choosing words carefully

The words we choose say as much about us as they do about the objects they describe. Think William F. Buckley, think the character "Teach" from Mamet's "American Buffalo," or think of any tortured business presentation where losses are presented as opportunities.

We don't seem to react with outrage at the routine mishandling of words or deliberate misdirection that has undermined their value. Instead, we seek meaning elsewhere. And, uneasy about the virtue of what we see and hear around us, that search is increasingly internal.

What we think and what we think we know become the measuring stick for what we think is true. In this way, when we hear a lie or its cousin, the transparent euphemism, so long as it aligns with what we think we know to be true, it must be true.

This can have terrible repercussions; in our personal lives (check the divorce rate), in our professional lives (consider the value of post-acqusition write-downs) and our civic lives (count the votes that send incumbents back to legislative bodies filled with thieves). Worse, the more we reinforce what we think we know, the less likely we are to see or want a way out.

Unchecked, we arrive at paralysis. It is evident in Washington, D.C. where there is little discussion of constituent need and less of legislation, it is evident in corporate board rooms where costs dominate innovation, it is evident in labor halls where the past is lionized with the future up for grabs, it is evident on campus where ideas conform or go uninvited and it is evident at the gas station where the cost of a fill-up may cause a change in grade but not in behavior.

A way out, a way to reframe reality to reflect, well, reality could begin by comparing differences. I mean, if Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert compared himself to Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid -- not on a single point, but across the board -- he (and Harry) might find out they have too much in common to be so far apart. In the same way, if General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner compared himself to Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, Flint might regain its dignity.

And if each of us were willing to hear, learn and know more about people not exactly like us, we might create real opportunity. Ultimately, we need to work hard to complement human nature with a focus on the nature of things. Until we are able to look at the world around us rather than just the one inside us, words will not be enough.

Managing to replace people

Someone quit this week. Not just anyone, but one of a handful of market specialists. As she was going out the door, three other people came in. Doing the math, you could say we're up two. But when it comes to people, business isn't based on the numbers. That's because people cannot be replaced; companies can only reorganize around their departure.

The insight is not mine. It is, for one, Thomas Stewart's. He is a writer and editor at Fortune. In his 1997 book, "Intellectual Capital: the Wealth of Organizations," he found that just as access to resources had previously given way to access to financial capital as the primary ingredient to business success, technology had now triggered a shift again, this time to what companies know.

The book is worth reading (especially for people in professional services businesses), but I don't intend a precis here.

As companies become less and less like Lego constructions and more like an Alexander Calder mobile, losing a piece has serious implications for movement overall. This is made more acute as progress or growth or momentum have become as much measures of success as is the bottom line -- the latter puts food on the table, but the former feed our psychology. The risk to either requires persistent forethought and contingency planning.

How do you anticipate the worst yet not succumb to its inevitability? By focusing on the outcome or, as we say around the office, the business benefit.

Departures trigger arrivals. They lead to freah analysis and a realistic view of reputation, opportunity and focus. With benefits such as these, why wait for a departure? Recruiting, interviewing, hiring and reorganizing are ends in themselves.

The key to avoiding the enervating potential of people taking new jobs, is to keep giving people fresh positions and finding new people to join the party; to manage for growth. A former colleague once said, "no one wants to work for a firm that's not growing." He was and remains right.

That does not make departures easier to accept, but it does put them in a practical perspective which, in turn, makes it harder to think the sky is falling.

Travel Triptych (Part 3): The tortoise and the hare

A story told best by the animators at Warner Bros. and played by Bugs Bunny as the hare, the moral is as meaningful today as it was in the ancient Greek. Health, wealth, position and power are not found as much at the end of lightning bolts or rainbows as they are the result of a persistent approach and commitment.

News of another lottery winner succumbing to the same kind of bad choices made before guessing for millions, the sentencing of a high-flying business executive for misdeeds in pursuit of accelerated rewards or the disgrace of an athlete who relied too much on science to perform will be the allegories of this age.

All because it is hard to wait. "They also serve who stand and wait." "If you wait by the side of the river the body of your enemy will float by." "Take two and hit to right." These all seem to arise from earlier eras because they do. Today the urge is more immediate. Yet, while we are egged on by a cult of celebrity, it is a cult of our own making that serves as the rabbit to our greyhound -- the cult of laser focus.

Race horses distracted by fans along the rail (or a bird atop a post) wear blinders to block out what might be right and left. By narrowing the nag’s field of vision, the jockey can make the horse go faster. To win.

We do the same thing, don’t we? People I know (me, too) can fix on a goal and ignore everything else in a pursuit to achieve it. That kind of behavior is rewarded and so reinforced. But at what price?

If success is rooted in what you know and your ability to apply it to the problems, situations, markets and whatever else you encounter, won’t a laser or narrow focus make every problem the classic nail and every solution the same hammer? How can you encourage serendipity when the speed of the pursuit blurs what you might otherwise see?

The accumulation of knowledge can lead to insight which, in turn, can lead to market advantage. The accumulation of wealth can lead to real independence. And the accumulation of colleagues, contacts and friends can create a supportive network.

Fast is good, but not at the expense of growth.

Travel Triptych (Part 2): In praise of cell phones

About 10 years ago I wrapped meetings across the country on a Friday and a Monday into a weekend away. The need to stay up on possible developments in a client matter in the midst of sight-seeing kept me sensitive to pay phones I passed on my day in the hills.

Checking in on a regular schedule did not meet the expectations of the client and, unable to get me at a particular moment’s notice, so when I returned on Tuesday he fired me. That afternoon I got a cell phone. I have carried it (and its successors) ever since.

More than a line, it has become a net. It catches me up when I am running behind, it puts me on the scene when the flight has been cancelled and it cuts through the clutter of the days noise. Even though it can be intrusive (that’s what the vibrate setting is for) and anxiety-provoking (waiting for the phone to ring evokes Wes Craven-like fear), it is only a device. We can choose to use it or abuse it (and those around us).

As I think about the fellow who fired me 10 years ago, I wonder if he knows the long-term positive effect he has had on the way I live. Connected.

Travel Tripych (Part 1): We get the face we deserve

There are a lot fewer smoky bars in America than there used to be. I was in one last night in what may be, if New Orleans is never rebuilt, the last city in America to ever change. Which city? Washington, D.C., of course.

The long barroom that fronts the steakhouse on Capitol Hill was at full speed when I arrived at 8 for dinner with an old friend. While stories of wiretapping, influence peddling, legislative gridlock and the politics of the war in Iraq were playing out on televisions elsewhere, it was all on display, live, along these fifty feet of oak, brass and glass.

Members of Congress milled with petitioners, lobbyists lingered with Hill staffers, former Senators shouldered up to Cabinet undersecretaries of this-or-that and the out-of-towners were little aware. Life was going on in Washington, D.C.

And then there was the smoke. No longer a metaphor for secret, backroom deals, it is now visual evidence of a commitment to practices and preferences no longer broadly admired or emulated.

It is evidence that the city and the industry it represents live separately from the day-to-day concerns of the rest of us. It has become a set-piece; an entertainment; theater, put on six times a week, with a matinee on Wednesday. It has become a long-running play with lines we know by heart.

There seem few people on the scene who recognize the drift of politics to pantomime. Fewer still to step up to stop it. It is an affront to nature.

No, not the trees, rivers and snail darter type of nature, but the nature of people and our progress. As Alex de Touqueville said after his tour of colonial America, we are a nation of joiners. We crave community, we strive to be members of the club, we conform to get picked for the team.

Yet we practice exclusion, restriction, class-ification and (fill-in-the-blank)-phobias that are as a cleaver to our body politic. A niche market, a gated community, a limited edition anything all seem like good ideas, but they erode a shared sense of community and lead, inexorably, to that bar in Washington, D.C.

The nature of things

No one is really "fast on his feet." A man or woman who understands or acts in a flash is really only someone who has prepared to handle what comes. The hard work that goes into the learned arts of knowing a subject and remembering most of what you have seen, heard and done is at the root of what seems like magic to many.

Running a business is a constant test of these attributes.

Every customer contact is a high-stakes interaction that requires a calm commitment to balancing market savvy, business model, organizational emphathy and bottom line recommendations.

The cost of replacing people is so much higher than the value of their salary and benefits that it demands a rapport, support and flexibility that can run counter to the needs of customer contact.

Pursuing new business opportunities requires a heightened level of focus and attention that can make that flexibility brittle.

And investing in it all is a guess at tomorrow's revenue when no day has ever been what you thought it would be. How can you prepare for what you can't predict? Because while what might happen on any given day may come as a surprise, there is little that someone has not seen before.

Rely on what persists over time. Understand what works, why and when -- the nature of things. Anticipate problems and have solutions in the queue. Create systems to offer an early warning for what has vexed other companies. Embrace the informal communications networks, but don't supplant the official ones. Engage people.

In talking to people about this, it becomes clear that success requires a full-time commitment. To a handful of folks this means erasing the line between work and personal time. To a growing number of people (I can give you their names), though, it means integrating who they are into what they do.

Think about the companies and colleagues you count on. Are they "fast on their feet" or just better prepared?

Overhearing the truth (maybe)

A new coffee shop just opened at a nearby marina. It offers the requisite range of espresso drinks and compatible pastries, bagels and breakfast sandwiches. Business seems to be good, perhaps because the shop offers a cozy setting inside and seating outside on a lawn that rolls to the water’s edge. Nice.

It makes one think about those places in the Keys (and elsewhere, I suppose) where boats can tie up at a restaurant’s dock. I mean, with all the navigable water out the back door, might be true here. Heck, it probably is true.

Today, a fellow follows me into the shop. His jacket catches my eye; it proclaims his membership on a local, sports championship team. As I collect my cup, he catches the eye of the owner to my left. I hear little of the conversation, but I do hear this: “You can tie right up next to it.”

A ha, my supposition is confirmed. Yeah, right. The only thing confirmed was the willingness to believe as true what we think up. We reinforce what we think by putting great weight on the things we hear that are in-line with what we thought in the first place.

Paul Simon got it right: A man (and a woman) does hear what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Pursuing other interests

Early this week I read the obituary of the firm that used to sign my checks. The company had followed a now-familiar arc: founded confidently with early customer commitments, fast-growing in a hot market, took on costs in advance of revenue, downsized to balance the books when the market cooled and then, when too many bad decisions piled up, was forced it to sell itself to survive. Now it’s gone; its people folded into a sister firm.

Press reports noted the CEO would not make the jump, but instead move on “to pursue other interests.” Even if the code phrase were not so common that it still required a key, those of us who know would not be fooled by the misdirection. The CEO had no other interests.

I was surprised the news provoked no satisfaction. The future was clear three years ago when many of us moved on; why no “I told me so” moment? Instead the emotion was sadness because it did not have to be this way.

The old firm was full of smart, committed people. It had a good market reputation. The economy for its products and services had begun its rebound. And every one in the industry was in the same boat; no one had a structural advantage. So what happened?

The CEO who now has so much free time, didn’t take the time to listen. There was too much talking; and no one learns by talking, particularly in business which is a team sport. Without a real “back-and-forth,” lessons are never learned, opportunities are lost and the brightest future dims.

The best businesses are linked by a shared commitment to a mission, market and method. Try it any other way and we’re all independent contractors, just renting a table at the flea market.

Simple and difficult

I got a call out of the blue last week from a woman whom I first hired 10 years ago. We worked together for about two years or so but have been on our own flight paths since. A bad relationship and a bad accident led her to return to this coast about six months ago. With a new outlook, new beau and a good job in the transition, she called to begin the networking required for finding the right new job.

We sat at a nearby Starbucks on Friday (January 6 and they are already marketing Valentine's Day goodies) and did the requisite note-comparing and name-dropping that serves as the the appetizer for most business meals and traded near-inside information so as to earn each other's trust. She wanted to know if I could help her make a professional move to a new industry and a new kind of company.

It was a question that ought to have been answered "no" sixteen ways. Companies are cautious; it is unlikely they'd take a chance on an industry novice for a job anything akin to the one she holds. Companies are budget-conscious; the looser the link between revenue and a staff position, the less likely it will be filled. Companies are trend-followers; one has to act before the others will and no one wants to be first. Companies don't fill strategic jobs with candidates off the street; only familiarity breed contentment.

What struck me by the time our coffee had gone cold, was that none of these are insurmountable. It all depends on her ability to identify people who have those qualities and whom she can identify, enlist and rally to her cause. Think of it as a mixed metaphor drawn from Sun's Scott McNealy and Clinton advisor James Carville; "It's the network, stupid."

The two names I gave her were the sum total of my contacts who could help, but if they are only two of many referred from others in her network, she is well on her way to getting introduced to the right people by the right people at the right time for the right job. It seems simple, but it is really hard work.

Staying in touch with people; never burning bridges unless you have to; remembering what you've seen, heard, read and said; and being will to play the role for others, too, is a good way to create that network of support.

What seemed an insoluble problem when we sat down, became less calculus and more arithmetic by the time we parted. I wished her well. But I forgot to thank her for reminding (teaching?) me that the best way to meet the people you don't know is to talk to the people you do.

Simple and difficult.

One thing leads to another

This morning's post made me sensitive to the way people use movie references in daily conversation. We were talking about a bit of company craziness and after exhasting words to describe his frustration he said: "Chinatown."

That "she's my daughter, she's my sister" movie, built on shenanigans over water in Southern California, offered that one word as the only possible explanation when things can't be explained.

It reminded me of another movie sentiment that can be used as a filter for explaining quite a lot of business chatter. It comes from "The Big Kahuna," a Spacey/DeVito vehicle:

"It doesn't matter if you're selling Jesus, Buddha, or industrial lubricants. That doesn't make you a human being; that makes you a marketing rep. As soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it's not a conversation anymore, it's a pitch. And you're not a human being, you're a marketing rep."

Forearmed and forewarned.

Is it safe?

Old advice to a fellow entering the workforce was, "Never talk about money, politics or religion." The subjects were seen as divisive; sand in the commercial gearbox. And making waves at work was no way to get ahead.

Until recently, it was OK to bar certain subjects from the cubes, hallways and lunch tables because there was so much else we could easily agree to discuss. Areas of cultural consent or genial disagreement were not so rare as they are today that they need to be labeled "events." Sports, highway construction projects, automobiles, vacation spots, the lives of famous people and, of course, the movies all qualified.

Over time, the taboo trio have seeped from the cabinet in which they have been kept to affect and shorten that list. Money, politics and religion have become contentious elements of most everything we do, say, hear or see. Witness Terrell Owens (sports), Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" (highway construction), the Prius and the Hummer (automobiles), Acheh and Cuba (vacation spots)and Mel Gibson and Angelina Jolie (the lives of famous people). We don't even have the movies anymore.

When Laurence Olivier maliciously drilled Dustin Hoffman's tooth in the search for an answer to the simple question: "Is it safe?," we all felt the pain. When Humphrey Bogart told Dooley Wilson, "You played it for her, you can play it for me. Play it," we all felt his anger. And when Paul Newman said to Robert Redford, "I got 20/20 and the world wears bifocals," we all felt equally underappreciated.

The financial reports on who and how many of us go to the movies is evidence of the hypothesis that they are less and less of a bond. Instead of venturing out with a crowd of citizen strangers, we are more likely to hunker down at home. More than further squeezing the potential for serendipity out of our lives, it makes the experience more "mine" and less "ours." It makes us less willing to start a conversation with anyone we are not sure shares our views and more likely to take offense when we hear something other than is in our own heads. Even if you are willing to take the plunge, like Olivier, you likely ask yourself, "Is it safe?"

What does this leave us with as the source of a cultural event? It may be that the only thing left which does not immediately label or polarize us is the weather. It affects us all; yet none of us can do anything about it. It is not a plot; nor is it a campaign. It has no social agenda and is without political goal. True, it can be leveraged for profit or political gain, but it is not predictible enough to bank on.

The weather. The rain, the snow, the heat, the humidity. All safe, for now.

Resolving Serendipity

The first day of the New Year is in the books. In retrospect it didn't look much different than most of the days of the last year. But the sameness that aids-and-abets sanity and stability shouldn't be used as a shield against serendipity.

Most of us do a good job structuring our days (you have a to-do list?) and committing to our habits. It gives us a sense of control in what is otherwise a whirlwind. From the moment I bought my first Palm Pilot from Jeff Hawkins' mom at Agenda, I have been sensitive to the power of the PDA to allow us to exert even more control; and wirelessly. But there is a cost.

Personal technology gives us the sense that we can manage the chaos out of our day. The BlackBerry (sorry, Jeff) is essential, nipping business problems in the bud and spotting opportunities that appear as mere specks on the horizon by turning e.mail into real-time communication. Tivo is indespensible, allowing us to timeshift television so that we can watch what we want to watch -- on our schedule. Primetime at 2 a.m. is a blow against the man! iPods are palliative, allowing us to tune in to what we want to hear even as we tune out what we might hear. Taken together, they let us do more in a day that anyone thought possible even five years ago. Think about 10.

But setting the parameters of our devices may do as much to isolate us as it does to help us cope. We can only set parameters based on what we know now. What about the Rumsfeldian "unknown unknowns?" How do we give ourselves a chance to benefit from chance if we program our devices and our lives -- personal and professional -- for control? How can we, on this first day of the New Year, resolve to encourage serendipity?

Oh, it happens now from time-to-time. Talking to strangers on a line at the airport, DMV or Best Buy can yield some prettty good insights into customer service and product quality. Listening to the radio in the cab, at the hair cuttery or coffee shop can introduce new music and ideas from the other end of the political spectrum. Watching the ads that support free televison or the programs actually on at 2 a.m. are reminders that it truly does take all kinds.

But building serendipity into our devices is a lot more difficult. Even the RSS feeds we request, from mediated sources or the unruly blogosphere, don't rise to the level of "learning by accident." We can turn our devices off; for a few hours at first, then a day, then a weekend. But Monday comes.

The trick might be in that serendipity requires we be open to it ("if a tree falls in the forest..."). It only makes sense. And even though we have five senses. we mostly rely on a sixth -- talking. What would happen if we resolved to bring the first five to bear on our day? I think the chance to benefit from seredipity would increase five-fold while the ability to manage our days would not diminish a bit.

I am counting on it starting tomorrow.