Posts from — January 2008

As we grow older, there are things that are in fashions and then they are no longer hip. I can remember that the business community talked about project management. There were other similar developments people in the business world might remember. Remember The Tipping Point, and the stealing of cheese, the list of dysfunctions, death by meetings, temptations, and other misguided business habits.

We have heard how important empowerment is to a good organizational culture and the happiness of the workforce. Then came a long list of variations about the ins and outs of leadership. This is actually where I started and what is still my main passion - maybe besides coaching others help themselves to become successful. More recently terms like ‘performance management’ and ‘employee engagement’ have gained in popularity.

I believe this highlights a problem that has slowly crept up on us with the advent of some technological solutions and a steady drumbeat in the media. What has happened is the isolation of individuals through the use of electronic tools. We use smart phones, blueberries, laptop computers, and e-mail to communicate. We transfer presentations around the world and deliver them with video-conferencing. The opportunity to observe body language, tone of voice, hand signals, or the twinkle in the eye, have disappeared more and more.

You might think this is only an issue in the business world, but it really isn’t. We used to be fascinated to watch groups of individuals who never did anything together form teams and achieve interesting solutions to problems. Sometimes creativity was the main aim, sometimes it was simply necessary to solve a problem or get out of a bad situation. These days we are inundated by displays of so called “Reality-events” in which an initial group is reduced down to a single winner. Each person eliminated in the process is publicly declared a looser. Just look at popular shows like “Dance Wars”, “America Inventor”, “The next America Band”, “Survivor”, and many more.

In business seminars we are taught how to develop a better decision process. This perceived better process actually suggests asking all meeting participants to provide solutions to a problem that they deem to be acceptable. The most used phrase is: “If we do this, we know we could live with it”. Based on this prerequisite, the alternatives are reduced to two, then everybody votes and the winning solution gets implements. Sounds a lot like. Sounds a lot like American Idol, doesn’t it.

For those among you who actually look for solutions as leaders and managers, what you really need to determine is your cultural preference. As I am always saying, awareness is at least 50% of the solution. Knowing which approach you culturally prefer allows you to be aware, but also to deviate from what you would otherwise do habitually. You basically have 8 choices to define where you fall and also where the group of individuals you are working with and/or working for:

1. Universalism = What is good ands right can be defines, put in a  process or procedures and always applies

2. Particularism =  Instead of having one right way or one right  process, you pay more attention to  relationships, friendships  and don’t follow a certain code for each problem or issue.

3. Individualism = is when you mainly look at yourself as a person

4. Communitarianism = is when you mainly look at yourself as  part of a group or community

5. Neutral = the believe that most interactions should be  objective, detached, and all about achieving specific objectives

6. Emotional = Mixing emotions with intellectual decision  processes is allowed, even preferred to see the whole breath of  the person and the aspects of a decision

7. Specific = you are focusing at the task at hand, have all the data  and arguments ready and can present them convincingly

8. Diffuse = you know what the subject is about but also develop  relationships to the players involved, show care, and want to  see beyond the cold, hard facts

Based on the knowledge of your preferences of your inner culture you can drive a solution to a problem or the aim to find a new, innovative approach. If you tend to be universal, individualistic, neutral, and specific, you can detect any attempt to form more relationships and look into the options at hand. None of the combinations is right or wrong, good or bad.

Be aware that a combination of number 1,3,5, and 7 tend to find solutions quickly while the numbers 2,4,6, and 8 tend to take more time to reach agreement. Since neither one is correct or wrong, you want to decide if you can afford to start over or if you depend more on good cooperation and faster results based on increased motivation  after a decision has been reached. The first combination will move you forward with the risk of failing, the second forms cooperation, motivated groups and less chance for failure, but it takes longer to actually find a solution everybody can agree on.

I hope the increased awareness of these processes and cultural preferences will allow you to make better management and leadership decisions and thereby develop engagement with your workforce and success along the way the path towards success.

Axel Meierhoefer, President AMC LLC

As most of you know, we apply the laser beam hiring system at AMC LLC. It was developed by Gary Morais at GPT3 and utilizes the same assessment as the coaching system we provide.
The similarities come form the fact that in both cases, recruiting and establishing the status quo of performance befoer coaching, the same exact data is relevant.

As all good organizations, we always try to keep an eye on what’s happening in the industry. Here is an interesting piece from Joseph Skursky about the relationship of profits in your organization and the retention of employees in the company. It has some aspects of employee engagement we have been looking into at AMC LLC.

How To Connect Profits and Employee Retention

If you dig deep enough into any industry, companies with best practices in employee retention and development are characteristically the most competitive and most profitable. So why do those businesses who struggle to compete find it so difficult?

People Leave Bosses, Not Companies: According to extensive research from the authors of “First, Break All The Rules”, {people|employees} do not leave primarily for monetary reasons as a motivation. They leave their bosses. What a blow for any who have been bosses with staff who left because of them.

To discover the real problem, we have to ask the question, “why exactly do they leave?” The bad news is it’s a matter of poor hiring practices from the top-down, and the bosses are not being developed to the next level of their own individual improvement. The good news is there are solutions for each.

Organizational Capacity and Competitive Edge How important is all thisreally? According to the late, great thought leader Peter Drucker, “Of all the decisions an executive makes, none is as important as the decision about people because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.”

Assuming this to be true then decisions about people should be treated as the priority they really are, and nothing less.

Is Top Talent The Priority It Should Be For You? If we were to do a post-mortem on any company, we would find that hiring and development practices determine retention, and retention determines competitive edge. For the most part, it’s just that simple. Naturally, there are other factors to be considered, but these are central issues.

Since these best practices begin with management, and most importantly, leadership, let’s ask the tough questions for your organization:

1. Have your managers been assessed for their own strengths and weaknesses? Are they being developed by anyone inside or outside of the organization? If you asked what they would do differently over the past year, would they have a clear answer - one that would pass muster with say a Jack Welch?

2. How does your current management identify and recruit top talent? How do they develop the talent they currently have? Is this a symptom of what they’ve been shown from their own leadership?

Pulling It All Together For Profitability: Using assessments for both existing employees to foster development and new hires for recruiting has become a very practical means to achieve the best decisions for management priorities which include hiring, development which leads to greater retention, business growth, and ultimately, profitability.

Determining the “right fit” for the job, the corporate culture, and even with the employee-boss connection is critical for success.

The most important example of something to be assessed for leaders, management and even for certain types of new hires is well expressed by Jack Welch, Chairman of General Electric, “A leader’s intelligence has to have a strong emotional component. He has to have high levels of self-awareness, maturity and self-control. She must be able to withstand the heat, handle setbacks and when those lucky moments arise, enjoy success with equal parts of joy and humility. No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says that it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it.”

In my experience of assisting clients with hiring decisions, I typically find emotional intelligence to be one of the greatest determining factors for hiring decisions. With it, you can make the job-employee-boss connection with highly productive results.

About the Author:
Joseph Skursky guarantees that his clients will hire top talent using proven effective interviewing solutions and assessments for recruiting. To learn how you can become more competitive, improve profits, and eliminate the high cost of bad hires, go to Recruiting Interview Solutions Hiring

Today I am offering you an article about time management, something most of us either benefit when reminded of or benefit by learning how to do it right. This article was created by Dennis Harting

Get control of your time

The average person has absolutely no control of their time. When it comes to managing this area of their lives, people tend to be abysmal. Some might be competent when it comes to their working hours. However, when their personal lives are factored in, they receive a failing score.

Have you ever met someone who is consistently late? For whatever reason, they are always 5-15 minutes behind. Of course, they will be courteous by calling to let you know that they are running behind. Yet the bottom line is that they never met you at the agreed upon time. What is interesting is to note how these same people live their lives in general. It seems that someone with this problem tends to have a life that is a mess also. They cannot manage any aspect of it. Their basic operation is to run from one situation to the next. Amazingly, even though they are constantly busy, they appear to get very little done.

There is a fundamental philosophy that comes true regardless of what people do to get around it. Basically, if you do not get control of your time, there is no way that you will ever have control in your life. Failure to manage our time puts us in the position of duplicating the aforementioned scenario. We move from one activity to another without making any apparent progress. Our time is spent in a continual state of emergency while we place our focus on the urgent instead of the important. True success comes from being able to handle those activities which have a meaningful impact upon our lives. Getting to this point accelerates all our efforts in everything we do.

There are two simple practices one can implement immediately to garner a bit more control. The first involves keeping your word. It is essential that we begin to do those things we say that we are going to do at the time that we agreed upon. The habit of letting ourselves off the hook is too easy a trap to fall into. We must raise our standard of conduct in this area. Regardless of what else is occurring, treating each time commitment as a life or death situation will aid in creating a new habit. If we are consistently late, it is a sign that we need to more attentive to the commitments that we make. It is a good idea to initially cut back on some of the activities we consent to. This relieves us of some of the pressure which results in us operating at a harried pace.

The second area that can be immediately changed is to be conscious of any perfectionism complex that we might have. Many people with time management issues have an need to do everything perfectly. They will continue with an activity far beyond the acceptable level of performance. This stems from having a low self worth. To compensate, they attempt to make their results extraordinary. Unfortunately, this creates a situation where things take longer than they should. Watch someone operating under this premise and you will see a task take 3 times as long as it should. The easiest way is to remember that a great deal of success is derived from the simple act of completing something. Often, others expectations are a lot less then ours. Give them what they require, but allow yourself to be less than perfect.

Gaining control of our time instantly improves every area of our lives. The more that we can focus our attention on those things which are truly important to us, the fuller our lives will become. Some of the most successful people operate at a pace that is fast yet unhurried. People who are hurried tend to make senseless mistakes. Careful consideration to how you are spending your time and what you are agreeing to will show those tasks which are important to you. A little planning will go a long way to achieving your ultimate end.

About the Author:
Dennis Harting is the Head Coach at Your Rich Life. He is an acclaimed speaker, trainer, and best-selling author. His international best selling books include Your Easiest Million and The Ultimate Procrastination Handbook. He also has had thousands of articles published worldwide. His programs and more information can be found at www.yourrichlifeinc.com

While reading through the newest issue of Popular Science Magazine the other day, I found a small article, actually more an advertisement, claiming that a regular Mazda 6 car was able to get 121 miles per gallon in fuel economy. I thought they had invented a new system to improve on the existing hybrid technology, but the second sentence already said: “It’s not a hybrid – and it’s not an electric car.

This made me curious and I read the text – only about a page. As it turns out, they are talking about a new – two step technology. The first step can be put into any car or truck right now, the second is still under development. Her is what I learned at the companies website about step 1:

How does the Hydro Assist Fuel Cell system work?

The Hydro Assist Fuel Cell is a combination of long standing, proven technologies. It works by extracting a hydrogen-oxygen mixture from water by ionizing it with electricity from the battery. This mixture adds extra hydrogen to your fuel, which burns easily and powerfully and enriches your fuel mixture, giving you added mileage and power. The oxygen increases the octane value of your fuel. The system also uses six powerful magnets that ionize the gasoline to produce smaller molecules and help separate the compounds into simple elements so they burn more completely. And, a specially formulated “covalizer” breaks down the covalent bonds of the long chain gas molecules and helps “crack” and vaporize your fuel as well as increase the life of your engine. A perfectly balanced mixture of hydrogen and oxygen enriches the fuel so the computer can lean out the gas. Our special computer controls the car’s existing computer and keeps it from rejecting the savings.

The HAFC Technology …

• Vaporizes and ionizes the fuel breaking it down for a cleaner and more complete burn
• Produces Water Gas which adds hydrogen and oxygen to the fuel mixture to increase mileage and reduce carbon emissions

As A Result You Get …

• Increased mileage — 50% minimum guaranteed!
• A cleaner engine that lasts longer
• More horsepower & better performance
• Dramatic decrease in exhaust pollution

If you want to learn more about the details and what the second step will do when the technology is going into mass production, go to:

http://www.preignitioncc.com/ps/index.htm

Another pretty cool thing is that you can actually send a message to the company and ask for a quote specifically for your car, make and model. Within a few days, you get a reply via email. Here is the link to ask for the quote:

http://www.preignitioncc.com/ps/addQuote.php

Here is what I got back for my 1996 BMW 328 IC:

Thank you for your recent request for an obligation free quote on our engine modification process for your car(s.) It is a two-step process and we must quote each step in the process separately, since the first step is already on the market and the second step (the PICC) is not yet market ready, I will give you a quote now on the Hydro-Assist Fuel Cell. This first step (the HAFC kit) is GUARANTEED to increase your gas mileage by 50% or better, but we expect it to possibly more than double it. In fact, our test pilot program of the first 80 installations in our class projects averaged an increased mileage of 95%.

The HAFC Kit price, for your car is $1,040 Plus $25(shipping and
handling) for a total of $1,065.00 and is absolutely guaranteed to increase your mileage by at least 50% or you will be cheerfully refunded the cost of the kit upon the return of the kit as per our savings guarantee policy. The question is, would you pay a thousand dollars to be guaranteed an increase of 50% or better in miles traveled per gallon of gasoline? There is a high likelihood you will even double your gas mileage, but that is not guaranteed to happen, so let’s just take the first statement. If you drive 15,000 miles per year, and are getting 20 miles per gallon average, then you are using 750 gallons of gasoline a year. If you could be guaranteed to change that to 30 miles per gallon then you would use 500 gallons instead.

That is a savings of 250 gallons of gasoline. It is like getting 250 gallons of free gas each year! At $3 per gallon, that is $750 saved in one year. But gas is expected to go to $4 per gallon and that is a savings of $1,000 in one year. If you drive 20,000 miles per year, then it is more like 334 gallons of free gas. Of course the kit has often doubled the original mileage of the vehicle it is installed on, and, in that event, a one year payback is in the bag. Our Fuel Cell kit is expected to last the life of the vehicle and it will greatly increase the life of your engine.

As you can see, with installation by a mechanic, I am looking at about $1400 to $1500. Since I am not driving that much it would probably take about 3 years to make my money back (at current gas prices). For a newer vehicle it probably makes sense, and if step 2 of this process/system becomes available the savings will probably be even more impressive. The other aspect is reducing dependence on oil and feeling good about doing something for the environment. In that sense, getting the investment back eventually is great, but the fact of taking action in the first place is probably at least as valuable.

Does this mean everything is great, rosy, a-OK? - Not necessarily. As part of the message for my quote was a somewhat strange statement by the company. It said:

We regret that the volume of orders we are experiencing takes us out of the range of credit card carriers. We are too successful too fast to be able to process credit card purchases at this time. If we were doing less volume we could. That is good for us in one way and bad in another. We hope the inconvenience of having to pay by check is not too burdensome to our customers.

If you have any questions, I would like to refer you to the HAFC
website,       www.hafctechnology.com    especially to the Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ) section of the site. If there is anything you need to know that is not covered on the web site you originally visited or on the HAFC site, please do not hesitate to e-mail me @ ddpbunker@gmail.com

That concerns me because great companies put customer satisfaction on top of everything. Making it inconvenient and excusing it with enough orders coming in is not a good sign. I don’t mean to indicate that you should not try this opportunity, but be careful. I tried to find a mailing address or anything like that, but all I found was the email contact info provided above. I would love for people  give it a try with a car a little newer than mine and report back.

The thought of this new method is exciting and when I get a newer car I will check it out again. Maybe by that time both step 1 and step 2 will be available.

Doubling the fuel mileage would be awesome, 100 mpg, would be wonderful. It appears it will be possible very soon, if not already.

Axel Meierhoefer, President AMC LLC

Free Online Design Tool - Design It! At PsPrint