I know who you are.

I love the Coquitlam SuperStore on Westwood Street. Good service, bright, clean, they have everything you can think of, quality, and good prices. I cook and find the meat and seafood are exceptional.

Assuming you've never bought any produce at SuperStore you might agree with me. If you have bought produce, you know they can't sell you a fresh potato if their life depended on it. Everything else, they're pretty good at.

I park in the underground parkade and am facing a sign which says, "vehicle maintenance repairs are not permitted." Only slightly disoriented, I knew that had to be life changing for somebody.

What happened that made SuperStore decide these signs are necessary? Management had a meetings, powerpoint was involved, somebody made the case that their underground parking lot was turning into an unauthorized and unprofitable repair underworld. Signs had to go up.

What volume of do-it-yourselfer auto repair was going on that drove SuperStore to the brink and forced them put a stop to it! Signs, lots of "no more car repair!" signs. Was it guys pulling transmissions? Rotating tires? Changing their oil? I'd like to know. Next thing you know some Audi owner will be offended by his down-market parking neighbor slithering out from under his Dodge Ram.

The management lesson.

People will tell you who they are, even if they don't intend to. We are the experiences we value. If I tell you my experiences, I also tell you who I am, my values. Whether you're dealing with your children, your neighbor, dating, hiring, or managing, a casual conversation will tell you exactly who the other person is. All you have to do is listen and dealing with them will be much simpler!

Today, SuperStore and I are a bit cool towards each other. The love has dimmed. Life, (in this case SuperStore) was telling me something about myself. I was shopping in a place where customers do their own repair work in the parking lot. I guess SuperStore knows who I am.

Simply talking about shopping SuperStore, means I'm giving out a lot more information about who I am, than I had intended.

Great people make great companies! Choose wisely.
Wolfgang

---

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Why diamonds are like donuts.

Watch the evening news and wait for commodity prices to include diamonds. You won't see it. Markets don't trade diamonds. You and I sell houses and cars, but not diamonds. We can specify a price for copper and gold, but not for diamonds. Jewellers may talk price per carat, but where does that number come from?

In 2011 Wired did a piece on synthetic diamonds. A jeweller was presented with two gem sized yellow lab grown diamonds and couldn't tell if they were real or not. The price could have been $250,000 or $100. Each gem was created in a lab for about $100.

Diamonds like donuts, tend to stay off the market once sold. A commodity is something people buy and sell, anything useful. And that's why a diamond is not a commodity. The last person to buy your diamond turns out to be you. Diamonds, like donuts, rarely see second owners.

In 1990 DeBeers controlled 80% of the world's diamond market, down to about 35% today. Diamonds are an industry to be sure. They are just not an investment. The life of a Coach handbag, a donut and a diamond very much stops once you buy it.

Maybe that's what they mean by, "diamonds are forever." You will keep it forever because you can't really sell it. What is a diamond worth? Whatever you paid for it.

Seeing the obvious, seeing that the emperor really doesn't have clothes. Running companies, hiring managers. A pope gives two weeks notice, your accountant gives you a month. Obama thinks Boehner is the president and wants him to solve the budget cut problems. If 46 of your employees paid back expenses to avoid conflict, what would you do? That's exactly what 46 Canadian senators have done since 2010. Hyundai's engineering is on par with Audi, but the price is 30% lower. Can you see what's going on?

The management lesson here is that most of what we think is true, just ain't so. The second lesson is, if you just listen and watch very carefully, most of the information you need will present itself.

This week the USA housing market is showing huge gains. BC is looking good, and 2013 will be a great year.

Diamonds, donuts, who knew they were the same?
Wolfgang 

Leave the car at home. Your plate ends in "6"

Bags packed, ready to disappear for a couple of weeks to Puerto Vallarta. When the aircraft's wheels leave the ground, my body physically relaxes. I have official permission to let go. Nothing can be done except go with the flow.

It's 5:30 am, time to leave for the airport. Start the car, load my bags, check my license plate number. Today all plate numbers ending in "6" aren't allowed on the road. Pollution problems, Vancouver now alternates who gets to drive depending on your plate number.

My plate PAX 206. You're kidding me, right? I can't use my car today? A cold sweat begins to form. My choices are to call a cab or risk driving my own car, possibly get a huge fine and be taken of the road.

Somewhere there was an alarm ringing. An emergency. I turned off my iPhone wakeup alarm. I was dreaming. In my dream I confused Vancouver with Bogota.

Life is good, relax. It's Vancouver. We can drive any day of the week we like, any time of day, anywhere! I checked in early, my car was safe with the Park 'n Fly bandits who'd wash it for me by the time I returned.

Human rights atrocities in China? Financial corruption in Russia? Greek unemployment at 27%? Afghanistan bombing? I'm so grateful I live in Vancouver, all these other things don't mean much right now. I'm glad I can get to the airport and into the Mexican sun.

In the end, life happens at a human scale. Life is not global, it's local. My life is about as good as this moment. The same holds true for every person who works for you. They don't need policies or vision, they just want their daily lives to be meaningful, respectful and happy. 

Manage people at a human level, take care of the little things, keep relationships considerate and happy. It's not much more complicated than that.

Let's build great companies, one human at a time.
Wolfgang

p.s. Bogota, capital city of Colombia. Eight million people, 9,000 foot elevation, some similarity to Vancouver, just a few degrees warmer. New airport, but driving days are staggered depending on your license plate number. You can't just drive whenever you want.

p.s. I care about the world. But I can only care if my own life is in order. When the little things are not in place, the big things are out of reach.

"Why Stupid People Get Hired"

Can you have fun with wikipedia? Let's try. There is a tiny book entitled, "Why Stupid Can you have fun with Wikipedia? Let's try. There is a tiny book entitled: "Why Stupid People Get Hired." I Googled it for reviews. The title is worth a million dollars but what's in it? Wikipedia popped up on the subject. I'm not new to stupidity but I am new to the amount of thinking that's been done on the subject.

Who knew historian Carlo Cipolla wrote an essay on the laws of human stupidity? Having a lifelong sympathy for the hand most managers have been dealt, I hope the following eases your pain and helps your understanding of the people that surround you. Here are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity.

1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
3. A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.

It's one of those time release concepts. You feel superior at first reading, then you pause and realize stupid is a bell curve thing. Somebody has to be on the left side of the curve. Looking around, - could it be me?

The management take away.

1. Stupid is contextual. Forrest Gump was brilliant in his own way, and at running.
2. Nobody needs a smart dog. All of mankind's problems happen because some person couldn't stay at home, in their room and just keep quiet. Smart dogs will bring you a leash, push to be taken for a walk, and generally take over your day.
3. Companies need people who keep the trains running. Stupid or smart are not relevant. Reliable, predictable, loyal, - in many roles these are the most important characteristics.

We live in a clever world. It's entertaining but not always necessary. That said, smart is one good way to get out of many situations.

I know I haven't helped you, but like me, you're probably thinking.

Let's build great companies,
Wolfgang

p.s. It's a real book title, "Why Stupid People Get Hired." I found a copy at PBK Executive Reports. So far, I like the content.

p.s. Carlo, - you are so correct.

Walmart, and the Problem with Two Million of Anything.

Walmart, 2.2 million employees, $447 billion in revenues. To put it into context, the Catholic Church does $170 billion. Walmart is the size of two other countries, Argentina and Apple.

Not having firsthand experience with anything 2 billion, my generation willingly confuses abstract with real life. Occupy Main Street, though mostly unemployed are certain they know how to run the economy. Brands are purchased to make us stand out from the crowd, when in reality we become the crowd. Our presidents and priests have no practical experience in what they teach, but many seek them out equally for guidance and joke fodder.

Problem is, in some strange way it all sort of works and I'm grateful to live here. Grateful we're bolted to the world's cop. If there was a 90 mile sea channel between us and the USA, Canadians too would be driving 1959 Plymouths and Gretzky may, or not have made it over in an inner tube.

"OUR Walmart" as I understand it, is a union guided movement without official union organizing going on. Sort of a Sun Tzu, - to win a war without fighting one - idea.

Walmart's sheer bulk has pushed to the edges of its business model. You can't have 2.2 of anything without somebody getting interested in what you're doing. The history of Walmart's employee relations is not good. The low and then still lower pricing model requires low labour costs and huge flexibility which you can only squeeze from a part time, entry level workforce and that's not where thirty year veterans want to stay.

Sixty years, right on time. Disneyland had the same union problem on its sixtieth birthday. The saucer ride operator found he couldn't raise a family in Anaheim forgetting he started at age 16, a summer job helping tourists onto the pink spinning saucers. His manager, fearful of turnover, preferring peace over stretch, let the young ride operator ride for 20 years never dreaming at some point, the employee would sincerely believe he owned the job.

The management lesson about not growing people is this. Grow people's capabilities and responsibilities. If you keep them in the same position for too many years, the will at some point tell you what the job and the salary has to be. They will believe they own their job.

Productivity and quality never increase in the twentieth year of either marriage or work.

Low turnover is possible when you leave people in their comfort zone. We all like warm, cozy, and comfortable. When you raise the bar, you also begin to think about retention.

Be like VW, not Lincoln. Don't talk about your past, talk about your future. Think what's next, be different, dissatisfied, anxious, push the limits. Domestic cars will never win as long as they sport their old badges. Those badges remind us of their failed history.

A strong economy can mislead us into thinking we're great managers. Maybe. Maybe not. Rising tide, boats in the harbour, you know the story.



I don't mean to take this Walmart analogy any further than to point out that if employees don't grow in their roles, over time they truly believe the only problem at work is you. Develop, grow, train up, and expand people in their roles. They'll be happier and you'll have labour peace.

Let's build great companies!
Wolfgang

Michael Buble or Andre Rieu?

Every year around this time, sooner or later I'm asking myself the same question, - who is Andre Rieu and how did he learn his stage craft from Liberace? These are the questions which tell you you're watching the wrong channel. Click. Wait a minute, isn't Andre just like many other problem employees? Pretty good at what he does but annoying as heck?

A few years back I held a seminar entitled, "How to Manage the Oklahoma Bomber." McViegh was another "problem employee." What got my attention was that in the US military McViegh served in the Persian Gulf with honor, and was awarded a Bronze star! After the military, he committed this atrocity. Later, in prison he becomes a model prisoner again. What gives? Structure, freedom, structure. Given freedom he becomes a bad guy. With structure, he became a good guy.

We all have at least one problem employee, and some of them we can recover with tighter structure. Difficult employees have such a negative effect on industry I think any economic turnaround plan should stipulate that nasty people stay home. Canada's GDP would skyrocket!

Companies are not institutions, (such as the military and prisons) who are free to use these structure tools to get good behavior out of otherwise, very nasty people. But let's look at what they do. They reduce or take away degrees of freedom. In business, we reduce subjective decision making range.

They control the person's time. In business, we micro manage, we move closer.

Control their activities. At work we tighten job descriptions and roles.

Increased reporting and relentless surveillance. Managers start directing closely, telling people what needs to be done.

They control their peer group. At work this becomes more difficult but we can break up a nest of like minded problem people.

They control the individual's social life and best friend. At work we're limited to watching for cliques or packs and physically distancing them.



Ken Blanchard went down the same road, he called it Situational Leadership, (required reading). Still true.

I'm sure I'm doing Mr. Rieu a disservice by including him in this story. He's probably not that bad a guy. However, not willing to take a chance, I recorded Michael Buble's Christmas concert. Great, wonderful, fun! I like the guy.

Let's build great companies!

Happy New Year,
Wolfgang

p.s. The Chao plan. Succession planning. Random, how to maintain the culture it's taken you a lifetime to build. How to build in accountability. Defining a key management group. Building a dashboard, (KPIs) so you can manage the company from the beach with your smart phone. Number of shares. Buyouts only from growth money, not profit. If you want to know more, email me at wolf@managing.ca Chao.

You didn't notice the lights were different sizes?

Humans, not just managers, have a problem letting go of control. It's what we do!

Our neighbor was on a tirade because her husband messed up putting the Christmas lights on their house. I had noticed him on previous days, he was trying hard, I admired his ambition. Up the ladder, move the ladder, install clips, he was out there working for a long time. He plugged in the lights, eureka, beautiful! Even Rudolph lit up.

We meet sometimes early on garbage day. This time she was angry, frustrated, at her wits end. She sounded ready for divorce. Apparently, her husband, who I thought had done a heck of nice job, hadn't noticed the lights were two different sizes. Different bulbs! Shivers ran through me. My neighbor's relationship, years of marriage, it was all up in the air. I was sure realtors would arrive and a for sale sign was going up on his lawn. It had to be that way. After-all, the man couldn't be trusted to use the same size Christmas lights for the front of his house.

With my philosopher hat on, I thought, - how dumb is this? Who really cares? It's the little things which kill relationships, at home and at work. Nit picky, hair splitting, granular, angry, intense irrelevance twisted to dominate the other guy. And then we wonder why we have a morale, turnover, or divorce problem. It will be six months before these two kiss again.

There are several management delegation lessons here. Don't sweat the small stuff. People all do things differently than you. Worry about what they did, not how they did it. If you do have a quality concern, then build it into the requirements when you delegate.

I know my neighbor. I know he's not evil. If he had been told not to confuse the light bulb sizes and keep same size bulbs together, he would have gladly done it. A lot of delegation suffers from the same problem. Afterthoughts, adding requirements after we've given the order and then blaming the person we delegated it to.

Some points on using milestones to avoid delegation problems, - before it's too late! Use milestones. Milestones are markers that allow you to adjust the project before completion.

If you don't hit the deliverables, you probably also missed the milestones.

Milestones give distance and direction information.

Milestones tell us decision consequences and allow you to adjust the project.

Milestones are actually project structure. They are building blocks.

If you have good milestones, you'll delegate and maintain control.



The real lesson is, - lighten up, smile more. Things just go better at home and at work! Let the little things slide. The lights are up, the downside is minimal, go get some eggnog.

Merry Christmas!
Wolfgang

p.s. Merry Christmas, or whatever your excuse for taking time off.

p.s Assembling the A Team. Unique, hard to fill, exceptional.
Building key management and professional teams. What if you deliberately set out to hire the only right person for the job? What would happen to your company? If every role on your key management team had the most perfect player in it. If every professional slot had the most sophisticated brainpower in it. What then? Email me, I'll send you my thinking on it. I'll tell you why and how I do it. Email wolf@managing.ca.