Category Archives: Alan’s Monday Morning Memo

January 30, 2012—Issue #123

This week’s focus point: Be judicious in terms of those to whom you choose to listen and heed. Very few pundits and prognosticators are ever held accountable for their predictions, whether financial, social, political, or technological. Most who claimed they “predicted” the Great Recession were “predicting” it for 20 years. I hardly find that useful. Those who said Steve Jobs’s departure would devastate Apple are seeing record performance numbers from that company, but if it stumbles in six years they’ll claim they predicted it. Most of us are far better served by not trying to forecast the future but rather by performing well in the present, in the moment. Because I will tell you this about tomorrow, assuming the sun continues to shine and the earth continues in orbit: There will be people in search of value for which they will gladly pay a fair price. Adjust your value to the need, or create need around your value. That should take care of tomorrow rather nicely (along with purchasing Apple stock).

Monday Morning Perspective: He who doesn’t turn runs far. — Chinese proverb

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January 23, 2012—Issue #122

This week’s focus point: I’ve read that Picasso’s mother told him that he would become Pope if he joined the clergy, and a general if he joined the military. But he reported that he preferred art and “I became Picasso.” The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright said, “I once had the choice between hypocritical humility and honest arrogance, chose the latter, and have never regretted it.” I’m suggesting that, short of tedious smugness, we take some time to recognize our strengths and build on them. Too much of “self-help” is about correcting weakness, as if we’re all somehow damaged. Organizations and individuals grow by building on strength. And if you don’t blow your own horn, there is no music.

Monday Morning Perspective: Without great solitude, no serious work is possible. — Picasso

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January 16, 2012—Issue #121

This week’s focus point: You can teach people the content of a business, but you can’t teach them enthusiasm. You can instruct them in the rules and regulations, but not optimism. You can delegate authority but not self-directedness. What kind of people are you (or your clients) hiring, and what type of environment is created to sustain the behaviors you most need manifest? Enthusiasm, optimism, and motivation will be extinguished or driven away by those who fear these traits and try to manage and control them. But they will lead a business forward when sought and nurtured.

Monday Morning Perspective: To write a book is to risk being shot at. — Stendhal

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January 9, 2012—Issue #120

This week’s focus point: Has anyone thought about a strategy for education? In corporate strategy, we paint a picture of the future and then “work backwards” to determine how to organize to reach it (which is why “planning” is anathema, since it extrapolates from the present, and “strategic planning” is an oxymoron). Why don’t we start with a picture of future, productive work forces (knowledge-based, technical skills, globalized, working remotely, diverse stimuli, automated routine chores, etc.) and create both professional and trade education that will support it? Our current cookie-cutter concepts of curricula don’t work now and aren’t preparing students for the future. That’s one of the reasons home schooling has grown so rapidly and is so effective. Organizations don’t reach strategic goals by using techniques that led to old goals. They develop new techniques, resources, and ideas. Classic education is an example of an almost complete lack of innovation over centuries.

Monday Morning Perspective: If you can do it, it ain’t braggin’. — Former baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean

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January 2, 2012—Issue #119

This week’s focus point: Start your OWN year today. Don’t worry about the North Korean succession or the price of gas. Stop listening to doom and gloom financial analysts and ignore the pundits pontificating about elections. Think about what YOU can control and act upon to improve your life, business, and relationships. Think about abundance, not poverty; of opportunity and not impediment; of control and not victimization. Welcome to YOUR year.

Monday Morning Perspective: Don’t pity the martyrs. They like the job. — Humorist George Ade

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December 27, 2011—Issue #118

This week’s focus point: In the U.S., housing has bottomed out and shows small improvements. Retail sales are up four percent from last year’s holiday period, surpassing projections. The market is over 12,000 as I write this. Unemployment is marginally reduced. The Europeans seem to be figuring out how to shore up the euro and avoid national defaults. These events don’t represent radical improvement, perhaps, but they do represent progress. You’d never know from most media outlets. Beware of people paid to be cynics, promoted for skepticism, mavens of catastrophe. Unsurprisingly, they become quite good at it and incapable of seeing or reporting anything else.

Monday Morning Perspective: Justice, I think is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don’t believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodations concretely. — Justice Learned Hand

Happy New Year!

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December 19, 2011—Issue #117

This week’s focus point: I’m writing this deliberately before the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots meet in a football game later today. If Denver quarterback Tim Tebow is on the winning side, with a record of 7-1 to this point, at 8-1 people will say he’s the “real thing” since the Patriots are a strong team. If he loses, all of his detractors will say, “I told you so.” But do you know what he’ll be properly called if his team loses? He’ll be called 7-2, still pretty fine! Leadership doesn’t have to be technically perfect. Leaders from Grant at Vicksburg to Welch at GE have made errors, and plenty of them. Leaders don’t have to charm people. Steve Jobs seldom did. Leadership is seldom about hierarchical position, expertise, or the ability to reward and punish. It’s about “referent power”: I admire you, believe in you, and intend to follow you. That results in commitment and not mere compliance. And it means ignoring the detractors who can’t even play the game.

Monday Morning Perspective: A man blowing a trumpet successfully is a rousing spectacle. — Rhys Davies (Welsh writer)

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

December 12, 2011—Issue #116

This week’s focus point: Brevity isn’t merely the soul of wit (Hamlet). We seem obsessed with telling people everything we know rather than what they need to know (hence, all those boring undergraduate lectures). Keep two factors in mind in business: speed and brevity. The more quickly you help others, the more valuable you are. Of course, that entails the suppression of ego and a true focus on helping, and a strong self-esteem that doesn’t require that you continually prove how smart you are. Enough said.

Monday Morning Perspective: If an offense come out of the truth, better it is that the offense come than that the truth be concealed. — St. Jerome, cited by John Toland in “Captured by History”

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

December 5, 2011—Issue #115

This week’s focus point: The lessons from American Airlines’ bankruptcy include learning for all of us: You can’t build staggering debt loads to finance yourself; there has never been a long-term example of unhappy employees and happy customers, so establish constructive labor relations; you lead from the front, not within the pack; and you don’t cut your way to growth (removing pillows and olives is beyond stupid, it’s amateurish). What practices do your clients employ? What do you, yourself, do? Grab a pillow, eat an olive, and invest in your employee and customer relations.

Monday Morning Perspective: The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

November 28, 2011—Issue #114

This week’s focus point: I’m just back from Australia, and heading to Canada to make a speech. Earlier this year I was in Germany and Italy. We are living in a global economy (as the markets reflect every morning), with more similarities than dissimilarities. As an entrepreneur, how much effort are you investing in becoming a global presence? Whether in person, remotely, through alliances, or by attracting people to you, your value and your impact are not circumscribed by national borders. As kids we were sometimes afraid to “step over the line.” We’re not kids any more, and we’re not confined to our backyards.

Monday Morning Perspective: We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others. — Le Duc de La Rochefoucauld

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© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved