Beware of Business HIV: It's On the Rise

The less you pay, the better the deal. Right? The less time you spend, the more money you save. Right? These precepts are the foundation of a creeping business virus I call the Hidden Inefficiency Virus or Business HIV.

At its most fundamental DNA, Business HIV is the average individual’s response to too much and contradictory information. Needing to make decisions that guard profit and no longer having a grasp on the millions of pieces of data that dart in and out of their field of vision, business people have settled into a way of thinking that makes them wrong often but rarely willing to admit that they’re wrong. Doing so would require more in-depth study of data than they feel they can do. Sticking with saving money as the bottom line seems like the wisest course of action to many decision-makers.

Economic, human and social realities fly in the face of this sort of out-dated logic, however. The more time you spend investigating your own needs and the offerings of different vendors, the more money you can save – not only in the purchase but also in the long-term. The more money you spend on individuals with specific expertise, the more money you are likely to make as your operations improve.

Business HIV removes the real logic and replaces it with a sense of false scarcity and urgency. Business HIV is an emotional and intellectual disease that prevents decision-makers from seeing how off course they really are. It’s ego, comfort, fear. . . and it’s just plain illogical.

The remedy to Business HIV is a restructuring of the big picture. A realization that costs such as energy, taxes and insurance are spiraling and they’re not going to come down. Competition is more rampant than ever in the history of commerce as Third World countries replicate everything better and cheaper. A new strategy based on people creating profit through innovation is the only antidote to Business HIV.

Are you ready to move from a sick mechanical business model to a healthy organic business model? Are you ready for that shot in the arm?

CJ is a regular contributor to HRTools.coms.
You can now get your own copy of his groundbreaking book, The Squaredime Letters.
You can vist CJ online at www.cjcoolidge.com.

End the Deception: You CAN Get A Lot More Out of Your People

One of the biggest lies I hear from business operators is also the most common. They say, "I already get everything I can out of my people."

I hear it all the time. Then, I expose the error. Then, I can fix the problem.

What they miss is simple. They don't understand how leverage works in the employee business.

It's simple. First, the basic tool of leverage is the lever. What is a lever? A lever is a simple tool that makes it possible to lift 100 pounds with 10 pounds of effort. Simply stated, the lever makes it possible to get more from less. It is the essence of profit.

There are 2 kinds of leverage where people are concerned, Individual Leverage, and Group Leverage. Both are easy to understand.

Individual Leverage is at work:

• One sales person consistently produces great results, with effortlessness, while others, working hard, produce only average results.
• One financial person can find an error in a complicated spreadsheet, while others may study it for a long time, and still not find it.
• One person can, in a short time, create a powerful presentation while others, even teams, can produce only an adequate presentation, with greater effort and a lot more time.

The levers at work are strengths, talents, aspirations, experience, etc.

In my experience, I have seen that I can produce spot-on, high impact presentations in a few hours, while it takes a team of marketers many more man hours to give me things I must improve anyway. I am experienced and uniquely gifted. It is a high-value ,"leverageable" activity for me.

Group leverage is at work:

• One particular sales team consistently out-produces every other team in the same market, with the same product at the same time.
• One shift out produces other shifts where all the conditions are, seemingly, the same.
• One particular project team consistently delivers on time, and under budget, in industries or areas notorious for the opposite.

The levers at work are leadership, communication, culture, alignment, etc.

The Boston Red Sox won 8 straight games from the more talented Yankees and the Cardinals to win the World Series in 2004 based on aspiration, leadership, and culture. These provided the leverage.

There are tools available to discover and develop Individual and Group leverage for business, but since most business leaders aren't aware of the opportunity, these are misunderstood and misapplied. And, since they manage primarily by their financials and "hard numbers," any resources directed at these tools is considered a waste.

If management will realize that they are wasting resources and effort by not developing their people leverage, then these "soft" investments will become indispensible, and companies will start to reap greater rewards than they ever thought imaginable.

Consider the Fortune 500 best Places to Work companies. These company's, year in and year out, way out-produce their competitors, in profit and, more importantly equity growth.

It isn't even arguable.