Strictly Business

Once again I've been asked, "Who has the best Health Care solution" among the presidential candidate hopefuls? I have had to explain that it doesn't really matter at this point in the race for me. I'll make my choice once the candidates have been decided and I have to make the real decision of who I want to run this country for the next four years. For some folks it is not very easy to navigate the double speak of politicians, especially when it comes to matters of health care, I'd like to offer a potential solution.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has developed a mechanism to view the key points of each of the major candidate's offerings. You may even do a direct comparison of plans. It can be accessed at http://www.health08.org

Ultimately, it boils down to where is the money coming from to support the initiaitve and what will you gain/lose in the process.

Posted by Beth Woodard at 06:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the last few years, most of us have grown increasingly vigilant in guarding our email accounts against outside intruders--everything from Nigerian princes attempting to quietly move millions of dollars to the U.S. to insider stock tips to...well, you've seen them all. Many of our employers have since invested a lot of money to help protect our email accounts from such intrusions and slow the well-documented drain on personnel productivity.

And yet, the classic philosopher "Pogo," who has been credited with "We have met the enemy, and he is us," had it right way back in 1970. In an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Buckman (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119612732031704719.html) reports that our own colleagues may well be our worst spam enemies. She reports that last year the average corporate employee received 126 messages per day--a 55% increase in only three years. What I found most intriguing was the prediction that by 2009, the average worker expects to spend over 40% of his/her time just managing their email acccounts.

Unfortunately, it seems, while we are winning the battle against outside invaders, we are being electronically beaten senseless by our own colleagues. Specific abuse examples cited include indiscriminate use of the proverbial "reply to all" button and mass announcements to all employees for an event of interest/relevance to no more than a few individuals. And if you're a member of a social networking group such as Linked-In or Facebook, you know all too well how many times in a given day your focus can be interrupted with notices and announcements.

Rebecca goes on to document some of the recent technological innovations designed to protect us against even some of our well-intentioned colleagues, and some packages do appear promising. I wonder, though, if what could be just as effective would be to simply invest in some basic training on e-mail etiquette for all of us. I'm going to work harder at "thinking" about which emails are needed and who really needs them before I hit the send button. Maybe a good starting could be to look at the mail you received already today, and then look at how much of it you really needed to do your job effectively, and then resolve not to pass on those same mistakes to others.

Now, let's see...where was that company-wide distribution list so I can send this posting out?...

Posted by Joe Alexander at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of our friends, Charles Hagood (Massey MBA, '93), from Healthcare Performance Partners has worked with his colleague to develop a very creative Top 10 List for how to kill one's "lean healthcare transformation". Lean techniques are making rapid gains in the healthcare industry as companies struggle with skyrocketing costs, nursing shortages and poor employee satisfaction while simultaneously facing pressure to improve healthcare service to customers. The entire Top 10 list can be found at http://www.leanhealthcareexchange.com/ As an academic myself, I related particularly well to Item #7 (unfortunately, this far too true a statement in many cases). One of the differences that first attracted me to the Massey program was our faculty focus on solutions to real-world problems.

Posted by Joe Alexander at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following post is from our good friend Joe Scarlett, the non-executive chairman of the board of Tractor Supply Co., the largest retail farm and ranch store chain in the United States. Joe served as the company's CEO until 2004, and more recently launched the Scarlett Leadership Institute here at Belmont. As you can imagine, he knows quite a bit about holding CEOs, and the boards who pay them, accountable for performance.

Joe begins, "We've all read the news articles about greedy CEOs earning huge incomes while other constituents suffer, about signing bonuses without performance clauses or about golden parachutes for the incompetent. We read about outsized egos, free private aircraft travel, club memberships, greed and more greed. It's enough to make one sick. I was the chairman and CEO of a public company for a dozen years and have a simple approach when it comes to executive compensation: Pay me for results. If I produce good results for my stockholders, pay me well. If company performance is fantastic, pay me still more. But if performance is poor, I should suffer just like my employees and stockholders (full article can be read in Business TN Magazine at http://www.businesstn.com/pub/4_8/features/8251-1.html).

Posted by Joe Alexander at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Presentations are a fact of life. Time and effort are not always directly correlated to results however. A comedy video on what not to do with PowerPoint illustrates a few issues we have all seen, or possibly even used! Don McMillian is an engineer turned stand up comic .... working in PowerPoint!

PowerPoint as a comedy routine!

A somewhat more serious take on PowerPoint and presentation tips in general is nicely illustrated by Garr Reynolds. His insight is to step back and

1. begin with the end in mind - what do you want the audience to walk away with
2. simple is good - how about 3 take aways
3. simple is also good for slides - sometimes communicate only with a number. Or a picture. Or a word.
4. high quaility graphics are necessary. Dump the ppt templates (yes!!)
5. use color and fonts effectively
6. audio and video are multimedia tools that may enhance. I think in terms of clips and break the flow, i.e. get your audiences attention.

Also some commen sense (which isn't always so common) delivery tips.

Garr Reynolds also links to several other videos about presentation skills on his blog: PresentationZen . Were there visual tools before PowerPoint? How about that old reliable resource: a flip chart! Check the presentation of "Flip charts as visual enhancers"! Great stuff!!

Posted by Del DeVries at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whether you're an individual looking to improve your own ethical decision-making skills or a manager seeking to bring the latest in ethics training techniques back to your organization, here's a great opportunity. Dr. O.C. Ferrell, Professor of Marketing and Enterprise Scholar, at the University of New Mexico's Anderson School of Management has designed an on-line course in business ethics essentials and best practices. The course is offered twice a year, is described as highly interactive, and runs 10 weeks.

Over the years, I've had numerous opportunities to work with O.C. and his wife Linda (Associate Professor of Marketing), and both are outstanding classroom instructors, as well as two of the leading business ethics scholars in the U.S. As fate might have it back in May 2005, O.C. and Linda ended up being seated next to Kenneth Lay on a flight from Houston just two days after the former Enron CEO's conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges.

Their fascinating conversations with Lay that day in the Denver International Airport, along with several follow-up phone conversations in the weeks prior to his death, are chronicled in an article title "Conversations with Ken Lay and Reflections One Year Later" that can be accessed at http://www.e-businessethics.com/

This certificate experience is designed to enhance build skills relevant to managerial responsibilities in organizational ethics, as well as for teaching business ethics in a classroom environment. The course is continually updated to cover current ethical issues, guided by experienced faculty and an advisory board.

The next on-line certificate course is set to begin February 11, 2008. For a podcast introduction, try the following link: http://e-businessethics.com/podcasts/IntroductionFall07.mp3

Posted by Joe Alexander at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Earlier today, U.S. Secretary Carlos Gutierrez announced the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients for 2007. This year marks the 20th anniversay of the award initially established in 1987 through an act of the U.S. Congress at the urging of President Ronald Reagan. This is also the first year that nonprofit/government organizations were eligibile for consideration, and two of this year's winners fit that newly-defined category.

2007 Award Recipients are as follows:
PRO-TEC Coating Co., Leipsic, Ohio (small business)
Mercy Health System, Janesville, Wisc. (health care)
Sharp HealthCare, San Diego, Calif. (health care)
City of Coral Springs, Coral Springs, Fla. (nonprofit)
U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. (nonprofit)

In describing this year's recipients, Secretary Gutierrez said, "I am pleased to join President Bush in congratulating the five outstanding organizations that have been named to receive this year’s Baldrige Award. The organizations we recognize today have given us superb examples of innovation, excellence and world-class performance. They serve as role models for organizations of all kinds striving to improve effectiveness and increase value to their customers.”

This year's recipients were selected from an initial field of 85, with each applicant evaluated rigorously by an independent board of examiners in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management; and results. The evaluation process for the 2007 Baldrige Award recipients included about 1,000 hours of review and an on-site visit by teams of examiners to clarify questions and verify information in the applications.

Each of these award recipients will be officialy recognized for their achievement at a special ceremony next spring or summer in Washington, D.C., depending on White House scheduling availability. The award is traditionally presented by the U.S. President; although, in each of the last three years, Vice President Cheney has substituted for President Bush who was unavailable.

The best avenues for learning more about how these organizations are achieving such outstanding results are:

(1) Get connected with your state's local performance excellence organization (http://www.tncpe.org for Tennessee). At present, 37 of the 50 states have such a nonprofit operating within their boundaries, whose express purpose is to assist organizations interested in improving their performance through use of the Baldrige framework; AND/OR

(2) Consider attending the National Quest for Excellence Conference in Washington, D.C. (April 22-25, 2008), where each of the recipients (and some of the more recent recipients in other sectors) will be sharing their best practices (http://www.baldrige.nist.gov/Quest_for_Excellence.htm).

Posted by Joe Alexander at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Receiving an invitation can’t help but make one feel special, and everyone wants to feel special, right?

According to this Springwise article, that appears to be the thinking behind the Claseo Fashion Line. Taking exclusivity one step further, Claseo clothing can be purchased by invitation only. Membership allows you to participate in an online community of other “chosen” shoppers and gives you the ability to help design new collections.

Disappointed you haven’t been invited? There is hope. You can apply for an invitation if you see something you have to have. If you try this, please share what response you receive!

Brand managers must continue to explore new ways of engaging consumers, promoting value and making buyers feel special. For examples on how to take this idea to the masses, check out Trendwatching.com’s report on “Massclusivity.”

Posted by Jocelyn Gutekunst at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even I caved. For months I had declared that social networking sites were not for me, but then curiosity got the best of me, and “everybody else was doing it,” so I had to try it for myself. Now, I am a part of one of the many online communities responsible for reuniting long lost friends and keeping folks updated with every day happenings.

So, will you be friends with me now?

That question may soon come from entities who are not what we might naturally consider “friend-material.” According to a Techland article from CNNMoney.com, Facebook is letting its users control what advertising they see and become authentic customer evangelists. The debate revolves around whether users will overtly promote brands or not.

The challenge remains for brands to present themselves in a manner that makes consumers want to be associated with them. Hint — If they will wear your logo on a t-shirt, chances are, they’ll friend you.

Posted by Jocelyn Gutekunst at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

McDonald's began its Hamburger University in 1961. There, would-be managers of the golden arches varsity management team are schooled on everything from how to maintain consistent operations procedures to creating outstanding customer service, food quality, and cleanliness. According to McDonald's itself, Hamburger U. "has become the company's global center of excellence for McDonald's operations training and leadership development.

Well, yesterday, about 150 of us spent the morning learning about a different hamburger university and its parent company--Pal's Sudden Service and their Business Excellence Institute. The event was hosted by Cat Financial and billed as a "best practices sharing day" by the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence.

Pal's, a 20-unit drive-through, stand-alone hamburger/hot dog operation headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, is known throughout the eastern part of the state for offering the best hamburgers, frenchie fries, and big tea combos either side of the Smokies. Their stated mission is to "Delight the customer in a way that creates loyalty." Across the State, many recognize them for having twice won the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence Level IV Award. Nationally (and even internationally) Pal's is known for having received the 2001 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from President Bush and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

I'm guessing, though, that how and what you know about Pal's depends more on your consumer motivation set. For those of us in attendance yesterday, our motives were less focused on what to order for lunch than on how to take our organizations' performance to that "next level." You see, Pal's similarity to its bigger and more famous cousin, McDonald's, ends with a brief scan of their menus. While McDonald's recipe for success has been focused on restaurant expansion and building brand recognition internationally, Pal's has focused exclusively on a highly-controlled and deliberate pursuit of their chosen mission. They know without a doubt where they are going, how they intend to get there, and at what speed.

Pal's business results are somewhat mind-boggling. In an industry where annual employee turnover is over 180%, Pal's has reduced its turnover from 150% in 1997 to under 70% for 2007 YTD. Their average customer visits per week are maintained at four times the industry average, while drive-through window handout speed is right at 20 seconds, compared to over 60 seconds for its nearest competitor. Pal's manages to achieve these efficiencies while simultaneously reducing customer complaints to less than .3 per 1,000. They even maintain State health scores (cleanliness) of over 97%, while McDonald's comparable health scores were just over 89%. Most importantly, Pal's is achieving a return on investment for its restaurant units that is several multiples of the industry average and more than double of even its closest competitor.

How do they achieve these world-class business results? Well, the full answers are certainly more detailed than what would fit into a single blog post, but in summary, they succeed through a recipe of of applying some very basic business principles within a Baldrige-based performance excellence framework. They have an unrelenting passion for maintaining their chosen buisness direction and mission, and they systemically dissect everything they do on a routine basis to determine how they can do it even better through the next business cycle.

Possibly the best news about all this for the rest of us is that Pal's doesn't keep all of these techniques a secret. In fact, their Busness Excellence Institute http://www.busexcell.com is open to any student/manager with a passion for learning how to improve their organization. Students are given access to a curriculum that has been field-tested and proven effective in the often harsh and unforgiving business environment of the fast food industry.

At Pal's Business Excellence Institute you learn about concepts that go beyond the basic ROI. They talk about things like ROH, or return-on-hassle and how to satisfy "internal customers" as well as external ones. They even teach students to "celebrate the bad news" when operational problems are reported. In short, learning where things are going wrong is a good thing because now a manager knows where efforts need to be focused to improve the situation.

For those consumers in Pal's regional market who have been to McDonald's and to Pal's, I'm betting you'd be hard pressed to find many who prefer the golden arches. I'd also bet the same could be said of those students of industry who have taken the time to compare both restaurants' business systems. Pal's results speak for themselves.

If you have the time and the desire to improve your organization's performance, whether you're in the food industry, manufacturing, healthcare, or any other industry, I'd highly recommend you take a look at Pal's and their systems. That's all for now. I'm hungry.

Posted by Joe Alexander at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As someone interested in immigration matters, I have followed with interest the recent announcement by the European Union to introduce the ‘blue card’. The blue card is a program that makes it easier for skilled foreign workers to get jobs in the 27 member states of the European Union. Holders of the card would be allowed to live, work and travel within the European Union

Inspired by the United States green card, the blue card takes its name from the European Union’s flag. The blue card intends to compete with the immigration programs that the United States, Canada and Australia already have in place for highly skilled workers.
Could it be that as we, in the United States, are embroiled as a society having a conversation about what our own immigration policy needs to be, we end up losing our competitive advantage in the talent war?
I think so. Today more than half of the engineering master’s and PhD degrees issued in the United States are issued to international students and according to a new survey The United State's status as the world's largest talent pool is under threat from the UK and China.
Robert Hoffman, Vice President for Government and Public Affairs at Oracle commented after the announcement of the blue card initiative: "Europe has sent a message. They are aggressively pursuing the professional talent they need to compete on the global stage.," --- I think it’s time for the United States to do the same by reforming our broken immigration system that is wreaking havoc on every industry that relies on the skills of foreign labor, from the agricultural worker to the rocket scientist.

Posted by Jose Gonzalez at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While surfing the internet last week, I came across information about the 2007 U.S.-Africa Business Summit themed “Africa: Entering the Door to Opportunities” scheduled for Nov. 14-16, 2007 in Cape Town, South Africa. It seemed rather apropos given that the Massey School just sent our latest group of graduate students to South Africa to learn about exciting new business opportunities in the region.

A colleague and I have been researching the value proposition of study abroad experiences for graduate students. Our alums view these trips positively.

For more on the Summit, click on http://www.africacncl.org/(wlpefde22dg1sh55pedtumro)/Default.aspx

Go here to read excerpts and view pictures of Massey students while in South Africa: http://forum.belmont.edu/business/africa_trip_2007/

Posted by Susan Taylor at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twice in the last two weeks I've spent the better part of a day discussing performance excellence systems with area healthcare companies. As someone who is peering toward his own healthcare horizon with the perspective of an aging baby boomer, I have to admit I like the trend I'm seeing these days. We can debate issues of "motive," but the reality is that the quality and performance of healthcare systems in the U.S. is becoming an area of increasing focus by the healthcare companies themselves. Plagued by skyrocketing costs and employee resource problems, even maintaining current healthcare quality levels is no easy task.

When N.I.S.T. and the Department of Commerce added "healthcare" and "education" as separate categories for the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award in 1999, the hope was that it would serve as a catalyst for postiive change in two industries where performance and accountability were both being increasingly called into question by outsiders.

For healthcare, recent Baldrige application data reveals a promising trend. In the 2007 applicant pool, healthcare organizations represent 50% of total U.S. Baldrige applicants (http://www.baldrige.nist.gov/Baldrige_Process_news.htm).

And award recipients, such as St. Louis-based SSM Healthcare (http://ssmhc.com), offer strong evidence that many of the same techniques developed and refined in the manufacturing arena can and are being applied effectively to drive systematic performance improvement in hospitals. In my mind, SSM has a lot of "the big stuff" figured out. They have strong leadership that has partnered with employees to determine who they are, why they exist as an organization, and how they will measure progress toward that mission. This allows, among other things, their employees to better know how to make those thousands of smaller decisions each and every day that collectively move SSM forward. If you're in healthcare management and looking for how to improve your operation, I highly recommend SSM as a role model. My aging fellow baby boomers and I are counting on you.

Posted by Joe Alexander at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Thursday, we saw the South Africa that many tourists do not get to see, or as one of our tour guides described it, “the other side of the coin.” We heard a panel discussion by three influential South Africans – Terry Bell (a journalist, author, and political analyst), Cedric Buffler (CEO of Micro-MBA), and Sipho Puwani (Managing Director of Ikamva Iabantu) on the influence of apartheid, AIDS, and other socio-cultural challenges upon business practices in South Africa, particularly social entrepreneurship. In fact, Mr. Buffler and Mr. Puwani were both nominated for the Schwab World Entrepreneur Award recently, with Mr. Buffler actually winning the award. Their comments were extremely insightful and everyone seemed to come away with a much better understanding the economic and sociopolitical environment of South Africa.

Following the panel discussion, we headed out to the oldest township in South Africa, the Township of Langa, where we ate lunch at the home of a township resident. The food was typical of a Sunday lunch in a township, featuring a huge array of local dishes. In fact, many of us felt more like we had eaten a Thanksgiving dinner afterwards.

We next visited the Township of Khayelitsha. This township houses around 1.5 million people, or about 25% of the population of Cape Town. Much of the township consists of makeshift shacks. Despite the lack of permanent shelter, there was certainly not a lack of hospitality. The people could not have been more welcoming as we visited a small bed and breakfast, toured a community center, played with children in a daycare, and shopped a little for handmade gifts.

Posted by Jeffrey Overby at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a former Ad Agency “Brand Journalist,” I still enjoy watching brands capitalize on consumer insight. Apple gets it right AGAIN by tapping into what trendwatching.com has dubbed “Generation C.”

If you have seen Apple’s recent iPod touch commercial, you have seen the handiwork of 18 year-old Nick Haley. Haley, the ideal customer evangelist, took his love for Apple public when we uploaded a video he created about the new iPod touch. His work became the inspiration for the new commercial.

Creative consumers inspire and challenge existing media moguls as production technology continues to become more accessible and we, as consumers, start believing our vision matters. Successful companies must continue to listen to what the consumer has to say. Fortunately, consumer voice is louder now than ever before.

Posted by Jocelyn Gutekunst at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)