Blog transferred

This blog has been partially transfered and integrated with the 2009 one.
Go here ( octavianmihai.com ) and see my daily posts.
Thank you for following me!!!

We're Moving

Notice
This blog will slowly merge with the new one http://octavianmihai.wordpress.com.

Why?
In order to ensure the authenticity of my discourse in a period of rapid personal development, Ive decided to create a new communication platform.

Again?
Yup, we had: late 90's RoMcGill 2 versions (now dead), then octavianmihai.com now at its 4th version, then hhro 2 versions - now dead), octaviancollects (dead), jaimecandy.com now at its second version; then d0k.com on blogger, early 2000 and 2006 the current version.


Why do you always destroy parts of the past?
I am the past. My eyes are on the future. Anybody can reinvent the past, but that's no fun :).

All good things have an end. This is not it.

Some news

Just in case you did not know why I have slacked a bit on the posts. In January Jaime Candy signed a contract with Bluesponge and as consequence I've become the CEO of both companies. The new job is great and people are amazing.

In other news, i'm working on some other projects, conferences, series of articles, and a book (yes this project comes back with a vengeance)

Business Turnaround some pointers

here are some basic pointers regarding business turnaround.

from my company's blog.

Simpsons 1984... mApple... or About marketing ploy

When you become the one you once despised...

Brilliant moment in last night's Simpsons...

Consider this famous 1984 Apple Mac ad:



And now the Simpson's version (min 2:28)...



food for thought...

About Perspective

I don't usually post links but this might just help some of you get some perspective and stop wining. :P

Famous people who have been homeless.

Cheer up!

Octavian Collects

Just in case you did not notice I have started posting my collection of interesting random photos. Some are funny, but they also make you think! :) Very good when you try to ideate.

Here it is: Octavian Collects http://octaviancollects.blogspot.com/

Let me know what you think.

lululemon: some founding myths are just wierd

A couple days ago I got an email from a girl friend:

"as much as I love lulu lemon............reading this on their website makes me sick! check out the four categories on the left under chip's musings ........................wow.
http://www.lululemon.com/culture/history/how"

This might just be the most outrageous claim ever: "lululemon vision: elevating the world (through our people) from mediocrity to greatness"
This means: lululemon people are some Cat women in tights working to elevate the mediocre ones to greatness. I refuse to envision a whole world in lululemon tights, no matter how great that would be.
It doesn't take a philosopher to see that Chip Wilson is not one.

Orangina: You're doing it wrong

When I first read about the news of the ad being taken out from british tv, i just thought that the anglo-saxons were too prude for the french taste. after watching the ad i just have to ask: why?

they took a couple good branding concepts like the coca-cola world, sexy nature, live giving potion, dancing animals, pixar fun animation, and they created this monster...

the ejaculating orangina bottle... do your own declinations...
this does not serve any purpose than to create some buzz and have users go aewwwwww from the ad's bad taste... wait... orangina... bad taste... humm i bet this is not what they intended.

at the end of the day i could care less about the dumb, tasteless animation but if you target horny teenagers why have a soundtrack that plays bad boogaloo latino music??



but you don't need professional arguments why the ad does not work, just read the user comments... as one user puts it: makes you wanna f%&# a dear...

Software Patents

Via The Death of Google's Patents?
"The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc."

This might be good news for world's idealists :) . I have a big issue with ideas being patentable. Or as a judgment cited in the article : process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they “result in a physical transformation of an article” or are “tied to a particular machine.”

Anyway, food for though... work is calling...

A manager's job

A manager's job is to make sure things get done without doing a thing.
In other words, to employ the strategy and tactics that attain the set objectives.
A manager delegates.
A manager has to be a leader, otherwise delegation, change and crisis management becomes impossible.

About perfection and ideation

Rebranding JC has been a great exercise and as Borat would say 'I like to last for a very long time!'.
Well at some point the creative process and the pleasure that entails have to take a practical shape.
Perfection is the excuse of lazy and undecided people.
Personally I tend to adopt the iterative development - eternal beta approach. We rarely deal with mission critical projects in advertisement or management.

And at the end of the day the ideation / conception / initiation / inception phase exists in a very specific place in time as part of a project timeline.
So weather you like it or not, it has a clear end...

Now the issue is (and I get this question from every agency we're working with): how can a manager make sure the ideation phase of a project is delivered within budget, a timely manner and with the amazing concepts and ideas?
For many agencies the big challenge is how to keep the creatives happy and 'creative' and still not suffer too much in the subsequent project phases because of that.

The answer is quite simple.
- plan
- give special attention to dependencies.
:: is this task really dependent on the previous one? analyze the dependencies. you need the marketing objectives to be defined before you work on the creative how-to. but you don't need to wait for approved detailed storyboard in order to start designing the framework or programming your templates or css positioning. be proactively smart.
:: who should be involved when and why? always find the critical minimum number of persons assigned to a task
- manage the brainstorm meetings!! ok soft-manage them... this sounds dichotomatic (i like making up words) but with simple techniques and structures you can drastically improve the productivity of those meetings.
- money talks. at the end of the day the manager is in charge of the budget and every company should have clear procedures and policies that facilitate the decision making process.

There is such thing as good enough, but in order to benchmark on 'enough' the objectives have to be very clear. Too many projects are thrown in conception without clear marketing objectives and other considerations. And this is when you call us...

Summer News

Lately I've been working quite a lot with Jonathan on the new Jaime Candy. In august you'll see the results. Also organizing the new office (1200 Aldred Building).

Other than that, rainy summer in Montreal.

LE MERVEILLEUX MONDE DU WEB

HELLO BOS!

Looking with hope towards the ... what?

Obama runs a brilliant web campaign.
Classic web 2.0 (whatever...) branding.
Able to reach into the power of social networks for donations and preaching.
Simple and direct message. No bullshit. Clear and exhaustive program...
Walking the talk...

This is to mention of a small error... that does not take into account the fact that most people are right-handed and the positive look into future is in the top right (from their perspective)...

The fact that Obama is left-handed is irrelevant, the following image gives the wrong unconscious message... We look positively into the past...

Consider:



Marketing design people should know better.

[update 15/05] on higher abstraction levels this might mean: the race is over, or that obama is not going to ask edwards to be his vp... but im going too far, this is just a stupid collage not a 12th century Christian painting.

[update 24/07] yes that sucks... Edwards has another commitment after the US election on the 25th of November. So no chances he'll accept the VP. At least I'll be able to see him in person :).

business productivity & Co

thank you all for coming to my conference on business productivity & co.
i'll post the presentation whenever i have some time. for those who cannot wait i can email it on request.

you're doing it wrong

if you do it because everybody else is then you're doing it wrong.

Is 'the customer always right' wrong?

No.

The customer is always right. Period.

The customer pays for a service and that service is bound under the terms and conditions of the company providing the service.

If the company does not protect itself from the litigious claims made by customers, well that is its problem.

The company is wrong to try and put the 'customer is always right' mantra just to create pressures on its employees without protecting them.

And this applies also to the free-continuous-beta development services.

------------------
This is a reply to an article featured on reddit. Once you see the big picture everything else is clearer. Nice try though.

Some Thoughts for 2008 by Jonathan

Check out this post by my friend Jonathan.

When do you have time to think?

Here is what bothers me.

You spend:

- 8 hours working
- 2 in transport
- 2 eating
- 8 sleeping
- 2 watching tv
- 2 with family / spouse
- 2 on internet
- 1 doing things around the house
- 2 reading and writing stuff

whaaa? 29 hours a day already?

all this being said, when do you have time to think? to introspect? to get to know yourself? to reinvent and renew yourself?

'i think therefore i am'?
or are you only a more complex automaton waiting to break in burnout, stress and depression?

you want to be free? freedom brings responsibility. the awareness of responsibility is so strong that most people cannot handle it and they go back to their old ways.

if there is one thing you should choose is to give yourself the time to think.

About negligence

Today, my friend JiPé gently pointed out that I neglected my blog lately.

Point taken.

About freedom

here is a comment i've posted on a friends' blog, and i thought you might want to read it.

'the question, for me at least, is how can we empower the consumers to become aware of their own freedom and power to change. and the hardest part: how can we increase humans' tolerance to freedom... generally the freedom of choice brings anguish, stress, depression and finally complacency... you know it's bad for you but you still do it...'

atheist?

I imagine you are a confident and introspective person who in an excruciating volition effort decided to face the metaphysical angst of the realization that human being is the sum of his actions and who courageously faces the desperation of nihilism.
... but who am I kidding...

MSNBC LIVE DEBATE - 26 February 08

in case you missed it

Something that you are not

Experiments are experiences designed to test theories.
When we intentionally expose ourselves to new experiences we assume that something will happen, some change will occur. The dream of change is the reward that drives us to repeat the same experiences even when they don’t deliver the expected results.

Marketing sells you the promise and the illusion of change.
Marketing is pure entertainment. The basic assumption is that you are unhappy and that you are willing to pay to change. Most products are mediocre.

You are not paying for a better product, but for that proud and unique moment that allows you to dream you are about to change.

Good marketers know it: pride is the most profitable sin.

Are you ready?

Leaders lead people

Rambo 4 is coming

"Live for nothing, or die for something"...

Happy New 2008!

About Good and Evil Design - The end of a debate

Let's focus on the fine arts related design for a bit.

We, humans, don't get along with freedom very well. Or with evil as a matter of fact.

Designers, whether you like it or not, if you are working in a corporation, you ARE doing commercial design. Period.

There is a clear confusion between pure art and applied art.

By its definition fine art design is art with a purpose or applied art.
If you are doing commercial design then your purpose is commercial. And here you can add your own ethical touch.

Design as art is not good nor bad, but its uses are.
The art depicted in a design is bound to the aesthetics of the time. So it cannot be good or bad. It can nevertheless help sell a product.

The purpose of the design, the ethics of it, on the other hand, can be good or evil. If we are taking a utilitarian stand.

A design as art with purpose can only be good and ethical if: the product sold is good (healthy, fairly priced and produced) for the consumer AND the consumer buys (uses) it because your design is appealing. In which situation your client makes money and you are a superstar.

In all other situations, the design as art with purpose is either bad or unethical.

So there you have it.

Commercial design only for the sake of art is bad if it does not sell.
And you should be fired.

Commercial design that is good and sells, if combined with a bad product, it's unethical (or evil).
And you should fire your client.

Now either live with it or do something about it, but stop wining.

---
Octavian Mihai

Horia-Roman Patapievici lanseaza volumul "Despre Idei & Blocaje"

trackback de la "Ca sa existi in Romania, trebuie sa existi ca scriitor"

parerea mea este ca se bate apa'n piua pt o cauza pierduta.
in nici o disciplina din Romania nu exista o elita romaneasca. pentru ca
1. nu exista un spirit intreprinzator
2. specialitatea nu este valorizata iar specialistii nu stiu sa o valorizeze pt ca 1.
3. sofistica diletanta romaneasca este foarte apropiata de bascalie iar snippetele culturale iau alura unor afirmatii (reale sau nu) de tipul: steinhardt a fost un evreu [homosexual] convertit la crestinism in inchisoare, cioran si eliade au facut parte din garda de fier, pe marin preda l-a omorat securitatea cu tramvaiul.

conceptul de cultura generala, pe langa faptul ca este iluzoriu, este falit.

personal sunt complet deziluzionat de axele aleatorii create de multimea {eliade, noica, cioran, steinhardt, blaga, ionescu, culianu, patapievici, manolescu, cartarescu, dacii si romanii, hagi, becali, comaneci, doroftei, ceaushescu, eminescu, maiorescu, calinescu, etc}

si sunt de acord ca realizarea profesionala se face in strainatate. ultimul exemplu este lucian bute. un fost antrenor de-al lui spunea ca-i pacat ca iau altii laurii muncii lor. daca bute sau doru ramaneau in ro acum aveau probabil 2-3 medalii de bronz la amatori si lucrau in constructii prin italia.

ma intreb daca hrp ar emigra, prin state sa spunem, in ce s-ar putea realiza. probabil profesor asistent la vre-o catedra de fizica :). dar atat. cu tot respectul pe care il port lui hrp, pentru mine el reprezinta culmea diletantismului romanesc. expert in toate.
inca de la premiza s-a pus in bataia sagetzii si din pacate a fost cucerit de betzia culturii generale.

Strong Like Bull - The making of

The funny reading was because the text on the paper was not English but Romanian with English pronunciation. Very interesting and conflicting reading. You should try it :) Sorry about the bad sound, just play it louder, but not too loud :P

About employee depression

According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, at any time, 10% of the working population suffers from depression.

Out of 1000 employees 100 suffer from depression, 25 are diagnosed and 6 are actually properly treated. That is 6%!

There are clear links between depression, job strain, stress, cardiovascular disease (the leading cause of death in the world), productivity, employee turnover, etc.

Job strain and stress are generally related with management quality.

Mental health at work is a critical issue since it can easily become life threatening.

There are many solutions to detect mental problems at work but too few service firms treat it as a symptom of a sick organism.

My opinion is that mental disease at work should be understood holistically and treated systematically in order to avoid stigmatizing even more the sick persons, whose only fault usually is that they work in a poorly managed environment and have no social support.

This is not necessarily the enterprise's managers fault. There are synergistic factors that feed the conditions for high job strain. A junior project manager, an angry or very demanding client, errors in the job definition, errors in project scheduling or useless procedures that slow the work process are simple examples that have great impact on team's morale.

Usually a well understood problem has the simplest and the most elegant solution.

--
Octavian Mihai

Stong-Like-Bull The Short

Due to popular demand, I've decided to publish the Strong like bull video. Enjoy.



This is a video Ive made as part of a contest when the Montrealer agency Diesel Marketing changed its name to Sid Lee. One of the reasons was to distinguish itself from the Diesel jeans, to open towards a more international market with a new concept of 'commercial creativity'.

Music is by Zob si Zdup.
Bogdan Stoica was the man behind the camera and the one who helped me edit and put everything together.

Make sure you come back for the hilarious making-of.

Top 10 reasons why your employees leave you - Demystifying Retention

A Love Relationship

This is no conspiracy. Your employees leave you, nobody is taking them away from you. And where should they go if not to your competition:)? Everybody pursuits her happiness. See it as a relationship.

The phase "The only reason an employee leaves you is if she fells out of love with your company. Period." might have sounded a bit dogmatic though.

Here is the vulgarized research that puts it all together. I do not give you yet specific numbers as promissed in my Machiavell article. These are studies done by several research departments of Statistics Canada, Gallup polls, the UK's Labour Research Department, etc. All this is combined with my team's expertise in HR, industrial psychology and project management.


A mystifying Retention problem

Just about yesterday a good friend ( Hi Pat :) ) was telling me: "I just lost a key employee and I don't understand why since I have created for her all the conditions to be happy... She had a flexible schedule, good pay, even the privilege of informing the clients about the resolution of their problems. "

It should be noted that employees do not have the same reasons for staying as for leaving. They will stay for good management (performance, wellness, care and prevention) and if that is gone they will leave for a better pay. Also there is a dissonance between why employees leave and what employers think employees leave for. You cannot keep an employee only with money, you keep her with good leadership, wellness, prevention and care. Beware, care does not only mean a tap on the back...when you care about your employee you will do everything you can to offer her respectable rewards also...


Top 10 reasons your employees leave you

1. Employee is not in the right job
- Hiring error
- Management error of not acknowledging this asap and try to reposition the employee
- this goes hand-in-hand with 7 (job definition) and 8 (future and development plan)

2. Excessive workload and hours
- Bad direct management in scheduling.

Reason #1 people stay is good management. Once that is gone they will run to the first company that opens its door with a competitive salary.

Ok here I don't want to hear that the client asks for more with less, that the company does not pay overtime, that these are strategic projects, that the project manager does not have the authority to step in, etc.

One point is clear: all of the above are risks that should be clearly stated to higher management. You cannot have the most exhaustive project scope and then disproportional time and money.
Every project manager should create his generic timeline and then apply to it all the above constraints. The higher management should be aware that the stain on the teams is costing more than a difficult client or a bad manager.

On another note, clients are people too, and they are easier to manage that one may think. They are sensitive to honesty and excellence. A good account or project manager will understand and prioritize clients' needs. But that's another story.

3. Not enough recognitions
- Direct supervisors do not verbally appreciate the worker.
Managers! just look the person in the eye and say THANK YOU!!! - you shouldn't be screaming though :), I am screaming because this should be so obvious.
- No financial incentives - if you are not able to give financial incentives to your employees means:

a. Your company is not profitable
-- You have a problem with your business model
-- Or you have incompetent workers - but they won't really expect financial incentives anyways

b. You just think that you found a brilliant way of making money: you minimize next to zero the incentives thus maximizing the value that the employees create for you.
This is great, but if you are making profit and yet you are not giving anything back to your employee you deserve to lose them. And should I remind you that losing employees means you lose money! Oh, this is getting so complicated... see Work and Life - Minimize Turnover

4. No support mechanism in the workplace
- Supervisor unavailable or has no empathy
- Coworkers unavailable - because of excessive workloads or bad office infrastructure or some other organizational policies, etc.
- Useless and untargeted 'bonding activities'. These should be strategically focused towards solving specific team issues not just promiscuously getting people together over wine and champaign...

5. No meaning in the job
- Humans are not robots. Humans need meaning in order to create and to feel fulfilled. A salary may be a way to sustain one's family but if the work itself has no meaning it might as well be any work...

6. Personal conflicts
- Supervisors unable to solve interpersonal disputes
- Inexistent conflict resolution policy
- Managers push employees into gray zones without clarifying the decision process (see next point)

7. Unclear job definition
- Employee doesn't understand what is expected of her or how these expectancies help her chasing her career goal
- Conflicts created by wrong job description and lack of policies that clarify the gray zones between jobs and the way to tackle them (see point 2 Gray zones where working processes overlap in 6 reasons why your corporate problem is in the organization chart)

8. Employee does not see any future for her in the company - no development plan
- No clear development plan nor regular evaluations
- Bad supervising
- Bad communication

9. No job security - Flawed top-down communication

a. Simply put: your company is going nowhere... wrong business model.

b. Your company is doing well but your employees do not see it.

- Top-down communication about company's future and vision is not done only in general meetings and emails.
- Effective top-down communication is complete when every level of management understands, buys and sells it to its teams. If a top VP does not have buy-in at all levels of management (especially the floor level) the communication is useless.
- Communication with no buy-in has a backslash: managers do not believe it and they become cynical about it. And cynicism if repeated and in combination with workload and overtime becomes a strong burnout dimension.

10. Stressful work environment
- any of the above 9 steps
- Unclear wellness and prevention policy and implementation
- No conflict resolution policy and implementation
- Managers don't know how to detect stress nor burnout
- Disrespectful actions - no recognition, bullying, management by fear see About Leadership and Turnover - Fear vs Love in Machiavelli - Why love finally wins...
- No love


Solutions?

Obviously these are generic points that have to be analyzed individually.

Your company needs a tailored diagnostic, solution and implementation.

Be careful. There are several companies and consultants that will offer you plenty of solutions from technological to yoga and from 360 assessments to weird rope games.
Almost no company offers you the guaranty that their interventions will work. Simply because their business model focuses on specific disciplines (psychometrics, rope games, yoga, .Net programming) and not on your need, which is employee retention.

Should you want to know more drop a comment and I'll get back to you.

---
Results from Labour Research Department for the CWU, Perspectives on Labour and Income - Statistics Canada, Health Reports - Statistics Canada, Gallup, Survey. com


--
Octavian Mihai

Hold your breath... Facebook starts to smell...

This is becoming very interesing.

The Facebook model for marketing has extraordinary potential since it allows unprecedented user mass targeting.

Now the way they started to provide this service is targeting by age bracket and gender. This is still very primitive. Here is their Polls service offer.

Here is an ad that I personally find offensive.

And this is part of my complain to Facebook's customer services:

"Although this polling model is interesting it still does not have the capacity to properly target the users. (In this case: people interested in fast sex with any woman… :) )

Even if it might be very profitable hope you guys are not going to turn to porn any time soon…"

The problem I see is that even if they have this enormous potential to give me accurate and targeted ads that I really could use and participate in, Facebook still presents me with a ridiculous ad and keeps it right in my face.

There is a very thin line between achieving network effects, already done by FB, and the loyalty of those users that actually allows you to stay successful... For Facebook the most difficult times are yet to come.

--
Octavian Mihai

6 reasons why your corporate problem is in the organization chart

Here is an understatement: 99% of the corporate problems are caused by the organization chart that does not match the innate business processes and your client's needs.

My examples are from software and marketing agencies but they can be expanded to other industries.

6. Too many divisions, positions, departments, etc

Organization chart is not simplified to the lowest common denominator and creates operational expenses overhead, difficult decision making, unsatisfied clients, stressed teams, loss of productivity, you name it.

5. Merging conflicting positions

e.g. Merging PMO and CTO or software architecture and production management.
These are capital mistakes that create internal and eventually a metaphysical conflict of interests inside the same person... And unless you're Freud it can create bunch of existential doubts :) ....

4. Bad decision-making process - using the organization chart to make decisions

Decision-making process uses the highest-supervisor-shortcut: this VP usually is not at all competent to make this call, and does not have the time to properly assess the situation.

3. Strategic positions are not close enough on the organization chart

e.g. Client management is too far away from R&D, tech support and product development, etc

2. Gray zones where working processes overlap on several job positions are not well defined and understood, and the decision process is not clear.

Too many positions fighting over the same gray zone: production manager, PMO, CTO, product managers, account managers, software architect, creative directors, information architect, project managers.

Top deciders are not aware of the gray areas created by the processes and they unknowingly push the decision making into these zones. Yes, this comes as a corollary of 4 (Bad decision-making process).
The decision-making process should be clear and tailored on specific issues. Several people might have the decision power over the same gray zone depending on the issue type (technical, client satisfaction, budgetary, timeline). The top decider should solely prioritize the issue type and support the specialists in the decision-making.

1. Focus on processes and on independent disciplines rather than on client's need

If you are selling branding, have a Branding Department!!

Don't break your company in departments of 4 persons each... IT, design, storyboarding, strategy, etc

A company lives with money. Money is brought by clients.
Clients pay to get THEIR problem solved.

Clients don't care about your independent disciplines.

"Our branding department is working on it"

sounds better and makes more sense than:

"Our strategist has spoken to the creative director who has to inform the design department of the change and ... hold on.. which reminds me i have to speak to the CTO about this change... man they won't like it... with the CTO or with the architect... oh no, i better speak with the project manager or with the PMO... wonder what would the QA department think if they find out... gotta talk with the deployment department and set up a meeting to set up the new upgrade schedule... damn this is complicated... ok ok imma do it myself by tonight, but don't tell anyone..."

So focus your organization chart around your client's needs.


--
A great example of business re-engineering is Louis V. Gerstner for IBM in the 90s.
Check out this book for an interesting analysis and other cool examples. Seduced by Success: How the Best Companies Survive the 9 Traps of Winning by Robert J. Herbold (former Microsoft COO). In the book he is arguing how success might be a great vulnerability to companies and the importance of knowing how to capitalize on inflection points.

---
Octavian Mihai

About Leadership and Turnover - Fear vs Love in Machiavelli - Why love finally wins...

Along with Tom Peters and Sun Tzu, Machiavelli is probably one of the most cited authors at leadership-over-beer sessions.

Here are in a nutshell the teachings of Machiavelli's Fear vs Love taken from The Prince analyzed form the business perspective of leadership and keeping employees united and loyal and consequently engaged and productive.

The goal of this discussion is to show that love is better than fear to keep your employees united and loyal. And by united and loyal I understand to control your turnover and to make them refrain from leaving your company.

I argue that:

A. These teachings (fear works, etc) do not apply in our 21st century western corporate world and all those who use them have an outdated view, unless you use them to prove a point like we do now. :)).

B. Employees' hate and indifference or disengagement towards the employer increases turnover while love is the only one out of the 3 that keeps en employee in his job.

C. Machiavelli is right to present a dichotomy between fear and love and now the corporate world has the conditions that make it better for managers to be loved by employees than feared.


Machiavelli's Teachings (see end of article for the references)

The goal of a great leader who wants to stay in power the longest is to keep the subjects united and loyal... And by subjects we understand workers :)

The ideal of any ruler to keep his subjects united and loyal is to be loved and not feared - but this is not possible - see below.

According to Machiavelli, a ruler can do anything as long as he avoids being hated.

Here are his tactics:

1. Establish yourself on fear - because you can control it

2. Try to be loved - but remember that you cannot control love

3. Don't touch your subjects' property and women - because this brings hate

4. Killing someone's relative is better (because he forgets faster) than taking one's property

5. Humans are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous


Machiavelli’s teachings from a 21st century perspective

1. You can control fear - true in general in any governing model fear still works BUT false in a corporate environment where employees have the choice of leaving - only in US 77 million baby-boomers are to be replaced by only 44 million gen-X -

2. You cannot control love - true in general since love is a 2-way emergent property BUT false in a corporate reality.

You can influence love, since an employee comes to work for you he's already open to love so all you have to do is to sustain that relationship.

3. Touching one's property brings hate - true - either hate or a headbut and a lawsuit

4. Killing and stuff - does not apply (at least not in the western society)

5. Humans are ungrateful, wicked, etc.- false - this might have been true 5 centuries ago but the values of the western society have evolved and we can safely say that most humans nowadays do not share these characteristics. So many centuries of ungratefulness taught the western world to appreciate a helpful hand :)

In any case if an employer does not trust his employees he might as well let them go; paranoia smells stronger than bull***...


Why Hate does not work and Love woks

Since we've seen that we can control love and that people are not wicked and they cannot be managed by fear suddenly we realize that with love we can reach more easily our managerial ideal : "to be loved and not feared" and having our subjects united and loyal...

Take that old-school-middle-manager-wannabe-super-VP who screams at everybody and does status meetings twice a day!

It goes without mentioning that the present workforce has so many employment options that fear, paranoia and hate will push employees to quit an employer.

Conclusion: Hate does not work. Love woks.


Why indifference or disengagement does not work

Does indifference or disengagement work?

You may ask, since we know that hate is a reason to leave, why does it have to be necessarily love that makes workers stay? Why not the sole absence of hate, or pure indifference?

Because disengaged workers have a negative performance impact (about 32% in operating income decline according to a ISR research 2006 study).

And people are not dumb nor insensitive (hope you don't have them in your company at least) ... they know when they underperform and low professional efficacy is one of the three burnout dimensions (along with cynicism and emotional exhaustion).

Also although not perfectly related, it has been shown that employee engagement has an inverse relationship with burnout (see works by organizational and clinical psychologists such as Schaufeli and Demerouti).

Since indifference and disengagement may induce loss of performance and increase burnout they subsequently have an impact in turnover increase .

Conclusion: Disengagement does not work


Fear bad, Love good, Bad managers bad, Machiavelli good

Now, in Machiavellian terms instead of:
an employer can do anything as long as he avoids being hated,
we can conclude that:
an employer can get away with anything as long as he makes sure he is being loved.

And his workers will stay engaged, united, loyal, productive, etc.

So yes, we have seen that love works and that Machiavellian fear in leadership does not really make sense anymore. Unless you use it like we did and turn it partially upside down.

Fear vs Love? Love kicks ass! So get your story straight or your feelings...

Fear, killing and wickedness are no longer standards and whoever uses this as a reference to make a leadership or management point does not know his political studies.

So please stop using references that don't apply anymore. Don't get me started on Sun Tzu...

---
And yes, yes, I'll explain how this magical 'love for the employer' works and keeps workers happy, loyal and engaged...

Too good to be true? Stay tuned... I'll give you numbers, stats, references, diagrams, theories, practical examples, nice photos, funny catch phrases, etc you name it... or maybe you might need to come to one of my presentations... not sure... have to ask my boss... but back to Machiavelli...

---


Here are some quotes from a 1908 translation of W. K. Marriott see Chapter XVII.

"every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel"

"a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty;"

"whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with."

"Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you."

"And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which,owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails."

"because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women."

"but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."

"Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable."

"men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred"

--
Octavian Mihai

Work and Life - Minimize Turnover

20% : the average yearly turnover
Out of 10 people in a room 2 will not be here next year. Which ones???

200% : on average annual salary to replace an employee

Consider interviews, job posting, admin fees, training, knowledge management losses, productivity losses, contagion factor, client stress, etc.

So yes, losing employees costs you money :))...

What to do? What to do?

Create a clear retention strategy.
Partner with expert companies that can help you control and minimize the turnover rate. Demand accountability and a roi analysis on their services.

Don't: Try to do it yourself.
Don't: Get some complex and costly software system that will make you waste more managing it than its benefits.
Don't: Deal with assessment companies unless they guarantee the turnover reduction. There are plenty of companies that use unprofessional assessments and have no expertise on designing a tailored solution for your company.

Understand that the human capital is the most important asset your company has.

Talk the talk and walk the walk. This is a win-win situation.

--
Octavian Mihai

Work and Life: Maximize productivity

60% : the average time an employee spends at work working (creating value)

How to maximize that time?

Improve project management

- Activities planing and scheduling
Do your project managers plan 80% of an employee workday on a project? Your project will be late.

- Clear tasks
Your project managers should minimize the time the team members look for information.

- Clear and available resources
Provide team members with detailed action plan when they look for resources. i.e. after 20 min of unsuccessful resource finding - ask!; senior programmer always available; get books and licensed software, etc.

Improve your policies

- Clear job descriptions and management policies. Define the gray zones.
The team members and managers should clearly know what parts of their job fall under their control.

- Personal development plan
Reinforce the gray zone definition with a personal development plan. The managers should be aware of this plan. Don't keep it secret.

- No overtime (unless you are ready for what follows)
Overtime means that employees are generous with you.
They are making you a favor!!
You should be able to repay them at least as generously.

Professional athletes, musicians, actors, they all know it. Overtime destroys your capacity to perform. Unless they are in the finals they will avoid it as much as possible.

If your company uses overtime to fix the management problems you lose your performance and your employees. Don't dumb your team down with overtime.

- Need for Recovery
Always cover your team's overexposure to work with recovery techniques.

- Love
Care about your employees and they will care about you.

Remember, when a new employee comes on board she's in love with your company.
The only reason an employee leaves you is if she fells out of love with your company. Period.

---
Octavian Mihai

Life and Work - This is your life

Employees:

20 years!!! : the average time spent during one's active (awake) life working or thinking about work

Do what you are best at. Find happiness in what you do. Know your role. Leader or follower. Accept it. Change it. Balance your life.

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” Herman Cain

It is time to accept work as part of ones life. If you are not happy at your job, you are not in the right job. This is a lose-lose situation. For you and for your employer.
Life is short. Too short.

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” — Michelangelo (via Tom Peters)

Everybody would agree that work is a mean not an end... But how many of us treat work as being the most important thing that happened to us?

It is time to treat work as a support mechanism towards the fulfillment of personal life.

--
Octavian Mihai