DestinHaus Blog

Are "Nerdism" and "Coolness" mutually exclusive?

2011-05-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

A question that has befuddled me for decades is: Why do so many Americans think it is not cool to study science and technology?

So many people want to go into liberal arts, political science, and the like. If a person is good in science and technology, he is branded a nerd in school. How long can the US continue on this path and still prosper? These days, most people in high schools want to major in "business" in college. Ask them what they want to do in the future and most of them state they want to be a senior executive. I have encountered thousands of college seniors and graduate students who want to be "consultants." Ask them what they know about the real world for them to be "consultants" and all one gets back is blank stares. We have too many Chiefs and too few Indians in the US. (Coming from an Indian immigrant, the pun was intended!!!)

Immigration, Innovation and Job Creation

2011-05-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting article in the May 14th issue of the Wall St. Jl. I am including a few excerpts from that article over here. In addition, have added a few elements to reflect my own opinion.

For decades, the US has been a magnet for immigrants. During the 20th century, millions of talented foreigners, from Alfred Hitchcock to Sergey Brin, flocked to our universities and benefited from our financial capital and open culture. In the process, thousands of them started businesses in the US; in fact several of them created entire industries.

There are signs, however that the allure of America is fading. A study by UC Berkeley, Duke and Harvard has found that, for the first time, a majority of American trained entrepreneurs who have returned to India and China believe they are doing better at "home" than they would be doing in the US.

Innovation in the US is driven in large part by first-generation immigrants. The US Patent Office states that immigrants are responsible for double the patents as non-immigrants. A 1% increase in immigrants with college degrees leads to a 15% increase in patent production. In recent years, immigrant inventors have contributed to more than a quarter of all US global patent applications. Since 1995, 52% of all Silicon Valley firms have been co-founded by immigrants.

Why is immigration so essential for innovation? Immigrants bring a much needed set of skills and interests. Last year, foreign nationals received more than 60% of all US engineering doctorates. (American students, by contrast, dominate doctorate programs in the humanities and social sciences). According to the US Department of Labor, only 5% of US workers are employed in fields related to science and engineering, but they are responsible for over 50% of sustained economic expansion.

Immigrants add to the diversity of the US. With diversity comes a multiplicity of cultures, outlooks, different ways of looking at things, different ways of solving problems. With diversity comes innovation. Many of the most innovative places in the world, such as Silicon Valley and New York City, are also the most diverse.

One lesson from all of this is: If you want to build a culture of innovation in your organization, strive hard to promote diversity and inclusion. Try to tap into the value of such multiculturalism. Innovation will be a clear outcome.

Turning Entrepreneurs Into CEO's

2010-06-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

Turning Entrepreneurs Into CEO's

"Taking the Next Step to Profitable Growth"

August 25, 2010

Holiday Inn Irvine Spectrum
23131 Lake Center Drive
Lake Forest, CA 92630

To register, go to www.etoceo.eventbrite.com

Have you started-up your business and are now wondering how to take it to the next level of growth and performance?
Do you worry about what would happen to your business once you retire? Are you wondering if you can ever retire and enjoy the fruits of your labor?
Would you like to learn about the key levers you need to develop in order to transition from an entrepreneurial small-business to a significantly larger company?
Is cash flow management of constant concern to you?

If these and other such issues keep you awake an night, we have the right solution for you. This is a unique program to help you transition from an entrepreneur to a CEO. Through a series of interactive, thought-provoking all-day learning programs to be conducted once a month, we aim to shape your thinking and your actions so as to position yourself and your business for success.

The first in this series of seminars will be conducted on August 25, 2010. We will begin with each participant carrying out a thorough self-assessment utilizing six key lenses: (1) Balancing home and business life; (2) Transitioning from a tactical to strategic thought process; (3) Becoming a better leader and building a dynamic team to support you; (4) Financial management - Identifying the key factors that impact profit and cash flow; (5) Making technology work for you; (6) Building your personal fortune. Our research has shown that the issues faced by entrepreneurs in small-businesses can be categorized into these six groups. Following the comprehensive assessment, we will then address each of the six levers during the August 25th session, why they are important and how one can improve in each of them. Registration is now open for the August 25 seminar.

At the end of the program, the participants will

Gain a good understanding of the importance of the core competencies they need to succeed in the small-business world
Have completed a detailed self-assessment of where they stand on the various elements, their own strengths and opportunities for improvement
Put together a clearly defined action plan on what they will be working on in the near future vis-a-vis their own path towards excellence
Have ample opportunity to think about their own actions and behaviors and how they should change

Leadership Lessons from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

2010-06-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

What are the lessons in Leadership (positive and negative) from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill? What can we learn from the way political leaders have been behaving? What can we learn from corporate leaders? How about the media?

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - Dirty Politics and the Lopsided Media

2010-06-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

It is disgusting to see the way in which the Obama administration is behaving during the current crisis as regards the oil spill in the Gulf. Recently, Obama stated that he was looking for "whose ass to kick." In the middle of this massive crisis, when BP has been doing everything it can to fix the problem, this esteemed president has also gone on record to say that if he were Tony Hayward's boss, he would fire him. Such stupid comments, coming from the man who is the president of the most powerful nation in the world are disgusting indeed. Coming from the man who has preached tolerance and put on a front of bringing people together, such comments are hypocritical. Coming from the man I voted for, such comments make me sad.

I am also disgusted by the sensationalism espoused by the lopsided media. They are pillorying BP day in an day out, constantly talking about how BP has not done a good job on safety. Even Anderson Cooper, someone who I have respected all along as a fair and educated reporter is coming across as just another one of those good old boys sitting in ivory towers pontificating on matters they know very little about.

To Mr. Obama, I have the following questions: You seem hell-bent on driving BP to the ground. When you succeed in doing so Mr. President, who is going to take care of the cleanup effort and bearing all the cost and compensating all the people. You seem to be doing everything you can to make BP declare bankruptcy. If that is what you want, be careful what you wish for. If BP declares bankruptcy, are you going to raise our taxes again to pay for the cleanup.

Mr. Obama, you are losing my confidence and support. More importantly, Mr. President, you are in danger of losing my vote.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

2010-06-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

The Deepwater Horizon accident and subsequent oil spill are tragic indeed. However, the accident was just that, AN ACCIDENT. It is amusing and annoying to read all the articles in the media about how BP messed things up or how BP did not do something right. So-called oil spill "pundits" most of whom have never even seen a drilling rig in their lives, leave alone an off-shore platform at such extreme depths are plunging into the discussion offering their "expert" opinion on what BP should have done or what it should do. Bureaucrats are jumping into the fray telling BP how to run the company. People who have never run a business in their lives or managed a joint-venture or partnership before seem to have become experts overnight.

I worked for the BP family of companies for nearly two decades. I left the company because I did not like several things that went on there. However, on the issue of safety, I have not seen another company take things more seriously than BP. During my time there, the company always put Safety and Environmental Responsibilities above profits or cash flow. Projects would be put on hold or manufacturing plants would be shut down immediately if the team had the slightest doubt about safety. In fact, several of BP's suppliers, customers and contractors have been coming to BP to learn how BP did such a thorough job on issues concerning Health, Safety and Environment.

So, to all of you "arm chair" pundits out there criticizing BP for what happened, let me give you some food for thought. Around the world, hundreds of off-shore oil wells are being drilled. Several of them are deep-water wells. What happened with the Deepwater Horizon should not have happened. Every accident is preventable; but it is still an accident. Shouldn't we take comfort in the fact that the party responsible for the oil spill and hence the clean-up effort is a company with the resources of BP. What would we have done if the responsibility fell on the shoulder of a company that was a fraction of the size of BP? Would we still want to put our feet to their neck (or what ever it is that Ken Salazar said)? For those playing the card of US .vs. UK, remember that BP might be a UK company but it employs a lot of people in the US.

It is always easy to sit in an arm-chair (or Starbucks or wherever it is the so- called "experts" sit in or whatever they sit on) and pass judgement on something one has no experience in whatsoever.

Gobbledigook

2009-12-30T15:34:00.000-08:00

From The Times (UK), Dec 13, 2005

Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, has won the Plain English Campaign's Foot in Mouth award for the second time. During a debate in the Welch Assembly on policing he said: "The only thing which isn't up for grabs is no change and I think it's fair to say it's all to play for, except for no change."

An interesting study in Workforce Productivity

2009-12-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I was on a business trip to India. I was running out of the local currency (the Indian Rupee) and needed to convert some of my US $ to the Indian Rupee. I went with my dad to the local branch of the State Bank of India to convert $200 to Indian rupees. It was the middle of summer, blazing hot and humid. There were around 200 people standing outside the bank, waving banners and shouting repeatedly. They were protesting the fact that the bank was going to introduce computers at work. India leads the world in the IT outsourcing industry and yet people working for the largest Indian Bank did not want to make their work more efficient through computerization!!! The striking employees wanted the bank to continue being inefficient because that meant more jobs.

My dad and I braved the signs and went inside. There was a sign inside telling us that the bank was indeed functioning normally in-spite of part of the workforce being on strike and agitating outside. In that case, I wondered why the bank needed to employ that many people in the first place! I had my answer very soon.

The receptionist was a young lady. I am sure she had not smiled in a million years (this was a government owned bank, you see). I told her what I wanted done and she gave me a ticket with a number on it. There were over a hundred customers waiting to be served. After what seemed like hours (but was actually 45 minutes), my number was called. I leaped up from my stupor and rushed to the counter. A grim looking clerk with a walrus moustache sat on the other side. "Account Number" he bellowed. "I do not have an account here" I replied. All I want to do is get a few US $ converted to Indian Rupees." "You need an account in this bank to do that" the walrus bellowed again. I could not control myself. "Now why would I want to open an account here. I don't even live in this city." That was a cardinal mistake. "If you do not live in this city, you cannot open an account in this bank" barked the walrus. "Then how do I get my money converted" I bleated. "You need to have an account in this bank" he said, seeming drop into a parrot-like stupor. I realized we were going around in circles.

Fortunately for me, my dad had heard this exchange from a distance. He came over and told the walrus that he had an account in that bank. "In that case, he can get his money exchanged" came the reply. The walrus then gave me another ticket with a number on it and directed me upstairs. He did not ask for my dad's account number or, for that matter, how my dad was related to me. For all he knew, a complete stranger could have walked up and told the clerk he had an account there. By this time, the heat was getting to be unbearable, even inside the building.

My dad and I climbed two flights of stairs. There was a wizened looking man with thick glasses sitting at a desk with a huge notebook on it. The ceiling fan was groaning and moving around as though in great pain. The fan blades looked like they had never been cleaned. The dust and cobwebs on the fan seemed ready to fall on us, wanting to go home with us when we left. I gave the man my ticket and after answering a few more questions, handed over ten $20 bills. He proceeded to count the money at least four times, each time wetting his fingers with his saliva (there was no way I was going to touch those $20 bills again). He then entered the serial number of each of the $20 bills into his big notebook. After what seemed like eternity, me made me sign the big ledger, next to what he had just entered. He then grunted something, gave me another token with a number on it and told me to go downstairs to collect the money. I went downstairs, waited another 20 minutes for my number to be called, and then went to the counter and collected my Indian Rupees. The clerk who finally gave me my Indian Rupees was another young woman who seemed to just sit there doing nothing most of the time. For the life of me, I could not understand why I had to wait 20 minutes.

I was overjoyed and relieved that the ordeal was over but also emotionally drained. I walked out with my dad, holding onto my Rupees for dear life. One of the striking bank employees accosted us as we were walking outside. "This bank is trying to computerize and put us out of jobs," he screamed, "Don't have a bank account in this bank." "Don't worry. I never will," I replied as I hurried out of there.

All this for wanting to convert US $200 into Indian Rupees.

Gobbledigook

2009-12-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I was at a well-known UK university to give a lecture to a group of Executive MBA students. Since I had arrived early, I went to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. A group of Business School lecturers were seated at the next table. A proud young lecturer was bragging to her colleagues about a paper of hers that had just been accepted for publication. Her golden words were, "I have been told that I take a holistic approach to organizational culture, far removed from the temporal mindset that seems to pervade the corporate diaspora." I almost choked on my coffee and immediately wrote down her pearls of wisdom in my notebook.

How to keep innovation from being smothered by bureaucracy

2009-12-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Issue Date: November/December 2009, Posted On: 12/1/2009

CEO’s Conundrum – Profit Now or Later

How to keep innovation from being smothered by bureaucracy
By Bob Donnelly

Innovation is the lifeblood of every company. To maintain that delicate balance between keeping the firms overall value proposition relevant while enhancing it with neat new innovations is the challenge for all CEO’s.

While we all wish that we had that rare innovative talent of Steve Jobs that perpetuates the continuum of cool new life changing devices from Apple that make us “blink” with surprise and then “tremble” with desire to have them, the typical CEO struggles with the more mundane aspects of just keeping innovation alive within their organizations.

It’s easy to get lulled into the comfort zone of complacency as a result of the profitability of some earlier unique solution to consumers problems. However, as we have seen time and time again, yesterday’s innovation is quickly surpassed by today’s enhancement and the hubris of success has been the demise of many well known CEO’s.

While change is inevitable the majority of managers are by nature not comfortable with change, especially when current operations are profitable. Instead of looking for ways to enhance the company’s value proposition to insure future profitability they are busy exploring ways to increase existing profitability by cutting costs, watering down the brand identity with more expensive varieties, and generally confusing their customers with their behavior.

Planning anticipates the inevitable – change, but if you aren’t studying the changing requirements of your customers they will get to the future before you do and will leave you behind. A great example of what is required of every CEO is what AG Lafley did when he took over as CEO of P&G in 2000 and found that the company was slowing down, becoming insular and management enamored with their own publicity.

His strategy was to get his team refocused on the customer and their needs and on innovations to enhance their lives. He even went so far as to personally visit a housewife in her small apartment in Venezuela to see what she had developed in the form of creams, lotions, and shampoos for herself. She had created two lotions for her feet, one for her body, one for her hands, and another for her face because she could not find what she was looking for.

Lafley’s message from his personal visit to a typical homemaker was that “these creams and lotions are what she says they are, not what we would create for her”. His powerful conclusion from this experience is “it’s not about us, it’s about her”.

Lafley captured this and other experiences in his book (co-authored with Ram Charon), “ The Game Changer.”

If the CEO of a company the size of P&G can visit a homemaker in her apartment in Venezuela to see firsthand what she created because she couldn’t find what she needed – why can’t you visit with some of your customers who are just around the corner?

Likewise, don’t let your company get into the “death by committee” syndrome where the complacent naysayers and bean counters snuff the life out of every new idea that comes along. Without new ideas and innovations emanating from customers changing requirements it is easy to become a victim of your past success.

Another lesson can be learned from another classic innovator – Frank Perdue. He took a dull lifeless commodity and by talking to housewives in supermarkets about their desires and requirements turned it into a quality product. Like the homemaker in Venezuela they had unsatisfied requirements for simple things like “no pinfeathers” and a “plumper yellower chicken”, for example. He went on to solve another problem by creating the innovative “pop-up thermometer” so that housewives would know for sure when their chicken was done. Perdue also developed “oven stuffer roasters”, recipe cards stuffed into Perdue chickens, and a variety of other simple innovations that certainly resonated with consumers.

So my question to you is if Perdue did what he did with a dead chicken – imagine what you can do with your technology?

Growth is a business imperative, and the lifeblood of any growing business is great ideas that can be converted into cool new product innovations a la Apple’s life changing i extensions.

It’s a known fact that as time moves on your propensity to grow or improve declines. And the longer a company stands still or only moderately extends its current business, the less chance it has to continue to grow the value of its customer base. Once a company unconsciously morphs into a bureaucracy innovation evaporates.

Likewise, the larger a firm becomes the harder it is to create new initiatives that are big enough to significantly alter the law of diminishing returns.

However, when annual planning is done properly, it ensures your short term profit goals as well as your long term potential for greater profits.

If you are struggling to keep innovation alive in your company or have “hit the wall” and don’t know what to do about it, let’s start a dialogue on how to get back in touch with the changing dynamics of your marketplace.

An entrepreneur himself, Bob has spent most of his career involved with starting, growing and selling businesses. Having held managerial positions with IBM, Pfizer and Exxon, he draws upon extensive organizational experience with large and small companies in advising CEOs of growing firms. He is available online to answer questions from Chief Executive readers, as well as offer workshops, tips, books to read and a monthly online column about common issues facing CEOs of growing firms. Bob has been featured in USA TODAY for his work with Inc 500 firms and is associated with NYU's Stern Graduate School of business in their Center for Entrepreneurial Studies where he is a Venture Mentor, Marketing Strategist and Business Plan Reviewer.

He is the author of GUIDEBOOK TO PLANNING - A Common Sense Approach to Building Business Plans for Growing Firms, which has recently been reprinted. He is a past contributor to Chief Executive and one of his articles was featured in The Best of Chief Executive. Email Bob at: rmdonnelly@chiefexecutive.net

Leadership

2009-11-01T15:17:00.001-08:00

What are the key qualities of enduring leaders? Would welcome relevant true stories.

Workforce Productivity

2009-10-31T22:23:00.002-07:00

Are there any innovative ideas worth sharing about increasing workforce productivity in different parts of the world?

Business Culture

2009-10-31T22:23:00.001-07:00

A corporate culture is the sum of the unwritten norms, beliefs and values that define appropriate behavior. Culture change is one of the most complex tasks facing leaders. However, exceptional leaders spend a large amount of their time and effort in creating the right culture in their organization.

Who are the leaders that come to mind when one thinks of successful culture change in organizations? What are their accomplishments? How have they transformed their businesses? Can we clearly show the correlation between Business Culture and Business Profitability (short-term and long-term)?

Innovation

2009-10-31T22:21:00.000-07:00

How does one build a culture of innovation in a business? What are the different cultural issues at play in connection with making a company more innovative? Are there interesting cases worth sharing?

Corporate Absurdities

2009-09-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

Having been in the corporate world for over twenty years, the blunders and absurdities in several sectors of the corporate world never cease to amaze me. I would welcome any real examples from readers out there that we could all learn from (and get a good laugh out of). Periodically, I will post incidents from my personal work experience.

DestinHaus Blog

Are "Nerdism" and "Coolness" mutually exclusive?

Immigration, Innovation and Job Creation

Turning Entrepreneurs Into CEO's

Holiday Inn Irvine Spectrum23131 Lake Center Drive Lake Forest, CA 92630

Leadership Lessons from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - Dirty Politics and the Lopsided Media

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Gobbledigook

An interesting study in Workforce Productivity

Gobbledigook

How to keep innovation from being smothered by bureaucracy

CEO’s Conundrum – Profit Now or Later

Leadership

Workforce Productivity

Business Culture

Innovation

Corporate Absurdities

Holiday Inn Irvine Spectrum
23131 Lake Center Drive
Lake Forest, CA 92630