March's Book Report

With February being a short month, it is time for another one of Don Kardux' helpful book reviews.  I love the concept of this month's book.  Please comment to let us know what you think!

The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack

The world is full of mushroom managers.  They believe you should treat company employees like mushrooms. Keep them in the dark and feed them shit!

But, Jack Stack doesn't believe that works very well.

He believes in "Open Book Management". In fact, he started the concept in February 1982 when he and twelve other managers bought, Springfield Remanufacturing Company with $100,000 in their own money and $8.9 million in loans.

In 1983 the single share stock price of SRC was $.10.

In January of 2015 the single share stock price is $199.00.

In 1983 there were 119 employees.

In 2015 there are 1,200 employees in 17 divisions.

'Mushroom Management' or 'Open Book Management'

There is no question.

I first read this book in August of 1995.  Five and a half years after I started Business Navigators.   Now, I help most of my clients share Profit and Loss statement monthly with all employees.

In only 252 pages Jack reveals the important aspects of 'Open Book'.

Let me share a couple of his thoughts.

"The whole idea of open-book management, after all, is to create an environment in which people can continuously learn and grow. If you stick to it, if you keep educating and challenging people, if you knock down the barriers and make sure they stay down, you can't help but get better and better at the Game as time goes along."

The Higher Laws of Business

1. You get what you give.   
2. It's easy to stop one guy, but it's pretty hard to stop 100.  
3.  What goes around comes around.    
4. You do what you gotta do.  
5. You gotta wanna.  
6. You can sometimes fool the fans, but you can never fool the players.  
7. When you raise the bottom the top rises.  
8. When people set their own targets, they usually hit them. 
9. If nobody pays attention, people stop caring.  
10. As they say in Missouri: Shit rolls downhill. By which we mean change begins at the top.

I especially like # 8.

Jack provides an effective and practical approach to success. I know it works because I've been offering to my clients for 19 and a half years and I've watched it work.

One'th by Land,Two'th by Sea and Other LInes

Today, son, Greg and I were having a fun conversation at the end of lunch before he had to head home to Ann Arbor.  Since we both help others to network better, our communication many times revolves around our in-common work.

I don't know how we got to this topic but he

shared with me that there were actually two riders who spread the word about "The British are coming, The British of coming," and when we Googled it, we found out that there were actually three men who carried the message.  I'm sure you remember that Paul Revere is the one that sounded the alarm.  What we found out was that William Dawes and Samuel Prescott helped to warn the colonists, too.  But I'll bet you didn't know that. I didn't.

It is thought that Paul Revere is remembered because of the poem that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, about "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."  Supposedly Longfellow did not include the other two  because their names were not as good for rhyming!  You can read the whole story here.

But let's not take anything away from Revere's efforts.  He was active in Patriot circles, making connections that were valuable in getting messages out to the various colonists.  He was so good, that in fact, the British had someone tailing his efforts.  That's right they had him under surveillance!  He was a participant in the Boston Tea Party, so he was well known within the "right" circles.  Through his networking and leadership skills, he basically built a massive communications machine that made the night of April 18, 1775 a success.

So there you have it. Networking was important way back when!

How will your networking efforts be remembered over two hundred years from now?

February Book Review

I love Don KarduxFebruary book review.  We all know Don is the owner of Business Navigators, a business consulting firm.  It's a little different than what he usually brings to us.  For those who are assistants (or second in command) or need to hire one be sure to read on!

Johnny Carson had Ed McMann.

Steve Allen had Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Don Knotts.

Carol Burnett had Korman, Lawrence and Conway.

Second bananas help make the star look good.

It's the same in business.

So many of the management books I read focus on the leader and how the leader can help those who support the ones at the top.  But, what principles should a support person use to help the leader?   Larry Linne and Ken Koller answer this question in their book, "Make The Noise Go Away."

I'm dedicating this review to two of my best friends and clients who are facing this issue now in 2015.

Their real names are Dom and Mike but I hope they will become like Jim, 'First in command' and Brett, 'Second in command' who are the main characters in this parable style story about "Making the noise go away".  Larry Linne has spent over twenty years working directly with 'First- and Second-in commands and so his principles are forged in the real world of noise in business.

What does the book regard as noise?

From the introduction, A first-in-command who has a lot of noise might:

•  ·        Feel anxiety and doubt about the busines

•      Receive a lot of feedback that his or her new ideas are driving the company crazy

• ·         Have low trust that things will be accomplished

• ·         Be the only person who brings value to outside relationships

• ·         Feel the need to do everything himself or herself

• ·         Feel as if he or she is the only one in the business losing sleep

• ·         Check up on every detail of the business because he or she doesn't know what is going on

• ·         Be so busy doing everything but not have time to do what he or she does best

• ·         Follow up on things multiple times until the items are complete

The thirteen principles are key. My personal experience of working with small businesses for over thirty years, tells me that implementing these principles can make all the positive difference in the world.

Chapter 18- Hiring an Effective Second-in-Command includes a 'Crystal Clear' six step outline of how to find your 'Second-In-Command'. The ten attributes you should be looking for in this person are bonus observations which cut to the core defining this most important part of your team.

The book is a pleasant read. The story is engaging. The humor gently softens the serious nature of the content.

He LIstened!

As a networker, I always keep a bunch of pens in my purse.  Or maybe it is better said, I just keep a bunch of pens in my purse!  They are ones that I collect along the way from various businesses that use them for promotional purposes.

I was using one such pen at my Board of Action meeting.  For those of you who are saying what the heck is a Board of Action (BOA) it is a group of grads of my class that want to help the grad community to grow and be prosperous.  Sort of like a Board of Adviser on steroids.  One of my very loyal members, Rick Reichow, an newly independent insurance agent, noticed that I was using a pen of his competitor.  Being the smart aleck that I am I told him that the pen he had given me would not work.  He said that he would take care of it!

Being even more of a brat, I said that I liked blue ink, too!  (With me you don't need enemies!)

So yesterday, Rick came up to me at our BNI meeting and gave me a Martin Lark Insurance Agency pen.  And it wasn't your old run of the mill pen.  It is a gorgeous green, with a little penlight feature AND IT HAS BLUE INK!  That pen is not your 89 cent variety, but probably didn't cost $10 either.  All I know is that it was not about the pen, but about the thoughtfulness of Rick.  He made my day.

Who has made your day recently?

Please Train Your Brothers or Sisters!

This post is targeted to all the wonderful sales managers out there who understand that networking is not a sales opportunity but a relationship building exercise that will lead to future sales.

I want to thank you for being so enlightened!

Thank you for:

1.  Not telling your sales team to give out as many business cards as possible.

2.  Not telling them to collect as many business cards as possible

3.  Not asking them how many sales they made at an event

4.  Not asking how many prospects they sold to during an event

5.  For encouraging your team members to sit at different tables at a sit-down networking event

I appreciate that you understand the concepts of networking and share them with your team.

Now can you do me a favor?  Will you educate the other sales managers of the world?????

Does That Visitor Know?

Almost a month in to the new year -- I've already had a couple experiences that help me to think about being ready for networking.

Here is one step that I'm going to implement.  I'm always going to have my introduction (commercial or whatever you want to call it) ready so that a visitor or someone in the audience who has never heard of me, will at least have a figment of an idea of what I offer!

I came to this AHA moment recently when I visited a local BNI chapter to help them get started with the Fast Track program.  Of course, I got to hear all their weekly presentations.  One member delivered a commercial that was three true or false statements that did not guide me by telling what he did nor what he wanted.  This member had been in my BNI Advanced Training for creating such introductions, so I really thought that I had failed as a trainer.

I thought I would find out more so I called him and scheduled a one-to-one meeting.  What I found out was that the chapter president had asked the members to create commercials using true/false statements several weeks previously, but had not asked them to use them.  So my new friend figured he might as well put this introduction to good use at another time....the very time I visited.

Because of that, I left the meeting having no idea of what or how I might even think about helping him.  And actually at our one-to-one I figured out several ways I could help.

With that knowledge, I have made a commitment to myself that I am always going to assume that there is a visitor in the group that doesn't know what I do.  I will have to be really clear with my message and even more specific at what I want. 

Not rocket science, but a good slap to the forehead!

Naked Networking

OK, here's a new way to network.  After all, we want to be the best we can be at networking, right?

So a friend of mine, knows another person who networks in the sauna at the "tony" downtown club.  He's very successful at getting clients this way.  I guess if everyone is naked there is no opportunity for pretense.

My mind got to thinking about this.  What would happen to all the rules of networking without clothes in the equation?

Would the handshake change?  You certainly wouldn't want to miss the person's hand!  That could be a bit awkward.

And what about networking body language? Would you come from the side of a new person, not making a full frontal approach?  After all you don't know them that well.

And the big question of the day is where in the heck would you store your business cards?  I don't even want to go too much further with that.

With all these thoughts running around in my head, I think that I will not adopt the skin-free approach to networking.

Anyone else dare to weigh into this?????