Fixing Frankenstein: Rogue Monster Projects

Figure 1: The Monster

Back Story for the original Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus was written by Mary Shelley and published in 1818 as a social commentary asking if the monster's soul comes from the Earth or God. The subtitle, A Modern Prometheus, is an analogy of the Greek demi-god Prometheus who stole the fire of life from Olympus alluding to mankind stealing the fire of life from God when creating the monster. Following Benjamin Franklin's harnessing of electricity in 1752, were numerous experiments. Shelley had observed some of these experiments in which the human carcass appeared to be re-animated using electrical jolts and was the basis for her commentary. The story began to take form in the Summer of 1816 while touring Europe and in Switzerland. Circa 1870 versions of the novel became a horror story removing the moral thread lines, Biblical references, having the monster unable to speak or act intelligently, and added scenes parallel to Darwin's abiogenesis hypothesis fundamentally re-scoping Shelley's work and message.

Real Life Frankenstein Experiments

In the narrative, Dr. Frankenstein’s project was to assemble dead tissue and body parts into the form of a human male then reanimated the lifeless hulk using electrical jolts as a life-giving source. The monster then assumed human-like qualities that lead to a conflicted and meaningless life demanding a mate for himself. Dr. Frankenstein became horrified at the thought of creating a civilization of monsters then destroyed the project to create a mate monster. Enraged, the monster rebelled against his creator. Dr. Frankenstein's monster project has many parallels to modern project management. Poor leadership and wayward vision in organizations create monsters too. As in the book, Frankenstein, a question begs an answer to who is the monster, the created or the creator?

Fixing Frankenstein
Rogue Monster Projects

Overall project management is a challenging and rewarding endeavor. However, there are a few challenges that project managers need to be aware of and how to identify the signals. Getting into a monster project will significantly wear on the project manager.

Monster Projects: The ability to form ideas and smoothly roll the idea into execution and then to delivery is the mark of strong leadership. However, ideation that is not well developed during the project formulation is when the Frankenstein Project begins to take shape. An organization can be like Dr. Frankenstein, who was obsessed with his project to animate life from the inanimate. These companies are obsessed with the lifeblood of projects and rush to results by assembling the project team then executing before bringing in the project manager. Under this pressure to begin, short cuts are made and decision making is from the holster, which is not unlike the movie Young Frankenstein when Igor selected the abnormal brain after damaging the healthy brain in an attempt at a patch. Frankenstein projects are faulty at the core due to poor decisions that lead to a monster project having a conflicted runaway life. Driven by whims of the moment upon seeing reflections of their creation, they change their decisions and direction, re-scoping the project. Like Dr. Frankenstein who becomes horrified at his creation then flees leaving the town’s people to deal with the monster, the organizational leadership flees their creations leaving the monster to a project manager.

Fixing the Monster: Looking to a project manager for leadership is not uncommon since standing leadership had been less than successful so far. However, the organizational culture and problems that produced the Frankenstein project persist. Does a project manager fix the monster or Frankenstein? There are several approaches to fixing the monster:

1. Stop and reset the project correcting all the issues as best possible before restarting
2. Compartmentalization of the project into workable segments isolating problem areas
3. Redesign the project on the fly, if delivery time is not adjustable.

However, there are more meaningful activities that the project manager must undertake before tackling the monster project. In Shelley's works, a question begs who is the more enormous monster, the creator, or the created? The project manager must assess this significant question. I have mistakenly overlooked this question and taken on monster projects only to learn that the creator was much worse than the created. Sadly, the creator is the monster, and the reason a Frankenstein project tends to persist. The project manager must not only manage the project but place intense efforts on the creator to rein in controls and establish stronger processes. Garnering top cover is extremely important and often very difficult as the reason for assigning the project manager is to distance themselves from the problem. Providing top cover puts them too close to the project for their comfort and should signal a loss of confidence in the leadership for the project manager to reject the project.

Looking Frankenstein In the Eyes

Identifying a Frankenstein project is critical early on. The effort is different depending on the project manager's relationship with the company. If internal to the organization, there is a lot of backstories available to the project manager and prior relationships. Decision making and management on the project can be a lot easier in this internal case. If the project manager is external to the organization, then decision making and management become exponentially more difficult. The first tale-tale sign of a rogue project is that the organization chooses to use a contract or contract-to-hire vehicle. Another indicator is the presence of expeditors and reporters.

Employment Contracts: All employment is a contract but in different forms. Full-time employment (FTE) is a contract having a high level of constraints placed on both parties. Contracting a Project Manager may be in various forms to include; verbal or letter engagements, labor agreements, and full contracts. Verbal agreements and engagement letters are rarely enforceable in court and should not be entered into for any project unless the dollar amount is meager. These engagements are a low dollar and agreed upon via a brief letter that details the work and compensation or bill rates. Engagement letters are mildly enforceable in a court and usually use arbitration to settle disputes. Labor Agreements are lengthy documents detailing the arrangements between the parties and the kind of work to be completed. Labor Agreements tend to be broad scoped are moderately enforceable in a court. Full contracts are specific, often having Statements of Work (SOW), Request for Information (RFI), Request for Quotation (RFQ), and Request for Proposals (RFP). The bidding environment is controlled and may be open or closed. Like agreements, full contracts detail the arrangements between the parties but specify the work to be completed in detail. Most project managers are hired under the Labor agreement as contract labor and not specific to any project since this is the most flexible approach for the employer.

Employment or labor agreements signal many concerns that need to be addressed. Most employment agencies push the contract-to-hire as a benefit to the employers. In most cases, the contract-to-hire is nothing more than a nebulous carrot for those contracted. The big question is, what does the contracted have to do to get hired? Most often, this is the highly subjective nebulous metric of doing a good job or being a spectacular project manager. What is a good job or spectacular? To the point, employers view any contracting, including the contract-to-hire as a means to offload liability and share risk as hiring staff, is high risk. All other justifications are ancillary to these two reasons. These two reasons are openly evident in the contract as to how they are handled. Usually, this is one-sided and the employer assumes no risk and liability. Full-time employees, such as hiring managers, tend to overtly or sublimely view contracting as a means to advance politically sensitive and unpopular projects that are too risky for the FTE to perform. These hiring managers view the contracted person as highly disposable and a sponge to which all unpleasant political and unpopular chatter is deflected. When anticipated problems arise, the fall is taken by the contracted person who is often released along with all the bad stuff.

Expeditors: Up through the 1970s, many companies had staff known as expeditors whose sole purpose was to work issues, bridge gapped efforts, and bring resolution to wayward business processes as well as resolve other business issues. When there was a problem, companies threw people at the problem, and a lot of them since the cost of labor was low in those days. The expeditor became so pervasive that many companies institutionalized the expeditor, learning from aerospace about tiger teams. Aerospace tiger teams are a short-lived team of experts used to solve complex engineering problems. However, in much of corporate America, the tiger team, often called by many other names, became a permanently staffed solution whose purpose was to take on business problems and resolve them. In other words, firefight issues. These people were aggressive, workplace politicians, and possessing type A personalities. Expeditors would bludgeon their way through issues using special authority granted to them by the leadership. Organizational management often viewed these folks as 'Golden' and necessary. In operations management thinking, this situation is viewed as a symptom of a more significant problem; poor management and poor leadership. To an operations manager, the operation is out-of-control. Usually, the problem is centered on poor business design, incomplete processes, and an outcome from a rush to results.

Not all PM opportunities or situations are expeditors, but PMs should be careful not to be or become expeditors as this is a departure from project and operations management at its core. The character of the company's operations will provide the indicators that expeditors are present. If a company has had more than one acquisition, merger, or transition, then the conditions are ripe for expeditors. Other conditions conducive to expeditors is the rush to results, rush to transition to new facilities, technologies, or significant systems. If there is go-live or we-need-results jargon in use, then there is a low attention span in the management, indicating a rush to results. If project management is not mature in the organization, there is also a tendency to form expeditors and call them project managers. Another signal of expeditors in use is when an organization has a large number of PM's working fragments of larger projects, busy writing many reports, and few have a full project or are certified. PMs should assess for these conditions before accepting a contract or a new project.

Reporters: Another common issue is using the project manager as a report generator. While communications are essential, the project manager should drive the need to report. If a higher authority determines the need for reports and the project manager is tasked with or working to reports, then this is a departure from project management as well. Project managers are not reporters feeding higher decision making authority. Project managers should be the decision authority and seek higher decisions when they deem necessary.

In Summary: The contract-to-hire is a considerable revenue boon for placement agencies with an overwhelming and compelling message throughout internet queries of an extremely high success rate for hires at 90% or more placement. Most articles, studies, and reports are highly biased, being written, contracted, or conducted by the placement agencies. Many of these articles when surveyed, give a host of ancillary reasons for contract-to-hire and miss the right reasons. The actual success rates are most likely much lower perhaps closer to 60% or less for project managers. Generally, many companies will hire for their boom season using contract labor. They often seed the contractors with hopes of being hired if they do a good job. One of these boom seasons begins in August with the most crucial shipping days of the year about October 15th for the Christmas rush. Most of these contractors will be released shortly after the new year if not sooner. Project managers during this time run the risk of being used as expeditors resolving boom period issues.

Frankenstein's Finale

The reason the Frankenstein project occurs is due to poor leadership, management practices, inexperience, political jockeying within the organization, and a host of other reasons. Leadership begins by pulling the organization together with proper management that can be difficult, depending on the organizational culture and political situation. Without top cover, a project manager cannot achieve success. The leadership must support the PM 100%. A common problem and failure of leadership 101 are senior leaders going around soliciting folks if they like the new PM which undermines the PM, giving the illusion of a lack of confidence. Additionally, any issues, regardless of merit, on their minds in the last six weeks spear the PM. This undermines the PM's authority on the project by elevating the staff's access and voice to leadership above the PM. Thus, the PM is rendered ineffective by default. There are proper channels for this when there are qualified concerns. Overall, project managers need to assess opportunities in far more detail than the average contract employee.

References:

Coghill, J. (2001). Cliffnotes: Frankenstein. Wiley Publishing, Inc: New Jersey ISBN: 978-0-7645-8593-7

Kendrick, T. (2004). The project management tool kit: 100 tips and techniques for getting the job done right. American Management Association: NY.

Shelly, M. (1818). Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus.

Gruskoff, M. (Producer), & Brooks, M. (Director).  (1974). Young Frankenstein. [Motion Picture] USA: 20th Century Fox:

The Creative Process and Project Management

Foreword: Most people would agree powerful inspiring leaders have been on the decline. When we are in the midst of a charismatic leader there is a buzz of excitement and anticipation of good things to come.  People flock to the cause and enthusiastically participate. In the case of the American Revolution people were so inspired they often fought to the death. That was the inspiration for the Star Spangled Banner. The British amassed their entire fleet in Chesapeake Bay and laid siege to Fort McHenry. The terms of the battle was that America would fall if the flag was not flying by morning. Morning came and the flag was still there because under heavy shelling Americans went out to the pole and held it up in the face of death. Inspiration is a powerful motivator. This post discusses the creative process, project management, and inspiration.

The Creative Process and Project Management

Free market capitalism is creativity in service to humanity and the natural economy. Humans are endowed with or reflect the creator’s creativity. The American Forefathers spoke to this when they wrote into the Declaration of Independence that all humans are endowed with certain unalienable rights by the creator and among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is not hedonistic happiness but instead a nationalistic happiness that was derived from Emmerich De Vattel’s book, The Law of Nations. Vattel argued in Book 1: Of Nations Considered in Themselves that the government’s duty to its citizens was to ensure good economic conditions as Vattel describes the underpinnings of free market capitalism and individual creativity. Individuals are to be entrepreneurial in nature using their creativity in order to monetize innovation and invention earning just rewards while creating wealth. Wealth is created principally through private property ownership from which resources are harvested and land is improved in order to create value. Wealth is also generated through equity and interest rates. The American Forefathers co-opted Vattel's vision and built a nation. Thus, the United States was designed at its inception to promote creativity as representative democracy or the Republic is underpinned by free market capitalism. Humans are to be free to pursue their purpose in life. For over 200 years, the United States shaped the world with creativity from its people.

The early stages of project management are the creative process sometimes called initiation but more aptly called ideation. The goal of ideation is to capture the intellectual capital through a creative process then monetize the intellectual capital through the project management process resulting in some sort of competitive advantage. Projects that enrich humanity in some way are more desirable than projects that overtly favor elitist, meet regulations or compliance issues often to the chagrin of humanity.

Unfortunately, most project managers are expeditors in a runaway operation or a micro-managed internal process. They tend to handle piece parts or work packages in their respective departments or divisions or may push the necessary paperwork for the internal process of a much larger project. However, there is a small group of project managers who possess sharp business acumen. They are skilled at managing entrepreneurial styled projects from ideation to delivery. The trait that distinguishes them is the ability to inspire the creative process of invention, innovation, and change. 

Image 1: The Creativity Ball

This creative process involves the extraction of intellectual capital then developing it into a monetizable solution for planning and execution. Some people think the creative process is a formula having a lot of tools for use during the ideation phase. However, the creative process should not be formula or patterned in any way. That would be a science as Chaos Theory expressly states that the Universe is perfectly ordered and yet indeterminant. In lay terms, there is no randomness only probability. For example, the rolling of the dice has only 6 possible outcomes that is described or ordered by a statistical mathematical formula. There are no surprises – only hope for one of the six possible outcomes. Creativity is an art and about surprise or the unexpected.

No one was hoping for the smartphone outcome when Steve Jobs surprised the cell phone markets with the smartphone which was a disruptive technology that reshaped the entire market.  Orville and Wilbur Wright surprised the world with powered controlled flight when Samuel Pierpont Langley had all the resources to achieve the goal of controlled powered flight. There is a motivation behind their creative processes that are not about process, resources, or some sort of creative framework. Instead, the motivation is emotional. Simon Sinek states regarding his Golden Circle that it is not about the what but instead the why (Sinek, 2009, pp. 37-51). Sinek argues people get it wrong focusing on the what when it is about the WHY. 

People are inspired to a cause that they rally around. Therefore, entrepreneurial minded project managers are focused on the cause and are able to take the cause to task. Without the cause there is no creativity. Once the cause is established then the development of a strategy is further resolved into missions and objectives for a team of experts focus on before going through Storming, Forming, Norming, and Performing processes. Everything in the project is attached the cause.

What could the causes be? They are not focused on lining some elitist pockets with money or some sort of collectivist or socialist vision. The causes are noble and have a paradox of morality mobilizing people to a cause that is about negotiating equilibrium based on people seeking their own self-interest (Palmer, 2011, pp 45-46). Martin Luther King had a dream that mobilized thousands of people who dreamed alike. John F. Kennedy mobilized a nation to go to the moon emphasizing the freedom of choice when he said that we choose to go to the moon because we can. 

Entrepreneurial project managers must put the fire into the projects they lead. Afterall, project managers should be manager-leaders. They should make use of charisma and find the cause that ignites enthusiasm which may be different across the organization.  

References:

Norman, D. A. (2005). Emotional Design: Why We Love or Hate Everyday Things. Cambridge: Basic Books.

Palmer, T. G. (Ed.). (2011). The Morality of Capitalism: What Your Professors won't Tell You. United States of America: Jameson Books, Inc.

Schwartz, E. I. (2004). Juice: The Creative Fuel that Drives World-Class Inventors. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Sinek, S. (2009). Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action. New York: Penguin Group.

Sullivan, P. H. (1998). Profiting from Intellectual Capital: Extracting value from innovation. USA: Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Vattel, E. (1758). Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law.

Reshaping the Travel Industry's Global Distribution System

This post is receiving over 900 reads. Please feel free to email me at james.bogden@gmail.com with any comments you may have.  

Typically all systems are complex and GDS is no different. Depending on a professional's station in the system, the system will look and act differently. I attempted a high-level view in a systems-of-systems architectural perspective based on the articles I read and the experience I have had. In the past, I used several systems. In the US Navy, SATO and NALCOMIS were the two primary systems. NALCOMIS was modeled after Caterpillar's global distribution and maintenance repair system. While working in aerospace, I used a system called ABACUS to track and change modes of shipment for aircraft components en route.

Supply Chain Management, SCM, involves the downstream flow of material effects and/or services to an end-user and a reverse upstream flow of money and/or warranty components. SCM, as applied to the services industry, has a slightly modified model, Figure 1. The dominant actor in the supply chain is the Service Provider.  The service supplier model may become more complex than the illustrated model as tiered service distributors and infomediaries who support the supply chain processes. The major difference from the manufacturing model is the introduction of a Commodity Wholesaler in lieu of the material wholesaler. The commodity wholesaler operates on price and availability solely at the demand point. Whereas a material wholesaler operates on contracted demand fulfillment usually fixing price for a term.  I prefer to use wholesalers upstream from the provider and distributors downstream from the provider. APICS does not distinguish between them considering the two terms synonymous.  The service provider may utilize a commodity wholesaler or go direct to the supplier. A key to the supply chain success is end-to-end transparency in order to be responsive to end-user demand and avoid forecasting errors. 

Figure 1: Supply Chain Service Model 

The Travel Industry's Global Distribution System

The principle management system in the travel industry is the Global Distribution System, GDS, which has undergone an evolution across the expanse of time; Figure 2. Four main systems have emerged; Amadeus, Galileo International, WorldSpan, and base system SABRE. There were also other smaller systems that emerged then blended back into the mix again. The wholesale of capacity is found through the four systems to which the suppliers subscribe. Each of the main systems tends to be regionally oriented.

Figure 2:  GDS Evolution

The travel industry has an interesting adaptation of supply chain management as the chain has been intensely process and logistical in the past. More recently the chain is moving towards a supply orientation. This industry provides logistical services to move humans downstream then service management activities and cash upstream. The supply aspect centers on cost-effective capacity and value-added products and services.  Most supply chains focus on only two tiers from the dominant actor in the chain.  In the case of the travel industry, the dominant actor is the travel service provider such as American Express Travel, HRG, or BCD Travel. The commodity wholesalers are in the Global Distribution System, GDS, as SABRE, Worldspan, Amadeus, and Galileo.  The chain does become a little complex with infomediaries such as Concur and Appirio to the GDS systems. The service suppliers to the GDS systems are companies that move humans via bus, car, aircraft, train, or ship as well as provide hospitality services such as hotels.   Service suppliers provide mobility services and are constrained by capacity.

The supply management methodology varies by supplier. In general, aircraft, buses, and trains have mobile capacity and demand is always in flux. These suppliers establish demand-based load capacity based on stable routes over intermediate time periods.  They can react to minor fluctuations in route demand by adding additional capacity based on short term forecasts they make and also by charters.  Most travel industry rail systems are solely passengers and remain fixed routes with variable capacity.  Cruise ships have fixed capacity, fixed routes, and rarely are used as a mode of transportation as passengers embark and disembark at the same port.  Instead, cruise ships are modes of leisure and treated as mobile hotels. Occasionally, cruise ships will terminate at a different destination.  Auto rentals are generally treated as cruise ships as auto rentals are returned to the same point of origin.  However, auto rentals may be one way as well. The methodologies used for managing capacity against demand in most cases involve multi-dimensional simplex optimization of capacity and minimization of cost.  

Figure 3: Global Distribution Systems

Note: POTS = Plain Old Telephone System.  TELCO = Telephone Company

Airline capacity planning is interesting and may be external to GDS as well as internal to GDS. SABRE offers a solution called Airspace Flow Manager which is internal to the SABRE GDS segment. Other solutions are external to the GDS system such as Quintiq, OpenPro, and GroundStar.  Airline capacity is also constrained by airport and route capacity which the application GroundStar addresses. Airlines may run capacity plans multiple times each day independent of GDS and adjust pricing in GDS based on loading demand then input the new load plan into GDS.  The reason capacity planning is often external to the online sales transaction processing of GDS is that the planning algorithm often takes a long time to execute. Current data from GDS usually feed the front end of the capacity planning then the result is loaded into GDS to adjust for the market conditions. These runs are scheduled usually during lulls of activity and are posted prior to the upswing in efforts to smooth the demand for capacity. 

Travel industry service providers then look to GDS for the available capacity but the four systems tend to service-specific regions. Services like Appirio and Concur attempt to blend the four systems into a single view yielding a global view in a cloud base virtualized environment. Once a travel itinerary is established and sold then the service providers often offer value-added services to the traveler. For example, when a travel hazard event occurs then actions are taken to optimize travel and mitigate travel hazard events through cost-effective rerouting and other changes to the itinerary.

Travel Industry Outlook

The travel industry management was built out of the airline industry which has, for the most part, divested its holding in GDS. However, the travel industry outlook can be a gauge, largely in part, by the airline industry outlook. The Atmosphere Research Group conducted a December 2012 study that was commissioned by the IATA looking ahead to 2017. The study is dated for the volatile travel industry which can turn quickly in a different direction. However, systems are stable and take time to adapt. Therefore, there is some lag in the change being effected.  The general outlook of this study stated that the airlines are frustrated by third-party sales due to the higher costs and demand lower GDS cost. The airlines have been successful at transitioning to direct sales as low-cost carriers generate more than half their own bookings. Airline executives claim that GDS sales are 20 times more costly.  The airline industry has evolving strategies that impact distribution to deal with the situation. Alliances and business models are forming in innovative ways. Of the three major airline alliances the Atmosphere Group touts that three elements influence the newer strategies:

1. Anti-trust immunity and joint ventures
2. Strategic polarization of distribution, sales, and marketing by country
3. Alliances replace individual airlines as corporate account gateways

The gist of these elements indicates a movement towards the regionalization of capacity and services as well as efficient inter-regional connectivity solution. The study goes on to indicate a movement away from a distribution focus and an increased focus on commerce or supply chain styled thinking as airline executives are more focused on results than process. This is resulting in a product-centric effort and executives are more concerned with the traveling experience. Big-data will underpin the airlines' commerce efforts making them practical and possible. The airline executives want changes to commerce systems that do better at retailing their products and services.  Services are beginning to emerge that bypass GDS such as TravelFusion and Farelogix.  Services like Concur and others are working more directly with the airlines integrating user data into comprehensive data warehouses.  The industry also appears to be organizing around value creation hubs using more contemporary software and better commerce features that are more flexible than GDS. 

Based on this study the industry is moving away from the GDS distribution process towards a modernized and responsive supply chain model that is transparent from end-to-end. This transparency, typical of a well-designed supply chain, will have the effect of eliminating forecasting errors that results in unfilled capacity.  As an outcome, the newer model will be more responsive to sales demand.  That said, GDS is making changes to become more responsive and offer additional products and services while reducing costs. The other significant cost factor is credit card fees.

The current trend appears to be that the airlines are diverting capacity to more direct web-based EDI systems before loading GDS with capacity for third party sales. In many cases after the direct sales are made, the airlines load GDS with the administrative and operational data to execute in legacy systems. With the diversion of sales away from the current distribution system towards other supply chain systems, the channel service provider will have to adjust to another business model soon. In some cases, non-GDS sales have peaked at 53% of the sales.  The change does not appear to be limited to retail although that is where the inroads are being made. Corporate travel and business-to-business sales will be impacted as well.  The challenge will be for service providers to find their place in the emerging supply chain whether that remains in GDS as the system adapts or emerges as another system entirely. At some instant, there will be a match point causing the industry to either shift or adapt to the current systems. Whatever the event, the status quo appears to be changing.

Please feel free to comment and provide insight. Please email me at James.Bogden@gmail.com

References:

APICS (2011). APICS Certified supply chain professional: learning system. Association for operations management: IL.

Lee, E. & Chacko, N. & Cruz, A. (2006) Reducing distribution costs: an Accenture webcast series. Retrieved from:  http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-airline-webcast-series-overview.aspx

Harteveldt, H. (2012). The future of airline distribution: a look ahead to 2017. Atmosphere Research Group. Resourced from:
 http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/stb/Documents/future-airline-distribution-report.pdf

Wikipedia (2014).  Global distribution system. Resourced from:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Distribution_System.

Original Post on 11Aug2014, updated 20Mar2015

Book Reviews and Job Search Feature Posts

Book Reviews and Job Search Feature Posts

This was posted originally in January 2011 and updated several times. As the Career Services Manager for APICS, The Association of Operations Managers, I have made numerous blog postings regarding the job search. This is a summary of most of the blog postings relating to the job search and conduct on the new job.  

How to Find a Great Job In the Great Recession 

12 Steps to a Job Recovery

By Rob Wolf

ComeBacks At Work
The Generalist: A Valued Professional
Flexibility In the New Economy
Using Your MacBook Pro in Your Job Search

You Gotta Talk and Talk A lot !

Makin' Money with Social Media
Internet Search Engine Mayhem

The Dale Carnegie Method

How to Win Friends and Influence People

All The Dale Carnegie Principles In One Post

Highly Effective Networking

Meet the right people and get a great job

Ch 01. Everybody Knows You Need to Network!

Ch 02. Systematic Job-Search Networking

Ch 03. Networking Myths Misunderstanding and Dumb Ideas

Ch 04. Real Networking and How It Works

Ch 05. Your Total Network is Bigger than You Think

Ch 06. Plan Your Job Search and Your Networking

Ch 07. Personal Networks and How To Use Them

Ch 08. Build Your Professional Network

Ch 09. Networking Tools and Advanced Strategies

Ch 10. Moving From Networking to Interviews and Job Offers

References:

Pierson, O. (2009) Highly effective networking: meet the right people and get a great job. Career Press. NJ.

Proving Yourself on Your New Job

The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels

Ch 01: Promote Yourself

Ch 02: Accelerate Your Learning

Ch 03: Match Strategy to Situation

Ch 04: Securing Early Wins

Ch 05: Negotiate Success

Ch 06: Achieve Alignment

Ch 07: Build Your Team

Ch 08: Create Coalitions

Ch 09: Keep Your Balance

Ch 10: Expedite Everyone

References:

Watkins, M. (2003) The first 90 days: Critical success strategies for new leaders at all levels. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Ma.

Comebacks At Work

Reference:

Reardon, K.K., (2010). Comebacks at work: using conversation to master confrontation. (1 ED.). Harper Collins Publishers, New York.

Conscious Capitalism Book Review

Return To Humanitarian Series Post

Figure 1: Conscious 
Capitalism

Foreword: This is a review of the book Conscious Capitalism, Figure 1. I have running a series on Capitalism and developing Short Read Archives which will eventually be posted.  Free market capitalism is, perhaps, not understood in the public sphere at a reasonable level of comprehension. Part of the challenge is an overabundance of negative language about capitalism emanating from competitive worldviews such as Progressivism or Socialism. I have read books across a breadth of worldviews on this topic. This book is positioned from a socialist or Progressive point of view as the author, John Mackey, discusses in the opening of the book and speaks mostly from a humanist point of view throughout the book. This will be a series of posts hitting the salient points and commenting on the topics discussed.  My other post is: Morality of Capitalism. More post will be forthcoming as time permits.

Conscious Capitalism
Chapters 1 and 2 Review

The book opens with a discussion on Mackey's personal journey during which he discovered that his assumption about capitalism were all wrong. Through a series of life experiences he came to understand that 'free enterprise' capitalism is the one human creation that has had the greatest positive impact on people's lives. Mackey called this the greatest system for innovation and social cooperation that has ever existed. Mackey's calling is to advance the promise of capitalism, a marvelous system of social cooperation, to the world. 

Chapter 1: The heroes of free-enterprise capitalism are entrepreneurs who are described as people who solve problems through imagination, creativity, passion, and energy. Unfortunately, capitalism is under attack based on four reasons:

1. Business people have allowed the attacks to the chagrin of its inherent ethical justification. This requires a new narrative and a new ethical foundation.
2. Too many businesses have operated at a low level of consciousness about their purpose and impact in the world. This results in the unintended consequence of trade-off thinking in which all resources are gamed for maximizing profits.
3. The myth that business is about maximizing profits has taken roots among business leaders and academia. Mackey argues that maximizing profits originated out of the industrial revolution and was codified into fiduciary responsibility. Profits are necessary in healthy business and economies. However, maximizing profits at the expense of other objectives is not healthy. 
4. The size and scope of government has increased to a point that causes crony capitalism. The use of the governmental power to create opportunity and enrich a privileged few is crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is inherently unethical and a threat to freedom and democracy.

Mackey further argues that free-enterprise capitalism has been hijacked by intellectuals disregarding a powerful aspect of human nature: the desire and need to care for others and the causes that transcend self-interest. We know business is good when it creates value and ethical when exchange is voluntary. Business is noble because it elevates human existence and heroic because it raises people out of poverty through prosperity. Thus, Mackey makes the call to climb higher by reclaiming the intellectual and moral high ground in order to correct the narrative about free-enterprise capitalism.   

Chapter 2: The chapter opens asking what does it mean to become more conscious as a individual and as a business? Mackey appeals to transformation parallelling metamorphosis arguing humans and corporations can exist at an earlier level or transform into something greater. The transformation is a matter of deliberate choices not natural evolution. He cites three major events in 1989 that led to the rise of consciousness. They are:

1. The fall of the Berlin Wall. This event shifted the conversation from between ideological political systems to what form of democracy works best and to what degree of freedom.  
2. Birth of the web page. This feature increased the sharing of knowledge and information to almost anyone at near zero cost.  
3. The United States enters Mid-life. The population shifted to more people over the age of 40 than below the age of 40. This created a psychological shift in the center of gravity for society to compassion, caring, community, and greater meaning and purpose. 

Mackey also cites the increasing intellectualization of humans and their capacity to grasp more complex information and knowledge than in the past and that in combination with the three major events has caused values to shift.  

The rising consciousness is claimed to have led to less violence in the world and more caring because people are better informed. The claim is further advanced that we should all act as one because we are in the same boat. A plea is made to imagine a career and work that is passionate and committed to the job where there is focused intensity, collaboration, and camaraderie as opposed to stress, fear, coercion, and carrots.  The tenets of an increase consciousness are proposed: 

1. Higher Purpose. The purpose is the reason a company exists which is more than generating maximum profits and shareholder value. Higher purpose is organized around core values. 
2. Stakeholder Integration. Stakeholders are the entities impacted by or impact the business. Integration realizes that everyone is interconnected by core values and share sense of purpose. The objective is to achieve value in all the relationships. 
3. Conscious Leadership. Motivated by service to the firm's purpose and creating value for all the stakeholders. Conscious leaders possess a more complex and sophisticated way of thinking than mere trade-offs, differences, and conflicts that transcends analytical thinking.
4. Conscious Culture and Management. Culture is the mechanism than institutionalizes stability and strength in the firm ensuring purpose and core values persist and are durable over time and management transitions. Traits of conscious business cultures tend to be the same despite different cultures. The culture is based on empowerment, decentralization, and collaboration in order to optimize innovation continually.  

Mackey makes the claim that conscious capitalism the ethical foundation that business has been lacking. Conscious businesses out perform other businesses financially and do what is right because it is right to do. However, conscious capitalism is not corporate social responsibility. Mackay recites that conscious capitalism is about creating value whereas social responsibility is about correcting ills by doing good. 

Mackey makes the call for a way ahead to liberate the heroic spirit of business and collective entrepreneurial creativity by finding a sustainable way to meet the needs of billions of people whose basic needs are not being met adequately. Conscious capitalism is the solution and a journey.

Comment: Mackey creates the notion of free-enterprise capitalism in order to distinguish from free-market capitalism. When all human constraints are removed the natural economic system that persists is free-market capitalism which is created value in service to humanity (Palmer, 2011, p 2). Human architecture includes hands to make and hold things with feet to travel to market where things made are sold. Humans imagine then create things earning just rewards for the fruits of their labor. Traditionally, rights have been assigned to humans to ensure the tools of trade and give levity to people. Capital markets are about uplifting individuals. Mackey points to a need for a change in thought about what form of democracy works when the Berlin wall fell.

The notion of corporate personhood originated from a U.S. Supreme Court hearing in 1886, Santa Clara vs Southern Pacific Railroad, during which the 14^th Amendment was interpreted to extend to corporations.  The outcome is that corporations take on human rights and behave in human-like manners. This was compounded with the emergence of corporate governance in the early 1980's which was an outcropping of the struggle between governmental enforcement and industry compliance. The government agreed to leave industry alone if industry took on governmental duties and performed them well.  This has matured to the point that organizations now are acting more socio-politically centric than business centric. Please see my post on Values Leadership.  

Mackey's notion of Free-Enterprise Capitalism builds on this notion of Corporate Personhood and Governance forming conscious capitalism as the organization has core values and purpose as would humans. The corporation takes on a life of its own. Mackey, a confessed Progressive, seems to arrive at a conclusion that his understanding of capitalism was weak and that the crony capitalism that results from socialism does not work. Therefore, he sought to combine his socialistic conscience with capitalistic constructs to form conscious capitalism under which corporations operate. 

The humanist perspective bleeds through when Mackey cites, "This analogy (evolution or metamorphosis) can be applied to human beings as well as to the institutions that we have created in our own image - corporations (Mackey, 2014, p 25.)." This goes directly back to the notions of corporate personhood and governance. In discussing the conscious culture Mackey remarks, "While such cultures can vary quite a bit, they usually share many traits, such as trust, accountability, transparency, integrity, loyalty, egalitarianism, fairness, personal growth, and love, and care (Mackey, 2014, p 35)."   The terms egalitarianism and fairness are code words for socialism. Socialism is built on egalitarianism and welfarism. Egalitarianism states that humans are equal in every respect stripping people of identity. Social justice is supposed to be about fairness but is also known as institutional theft of just rewards which suppresses creativity. In free-market capitalism wealth is redistributed based on created value as opposed to redistribution by social justice or excessive taxation. The use of social justice was unclear in these two chapters but shifting duties to the corporation and its use of net income may be an alternative approach. However, from a business perspective tradeoff thinking persist as leadership still has to decide how best to apply limited financial resources. Other free-market characteristics persist such as price sensitivity as well as supply and demand behavior.

In conclusion, conscious capitalism combines socialistic aspirations with free-market constructs. A reasonable argument can be made about conscious capitalism that employees are simply proletariat, the free-enterprise capitalist are the bourgeoisie, and limited government in conscious capitalism is the Politburo. The change is that the free-enterprise capitalist take on socio-political causes as purpose and core values reducing the politburo's duties of managing the relationship between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. This arrangement is actually discussed in the World is Flat by Thomas Friedman who remarked that Karl Marx would have predicted the flattening of the world in this manner. Friedman discusses a future where people work for companies that share their socio-political views and the government deals with a select group of CEO-politicians rather than the public at-large. Conscious Capitalism despite its claims of success and value is not consistent with the Original Intent of the United States founding which is about individual purpose and principled people - not corporations having these qualities. In fact, Thomas Jefferson remarked that commerce has no loyalties to anything but money. Free-market capitalism is self-regulating holding individuals accountable. A serious dialogue needs to be advanced about free market capitalism versus other forms such as conscious capitalism. 

On a final note, individuals having a social conscience is part of being human. We must have a concern for the environment but not to a sensibility that mother earth, nature, is deified. We must also have charity towards fellow humans. How we achieve this best is why the American Forefathers believed in the public sphere as a place for common people to discuss topics of nobility freely. 

References:

Mackey, J. (2014). Conscious Capitalism: Liberating The Heroic Spirit of Business. Harvard School of Business Publishing: USA.

Palmer, T. (2011). The Morality of Capitalism: Introduction. Jameson Books, Inc: IL pp 1-12.

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The Secret of Socrates: The Dale Carnegie Method

Commentary: This is a continuing series of posts reviewing Dale Carnegie's book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. This program is attractive in professional relationships due to it's time tested advice for those moving up the ladder of success. I have been introduced to Dale Carnegie training not once but twice. I attended Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School or AOCS during 1988 through which Dale Carnegie principles were first introduced to me, at least in part. Years later during 1999, I attended the Dale Carnegie school and coursework introducing me again to the Dale Carnegie method and principles.  I will be detailing only one principle a week in a shorter post in order for you to digest the information. This series may be reviewed at All the Principles in One Post. 

This post is receiving a lot of attention with over 25,000 reads. If you have any comments please feel free to email me directly at james.bogden@gmail.com. I would enjoy hearing your thoughts. 

The Secret of Socrates

Socrates was one of the greatest philosophers in humankind. He changed the course of human thought. He never told people they were wrong. Instead, he presented every question to be answered with a yes response, winning one admission after another. After many affirmations, people found themselves supporting or embracing a conclusion they would have bitterly objected to just minutes earlier.

Socrates' secret is simple, begin all conversations on things which you agree. Do not begin by discussing differences.  Emphasize common purposes and keep emphasizing these things.  Keep your opponent saying yes and, if possible, never permit him to say no. No is difficult to overcome. It is of great importance to get people moving in the affirmation direction soonest.

This is a very simple technique but often overlooked and neglected as if some people get a rush off of self-importance by antagonizing others at the outset. Why antagonize others? Carnegie concludes by citing an ancient Chinese proverb, "He who treads softly goes far."

Principle 14:  Get the other person to say "Yes, Yes", immediately

Comment: This concept of getting people to agree early and incrementally is a method also used in argumentation and discussed in my series on Argumentation.  This is particularly used when structuring a prejudicial argument which is often used in legal argumentation. Arguments are designed to move people in a specific direction but the conclusion is often unclear because the questions are asked in a disjunctive manner. After the requisite agreements have been met they are assembled in a logical manner with a conclusive delivery showing agreement with something that would not have been accepted earlier in its whole.

References:

Carnegie, D. (1981). How to win friends and influence people. New York: Pocket Books.