Playing a Losing Hand to Win

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Four years and 9 months ago I wrote a blogpost called An Honest Wedding. It was about the nuptials in western Michigan of a cancer patient “Jane,” and the widower of a cancer victim, “John.”

This week I was back in Michigan, to attend the inevitable bookend of that blogpost – the funeral of “Jane,” in real life my youngest sister, Priscilla. She was beautifully eulogized by the same minister who had married them.

What stood out was not the tragedy of a good woman lost before her time, but the extraordinary good she made of her life. She played a losing hand, and won.

A Losing Hand

Priscilla had multiple myeloma, a disease that normally has a life expectancy of 1-3 years. She ran it out for 17.

An RN, she had experience in both midwifery and hospice. She had the ability to serve as her own patient advocate, and she did so successfully.

Still, back in 2007, the marriage of a recently-divorced woman already living on borrowed time to a recently-bereaved-by-cancer widower seemed like a long shot bet on the romantic triumph of hope over cold reality.  With four children in play, two of whom had lost one mother already, the potential for emotional damage seemed almost unbearable.

The Honest Wedding mitigated that risk by facing it squarely and directly. But honesty alone can’t stop multiple myeloma.

Winning with a Losing Hand

Over a hundred people attended her celebration this Saturday; it opened with the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts, and closed with drums and trumpet playing When the Saints Go Marching In.

The eulogy, and a dozen people who testified, all said the same thing: she had managed to win, despite having been dealt a losing hand. The longer she lived, the more imminent her death seemed, the more she became kind, open, giving, caring, appreciative, and often joyful.

As the minister said, “She found a way to hold on to every precious moment of her life at the same time that she released her hold on it and let it go.” As her sister said, Priscilla was an old soul since childhood; she was a caretaker, sharing easily of her emotions.

She found her way, everyone agreed, through a focus on simplicity and flexibility: living in the moment by focusing on nature, caring about others, and accepting life on life’s terms. At the same time, her journey involved finding her own boundaries, trusting her own instincts. The minister again:

There are people who become bitter and angry when cancer comes and death looms. They resist help and communication about their illness. Not Priscilla. She embraced her lot in life, her destiny, and took us along on the journey with her.

Some people say it takes a village to raise a child. I think – it takes a village to live a life.

To the last days and even hours of her life, Priscilla remained this way: engaged, and in love with life and with those in her village.

That village, represented at the ceremony, included her first husband, with whom she had forged a deep friendship, all five children she had helped raise, members of all churches she had been part of, and innumerable micro-communities she had touched.

I truly don’t think Priscilla ever lost a friend she’d ever made, and she made many.

She played a losing hand and won, not just for herself, but for everyone else who had placed a side bet by being part of her life and her village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blow Up Your Budgeting Process

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If you work in a large organization – This Blog’s for You.

You know what season is coming soon – you dread it. ‘Tis the season of Planning & Budgeting; the annual ritual of much time, many iterations, and little meaning – full of sound and fury, signifying not much.

What if you could radically revolutionize that process? Almost blow it up? All in a socially and politically acceptable manner, of course.

Resource Allocation is So Last Millennium

Planning and budgeting processes are about resource allocation. Partly that’s to coordinate plans. But partly it’s about predicting the future – of markets, the economy, technology – so we can intelligently place resource bets. So that we can plan on having umbrellas in case it rains.

We have built processes to worry about the future so that we can place resource bets in advance. But what if we didn’t have to place those bets in advance? Who cares about predicting rain for tomorrow if I know there will be an umbrella within arm’s reach when I need it?

What if you always had access to an umbrella? What if you did not have to make capital investments, hire and train people, develop new products – until the day before you needed to? And you were then able to do so with the snap of a finger?

You wouldn’t waste time predicting the future – you’d just deal with it on arrival. And increasingly, that’s what the world looks like.

The umbrellas, it turns out, are right within our grasp, right when we need them – if we just know to look for them. And there are three places to look.

The Three Sources of Umbrellas When You Want Them

Old style planning and budgeting assumes scarcity of resources – few umbrellas. We need to re-think; to recognize the umbrellas are already there, and we’re just facing a sourcing or distribution problem.

The three keys to changing that problem definition are speed, collaboration, and transparency.

Speed. You probably budget for headcount. If so, you assume a certain elapsed time for a category of employee – let’s say, a three-month cycle.

What if you could cut that to three weeks? To three days?  Think contracting, outsourcing, working virtually, across time zones, modularizing work. It’s the way software and movies and consulting and projects get done now, why not extend it to “core” hiring?

Speed attacks the need to plan for umbrellas, because it reduces your exposure to time-spent-without-umbrella.

Collaboration. You probably budget for facilities and equipment – because you assume you must own or have first call on assets. But what if you could get all the access you need just by sharing with others? And save tons of money at the same time?

After all, you rent a room at the Marriott in Chicago instead of owning a condo there. Push that thinking further; it’s like doubling your proven resource reserves without spending a penny on exploration.

Why own a car when you can use Zipcar? Why are you paying Microsoft for software to sit on your PC getting old when you can access cloud software, always updated, for less? Why are you buying books instead of renting them? Why are you spending money on dedicated office space when you could share it out with other tenants? Why are you driving alone?

Collaboration attacks the need to plan for umbrellas, because it changes a resource scarcity problem to a capacity utilization problem, while expanding perceived capacity.

Transparency. You probably budget for knowledge management and IP development – because you think your organization must carefully nurture its precious wisdom. But what if you could generate more knowledge, and more know-how, by openly sharing what you have with everyone else?

This is the logic behind meet-ups, networks, communities of interest, affiliate marketing, tribes, wikis, webinars, curating, mash-ups, and Spindows.

Transparency attacks the need to plan for umbrellas, because it sensitizes everyone to the presence of more umbrellas, to the availability of umbrella substitutes, and to rain-control initiatives.  

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Help free your organization from the tyranny of old-think resource-constrained planning and budgeting processes. Ask yourself how to get your group’s work done faster, more collaboratively, and more transparently.

This is how to be a socially and politically acceptable business revolutionary.

(Props to my mastermind group of @StewartMHirsch, Scott Parker and John Malitoris for this post) 

Story Time: Innovation, Trust, and the Freedom to Fail

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Our Story Time series brings you real, personal examples from business life that shed light on specific ways to lead with trust. Our last story proved that he who eats with chopsticks wins. Today’s shows how trust can impact innovation, productivity, and staff retention.

A New Anthology

When it comes to trust-building, stories are a powerful tool for both learning and change. Our new book, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust (Wiley, October 2011), contains a multitude of stories. Told by and about people we know, these stories illustrate the fundamental attitudes, truths, and principles of trustworthiness.

Today’s story is excerpted from our chapter on making the case for trust. It vividly demonstrates how providing the freedom to fail, take risks, and build on others’ ideas increases a team’s ability to innovate.

From the Front Lines: A Trust-Based Business Unit

In 2005, Ross Smith became Director of an 85-person software test team within Microsoft. His team had great technical skills, passion, and excitement, but felt underutilized and unchallenged. Ross set out to improve innovation and productivity. Exploring options, they ran across a University of British Columbia study by John F. Helliwell and Haifang Huang that equated the impact of high organizational trust to significant pay raises in terms of creating job satisfaction.

The team suddenly realized that innovation required freedom to fail, risk taking, building on others’ ideas—all behaviors grounded in high trust. That cognitive snap, that a high-trust organization would address underutilization and latent talent, was the beginning of the solution.

In a high-trust organization, individuals could apply their skills, education, and experience at their own discretion. They could take risks and change processes themselves because managers would trust them. The question was this: how to do it?

Ross asked the team to identify behaviors they felt influenced trust, positively or negatively. They realized that trust was subjective, situational, and very individual, and there was no single behavioral answer. As a result, the team put together a detailed playbook describing simple principles with discussion about how to implement.

They also modeled risk-taking and trust-building by using games to approach problems; everyone was allowed to play, experiment, and fail.

Microsoft is a heavy user of metrics, for Ross’s team as well as throughout the company. The first noticeable difference was a higher-than-normal level of retention. After two and a half years, other things started to change dramatically—new test tools and new techniques were developed, and a high level of collaboration and partnership was working. Productivity numbers started to rise. As the project finished, the team was rated at or near the top across virtually every Microsoft productivity metric.

When Ross and several others from the original team moved to another division, they set out to introduce the trust-building ideas and practices which had worked so well before. Once again, they saw a high retention rate, a broader application of talent, and higher productivity numbers.

The metrics followed the changes in mind-set and behavior—not the other way around.

—Ross Smith (Microsoft), as told to Charles H. Green

Find out more about Ross’s experiments in management innovation and trust, or read his blog on productivity games.

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Read more stories about trust:

How (Not) to Ask for Recommendations, Referrals and References

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I recently met a first-time author, who gave me a copy of their book. Shortly after, I got an email from the author’s publicist, saying:

“…We’d appreciate it if you would post your 5-star review of the book on Amazon…”

Now:

  • I don’t mind being asked to post a review of a book (though this ask was poorly done)
  • I don’t mind being asked by a publicist, as opposed to the author, if it’s done well (this was not)
  • But what frosts me is being told by a publicist what rating to assign the book – without even asking whether I’d read it, or even intended to read it.

Let’s break it down: what are the rules governing recommendations, referrals and references? And how many did the publicist violate?

How to Ask for a Favor

Rule Number One: Don’t ask for a favor – ask for the repayment of a favor already done.

The ideal way to promote your book is to start 6 months in advance by deciding whose help you’re going to want – and immediately start promoting them.  Comment on their blogposts; tweet their material; introduce them to others.

That way, when it comes time for your ask, they are simply discharging an obligation of etiquette, a favor they are more than happy to grant. (And lest this sound coldly utilitarian, note this is a description of what friends do for friends).

What’s true for books is true for referrals.  Haven’t done any favors for others lately? Then you’re going to come up short when you start trying to ask for favors.  Life is like that. Favors earned are favors granted.

Think that’s not fair? Wrong: it is very, very fair. It’s the essence of the matter.

 

Rule Number Two: Assume absolutely nothing.

Remember the saying, “Assume makes an ass of u and me.” Do not assume the person has the time, or the interest, or the inclination, to do you the favor you want.

In fact, make it clear you have no clue whether what you’re asking is reasonable. Say something like, “I realize this may be an inopportune time, or more complex than I realize, or there may be other reasons you can’t do this, and I assure you I don’t mean to be asking for an unnatural act on your part….”

By explicitly saying you’re not making assumptions, you give the other person all the degrees of freedom. You grant them several outs, should they choose to take them; you willfully give up the guilt-trip approach; and you humbly recognize that you are not in a position to judge them.

Let a favor be a favor, not a guilt-tinged, calculated script. A favor freely given is worth vastly more than an extracted behavior.

 

Rule Number Three: Don’t over-specify the favor. “Would you consider writing a review on Amazon?” is a perfectly reasonable statement. Asking that my review contain five stars is just insulting: it implies either that my ratings are for sale, or that I needn’t read the book to determine its value, both of which rankle the would-be favor giver.

“I’m not sure what the right next step would be, but would you mind having a look at Joseph’s resume?” That’s fine.  Compare it to, “I’d appreciate it you’d take Joseph’s phone call and meet with him, just for a half hour or so.” That’s over the line.

(A tour guide on the canal in Bruges, Belgium, after a delightful ride, said to me, “May I remind you the ten-franc tip is not included in the admission price.”).

 

Rule Number Four: Treat it like a big deal.  Because presumably it is. Which means, you won’t often ask it unless you’ve earned some favors in the favor bank already (see Rule Number One).

And if you have earned some favors – say so. You want to convey very clearly words to the effect of, “I value our relationship; it is strengthened by our mutual collaboration and reciprocal favor-doing. I don’t ask this favor lightly – and I don’t want you to treat it lightly. If you agree you can return this favor to me – or do this favor and I’ll owe you big-time – then we will be that much closer going forward. That’s how I look at this favor; how about you?”

Of course, those are not the words you’ll use; you’ll use words that are right for you.  But they’d better convey that kind of intent.

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A favor asked and given is an invitation to a deeper relationship. Don’t be cheap in granting favors; and don’t be promiscuous in asking for them.

Referrals, references, recommendations; all follow another “R” word – reciprocity. What you give, you get. What you don’t give, you won’t get. To get, give. Pay it forward isn’t some dumb movie line – it’s how it all works.

Trust Me, I’m Your Doctor

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We all hear about health care. Usually it’s through the microcosm of someone’s illness, or the macro-view of dueling pundits and politicians. Frequently it’s adversarial, or negative.

Thanks to long-time Trust Matters’ own trusted advisor Shaula Evans, I met Dr. Craig Koniver. He brings a fascinating perspective to the topic, as you’ll see.

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Charlie Green: Craig, you’re a doctor in South Carolina. Are you a native?

Craig Koniver: No. I grew up in Delaware, went to one year of undergrad at Johns Hopkins, hated it, and transferred to Brown. I then went on to medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. So I did end up being a doctor, mostly in Arizona, and recently moved here.

Charlie: You say you practice “organic medicine.” How did you come to that?

Craig: First of all, I am a “regular” doctor, board-certified and all that, but I also came to believe in a certain approach to medicine. The transformative event in my life was when our daughter was colicky.

The pediatrician said what I’d been trained to say, but since it was our daughter this time, we were wholly unsatisfied. We went out and found unconventional approaches to the issue. And once you’ve seen behind the curtain, it’s hard to stop.

Charlie: What is behind the curtain?

Craig: The standard routine is label, diagnose, prescribe medicine or surgery. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The paradigm of modern medicine is medicine-based, which is to say, pharmaceutical – pills and chemicals.

100 years ago this was not the case; the doctor had a relationship with the patient. But today, the doctor is trained to see the patient as a series of chemical pathologies.

Charlie: So, on a practical level, what do you do differently than other doctors?

Craig: I am interested in helping the patient reach optimal health through natural means. I am not against prescription medicine, but I think they are highly over-utilized by doctors not interested in pursuing alternative/ natural modalities.

So with my patients we look for the root cause of disease by running specialty lab tests and then use herbs and vitamins and nutrients to get their health back on track. I am a firm believer that there is a natural option for everything–we just have to look in the right place and be willing to try any different options.

Charlie: What’s the effect on patient health?

Craig: One telling study suggested that as many as 1/3 of prescriptions get tossed away on the patient’s way out of the doctor’s building. They want more than a prescription, they want a relationship and they want options.

Charlie: What did you do as this became apparent to you?

Craig: I finally decided to move to a holistic practice. That entailed moving away from insurance, and cutting my patient load from about 4,000 to about 400.

Charlie: Wow. Now, hang on a minute; that raises all kinds of interesting issues. What does that say for coverage?

Craig: It affects many people differently. First, there are a large number of people who are quite willing to pay for personalized, holistic healthcare. It is quite valuable to them!

In addition, remember that existing health insurance policies don’t generally cover doctors suggesting things like exercise and nutritional changes; as well, procedures like bypass surgery are reimbursed while time-tested acupuncture is not.

And I now get to spend real, quality time with my patients. I take as much time as I want and they want, and they leave satisfied feeling that I’m concerned about their whole life.  Which I am! A lot of people find this hugely valuable.

Charlie: What about those who can’t afford it?

Craig: Before we get there, there are number of people who may or may not be able to afford it, but don’t see the value in it. They’re used to thinking that a doctor visit should cost the amount of a co-pay. They can’t get past a more cost-based model.

Are there those who are left out by this? Absolutely there are and it’s a real tragedy because they continue to get the acute-based, chemical-and-surgery, impersonal kind of medicine that doesn’t help them.

Charlie: Ah, interesting. You’re not a selfish doc going off to serve well-heeled patients, there really is no choice.

Craig: That’s true. I’m not abandoning poor people, I’m abandoning bad medicine. And the existing insurance system simply cannot support the kind of medicine I like to practice. Is it tragic? Yes, and a real shame.

You pretty much cannot have a holistic medicine practice that operates within the existing high-volume insurance-based delivery method we have today. The choice is not which clientele to go after – it’s which kind of medicine I want to practice.

Charlie: Does the patient-physician relationship of trust affect health?

Craig: Yes. Again, if the relationship is pill-based, then it’s not personal; that is not a good basis for trust. Before too long, patients will stop trusting a physician because there is only that basis for the relationship.

In a holistic practice, where by definition the doctor is concerned about the whole patient, you have the basis for a personal relationship. That means you have the basis for trust. And with trust, patients share more with you, they take your advice, and there is probably even the positive placebo effect.

Charlie: One implication of what you’re saying is that our existing approach, based on insurance reimbursement of pills and surgery, is basically built to minimize trust.

Craig: Yes, I think that’s an accurate statement of the current situation. The health care delivery system is tied to the doctor-patient trust level. And not in a good way just now.

Charlie: Well, this has been enlightening indeed; thanks so much for spending time with us.

Craig: Thank you, Charlie.

4 Behaviors that Help Delivery People Be Better Business Developers

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It’s an age-old challenge in the consulting industry: how to get your delivery people to develop more business. After all, who’s in a better position to bring in more work than the people who labor side-by-side with the client? But first there are barriers to break through. Read on for four specific strategies that will help your delivery people execute on both project plans and business development plans.

Old Problem: Those Closest to The Client Don’t Want to Sell 

The other day I was chatting with Jonathan, the Chief Growth Officer for a boutique consulting firm. He spoke about the long-standing challenge of getting delivery people to think and act like business developers.

We talked about how:

  • Many are 100% focused on delivery. They’ve got their eye on their target: project results. So they naturally pay the most attention to delivering on project promises, sometimes missing what’s in the periphery.
  • Some don’t see business development as their job. This mindset is common and understandable: Generating new work is for salespeople or business developers; delivery is for project teams. And there’s certainly a case to be made for spending time where you excel and have expertise.
  • Some aren’t sure how to sell. They may have a “deer in the headlights” reaction at the thought of selling, even though they know they should be looking for new opportunities, and even though they genuinely want to get better at it.
  • No one wants to be seen as smarmy. They’ve developed trust based on project execution and may see it as a breach of that trust to switch to “sales mode.”

Looking through the lens of delivery, all of these perspectives make sense. And all of them hinder business growth—for consultants and clients alike.

New Mindset: It’s a Disservice Not To Sell 

One way to get delivery people to develop more business is to change their mindset—to help them think their way into behaviors that will naturally open doors. I think that’s the right place to start. Make it your job to remind them—again and again—that everyone in the organization has a higher obligation than delivery: client service. “Selling” then, is part of the professional obligation to serve the client. Not paying attention to the clients’ business needs as a whole is a disservice. Don’t miss an opportunity to beat that drum.

I also believe that’s the beginning and not the end. Overcoming the concern about being seen as smarmy—which I suggest is the biggest barrier—will take more than a steady drum beat.

New Approach: Behaviors That Take the “Sell” Out of “Selling” 

Let’s be honest: selling is perceived as a less-than-meritorious endeavor more often than not. There are widely held stereotypes on the part of buyers and sellers alike that influence our thoughts, feelings and actions when we’re on either end of anything that feels like a sale.

Delivery people may falter because they’re just not sure how to approach opportunities in an un-smarmy way—even if they’re clear it’s the right and good thing to do. You owe it to them to provide specific tools and approaches to help take the “sell” out of selling. Try these four:

1. Ask permission. Telling a client about new opportunities to improve their business is a hundred times easier when you have set the expectation early on that you’re going to do it. At project kickoff, this could sound like this:

“Aria, we’re going to be working together closely for four months. We are totally committed to achieving the results we’ve defined in our project plan. Along the way, we might see opportunities to improve your business that fall outside the scope of our work. Would it be OK with you if we bring those to your attention when we see them?”

Then when the time comes, it’s natural to start with, “Aria, remember when we said…”

Anyone on the team can set this expectation and anyone on the team can follow through.

2. Sell by doing. One of the reasons sales gets a bad rap is that it’s seen—fairly or unfairly—as a process of mostly talk and little action. Selling by doing is a distinct approach that gives your client the actual experience of working with you. This is particularly valuable for professional services and is an easy transition when delivery people are already working shoulder-to-shoulder with a client. It gives the client a taste of what it might be like to go in a new or different direction, without obligation or pressure to move forward.

3. Sell the right solution, not your solution. The purpose of traditional selling is to help others buy from you; the purpose of trust-based selling is to help others make the best decision for them right now. Suggest that your delivery folk unreservedly explore all options with the client—not just your company’s solution. This frees them of the concerns they feel about having a company agenda. A trusted advisor, after all, is a safe haven for tough issues, not just ones for which you have a product or service or that fall within the scope of your work. Paradoxically, the chances are excellent that you’ll win more client loyalty—and more business in the long-run—when you approach opportunities with this mindset and the behaviors to back it.

4. Use caveats. Sometimes we feel things even when we know we “shouldn’t”—like feeling awkward or smarmy when it’s time to talk about being of greater service. Suggestion: say something about that. “Geez, at the risk of coming across as salesy…” That’s what we call a caveat, and it’s a conversational jewel. It dispels the yuck that you’re feeling and communicates that you care about how your message is received. It simultaneously smoothes over what could be an awkward shift for the client—although truthfully is more likely awkward for the one delivering the message.

Taking the “sell” out of selling—employing four specific strategies to reduce the perception of sales as smarmy—leads to greater value and better results.

Isn’t that the ultimate delivery?

Trusted Advisor Inflation

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The term “trusted advisor” has undergone some changes since I first co-wrote the book by that title 11 years ago.  Three changes, to be precise:

  1. It’s amazing how many more people claim to be one;
  2. It’s becoming clear that not every industry needs one;
  3. In the industries and functions that matter, the concept is gaining headway.

It’s the third point that’s most important, and most promising.

1. Grade Inflation, Title Inflation, Trusted Advisor Inflation

The United States has taken to heart Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, where “all the children are above average.” That’s got to be the only sensible conclusion from the data, which show in-your-face grade inflation at the college and university level.

A couple of years ago, the Economist proclaimed that “Inflation in Job Titles is Approaching Weimar Levels.” (In case you’re not down with economist jokes, read here, and I won’t tell anyone).

So I guess it’s no wonder that we have “Trusted Advisor inflation.” I’ve sat in on several corporate training programs lately where generally mid-level attendees were asked to indicate whether they were operating at the “trusted advisor” level with their clients.

About 70% said they were. That may not be Weimar territory, but it’s Lake Wobegon for sure. I will tell you from experience: that was not the case 12 years ago, even in the same industries.

My conclusion? Not much, actually. We live in a post-Warholian age of hyperbole. “Friend” doesn’t mean what it used to, nor do “authenticity,” “talent,” or “good audio,” for that matter.  But it’s OK: it means what it means, namely how people actually use the term. Definitions are living things, captured only momentarily in dictionaries.

2. Not Every Industry Needs a Trusted Advisor

I had dinner the other day with an old classmate, a very senior advisor to a Very Big private equity fund, who keeps tabs on a dozen global retail clients. “So Charlie, tell me what’s up with Trusted Advisor Associates these days,” he said.

It was clear from his tone that he was skeptical about the relevance of the concept to his businesses – mainly B2C consumer-level chains in things like pet foods, electronics and sundries.

I could tell that because he visibly relaxed when I said, “Gary, I don’t need a trusted advisor relationship with the counter-guy at Dunkin’ Donuts. I love that he knows my order when he sees me come in – but that’s quite enough. It would ruin everything if we ever got past, ‘hi guy, the usual?’ And ditto for Starbucks.”

It’s true. There are whole bunches of roles and industries that don’t need to have trusted advisor relationships. Most B2C retail doesn’t need it. Traders don’t need it. Marketers don’t generally need it. Most non-client-facing roles don’t need it. Manufacturing roles don’t generally need it.

That’s not to say all those roles can’t benefit from the basics of curiosity, good values and manners. But, as per point 1 – let’s not inflate that into Trusted Advisor Status.

3. Those That Do Need It – Are Starting To See It

The term “trusted advisor” originated in high-end professional services and wealth management relationships and it’s still valid and well-understood there.

The biggest shifts I’ve seen since the original The Trusted Advisor in 2001 have come in four areas: sales, internal staff functions, leadership and the financial industry. (One industry that’s still a work-in-progress – pharma).

Sales. In the last decade or so, the field of sales has undergone a number of changes. Some – like Salesforce.com, Sales 2.0, Google clicks – have often made the function less personal, and arguably less trustworthy.

But others – like inbound marketing, complex sales, and the amazing transparency machine called the Internet – have made selling more personal, and often more trustworthy.

I like to think my own book, Trust-based Selling, published by McGraw-Hill in 2005, played a little role in that too.

Internal Staff Functions. The Big 5 staff functions – HR, IT, Legal, Marketing, and Finance ­– have made large jumps in many companies to realizing that their internal client relationships have exactly the same needs. How to get invited in before problems arise; how to get your advice taken; how to add value – these are all critical functions for an internal staff function. More about those functions here.

Leadership. Tons of things have changed with leadership. Let’s sum it up by saying leadership has become more horizontal, less vertical. That moves influence, persuasion and trust way up the required skills list for leaders.  Rob Galford wrote about that in 2003 in The Trusted Leader; Andrea Howe and I wrote about it in last year’s The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust.

Financial Industry. Something is happening in the financial planning and wealth management industries. The line between brokers and fiduciaries is finally getting defined, and the balance of power seems to be shifting toward trusted advisor, client-focused relationships. (Some of you know this issue as fiduciary vs. suitability).

The issue is delightfully defined in a YouTube video about the difference between your butcher and your dietitian.  For more on this issue, read Michael Kitces, who writes well and often about it.

Just around the industry corner is Wall Street, investment banking, and the flap about Michael Smith’s Goldman resignation. Investment banking used to be a pure trusted advisor kind of business. People like Epicurean Dealmaker still speak eloquently about that part of the business.

But investment banks have more complex business models these days, and it’s far from clear (to me anyway) that all of those businesses should be built on the long-term, client-centric models required by true trusted advisors.

Conclusions:

1. Just because you think you’re a trusted advisor doesn’t mean you are one – Lake Wobegon is mythical, after all.

2. But neither does it necessarily mean you should be one. We don’t need trusted advisors on every street corner.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and we should leave it at that.

What’s the Link Between Trust, High IQ and Investors?

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A recent Journal of Finance article suggests there’s a high correlation between IQ and participation in the stock market. Now, what does that mean?

Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller explores the theme in a NYTimes column. He posits an interesting link between intelligence and trust.

The Smarts To Do What?

IQ tests are notorious for being good at measuring what IQ tests measure. What that is, is another question. But let’s stipulate that mathematical intelligence is somewhat correlated with IQ tests, and that intelligent investing requires more math than buying milk at the supermarket. That might explain why only half of American adults have money in the stock market.

But does it explain why higher-IQ people also seem to construct better-performing portfolios than do lower-IQ people? As Shiller points out, it’s not that high-IQ people are better stock-pickers – they just do a better job of following the basic rules of investing, namely diversify your risk.

But why should ‘rule-following’ correlate with IQ, anyway?

The Smarts to Trust

Shiller cites another study, this one from the Netherlands, that finds “those who indicated a high level of trust were 50 percent more likely to invest in the stock market.”

Further studies indicate low stock market participation may be the result of fear and suspicion – low trust prevents people who don’t understand the stock market from approaching those who do.  Namely investment advisors, brokers and the like.

Now the link gets clearer. It may not take a high IQ to understand diversification, but if you don’t trust the people who talk about diversification, you’re not going to learn about it.

Shiller makes another leap here that I’m not so sure about: as he puts it, “Knowing whom to trust, and relying on those who are trustworthy, is itself an aspect of intelligence.”

Intelligence, Education and Trust

I’m not going to get involved in defining intelligence, but I do know this. The tendency to trust others has been shown by trust researcher Eric Uslaner to be positively correlated with optimism, and with a sense of control.

People who feel the world is basically going downhill – and that others are controlling their lives – are untrusting people. By contrast, those who feel that the world is generally moving in a positive direction, and who feel some degree of control over their own lives, are more likely to trust other people.

And what drives those distinctions? Uslaner points out the biggest drivers are income inequality and education. In other words: uneducated people in a society of high inequality are at the greatest disadvantage.

The Vicious Circle of Trust, Education and Investment

The less that uneducated people in an unequal society are willing to trust those who understand financial planning, the more likely they are to stay doomed to low income, thus driving perceptions and reality ever downward toward greater inequality. So what’s to be done?

Of course, it would help if the financial industry got more trustworthy. Josh Brown, in Backstage Wall Street, notes that “93% of all investors didn’t understand that their broker didn’t have a fiduciary responsibilty to them.” Yet the industry continues to advertise an image of trustworthiness, while opposing legislation to make them subject to fiduciary standards.

Such behavior definitely drives mistrust, and it’s the industry’s own fault.

But other policies are society’s fault. In the rush to cut our deficits, I heard a few weeks ago that the School District of Los Angeles no longer employs any music teachers. Certainly education has become a far lower priority these days in our rush to what we think is fiscal rectitude. A casualty is trust.

And finally, inequality itself breeds distrust. That simple fact is very uncomfortable for a great many of haves, and a lot of political ideologies. But the fact is, economically egalitarian societies have higher trust levels. Inegalitarian societies have lower trust levels. The trends are self-reinforcing.

Do we want a vicious circle? Or a virtuous circle? If we’d like people to participate in the stock markets, we’re not going to get there by advertising or by cutting school budgets.

We’ll get there through trust. And it shouldn’t take a high IQ to figure that out.

Manufacturing in China: Back to the Future?

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I talked to Joe in San Francisco recently. Joe is 96, living with his daughter and son-in-law Jean and Fred. He talked about what happened when he was 18 years old, and wondered why it couldn’t happen now.

Good question, as you’ll see.

The Civilian Conservation Corps

Roosevelt was elected in November of 1932. In those days, inauguration didn’t happen until March – March 4, 1933. In his speech that day, he outlined his New Deal.

17 days later, he proposed the massive Emergency Conservation Work act, which would put a quarter of a million Americans to work. He sent the bill to Congress the same day.

10 days later, on March 31st, Congress approved the bill – by voice vote. Roosevelt signed it the same day, and issued an executive order setting up the Civilian Conservation Corps.

By the end of June – just over three months since inauguration – 1500 camps had been created, employing over 300,000 people building and rebuilding infrastructure like parks, roads and conservation programs. The program lasted for 8 years, shutting down in 1942.

“The pay was $30 a month,” Joe said, “and you had to send $25 of that back home to your family.”

“So, what was $30 worth back then?” I asked.

“Oh quite a bit,” said Joe. “I wooed my wife on that money. Saturdays we’d go to the movies – a dime for the two of us. And I’d buy us both coffee, and her a piece of pie. That was a nickel. And she’d share the pie with me. We got married, and stayed married for 64 years.”

“I don’t really understand,” says Joe, “why Obama can’t do the same thing now?”

Back to the Future

Fast-forward to January 22, 2012. The New York Times started an explosive series with an article called “The iEconomy: How the US Lost Out on iPhone Work.” It’s an inside look at FoxConn City and the Chinese manufacturing nexus in Shenzhen – and why American manufacturing is completely incapable of competing against it.

“Basically slave labor camps,” shouted one US headline. FoxConn employs over 200,000 workers, a quarter of whom live in dorms, often working up to six days per week, and “many workers earning less than $17 per day.”

But notice:

  • FoxConn’s $17 per day is about $350 per month.
  • In today’s dollars, Joe’s $30/month would be worth $501.94/month.  Triple that for room, board and other expenses (paid by the CCC), and you’d be somewhere around today’s US poverty line.
  • Assuming room and board are far less in China, these numbers are not orders of magnitude apart.

I’m not an economist. I don’t even play one on TV. But this much I can say: the distance between China today and the US just a few years ago is not nearly as great as we make it out to be.

Indeed, David Pogue, the NYTimes’ technology editor, writing about an ABC Nightline program, said, “It didn’t look like a sweatshop, frankly.” And ABC itself said, “…when I asked, ‘What would you change?,’ we heard the kind of complaints you might hear in any factory anywhere.”

Joe believes he was always a free American, never a slave. Indeed, to the American ear, his voice is an authentic one, drenched in traditional American hard-working virtues.

What a difference a few decades make in our perceptions. How easy it is to believe that the Chinese and we inhabit such different worlds.

Joe’s Question

“Why can’t we do the same thing now?” asks Joe.

Three reasons I can think of:

1. A politically significant group of Americans have come to believe that a road built as a government job is “worth” less than a road built as a private sector job. So in the name of “cutting government” we are cutting jobs in the face of a recession, adding a half-million government workers to the unemployment rolls. This is already not ending well.

2. Today’s Americans look at Joe’s CCC experience and see it as a treasured part of our history – but not relevant to today. In today’s terms, they look at a program like that and see FoxConn, not the life-forming experience that Joe had. And they don’t want any part of it.

Fair enough: but in a global market, global pay disparities will exist, and jobs, like water, will seek out the lowest level.

3. Roosevelt created 300,000 jobs in less than three months. The nation has lost its ability to move at anything remotely near that speed. There are many reasons for this, but a failure of trust is one of them.

Of all the critiques posed by the less-government crowd, the one that rings most economically relevant is the substitution of process and procedures for trust and collaboration.

The absence of trust is itself a massive economic anchor dragging us down; the belief that our system is consistently ‘better’ is an expensive delusion.

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Many Trusted Advisor programs now offer CPE credits.  Please call Tracey DelCamp for more information at 856-981-5268–or drop us a note @ [email protected].

Attract! Attract! Why Attract is the New Retain

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The mantra of “attract and retain” has been around the HR community – and its general management constituency – even longer than the unfortunate rush to refer to people as “talent.”

It used to make sense. But it doesn’t anymore and the implications are significant.

Why Retention?

It’s been awhile since anyone dusted off the basic retention rationale, so let’s review the bidding. Here are some commonly stated reasons why companies should pursue employee retention:

  1. It costs more to hire than to retain people
  2. The more experienced the hire, the more it costs to retrain replacements
  3. Experienced employees know the ropes, the lingo, how things are done
  4. Experienced employees form deeper relationships with customers
  5. Retained employees are motivated, which helps customer relationships.

Of course, a few of these tenets were always subject to qualification – number 5, for example. Longevity can just as easily drive complacency and myopia as well as it can drive motivation.

But that’s not the Big Story. The Big Story lies in the assumptions underlying all five of those beliefs. Those assumptions are:

  1. the benefits of retention increase in direct proportion to longevity, and
  2. the pace at which new employees become productive is relatively fixed.

Both beliefs are looking a lot less true these days.

What’s Changed?

Two things have changed: work and people.

Work. Work has become outsourced, modular, plug-compatible, horizontal, contracted, bite-sized, for-hire, project-based. Employers shun fixed costs and value flexibility.

This is partly because they can: technology has made work-sourcing a global phenomenon, freed from space and time. It’s also partly because they have to: global sourcing means competitiveness is also global. The global economy has undergone a massive make/buy analysis and has come down heavily on the “buy” choice. If you’re not working with the world’s best/lowest cost doer of some key task, then you’re at a disadvantage.

The nature of work has shifted from a “job” focus to a “project” or “task” focus. Employers no longer need “someone who can do…” but rather “someone who has done, and will do…”  The new work model is not semi-permanent vertical employer silos of people; it is the model used by the film industry and by consultants, a constantly shifting nexus of tasks and resources.

Recruitment comes to resemble an ongoing speed-dating event.

People. I think we’re finally past decrying the lack of employee “loyalty;” it’s so last millennium.  People are “loyal” to their professions, their technologies, maybe their customers – but not to the constantly morphing corporate entities that sign their paychecks.

The skills of the new generation have evolved to fit the new workplace. The Facebook generation, adept at mass-scale peer relationships, doesn’t relate well to authority, no matter which side of the relationship they’re on. Geography? Twitter is everywhere and while not every 20-something can afford time in Europe, they all know someone who can and does, and can all Skype it and tweet it 24-7 in the meantime.

The oldsters may not like the verbal promiscuity of “friending,” but it fits perfectly with the new workplace. While society may pay a price in the dearth of deep, vertical relationships, the market place is demanding breadth.

Attraction and Retention Redux

Let’s put these trends together. What the economy needs, and what people are organizing to offer, is the ability to form relationships at the speed of transactions.

To companies, the attractive employees are not those with deep potential; they are those who can hit the ground running in a plug-compatible world, instantly connecting with thousands of like-minded peers within the company and without.

To people, the attractive employers are not those who offer long-term “commitments” (usually just relationship-disguised transactional offers anyway) but those who offer the ability to be instantly productive, while offering personal growth opportunities in the form of autonomy and new activities.

There is an obvious match here. What is no longer obvious is the relevance of “retention.”

Why would an employer want to retain people when the changing market requires ever-changing skills that can be bought quickly with precision rather than trained over time with generality?

Why would an employee want to be retained, when (s)he can find ever-changing opportunities to gain experience in a world thousands of times bigger than one employer alone could ever hope to offer?

Attract! Attract! Three New Strategies for Companies

The above are massive trends. The trend is your friend. The challenge is to ride the trend, not fight it. Here are three strategies for doing so:

1. Aim for zero cost onboarding and training. Zero works well as a stretch goal, but it’s not enough. How can you get people to pay you to join your company? (This is not as crazy as it sounds: how much do people pay to go to Harvard? So, become the “Harvard of YourNiche.”)

2. Reverse-hire search firms. Tell Russell Reynolds you want every employee to get one bonafide offer from an outside firm every year to keep them motivated. If they stay with you, they have re-upped, and become re-attracted. If they leave, you can choose either to recalibrate your attractions program, or wish the employee well and let them tell the market how employee-dedicated you are. (This is not as crazy as it sounds; Tony Hsieh already does a version of this at Zappos, paying people not to take a job offer).

3. Up your knowledge management game. Tenure is such an expensive way to gain company knowledge. Figure out how to make it available to every employee, from day one.

And don’t assume that means AI and databases. Try the same thing that works in the outside world: massive horizontal networking. Invent intra-LinkedIn and Intra-Tweet. (This is not as crazy as it sounds; Clay Hebert is working on SpinDows)

Attract and retain? That sounds like a motto for a roach motel. The new mantra is Attract! Attract!

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Many Trusted Advisor programs now offer CPE credits.  Please call Tracey DelCamp for more information at 856-981-5268–or drop us a note @ [email protected].