Make Crazy Moves

I dropped into my Ur-Starbucks this week and was reminded, you can't go home again.

The once-sparkling and cozy suburban store, where I spent many an hour reading, writing, ruminating and conversing with friends and strangers, is now bleak and unwelcoming.

No matter their age, businesses decline not merely because their standards flag, but because the formula that worked so brilliantly in the first place becomes an excuse to avoid risk.

Meanwhile, 67 year-old singer Robert Plant is on a world tour, belting out experimental post-metal songs, disco tunes, and newly interpreted rock classics, including some from Led Zeppelin's catalog rendered in Celtic style.

In his review of Plant's show, music critic Brian Ives praises the singer for dodging a Led Zeppelin reunion, "despite the fact that it would surely be worth tens of millions of dollars to him." Plant instead has taken the road less traveled.

"There’s a lesson to be learned," Ives says, "and not just for musicians, or even artists."

Before the end, no one's story is ever over, he says. No one's bound to an original formula. You're a work in progress and can re-imagine yourself, at any age.

"You can make crazy moves, change the way you’re doing things, and bust out of your comfort zone," Ives says.

"Listen to music you’ve never listened to before. Go to a restaurant that serves food you’ve never tried. Hang out with people you don’t know that well. Learn a new skill. Your story isn’t over."

Too Much Information. Not.

E-com exec Hiroshi Mikitani says you can't get too much info.

“If anything, to be successful, one must embrace all kinds of information, all the time.”

Mikitani cites a passage from the 16th-century Book of Five Rings, by samurai-author Miyamoto Musashi.

Observing a carpenter at work, Musashi sees ways for readers to sharpen their skills:

The carpenter will make it a habit of maintaining his tools sharp so they will cut well. Using these sharp tools masterfully, he can make miniature shrines, writing shelves, tables, paper lanterns, chopping boards and pot-lids. These are the specialties of the carpenter. Things are similar for the soldier. You ought to think deeply about this.

"Answers and ideas are often hidden within completely unrelated things," Mikitani says. 

To spot them, you must approach the world with curiosity.

"There is nothing in the world unrelated to your life. That fire hose of information that douses you constantly is a blessing, not a curse."

The point? 

Stay open for inspiration.

The Role of Chance

Business is frightfully competitive. So we tend to believe only the fittest survive.

But success may take more luck than pluck.

Investment strategist Michael Mauboussin thinks so.

He claims we're too quick to discount the role chance plays in business.

“People attempt to extract lessons from what is mostly a random process,” Mauboussin tells readers of Inc.

“Once something has been successful, we start to believe it was the only thing that could have happened.”

By idolizing business winners, Mauboussin says, we forget there were others who followed the same strategies, but failed.

Remembering those failures helps you “keep your mind open to other possibilities,” he says.

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould observed the same thing in nature. Gould thought chance was a deciding factor in the evolution of life on earth.

He based his conclusions on fossilized animals discovered in Canada’s Burgess Shale.

The animals in the Burgess Shale were all exquisitely suited to their environment. But none left modern descendants.

From the fact, Gould concluded that fitness is no guarantee of survival.

Survival is really a matter of luck.

The Phenomenology of Selling

Journalist Philip Broughton has written The Art of the Sale, far and away the best book on sales I've ever read.

Good old-fashioned reporting is the reason for the book's success.

"There are more lies told about selling than any other aspect of business life," Broughton writes in the introduction. "So I went in search of some truths."

Along the way, Broughton interviews dozens of top-flight sales executives—including Tony Sullivan (The Smart Mop), Ted Leonsis (AOL), Jeffrey Gitomer (Little Red Book of Selling), Larry Gagosian (Gagosian Gallery), Augie Turak (MTV), Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com) and Howard Anderson (Yankee Group)—in hopes of learning what makes a great salesperson tick.

He uncovers a ton of truths and, in the end, learns that, "The traits required to sell (resilience, conviction, persistence, and likability) are not just needed in business, but in life."

Rather than a quilt of Ziglar-esque adages or some impossible-to-grasp system, The Art of the Sale offers a phenomenology of selling.

If you have to drive revenue, the picture Broughton paints will inspire.

The Secrets of Teamwork

Thomas Edison's great grandniece has penned Midnight Lunch, a 300-page book that reveals the inventor's four-faceted approach to teamwork.

• Edison built teams from diverse disciplines. The team that invented the lightbulb included chemists, mathmeticians and glassblowers.
  
  
• The inventorlearned from his mistakes. After state and local governments rejected his electronic vote recorder, Edison decided to focus exclusively on consumer products.
  
  
• Edison's vision kept the teams on track. When team members floundered or disagreed, the boss quickly intervened, deciding the course.
  
  
• Edison changed direction with the market. Other inventors of the day ignored the fact that consumers wanted products powered by electricity—and they failed.

It's All Copy

Nora Ephron once told Vanity Fair that on her deathbed Ephron's writer-mother said, "'No matter what happens, it's all copy."

When troubles beset you, are you able to say the same thing?

Historians Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni recently told readers of Forbes the world is ready for a return to Stoicism, the philosophy practiced by ancient Romans.

"Stoicism tells us that no happiness can be secure if it's rooted in changeable, destructible things," the historians wrote.

"Our bank accounts can grow or shrink, our careers can prosper or falter, even our loved ones can be taken from us. There is only one place the world can't touch: our inner selves."

While the world might rob us of everything, the Stoic calmly says, "It's all copy."

"Stoicism teaches us that, before we try to control events, we have to control ourselves first. Our attempts to exert influence on the world are subject to chance, disappointment, and failure—but control of the self is the only kind that can succeed 100 percent of the time."

Got Stoicism?

It's. All. Copy.

Burned Out?

Too busy to perform your job well?

Join the crowd.

New research by Towers Watson reveals that, thanks to workforce cutbacks during the past five years, "employees feel overwhelmed by seemingly impossible workloads and endless demands on their time."

That stress is driving four in every ten employees to "disengage" from their jobs.

Towers Watson suggests that employers need to stop trying to squeeze more out of people and start concentrating on their fundamental need for down-time.

What should employers do?

Towers Watson says they should allow flexible work-schedules, encourage telecommuting, and permit workers to curtail the length of meetings and the hours during which they'll answer emails.

Ironically, while many employers promote wellness programs that offer incentives to employees who exercise, diet or manage chronic illnesses, the same employers are harming their employees with overwork, Towers Watson says.

Thumb Like It Hot

Marketing agency owner Dave Kerpen has followed his first book, Likeable Social Media, with a readable companion, Likeable Business.

The 200-page book sets out to prove Kerpen's thesis that, to run a successful business in chatty times, "businesspeople must be obsessed with their customers and prospects, and always do right by them." The book draws out eleven "principles for a likeable business" that if followed "together make for more likeable leaders and better, more customer-centric organizations."

None of the principles Kerpen sets forth are new (in fact, they've been covered ad nauseam by scores of other writers). But true to his second principle ("Tell great stories"), he includes hundreds of present-day examples that more than justify the time spent reading the book.

Typical of these is the tale of an "authentic" CEO who handed an employee $25,000 after the worker stole that amount in goods from the company, saying, "I must not have given you enough of a bonus last year if you had to steal from us" (the CEO grew up poor and understood the motives for theft). Or the "transparent" CEO who keeps open her firm's financials for every employee and supplier to see, to ensure that "the team maintains its democratic culture."

However, some of Kerpen's stories—namely the ones about himself—make you wonder why his clients trust him with their reputations. The author has committed some real boners. Those stories are another reason to pick up Likeable Business.

Want to Be More Productive? Sit Around.

Meditation makes you more productive, says consultant Peter Bregman in Harvard Business Review.

Meditation increases your ability to resist counterproductive urges, such as the urge to interrupt other speakers; to procrastinate; or to play office politics.

"If you can resist your urges, you can make better, more thoughtful decisions," Bregman says. "You can be more intentional about what you say and how you say it. You can think about the outcome of your actions before following through on them."

While not every urge is counterproductive, many are. Meditation helps you distinguish valuable urges from futile ones.

"Urges hold useful information," Bregman writes. "If you're hungry, it may be a good indication that you need to eat. But it also may be an indication that you're bored or struggling with a difficult piece of work. Meditation gives you practice having power over your urges so you can make intentional choices about which to follow and which to let pass."

There's No Place Like Om

Meditation can make you a better business leader, says Harvard Business School professor and former CEO Bill George.

Meditation "teaches you to pay attention to the present moment, recognizing your feelings and emotions and keeping them under control, especially when faced with highly stressful situations," George writes in Harvard Business Review.

Pressures and the pursuit of profits turn too many managers into monsters, George observes.

"The key is to stay grounded and authentic, face new challenges with humility, and balance professional success with more important but less easily quantified measures of personal success."

If meditation feels too woo-woo, other mind-calming tools are available.

"The important thing is to have a set time each day to pull back from the intense pressures of leadership to reflect on what is happening. In addition to meditation, I know leaders who take time for daily journaling, prayer, and reflecting while walking, hiking or jogging," George says.

If You Had Only a Dollar, What Would You Spend It On?

Bill Gates once said, "If I was down to my last dollar, I'd spend it on public relations."

Were I in his shoes, I'd spend it on content.

"Content is the new black," says marketing maven Janine Popick in Inc.

Content helps you generate leads, elevate search engine rankings and close more deals, Popick says.

Content works because it positions you as an expert.

"Because you're writing (or talking) about what you know, in time, you become an industry thought leader. And people prefer doing business with those they believe are experts in their category," Popick says.

Entrepreneurial ADD

Bonus tip from P.T. Barnum's 1880 playbook Art of Getting Money.

Management consultants and business writers love to quote young CEOs who insist they're about to disrupt the universe.

But, for every 30 year-old billionaire, there are a million visionaries who chase barmy ideas. Worse, they chase too many.

I think they all suffer from a bad case of entrepreneurial ADD, complicated by an impulse to become the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Without doubt, success derives from a good idea. But much more than that, it demands focus.

P.T. Barnum asked business people to think big, but stick to the knitting. Barnum wrote:

"Let hope predominate, but be not too visionary. Many persons are always kept poor, because they are too visionary. Every project looks to them like certain success, and therefore they keep changing from one business to another, always in hot water, always 'under the harrow.' The plan of 'counting the chickens before they are hatched' is an error of ancient date, but it does not seem to improve by age."

Tip #5 for Getting Money

Use the Best Tools
Part 5 of of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

The "tools" P.T. Barnum means are the ones who leave each night in the elevator.

"You cannot have too good tools to work with, and there is no tool you should be so particular about as living tools," he writes.

Which employees make the best tools?

The ones who are curious.

The curious employee is the best because "he learns something every day, and you are benefited by the experience he acquires," Barnum says.
"He is worth more to you this year than last, and he is the last man you should part with."

Tip #4 for Getting Money

Don't Get above Your Business
Part 4 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

You can strive to be excellent. Or you can strive to make money.

You cannot do both.

"The great ambition should be to excel all others engaged in the same occupation," says P.T. Barnum.

Focusing on a fat bottom line is getting above your business. It guarantees you'll occupy a place below competitors.

Focusing on excellence is sticking to your business. It guarantees you'll attract a lot of customers.

"Americans are too superficial," Barnum writes. "They are striving to get rich quickly, and do not generally do their business as substantially and thoroughly as they should. But whoever excels all others in his own line, if his habits are good and his integrity undoubted, cannot fail to secure abundant patronage, and the wealth that naturally follows. Let your motto then always be 'Excelsior,' for by living up to it there is no such word as fail."

Tip #3 for Getting Money

Read the Newspapers
Part 3 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

"Always take a trustworthy newspaper, and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world," says P.T. Barnum in Art of Money Getting.

The businessperson who doesn't read every day "is cut off from his species."

"In these days of telegraphs and steam," Barnum writes, "many important inventions and improvements in every branch of trade are being made, and he who don't consult the newspapers will soon find himself and his business left out in the cold."

Tip #2 for Getting Money

Be Polite and Kind to Your Customers
Part 2 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money, as set forth in P.T. Barnum's 1880 guidebook Art of Getting Money

"Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in a business," writes P.T. Barnum in Art of Money Getting. "Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly."

Politeness begins with fair pricing, Barnum says.

"Men who drive sharp bargains with their customers, acting as if they never expected to see them again, will not be mistaken. They will never see them again as customers. People don't like to pay and get kicked also."

Civility shows in how a business treats not just friendly customers, but the customers from hell.

Barnum tells of an employee who wanted to punch a rude customer.

"He is the man who pays, while we receive," Barnum told the employee. "You must, therefore, put up with his bad manners."

The employee agreed—and asked for a raise.

Tip #1 for Getting Money

Advertise Your Business
Part 1 of a 5-part series on the Golden Rules for Making Money

Showman P.T. Barnum published a little book in 1880 titled Art of Money Getting.

In it, he shared his "Golden Rules for Making Money," including this one, "Advertise Your Business."

If you want to get rich, "Be careful to advertise," Barnum says.

"If a man has got goods for sale and he don't advertise them in some way, the chances are that some day the sheriff will do it for him," Barnum warns.

But advertising alone isn't enough.

You have to advertise a lot, Barnum insists. Like knowledge, a little advertising is "a dangerous thing."

"Your object in advertising is to make the public understand what you have got to sell, and if you have not the pluck to keep advertising until you have imparted that information, all the money you have spent is lost."

Tip #5 for the Business Writer

Keep Your Phrases Parallel
Part 5 of a 5-part series on writing well.


Parallelism adds clarity to your writing readers appreciate.


In a parallelism, you keep the structure of any series of related phrases consistent, repeating the same word forms (your nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) in the same order.

Parallelism can occur within a sentence or within a paragraph.

Here's an example (from Florida Coconuts) of a faulty parallelism within a sentence:

Coconut water is fat free, delicious, and a great way to rehydrate after strenuous physical activity.

To make her structure parallel, the writer should say:

Coconut water is fat free, delicious and refreshing. It provides a great way to rehydrate after strenuous physical activity.

Here's an example (from Sony) of a faulty parallelism within a paragraph:

The installation of 600 Sony SNC-DH140T cameras was decided upon for three main reasons. The first was Sony’s outstanding image quality, both at day and night, in any season, and under any light conditions. The second related to backlighting: cameras in an airport terminal have to offer good image quality of the traffic inside as well as the people outside. The third criterion focused on the necessary integration with ADP’s existing Genetec software. Sony delivered seamless compatibility here: as soon as a Sony camera is installed on the ADP network, the Genetec software can add it automatically, without human intervention.

To make his structure parallel, the writer should say:

The installation of 600 Sony SNC-DH140T cameras was decided upon for three main reasons. The first was Sony’s outstanding image quality: images are clear both at day and night, in any season, and under any light conditions. The second was Sony's exceptional backlighting capability: cameras in an airport terminal have to offer good image quality of the traffic inside as well as outside. The third was Sony's seamless compatibility with ADP’s Genetec software: as soon as a Sony camera is installed on the ADP network, the Genetec software can add it automatically, without human intervention.

Tip #4 for the Business Writer

Avoid Imprecise Pronouns
Part 4 of a 5-part series on writing well.


If clarity is the aim of your prose, you miss the mark when you use imprecise pronouns. In particular, this and that.


These pronouns work only when clearly tied to a previous reference.


If used otherwise, they destroy clarity.


Here's an example (from Winterthur Technology Group) of an imprecise pronoun:


For the Winterthur group, the term "engineering" covers the complete consulting, support and training program. This helps customers to optimize the quality and efficiency of their grinding processes and achieve added value.

The pronoun this always refers to one thing. 

So, Winterthur, exactly what helps customers? Is it the term "engineering?" Consulting? Support? Or the training program?

The writer might have achieved clarity by saying:

For the Winterthur group, "engineering" means three things: consulting, support and training. Our three-pronged approach helps customers to optimize the quality and efficiency of their grinding processes and achieve added value.

Or the writer might say:

"Engineering" at Winterthur encompasses consulting, support and training, so you can optimize your grinding processes and get added value.

Tip #2 for the Business Writer

Choose the right modifiers

Part 2 of a 5-part series on writing well.


Modifiers—the words that qualify nouns and verbs—can make or break your writing.


Like concrete nouns, modifiers can add precision your readers will appreciate.


But modifiers are tricky.


Use the right modifiers and your writing lifts off (think The Right Stuff).


Use the wrong modifers... use weak ones... use too many... or use clichés... and your writing fizzles.


As a rule, it's wise to omit modifiers, unless they add mojo to the nouns and verbs they qualify.


Here's an example (from Apple) of mangling your modifiers:


Sometimes life takes you by surprise. You’re reading a best seller on your iPad waiting for the morning train when you spy a gifted performer on the platform. Or you’re browsing the web on the couch when your dog trots by wearing your daughter’s tutu. The iSight camera on the new iPad lets you capture all these unpredictable, beautiful, and hilarious moments.


Does morning fortify the noun train? Only if the writer wanted us to think, "I can use my iPad while I commute."


Does iSight fortify camera? Positively.


Does new fortify iPad? Sure. No argument there.


Does gifted fortify performer? Nope. It's a cliché.


Do unpredictable, beautiful, and hilarious fortify moments? No. Once again, they're clichés.


How might the writer have better said this by omitting the modifiers?


Sometimes life takes you by surprise. You’re reading a best seller on your iPad waiting for the train when you spy a performer on the platform. Or you’re browsing the web on the couch when your dog trots by wearing your daughter’s tutu. The iSight camera on the new iPad lets you capture those moments.