Six Ways to Improve Employee Morale Without Breaking the Bank [ENCOURAGEMENT], [SINCERITY], [OPENNESS]

 

Six Ways to Improve Employee Morale Without Breaking the Bank

Posted: 11 Jun 2009

Happy, engaged employees are the lifeblood of any small business.  Sure, there are the folks that always do their job happily and with great quality (keep them at almost all costs!) and the folks that aren't happy no matter what you do (weed them out!), but most of your employees are somewhere in the middle.  If they're engaged and happy, they do great work and produce great value for you.  If they're unhappy, they don't work nearly as well – and the value produced for you is much less.

Obviously, there are a lot of ways to directly motivate employees: the bottom dollar.  A cash bonus for the employee of the month can work, as can nice perks during the work day.

In my experience, though, the best techniques for improving everyone's morale comes from outside the wallet.  Try these six techniques and keep your checkbook and charge cards focused on other areas, like building your business infrastructure and promoting it to potential customers.

Eat lunch with your employees.  Eat what they eat – if they brown bag it, you brown bag it.  Listen to what they have to say and offer up mostly positive comments and humor.  If your employees eat in regular groups, rotate from group to group – don't keep a group of "favorites."  Lunch is a great time for building camaraderie and trust.

Learn about your employees and follow up. Know about the interests of your employees.  Learn about their families and their dreams.  More importantly, follow up on the things you learn – ask regularly about their mother's health or their son's soccer team.  If you're like me and have trouble remembering such information, especially at first, keep a notebook on it.  Keep a list of such information about each employee and refresh yourself regularly if you need it.

Be candid about how things are going. If things are going well, be sure your employees are aware of the success.  If things aren't going well, talk about the problems early on and nip any gossip right in the bud.  Gossip is the enemy of the happy workplace – and candor is the best way to fight it.  Plus, when you're open about problems, happy employees will often go the extra mile to help pull you through.  Don't be afraid to tell the truth.

Give plenty of opportunities for their candor as well. On a regular basis (I do it weekly), touch base with every employee or contractor in your small business.  Just stop in, ask them how they're doing and if they're having any troubles, and listen to what they have to say, even if you disagree or don't like what they're telling you. Take notes, especially when normally-happy employees observe a problem – there's usually something that needs to be fixed.

Give compliments on good work, both individually and publicly. Make an effort to compliment everyone on their work in individual situations, particularly when you can point out specifics.  When someone really does well, point it out to the group – but don't point out the same person every single time.  Highlight a variety of people and give them public recognition.

Implement reasonable suggested changes whenever you can. Employees often suggest little things that they'd really like to see in the workplace.  If you can implement these things, it goes a huge way towards making that employee feel more empowered, involved, and happy.  If an employee suggests starting a community coffee pot, do it.  If an employee suggests a better arrangement for the office supplies, try it.  If someone suggests a better way to handle meetings, give it a try.  Every time you execute a reasonable suggested change, it greatly raises one employee's morale and gives a small lift to everyone.

Good luck at putting all this newfound employee productivity to good use!

 

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

Management Lessons on an Aircraft Carrier at Sea [EXCELLENCE], [COOPERATION], [COMMITMENT]

Top Ten Lessons from the US Navy: Management Lessons on an Aircraft Carrier at Sea

Posted: 09 Jun 2009

This is a guest post by Bill Reichert, my colleague at Garage Technology Ventures. He and I recently joined other bloggers for an overnight trip on the USS Nimitz. The USS Nimitz is an aircraft carrier that's named after Chester Nimitz (Nimitz signed the US/Japan surrender terms that at the end of World War II). The Nimitz has a crew of approximately 3,000 men and women. When an air wing is deployed on it, the total number of personnel becomes 5,000. It is part of Carrier Strike Group 11.

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Very few people have the opportunity to experience life on a nuclear aircraft carrier up close and personal. Recently, I had the extraordinary experience of spending a day and a night at sea in the Pacific on board the USS Nimitz. I was part of a Navy outreach program to give ordinary landlubbers like me a perspective on the mission and operations of a naval strike group.

I was excited. Who would turn down a chance to get on top of a nuclear power plant driving 100,000 tons of steel through the ocean, with 5,000 men and women handling scores of aircraft, carrying thousands of pounds of bombs and missiles, burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel a day, with margins measured in inches, and tolerances of seconds? What could possibly go wrong?

As a Prius-driving, granola-eating, anti-gun, Left-Coast Californian, I do not fit the stereotype of the typical armed forces booster. I am inclined to favor green technology over weapons of mass destruction. But I discovered during my visit that many of us who are working in non-military organizations, and who may not have given a second thought to the Navy as a model, would do well to understand how a small city floating on the ocean works. From startup entrepreneurs to seasoned executives, we can learn a lot from the U.S. Navy, from the enlisted men and women as well as from the commanding officers.

When we got to the Naval Air Station on Coronado Island in San Diego, we received a quick slide presentation before we flew off to the Nimitz, a hundred miles or so off the coast. Then again, when we met with the admiral on the ship that evening, we got another slide presentation. There were five or six dot points on the powerpoint slides outlining the mission of the Navy, but frankly I can't remember them all. All I can remember is the impression that, fundamentally, the mission of the U.S. Navy is to make the world safe. It's a pretty ambitious objective. You may approve or disapprove of this as the best use of taxpayer money, but if you spend any time on a nuclear aircraft carrier, you have to admit they do a pretty impressive job.

During about thirty hours of immersion with sailors and pilots (and public affairs officers), I realized that were several principles at work that make the Navy so successful—principles that are not at all unique to running an aircraft carrier—representing important lessons for everyone interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, teamwork, and management:

1. Inspiration: Having a big, meaningful goal is a tremendous force for inspiration, motivation, and cohesion. The Navy's mission is not some vague, abstract, feel-good paragraph in a business plan; it is very concrete, and very easy to understand and internalize. In addition to defending America, fighting terrorists, and rescuing victims of piracy, the Navy takes enormous pride in their role in helping the tsunami victims in 2004, and in helping the Katrina victims in 2005. While everyone I talked with had his or her own particular story, everyone had a distinct and powerful pride in what they had accomplished and in the people around them. It was frankly astounding. Even in the best organizations, in my experience, such a core consistency of pride is extremely rare. Of course, most organizations don't have a mission as inspirational as the U.S. Navy.
2. Perspiration: If everyone buys into the goal, you can get an amazing amount of work done, including regular sixteen hour days with very low pay. The Nimitz does not offer a 9-to-5 workday. Some days, crews are on the flight deck for fourteen or sixteen hours, into the wee hours of the morning, inhaling noxious fumes and making sure every plane gets back safely. And then after the planes get back at midnight, the maintenance crew is still at work making sure the planes are ready for the next day. A maintenance chief told me that, given the age of the planes and the stress of carrier flying, it is typical that a plane requires twenty-five hours of maintenance for every hour of flight time. That seems inefficient, but the alternative is unacceptable. You don't want to fly a plane that is anything less than 100 percent maintained.
3. Teamwork: As much as the movie Top Gun created the impression that it's about competing to be Number 1, the ethic in an actual operating situation is intensely about team performance. Watching the crews maintain, fuel, setup, and pilot F-18s for flight, it's clear it's not about who's the hottest dog on the deck. Every single person counts on other members of the team to enable them to get their part of the job done, and no one person can take credit for success, or benefit from another's failure.
4. Recruiting and training: There is a common misperception that the military attracts the lower performers in our society who have no other choices. The Navy is very fortunate to have more people who want to join than there are available slots. But more important, the men and women who make it through training are astoundingly competent people. The lesson here is that it's not about fancy degrees and prior polish; it's about a commitment to excellence in each individual, and the willingness to work to exhaustion to make sure you live up to your commitment.
5. Accountability and continuous improvement: There is no contradiction between an intense ethic of teamwork and the need for individual accountability. In the Navy, everything is monitored and measured. Every system has to perform at 100 percent, and for every system there is a person responsible for making sure that happens. Every cycle of take-offs and landings is measured and scored. And every score is assessed to figure out a way to do it better. During launch cycles, the drill is to get a plane catapulted off the deck every sixty seconds. According to our hosts, during the training exercise we watched, the greatest variation off that was fifteen seconds. Wouldn't it be cool if O'Hare could match that?
6. Respect: In the Navy, if you don't like someone because of their race, or creed, or whatever, you have the opportunity to change your mind, because that person may be living in the bunk fourteen inches away from you. Respect isn't just an altruistic ethic, it's a necessity. More so than any other institution, the U.S. military has been successful at integrating America's young men and women. I'm sure the Navy is not perfect in this regard, but when I looked around the bridge and saw the incredibly diverse team of men and women who were calmly, confidently, and competently running this multi-billion dollar acme of American technological accomplishment, I thought why can't all of America be more like this? Actually, most high tech companies are well integrated when it comes to race and creed (less so gender), but when it comes to respect among individuals, most organizations have a lot to learn.
7. Overcoming fear: On a busy aircraft carrier, there are a lot of things that happen that are really scary, and people die. Despite the macho prototype of the Navy pilot, in private these pilots admit that landing a jet on a moving carrier at night is a downright terrifying experience. Watching a series of jets land at night, you get the impression that it must be pretty easy, because they do it so well. But it isn't easy, and even with years of practice and experience, it's nerve-wracking. And you do it, because it's your responsibility and that's the only way the mission gets accomplished.
8. Work/Life balance: It's hard to imagine how people in the military handle being away from their families for months at a time, in environments that are almost entirely work. It's clear that it is not easy for most. My impression is that the Navy tries to ease the strain by creating a work environment that is much looser and more casual than we expected. We thought the crew aboard the ship would be much more heavily starched than they were, and that the interactions between subordinates and superiors would be much stiffer. We were amazed at how relatively easygoing everyone was, considering that they were responsible for one of the most massive concentrations of firepower on the planet. When you are on the line, there is no slack, and there is no room for anything less than 100 percent. But when there is a break in the action, you can relax and be human.
9. Reverence and irreverence: The week before our visit, the Nimitz lost five crew in a helicopter accident. These were not strangers; these were co-workers and friends. Among the pilots, it seems that everyone has at least one story of a good friend who was lost. For these men and women, death is all too real. There are memorials around the ship to remind everyone of those who have given their lives in the service of their country. At the same time, there is an irreverence that pops up quite frequently, sometimes when you wouldn't expect it. The captain, in welcoming us, referred to the aircraft carrier as being "kind of like a jail, except there's the possibility of drowning." Not exactly what you would expect to hear. And the whole call sign culture—pilots with nicknames like "Freak Show" and "Booger," to make sure no one takes themselves too seriously and everyone appreciates that even the best of the best are human.
10. One-hundred percent performance: From moment to moment, the operations on board a nuclear aircraft carrier expose the crew to an extraordinary degree of danger. A simple mistake can result in death, and much of what is being done on the ship and in the air is not at all simple. But they make it look simple. We watched scores of planes take off and land on a moving platform without a hitch. The key is training, training, training, and total focus and dedication when you are on the line. The activity on the flight deck looks a little random and pretty informal—no stiff spines or tight formations. But in the end, you realize you've watched an amazingly choreographed ballet, with an underlying intelligence and efficiency that comes from a lot of people working together to optimize the total performance of the organization.

Those are my top ten lessons from the U.S. Navy. Some of my colleagues on the trip have some additional perspectives to add. (You can see links to their travelogues below.) But all of us discovered that we can learn a lot from the U.S. Navy.

Certainly the Navy is not perfect. As in any organization, there are egos and frustrations and resentments. And people make mistakes, and bad things happen. Not everyone agrees with every decision made up the chain of command, or back in Washington, DC. The Navy understands that it is not well-served by squashing free thought, but everyone in the Navy appreciates that there is a time and a place for debate, and the deal is that you are signed up to do what the organization needs you to do once you are on the line.

Not every entrepreneur wants to model his or her organization and culture on the Navy. For many entrepreneurs, indeed, that is a very unappealing concept, but that's because they don't really understand what makes the Navy one of the most effective organizations on the planet. Like any other successful organization, it's about the people, not about the technology. The key is harnessing the incredible potential of every individual through inspiration, training, and teamwork.

Honor. Courage. Commitment. Not bad principles for any company.

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Here are links to the blogs of others on the visit:

• Guy Kawasaki
• Dennis Hall
• Carroll "Lex" LeFon (USN, ret.)
• Charlene Li
• Jenny Lawson
• Pamela Slim
• Jennifer Jones
• Jen Leo
• Robert Scoble

From OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

"Today, innovation is all about collaboration" [COOPERATION], [HELPFULNESS], [CREATIVITY], [AUDACITY]

 

Excerpt:

 

    "...we don't need more ideas. We have enough stuff to go around. What we need is more value in the world. And that's what innovation is."

 

Business Visionaries

Koulopolous On Innovation

Michael Maiello, 06.02.09, 06:00 PM EDT

A Q&A with Tom Koulopolous, the founder of Delphi Group.

Michael Maiello spoke with economist Tom Koulopolous on Forbes.com's Business Visionaries. (Click here to watch the interview.)

Mike Maiello: All right. Tom, thanks for joining us.

Tom Koulopolous: You're welcome, Mike. Thank you.

So, the topic is innovation. And the thesis is that innovation is not what we tend to think it is.

Right.

I don't just sit around waiting for lightning to strike in my brain and come up with that brilliant product.

It's funny. But, a lot of us, I think, we've been sort of brought up with this notion that innovation is all about the light bulb going off. Which is sort of the prototypical icon you have in mind when you think about innovation. And that's a view we've got from sort of the Edisonian perspective of the world.

Today, innovation is all about collaboration. It's not the lone genius off somewhere in a closet coming up with bright ideas. And frankly, we don't need more ideas. We have enough stuff to go around. What we need is more value in the world. And that's what innovation is.

So, you kind of have to change the way you look at your own relationship to the economy and the workplace. Because we were mostly brought up wanting to be imaginative heroes, right?

That's right. And none of this takes away from our ability to be imaginative or creative. I think we're all imaginative and creative in our own way. Granted, some of that gets driven out of us as we get older through schooling. And we could talk about that because there's some ways that we could perhaps not drive it out of children as readily.

But, look, you're right. The reality is you have to change the way you look at what innovation is. And in many cases, some of the best ideas that have come along recently have not been radical inventions. They've just been tweaking of what already exists. Even the iPod. Sort of the prototypical, the poster child of innovation over the last few decades.

Nothing was invented there. It was a new business model. It was a new market model and the componentry? It was all pretty much in place when Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) came to market with the iPod.

Meaning that there were MP3 players that were readily available and cheap, right?

You bet. And Tony Fidel who was the fellow who went to Apple, and really gave birth to the iPod, he went to a lot of those MP3 players and he said, "Hey, if we bring together this technology that already exists, we could develop a whole new marketplace." And everyone said, "That's crazy, Tony. Go some place else." And he finally ended up at Apple's doorstep, lo and behold.

And what's the role of style and panache in something like the iPhone?

There's always an element of style and panache in design to good innovation. I think you have to map it to the market. Into the psychology of the marketplace. Look at the flip video camera by Pure Digital. I mean, here's a device that was utterly simple and the marketplace embraced it, loved it. Today, you can personalize your flip any which way you want. It goes with colors and styles and patterns.

And they sold the company to Cisco ( CSCO - news - people ) for $560 million just a few months ago: five-year-old company, 100 people. I mean, that's innovation. They didn't build anything new. In fact, what they built was almost retro in many ways, right? Because Sony ( SNE - news - people ) and JVC were all building these complex camcorders and along comes the flip camcorder without even a zoom capability.

So, if I want a shot at being a part of a major success like that? I want to be in on the next flip phone, the next iPod, what kind of structure do I need around me? When I come to work, what has to happen?

Good question. The structure has a lot to do with it. The culture of the organization. The way in which it allows for failure in the organization. A lot of big companies don't like failure. Even short failures, small failures. And people are penalized when they fail. You want to create a company that tolerates a little bit of failure. Experimentation.

And a company that realizes innovation isn't about throwing more money at the problem. It's about taking things that are already there and creating a new business model around those things. And I think that's where the opportunity is today. To create those new business models. And they abound. They're everywhere. Amazon.com ( AMZN - news - people ) is a wonderful example. The Kindle is a great recent example. Change the business model, how you consume the information. I think that's the approach you want to take. Create some tolerance with failure and experimentation.

3M ( MMM - news - people )is a company that's often cited for allowing this failure. And sometimes profiting from outright failures. Can you talk a little about that?

Indeed. Well, I mean, the Post-It note is a classic example. But, 3M and the culture of tolerating failure of 3M goes back almost to the origins of the company. In fact, Dick Drew, who was the fellow who invented masking tape, was a fellow they had hired. He was a correspondence engineer. He didn't even have a degree.

And they hired him in the early days of 3M to go off and figure out how to build better abrasives. And Dick went to the body shops where they were painting cars. And he said, "You know what? What these folks need is not abrasives, but tape." And he went back to 3M and started playing around with tape.

And his boss said, "Dick, we're an abrasives company. We're not a tape company. Get off the adhesives kick." And Dick kept at it. And they couldn't fire him because they couldn't hire people at that point. And they couldn't afford new people. And after three years, Dick came up with masking tape. And at that point, the culture changed at 3M.

And 3M said, "You know what? We're not going to. We're going to tolerate failure. And we're not going to discipline someone for doing the right thing." And to this day, 3M actually allows its engineers to devote 20% of their time to non-project-essential activities. Things that don't have anything to do with their job day to day. What an amazing culture. And that has a lot to do with 3M's success. And they measure that. They measure that ability to innovate by how often their people come up with new ideas that they can repurpose. But, with the Post-It note, they weren't looking for that. They were looking for super glue. They weren't looking for a semi-permanent adhesive.

Here, they wanted an adhesive.

Exactly. They wanted a really fantastic adhesive. And along comes super, this sticky stuff that didn't really work very well. But, they filed it away. They put it in the corporate memory. And years later, they looked in the corporate archives and they found that they did have something that would work to create a semi-permanent Post-It note. And the rest has become history, as they say. So, you have to keep that corporate memory alive.

Now,Google ( GOOG - news - people ) has tried, I think, to take the 3M culture into the Internet age.

They've tried. It's not clear yet. It's early. It's not clear yet how well they will succeed. You certainly have to give them credit because they do experiment a great deal. And Google Labs is a wonderful example of that. If you go the Google site and you look at their Labs page, they're constantly recycling ideas and trying to find the next big thing.

They started a new venture fund now with a $100 million to invest in non-core areas. So, I'll give them credit. They're trying to do the right things. But market pressure is intense. When Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) and Intel ( INTC - news - people ) both tried to double down on their R&D investments recently during the economic downturn, they took quite a hit from their stockholders. Stockholders don't like to see that. They're very short-sighted. And it takes a lot of gumption and I think a lot of courage to invest long term in innovation.

Yeah. I wanted to ask you about that in our current environment because it's all good to say, "We tolerate failure." However, shareholders don't.

No.

And when things are really tight, as they are now, failure can be catastrophic.

Absolutely. That's a great question. I'll tell you what happens in that case. Large companies, unfortunately, just don't innovate as much in an economic downturn because stockholders don't tolerate failure. In fact, they barely tolerate maintaining the status quo when it comes to R&D investment. So, where will the innovation come from? It'll come from the small companies that don't have to account to stockholders. It'll come from the second-bedroom operations, the garage operations. And we forget that a lot of these companies--HP, Apple, Microsoft--these were all second-bedroom, garage operations.

In fact, at HP, they still have the HP garage that everything began in. So, these companies don't start big. They start small. And that's what I tell people. This is a great time for small companies to innovate. Because that really is where innovation ultimately is. The back bone of innovation is that small company mentality. That mentality.

And you're talking maybe even pre-venture level?

Absolutely. Small companies that are strapped for cash, don't have outside investors. Maybe have some family and friends. I think that really is ultimately where most of the innovation occurs. And we forget that 50% of all people employed in the U.S. are employed with companies of under 500 people. I mean, those are small, medium-sized businesses. And that's a big chunk of our employment base. So, we need those companies to be innovative, to come up with new ideas, and to capitalize on them.

Do you think the venture capital community is properly encouraging innovation at this point? It seems to me that they're being very hard on entrepreneurs.

Yes, unfortunately, when the economy gets tighter, VC comes with more of a burden. And I think that's what you expect. Look, venture capitalists are going to be more conservative in how they invest their money, and will require terms that perhaps extract a bit more leverage from the deal. What I encourage folks to do, small businesses to do, is to get the idea as far as you possibly can without outside capital.

But keep in mind that at some point scale has to take over. Speed to market is absolutely essential. And at some point, you have to give up a bit of that ownership stake. But hold on to it as long as you possibly can. That's the best way to build the idea. To have the latitude to build it. And then when the time is right, you give up what you have to give up to get to market in the fastest way.

What size are most of your clients? The people who come into your firm?

Most of my clients are actually large companies, Fortune 500 companies. But, what's fascinating to me. I didn't expect this, Mike. Recently, in the last 12 months, I've seen more medium-sized companies come knocking on my door. And I think part of that is because the innovation message really appeals to them. And they want to build a culture of innovation as early as they can.

They don't want to wait to be a big company to tackle that problem. They want to tackle it early. And that's good sign. I like that. I'm encouraged by that trend.

And how do people respond to this message of free to fail?

Surprisingly, small companies respond to it very well. Large companies have a tough time with it. If it's not really part of their culture, it's going to be very difficult to make it part of the culture in this economic climate. But small companies amazingly respond very well to it. And I think in large part because they realize that they have to somehow change the nature of how they operate, how they behave.

And it gives them an advantage to be more innovative. I call it the corporate canopy. It's kind of like a forest fire. The corporate canopy lets some sunshine in. Because the large companies aren't paying as much attention to when the small companies threaten them. That's a good thing for small companies because now they have some latitude. They can do things that otherwise might not last very long in the marketplace because a large company would co-opt their idea. So, I'm encouraged by what I see.

Do you find yourself ever butting up against the advice of other consultants? Particularly those who have that kind of input in/output out kind of equation, all you got to do is control your people.

Absolutely, when you deal with large companies, you absolutely come up against those sort of very operationally focused consultants. And, look, there's a role for healthy operations. The reality is that you have to perform well in the market to have a license to come back the next quarter and the quarter after that.

But, again, with smaller companies, I don't see that being the case. With smaller companies, there is a definite sense right now that there is an opening. That there's a bit of a green field to innovate. And if you can do that in three to four years time when the large corporates come back and start paying attention to innovation again, there will be a lot of value in those small companies. And M&A always follows a recession because those innovative ideas have to scale. And large companies will start buying those innovative ideas.

So, it's not too much to dream, then, for the entrepreneur to position yourself now for consolidation during the recovery?

Absolutely not. I think that is the ideal way to look at the three- to four-year horizon. Maybe five-year horizon. But the economy is turning around, apparently. It seems to be turning around a little bit. There is some light that's peeking through. And what I tell small companies is make that part of your strategy. Position yourself as innovative. That's a value that you have and that you bring to a larger organization. And that might result in an acquisition or a merger at some point.

Have you found that kind of risk aversion on the part of lenders, creditors and investors has translated to the smaller entrepreneur?

It has. And, unfortunately, we're not seeing enough involvement on the part of Washington, I think, to help that. Some of the community banks (I have to give them credit) are certainly trying very hard. Local and community banks are still trying very hard to support the entrepreneur. But, of the $1.4 trillion in stimulus and bailout between top and the Obama stimulus plan, I think less than 1% of it has gone to small business.

Don't tell AIG ( AIG - news - people ) that. They'll go after it.

But, that's incredible. Imagine, you know, you've got 50% of all the people employed in the country are employed by small business. And you've got 1% of stimulus going to small business. There's some things that are being done. The Obama administration is trying to sure up loans to small businesses and to guarantee more loans to small businesses.

But those are mostly for businesses that are already operating. Not those that might be starting up. So, I think we have to do a lot more to really encourage that sector of the economy.

Just because this might be our last chance to do so, I'd love to discuss GM and OnStar. Because that's another kind of amazing accidental story.

It is. And OnStar might be one of the few things, if not the only thing left at the end of the day that really has value from the GM journey, if you will, to be kind. Look, OnStar came out of nowhere. It was a complete accident. And Rick Wagner supported it. I mean, to his credit, one of the things that Rick Wagner did that I think really will be a legacy is the OnStar brand. And it's an incredible brand globally. It's being exported outside of the U.S. right now. We're not exporting much else from the U.S. automobile industry outside of the U.S. right now. So, I think it's an example of how even large companies can innovate if they try hard and if they put good intentions behind it. Unfortunately, one of the few examples in the automobile industry of where that happened.

Some of the OnStar origin is a little interesting. They had hired scenario planners from Shell who expected urban blight.

That's right. It's amazing how often we get the future wrong even when we apply very smart minds to it. And if you talk to Chet Huber, who still runs the OnStar division at GM, he'll tell you that when they first started OnStar, they had no idea that things like unlocking doors would have any value. Or that people would actually want to get directions from their OnStar system.

And today, OnStar can actually transmit a digital signature of the crash to the ER room. They're not doing that just yet. But they're experimenting with it. So that when you get to the ER room, the doctor knows what your injuries are before you even get there. And they had never even dreamed of this initially.

So, to do scenario-based planning is wonderful. But, the future's very difficult to predict. And the reality is it's why you have to tolerate failure. Because your journey to the future's always going to be an indirect one. And you have to have a built-in tolerance of taking those detours periodically. And they did for OnStar. And that's why I think it's evolved as a very successful brand.

What do you tell the small business owner or would-be business owner with an idea in terms of how to take care of themselves in the early years?

How to take care of themselves in the early years?

Yeah, financially.

Develop a passion for your idea and not only thick skin, but, I think a thick psychology that will allow you to deal with the turmoil, and the many detours that you will have to take. The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is that they get so attached to their idea that they simply will not allow the market to shape it.

You have to market shape it. Don't get so attached to it that you're the only one who sees the beauty in the idea. This is like a mother and her baby. Every baby is beautiful to every mother. But some ideas? They have to change. Some quite radically, in fact. And I think entrepreneurs who will let the market take over, take the idea into their own hands and shape it are the ones who will be best off long term.

So, you have to have thick skin or a thick psychology to be able to do that. In terms of financially sustaining yourself, it's going to be a rough road. I have yet to find an entrepreneur who has not had to take longer than they thought it would take. That has not leveraged their home equity, refinanced their home. Done all kinds of things that otherwise rational people would not do. But you have to believe in that idea and believe it enough to let it grow. To let it expand beyond what your initial concept might have been of what it should look like. That's a tough thing. But it's a very important thing to do. And successful entrepreneurs let the market take over.

And who is the Innovation Zone written for?

The Innovation Zone. The book was originally for large corporates. And the intent was to get them to understand how they could create this culture. What I have found is that it's even more appropriate for small and medium-sized businesses who are trying to create this culture from the outset. And it gives you the foundation, the tenets that you need to establish a company where good ideas can thrive. And where people will get a fair shake when they come to you with an idea. And I think that's a good thing. Because our economy is going to grow because small businesses come up with new ideas. That's where the dreams begin.

So, I'm really encouraged to see that that audience, which I hadn't expected at the outset, has really embraced the book. But, look, at any point in time, innovation is a good thing. Whether you're one person in a garage or a 100,000 people in a global 2000 company. You still need to innovate. You have no choice in the matter, right? It's not an optional thing to do. So, I think there's food for thought for everyone there. But, it's encouraging to see small and medium-sized businesses really latch on to these ideas.

And this is book number eight?

This is book number eight, in fact. Yes. I have a passion for writing and my family has sort of followed suit in support of that passion.

You're typing number nine as we speak?

And I'm working on number nine as we speak.

Well, great. Hopefully, you'll come back when that's out. And thanks for joining us.

I look forward to it. Thank you, Mike.

 

Source: http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/02/koulopolous-innovation-culture-opinions-business-visionaries-economy.html?partner=alerts

Constructive social action led by youth in Pakistan [INITIATIVE], [AUDACITY], [IDEALISM], [COOPERATION]

A remarkable story of an initiative for the benefit of the local community in Pakistan. Youth can move the world!
(Excerpts:)

"Everybody keeps blaming the government, but no one actually does anything," said Shoaib Ahmed, 21, one of the organizers. "So we thought, why don't we?"

"The rich don't care, the poor can't do anything, so it's up to the middle class to make the change," Mr. Khwaja said, as a group of friends standing near him nodded in agreement. "We have to lead by example. To change it from inside."

May 19, 2009

Young Pakistanis Take One Problem Into Their Own Hands

Zackary Canepari for The New York Times

Members of "Responsible Citizens" collected garbage in the Gulberg neighborhood of Lahore.

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: May 18, 2009

LAHORE, Pakistan — The idea was simple, but in Pakistan, a country full of talk and short on action, it smacked of rebellion.

A group of young Pakistani friends, sick of hearing their families complain about the government, decided to spite them by taking matters into their own hands: every Sunday they would grab shovels, go out into their city, and pick up garbage.

Zackary Canepari for The New York Times
Shoaib Ahmed, 21, one of the organizers of the group, in Lahore on a recent Sunday.

It was a strange thing to do, particularly for such students from elite private schools, who would normally spend Sunday afternoons relaxing in air-conditioned homes.

But the students were inspired by the recent success of the lawyers' movement, which used a national protest to press the government to reinstate the country's chief justice, and their rush of public consciousness was irrepressible.

"Everybody keeps blaming the government, but no one actually does anything," said Shoaib Ahmed, 21, one of the organizers. "So we thought, why don't we?"

So they got on Facebook and invited all their friends to a Sunday trash picking. Trash, Mr. Ahmed said, "is this most basic thing. It's not controversial, and you can easily do it."

Pakistan is a country plagued by problems, like Islamic extremism and poverty. But these young people are another face, a curious new generation that looks skeptically on their parents' privilege and holds mullahs and military generals in equal contempt.

"The youth of Pakistan wants to change things," said Shahram Azhar, the lead singer for Laal, a Pakistani rock band, reflecting an attitude that is typical of this rebellious younger generation.

"The reason the Taliban is ruling Swat," he said referring to a valley north of Islamabad where Islamic extremists took control this year, "is because they are organized. We need to organize, too."

"The only answer to Pakistan's problems," he added, "is a broad-based people's movement."

The trash movement, which calls itself Responsible Citizens, does not yet qualify as broad, but it still drew a respectable crowd on a recent Sunday, considering the heat (above 90 degrees) and the time (around 4 p.m.). Mr. Ahmed and his friends were doling out trash bags they had bought for the occasion. About 40 people had gathered. Some were wearing masks. All were carrying shovels.

They set their sights low. The area of operation, Ghalib Market, was modest, a quiet traffic circle in central Lahore encircled by shops, a cricket field and a mosque.

It was not one of the dirtiest parts of the city, but the group felt attached to it, as they had cleaned it in the past, and wanted to see if their actions were having any effect.

The first time they cleaned there was like raking leaves on a windy autumn day.

"We collected, like, 30 bags, but there was no visible difference," Mr. Ahmed said.

But they talked with local shopkeepers, in a kind of trash outreach, asking them to walk their garbage to the trash bin. Those connections, Mr. Ahmed said, were actually the point of the cleaning — setting an example for others to follow.

"The major problem people have here is that there are no bins," said Murtaza Khwaja, a 21-year-old medical student.

Actually, the problem was deeper. A long-term cycle of corrupt, weak governments interrupted by military coups has caused Pakistan's political muscles to atrophy, leaving Pakistani society, particularly its poor, hopeless that it will ever receive the services — education, water, electricity, health — that it so desperately needs.

"People say, 'This is nice, but things will never change,' " Mr. Khwaja said, pointing to a hamburger seller who he said was particularly pessimistic. "There is a hopelessness."

That is where the trash cleaning comes in. Locals find it perplexing and helpful in equal measures. One enthusiast who met the group on its first outing in March, Muhamed Zahid, has come to every one since. One man passing by in a rickshaw dismounted to help them shovel for a while.

The men in the mosque, on the other hand, were picky, wanting the young people to clean the mosque but not the surrounding area.

"They said, 'We already have Christians doing that for us in the morning,' " Mr. Khwaja said. Christians are a minority in Pakistan, and those who have no education often work in the lowest-paid jobs, like collecting trash, sweeping streets or fixing sewers.

On Sunday, Malik Waqas, a 16-year-old who was driving by on a moped, stopped to watch a cluster of young people shoveling what looked like old food.

"It's good," Mr. Waqas said shyly. When asked why, he said, "Because people care."

But that also confuses passers-by, many of whom stop to gape at the young people, who, in their jeans, T-shirts and sunglasses, look more New York than Pakistan. On Sunday, three men in flowing, traditional garb leaned on a fence staring at the students while they cleaned.

Mr. Khwaja's mother, who had also come to clean, was commanding like an army general, trying to get them to join in.

"Most of them just mock us," she said. " 'What are you women doing?' "

But the youngsters seemed to understand the men's perspective.

"They're like, 'Why are these rich people cleaning this up? It's probably a college project,' " one student said.

That brought the students to the most serious discussion of the day, one that is arguably Pakistan's biggest problem: the gap between rich and poor. Generations of poverty and a system of substandard education that keeps people in it have created fertile ground for Islamic militancy, which now poses a serious threat to the stability of the country.

"Here, if you're poor, you're not even a human being," said Pavel Qaiser. "It's the culture we have — one landlord and the peasants working under him."

And here was a revelation: the trash picking, which the students had intended as an example for shopkeepers and residents, was actually an exercise for themselves.

"The rich don't care, the poor can't do anything, so it's up to the middle class to make the change," Mr. Khwaja said, as a group of friends standing near him nodded in agreement. "We have to lead by example. To change it from inside."

He continued, his voice urgent, as if he were giving a speech: "We want to tell everyone, 'You have the right. For 60 years everyone has told you that you don't, but you do!' "

Then he bemoaned the small number of friends they were able to gather for the trash cleaning. For those who didn't come, he had a message. "You want to do something? Pick up a shovel."

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/world/asia/19trash.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ref=world

Reflection on the Pursuit of Elegance [GRACE], [SIMPLICITY], [BEAUTY], [INTELLIGENCE]

In Pursuit of Elegance: 12 Indispensable Tips

Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World | May 18th, 2009

(85) found this useful. Do you?

Matthew E. May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing and the ChangeThis manifesto called Creative Elegance. He spent nearly a decade as a close adviser to Toyota and works with creative teams and senior leaders at a number of top Fortune companies.

1. Question: How do you define elegance?

   Answer: Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful. One without the other leaves you short of elegant. And sometimes the "unusual simplicity" isn't about what's there, it's about what isn't. At first glance, elegant things seem to be missing something.

2. Question: Why is it so important?

   Answer: Elegance cuts through the noise, captures our attention, and engages us. The point of elegance is to achieve the maximum impact with the minimum input. It's a thoughtful, artful subtractive process focused on doing more and better with less. That's especially important during this economic crisis when everyone is trying to move forward while consuming fewer resources.

3. Question: What is the essence of elegance?

   Answer: Elegant ideas — products, services, performances, strategies, whatever — all have some degree of these four elements: symmetry, seduction, subtraction, and sustainability. A great example is Sudoku. First, Sudoku is symmetrical, with its squares inside of squares and mirrored distribution of clues. Second, it is seductive—to the point of being irresistible and craze-worthy.Third, it's subtractive in design. The Sudoku puzzle designer crafts a complete solution and then symmetrically subtracts filled-in squares to arrive at the starting grid which is predominantly empty. Finally, and as a result of these first three, the game is sustainable in terms of both the infinite number of games that can be constructed, as well as players' interest in the game. And yet it's so simple.Sudoku could not be easier to learn: you do not even need to know how to count, its one rule can be explained in a single sentence, and it takes but a minute to grasp plus it is universal in nature unlike crossword puzzles which are knowledge-based as well as language-specific. And yet, the underlying complexity behind the logic needed to solve a Sudoku puzzle can be incredibly challenging.

4. Question: Which companies are your favorite examples or elegance?

   Answer: Toyota is one. With Scion, they refused to advertise, and they drastically reduced the number of standard features to allow Generation-Y buyers to make a personal statement by customizing their cars. The Scion xB flew off the lot when it came out.Another example is the British bank, First Direct. It is branchless and became the most highly recommended bank in the United Kingdom. Then there's the French manufacturing company FAVI that realized better employee relations when they eliminated their human resources department. W. L. Gore and Associates completely eliminated job titles and typical corporate hierarchy in order to release the creativity of its staff employees. And finally there's always the usual suspects like the Google interface and Apple's clean design.But my all-time favorite is In 'N Out Burger. a freakishly popular hamburger chain that started in Los Angeles a half century ago, that has built its brand on the "less is more" approach with an interesting twist. The menu offers only five items: a hamburger, cheeseburger, double burger, French fries, and a short list of beverages. By keeping things simple, founder Harry Snyder says he is able to provide the highest quality food in a sparkling clean environment.In 'N Out understands that seduction, and that subtraction can simply mean "not adding." By resisting formal menu expansion they've avoided the self-defeating overkill seen in consumer electronics, with its "feature creep," and the resulting "feature fatigue. "Their only rule is "to do whatever the customer wants done to a burger." In fact, Wikipedia shows a photograph of a 20X20, and on a Halloween weekend in October 2004, Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh and blogger What Up Willy ordered and ate—with a team of six others—a 100X100, consuming nearly 20,000 calories in less than two hours.The twist? There is a secret menu at the restaurant that only regulars are privy to – mostly just different combinations of the standard fare like three burger patties and three slices of cheese. But these special combos have never been on the regular menu, and apparently never will, because  they offer the customer a certain "mystique."

5. Question: Which companies are your favorite bad examples?

   Answer: There's nothing elegant about excess. Open up Microsoft Word and get all your toolbars out in the open. Stuff you've never seen, don't need, certainly never use, and probably don't even know how to use. Look how much space is left for the primary value-adding function of Word which is writing. And not to beat the downtrodden U.S. automakers, but for all the divisions, brands, and bureacratic layers, you can count on one hand the number of truly compelling models.

6. Question: Why do companies with unlimited money continue to put out such crap?

   Answer: I'm not sure anyone has unlimited money at the moment, but even those less worse off than others probably suffer from a dire lack of two things: discipline and descrimination. The enemies of elegance are (1) adding and (2) acting. The notion of subtraction goes against how we're hardwired which is to push, collect, hoard, store, and consume. We're natural-born adders which is partly why elegance is so elusive. Whether we're talking about a product, a performance, a market, or an organization, our addiction to addition results in inconsistency, overload, or waste—and sometimes all three.And here in the US we have a cowboy instinct, where the bias is for action. In other words, Don't make me think, let me just do. Doing SOMETHING is deemed better than doing nothing. But that's not always true. I spent some time with National Geographic adventure journalist Boyd Matson. He taught me how to stand still when the hippos charge. If you act, and run, you're dead. Stand still, do nothing, they stop charging. But that is fiendishly difficult because it's so unnatural and counterintuitive. But that's what happens in business.

7. Question: What's the first step a CEO should take to get her company on the right track?

   Answer: When Fortune  named Apple "America's Most Admired Company" as well as "Most Admired for Innovation," honors owing largely to the success of the iPhone, Steve Jobs revealed that a "stop-doing" strategy figured centrally into Apple's approach. What he said was: "We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done."That's the mindset. And step one? Create a solid stop-doing list. Sounds simple, but few do it. Guru Jim Collins says you absolutely must have a "stop-doing" list to accompany your to-do list. As a practical matter, he advises developing a strong discipline around first giving careful thought to prioritizing goals and objectives, and then eliminating the bottom 20 percent of the list. If as CEO you do that, and demand that everyone do that, including designers and engineers with respect to the stuff they're building, your ugly crap quotient goes way down.

8. Question: Do you think there's a position for CTOs (chief taste officers) in companies?

   Answer: Probably, but then here's the tricky part: who do you appoint to find and hire them? You have to understand elegance first to find it. Ideally you'd like everyone to develop a sense of elegance in whatever they're trying to do. I'm really encouraged that schools like Stanford, with the D School partnering up with the IDEO brothers Kelley, teaching "design thinking" to MBAs, and the Rotman school, lead by Roger Martin and his "Integrative Thinking" discipline, are in the mix.They're teaching people how to balance and master the creative tension between getting it out and getting it right. It takes no discipline or genius to either spend money or to make broad cuts which inevitably tend to put everything on hold and inevitably destroy whatever value might exist.

9. Question: How should companies make engineering and user-interface design work together?

   Answer: Study the best: Google, Apple, Lexus, and Ferrari. They understand that complexity is their best friend, not an enemy. They understand it, so they can exploit it. The Google interface is clean and simple though the algorithm is massively complex. Even Einstein understood this. E=mc2 has an easy and immortal ring to it. Can you imagine if he rolled it out with the 40 page proof behind it?It's about finding the simplicity on the other side of complexity as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it. It's about playing chess, not checkers. Both are played on the same board yet chess demands more strategic thinking and much deeper experience to truly master the goal of immobilizing—checkmating— the opponent's king.Checkers, with its mostly single-step play, is far less demanding, easier to learn, and quicker to play. Chess masters understand the nature of complexity—that it is part of the game, and it's why they play it. The challenge and thrill lies in the endless search for ways to manage and exploit those complexities. Make it SEEM blazingly simple. That's elegance. Complexity isn't the enemy to a chessmaster—without it they'd be playing checkers. But there's times when we look at the stuff we buy or experience and we swear that the design and engineering weren't even playing checkers. They were playing Whack-A-Mole.

10. Question: Why do you think the Japanese have such a way with elegance?

    Answer: From a practical and business point of view, there's a historical event. The first helps you understand the second. Culturally, as the Zen philosophy took hold in Japan during the 12th and 13th centuries, Japanese art and philosophy began to reflect one of the fundamental Zen aesthetic themes, that of emptiness.In other words, less is best. Why? In the Zen view, emptiness is a symbol of inexhaustible spirit. Silent pauses in music and theater, blank spaces in paintings, and even the restrained motion of the seductive geisha in refined tea ceremonies all take on a special significance because it is in states of temporary inactivity or quietude that Zen artists see the very essence of creative energy. The goal is to convey the symmetrical harmony of nature through clearly asymmetrical and incomplete renderings; the effect is that those viewing the art supply the missing symmetry and thus participate in the act of creation.As for the second reason, it's kaizen — continuous improvement. It means "no best, only better." You see the word zen in there right? It's zen for business, and it came about during the US occupation, 1945-1952, under MacArthur. We flattened Japan. We had to build it back up from the ashes. Their economy was in shambles, and they had just begun to industrialize prior to WWII. We taught them continuous improvement, because they had no resources — no land, facilities, or money. They had human capital.To stop improving was to stagnate—which was to die. It was a war on all the things that make for crap: overproduction, overprocessing, defects, conveyance, unneccessary motion, inconsistency, and inventory. In short, Japan HAD to get elegant. They've never forgotten how they did it, and they've institutionalized it.

11. Question: What websites do you consider elegant?

    Answer: I'll make you blush: I love the whole "create your own AllTop page." It's subtractive because I select from the universe of blogs. It's sustainable because the bloggers' continuous ideas that supply the ongoing content. It's symmetrical because something is symmetrical if you can do something to it and yet it looks the same: I select my topics, create my own magazine rack, as it were, yet the AllTop site remains unchanged. It's seductive because you don't get the whole blog, just a snippet, which whets your appetite for the whole sushi roll. [Matt's MyAlltop page is here.]Beyond that…Twitter! I'm relatively new to it, (http://twitter.com/matthewemay) but utterly addicted. Something about those 140 characters mandates creative subtraction. Therefore, a good tweet requires good editing. There's a certain symmetry…everyone is treated the same. There's built-in seduction because you always want to know more about who you're following. Sustainability—they're working on the financial aspect of the sustainability element, but I doubt with the mounting popularity that that will be a problem.

12. Question: Holy kaw, you are making me blush! Then how do we know features to add to Alltop/MyAlltop and balance elegance against feature requests?
    
    Answer: I spent some time with the late traffic designer Hans Monderman and the UK urban designer Ben Hamilton-Baillie. Together they have designed and redesigned high traffic intersections in the Netherlands and UK to be nearly devoid of traffic controls. I'm talking intersections with over 20,000 vehicles, pedestrians, and bikes daily.Flow and safety have doubled because they create "shared space" with no right of way. You have no choice but to be cautious and alert—and use your noggin. Ben says this: "Research shows that over 70 percent of traffic signs are ignored by motorists. What's wrong with how we engineer things is that most of what we accept as the proper order of things is based on assumptions, not observations. If we observed first, designed second, we wouldn't need most of the things we build." But it is not quite as simple as the trite cliché "look before you leap."What Ben really means is that we should become better detectives. That's how you keep feature creep in check. The one constant source of elegant innovation is observation. The Japanese call it genchi genbutsu which means "go look, go see." That allows you to triangulate around the customer: observe them not just by asking them what they want— they don't always know, can't always articulate it, and they'll change their mind tomorrow—but by becoming one yourself.You have to be a bit of an undercover cop. That way you don't get too clever and add stuff because you think it's cool—which is a design bias. Instead, you add stuff that adds value—which is a customer bias. You've done that with My.AllTop.com. You've added a customer-designed feature without cluttering up your interface. It's what In 'N Out Burger does: let the customer do the adding.

Source: http://blogs.openforum.com/2009/05/18/in-pursuit-of-elegance-12-indispensable-tips/

The virtues of Conviction and Integrity [HONESTY], [THOUGHTFULNESS], [FAITH], [COURAGE]

An insightful and well written article on an important concern for personal development.

Conviction

by Brian Tome

---

Do you ever turn on the television at an unusual time for you and see a show that you haven't seen for years and years, something like Happy Days? And the episode that you see that day is an episode that you realize that you still think about? At that moment, aren't you astounded by how much mind space that meaningless show has taken up in your mind?

When Happy Days or Laverne & Shirley takes up mind space, it is wasted. I don't see what value is added to my life in remembering when Fonzie was perplexed dealing with his need to beat up Richie in order to save face. Remember what happened? Richie was in the bathroom with Fonzie, and the Fonze was so excited when someone opened the door and smacked Richie in the face. That way everyone assumed Fonzie punched him. How about when Lenny & Squigy had a towel that stood straight up? These episodes don't provide any motivation for the daily grind.

For me this phenomena takes place with various things I've heard people say. In seminary there was a professor who was asked by a student if there could ever be such a thing as a just war. He said, "Is there anything you would die for?" The student said, "Yes." Then he said, "If it is worth dying for, it is worth killing for." To this day, I'm not sure that I totally follow his logic or reasoning. But those are words that continue to bounce around in my brain. Those words have passed through my mind on the average of once a week over the past nine years or so. Preparing for this message was like revisiting that episode that has been taking up mind space.

Every time I think about that I ask myself what I would die for. Have you ever asked yourself what you would take a bullet for? If there are things you would take bullets for, you have no problem with the first aspect of integrity: Conviction. People who have integrity have a set of values that they are passionate about. Having convictions is the starting point of integrity.

Before we talk about convictions I want to set the stage by defining what integrity is. There is a lot of talk about integrity these days. Everyone thinks they have integrity, at least compared to the next person. At least that's what we'll be hearing in the next presidential elections. In order to really have integrity, not just claim we have integrity, we need to understand what it is.

1) Integrity is Totality

The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and contains the word that we translate as integrity. I couldn't have picked a better word for the word integrity. Whoever invented the Hebrew language was very insightful, because the word for integrity is literally "tome." That shouldn't be surprising to any of you. I always thought my last name meant a collection of books, but this makes much more sense. It is true to life. (As you'll see in a little bit, I wish this statement were more accurate.)

In the Old Testament book of I Kings there are instructions as to how to build the Jewish Temple. The state of completion of that edifice is the word tracing back to "tom." A building that is complete is one of integrity. Our mission in this church is to "walk with the seeker in becoming complete followers of Christ." That doesn't mean that we all want to believe the same things in every detail of life, though belief is a precursor to life change. Thinking right doesn't mean anything if it doesn't lead to living right.

Our church is seeking to work with people at different spiritual developmental stages in order to get us all to a place of completion, wholeness or integrity, where the totality of our lives is the way God wants it to be.

Chronicles 16:9
The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. (NIV)

Though God is willing and able to work with every life, those lives that are moving toward total full-out commitment generally receive the most strength from God. Actually, I wish the epistemology of my last name actually had more in common with my life. The truth is that I like to be liked, and liking to be liked is pressure to bend to what others believe and do, and that isn't always right. You link my like to be liked with the personality of an extrovert, and I have a lot of people that I'm trying to please. The more people you try to please the harder it is to consistently and totally follow through on your convictions.

I'm tempted to act like many politicians. We all know of politicians who flip flop on issues. Conservatives become liberals and vice-versa. These people have every right to change their views. New information can be presented to change our minds; that can be a sign of growth. But we shouldn't change our views just to make them more palatable to other people.

We do this, though, don't we? We teach our kids to do things that we don't do. And we discipline them for things we do. We expect our children to be innocent and well behaved, yet we don't apply the same standards to our own conduct.

• We tell them not to lie, yet we fudge figures or "position" the facts.
• We reprimand them for using bad language, yet we are pretty uninhibited when we are doing beers.
• We tell them to share, but if someone takes that parking space at HQ a split second before we do, we act like an immature kindergartner who has been drinking red juice.

We frequently change sides or at least change our verbiage on issues because we aren't people of integrity. Instead of having a conviction that says, "This is what is right, and this is where I stand," we compartmentalize. We think, "I'll act this way with you and that way with them, and when I'm over there, this will be my modus operandi..."

Maybe I'm a masochist, but the older I get the more things that I add to that list of things I would take a bullet for. That is because the older I get the more I see how all of life is interrelated.

The idea of integrity in the Bible means wholeness. It means that the totality of your life is the same. You are the same when you go to church; you are the same when you are at work; you are the same if you go out for drinks; you are the same when you determine what you are going to be entertained by. You are a whole person, not a bunch of fragmented pieces that behave differently depending on the compartment. Conviction is where we get the energy to connect the dots and become a person of wholeness and integrity. Leadership guru Warren Bennis says,

Effective leaders ... have a strong sense of purpose, a passion, a conviction for wanting to do something important.
Warren Bennis

The best long-term leaders are not those who live a double life. They are those who have an overriding God-honoring set of convictions that guides them every day, regardless of the terrain. You can be a short-term leader without integrity but not an effective leader over the long haul.

2) Integrity is Tenacity

Integrity is like oxygen. The higher you go the less of it there is and the more you need. At the same time, the deeper you go or the lower you go, the more pressure there is to come apart. In the navy, before a submarine submerges, the crew checks to see if the vessel's hatches are battened down. When the first mate receives the confirmation from the rest of the crew that their station is secure, the captain will get the report: "This is a ship of integrity." What that means is that the ship is watertight.

It quickly becomes obvious when a hatch is not shut. It is obvious that the vessel isn't in a state of integrity. But there is far more work involved in ensuring that the ship will remain a vessel of integrity when the pressure is on. From time to time, every seam, every weld, every rivet needs to be inspected. Because if it is not a totally strong ship, one leak can wreak major havoc and cause serious damage.

Some say that there is an apparent honesty void at higher levels of organizational structures, that the higher you go the less oxygen there is. A similar thing can be said when the pressures of life start to push you down. The lower you go the more pressure you feel and the greater the likelihood there is that you will spring a leak.

Best-selling author and activist Rita Mae Brown says,

People are like tea bags; you never know how strong they'll be until they're in hot water. In times of trouble, you not only discover what you truly believe but whether or not you can act on your beliefs.
Rita Mae Brown

We think that people of integrity never do anything really really bad like run away on their wife and kids. In reality the break of integrity doesn't happen then; it happens long before then, when people don't tend to the small cracks and stress fractures. When pressures start to mount, whether they be financial worries, issues with boredom, pressure from peers or something else, they can explode and cause people to do things that aren't right. Even when things seem fine on the surface, there are sometimes problems beneath the waterline that no one else can see.

• The person who runs away on their spouse had stuff going on beneath the water line. The paint looked good, but barnacles were eating at the hull.
• In the next few days, you'll be doing your taxes, and only you will know what is completely accurate. Are you demanding that your kids be totally honest?
• You have been having beneath-the-waterline conversations about someone who isn't present and doesn't know what you are saying. Is it accurate? Does it match what you have told that person? Would you say it if he or she were in the room?

A teacher in grade school once made an offhand comment that said, "You know when you are mature when you act the same no matter who you are with." I think about that a lot. So I combine that statement with the statement from my seminary professor, and I'm looking to kill whomever I'm with. Kidding. Teachers can be powerful change agents. Let's see what some students once said to Jesus, the greatest teacher of all time.

Matthew 22:16
They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. (NIV)

I don't think Jesus received nearly enough compliments. Generally people didn't go out of their way to encourage Him. But here is one of the biggest compliments He ever received. At least if someone were to say this to me, I would take it that way. They say, "You aren't swayed by the opinions of others." This doesn't mean that Jesus is a stubborn hardhead. It means that when He knows something is right He executes against it; it doesn't matter who He is with. He was the same person in every situation and eventually even died for the sake of truth. These guys said to Him, "When we go beneath the water, you are the same person. You are a man of integrity who has the totality of your life headed in the same direction - the right direction."

Our church is engineered to provide a place for those of you who aren't Christians to examine the claims of Christianity and to seek whether or not God is worth devoting your life to. We try to speak your language in our weekend services, recommend reading materials, put on seminars, host seeker small groups and provide other learning opportunities. We know that people look for watertight arguments and rationale for why Jesus is the only way to truly experience an eternal relationship with God.

There are some compelling arguments and data within the Bible that need to be examined closely. But the Bible's purpose is not to provide us with watertight arguments and rationale; it was written to give us a watertight person: Jesus Christ. No matter where He was, no matter what He did, He consistently did the right, loving and courageous thing

As much as we don't like some things that the Bible and Jesus teach, you don't hear about people who have disrespect for the person of Jesus. He was historically a watertight person of integrity. When Jesus asked people to come to Him, the other things took care of themselves.

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

I have three statements I want to make that tie integrity and conviction together. I'm leaving a blank not for you to fill in the one word I'm going to give you but rather as an exercise for you to fulfill. Filling in any God-honoring value and conviction will accurately complete the statement.

I have a conviction that _________ will alter my quality of life

Or as an example, I have a conviction that being selfless with my spouse will alter the quality of my life. I have a conviction that God has established rules in terms of how this life is to be lived; how wholly committed I am to those principles will have a direct reflection on the quality of my life.

Proverbs 11:3
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. (NIV)

Many lives are destroyed by duplicity and compartmentalization, lives which don't have lines drawn in the sand along with a sign that says, "I'm not going there!"

I have a Conviction that _________ will dictate the quality of my faith.

If you are a selfish person and your selfishness is coming into your home, I know that it directly affects your ability to connect with God. Show me a person who isn't honoring and serving their spouse and I'll show you a person outside of God's favor.

Psalm 25:21
May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you. (NIV)

Conviction that _________ will set the pace for generations after me.

I was speaking with Cyndi King, our Director of Children's and Family Ministries, recently; she was telling me of breaking research that indicates that the strength or power base of one's parenting begins even before people are married. In those years, their integrity and character are forged; opinions of what is right and wrong are drafted, and parenting is simply the natural expression of that parent's life up to that point.

If your parents drummed into your head that money was supreme, guess how long they have been acting that way? Long before you were born. My parents are here this weekend. They set the pace in some areas that prepared me to set the pace for my kids. I can remember going to functions with my Dad; when a friend at the front of the line waved me up, he wouldn't let me go. Cutting in line wasn't acceptable. I still can't cut in line to this day.

1 Kings 9:4-5
As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever...(NIV)

Whether or not you are a person of integrity right now directly affects the likelihood of your kids becoming people of integrity.

3) Integrity is Tempting

The reason I say that integrity is tempting is because we don't really want it. It is too much work. It is too hard. Following through on convictions takes too much effort. There is a price to pay that is high enough to overcome the temptation. As I shared a couple weeks ago, I've been tempted to buy a new car. The only reason I haven't yet is that I haven't been willing to pay the price.

You aren't a person of integrity and you don't have any guiding principles until they start costing you and you willingly pay. I'm not as together as you may think I am. In fact, I have an outage in my life. I'm not a person of integrity when it comes to... recycling. I don't have a deep enough conviction about recycling to go down the steps to the basement at 11:30 at night. I sometimes put bottles in the garbage under the sink. I'm not wholly committed to it. I'm making light of something that many of you don't think is funny at all. Why? Because you are committed to paying the price. It doesn't matter if you are in Yellowstone National Park, at work, at home or at Mt. Rumpke. That Mt. Dew bottle isn't going to go in the garbage.

We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I've had a relationship with the watertight person of Jesus for almost 18 years. As best as I've been able, I've made Him and His values my single overriding objective. Some friends of mine, who became Christians at the same time I did, don't even think of Jesus any more. Being in full-time ministry for 11 years I've grown accustomed to seeing people fade away. Even in this only 3-year-old church, there are people who have just walked away from God. He doesn't play any role in their lives anymore.

There are a number of different reasons for this. You may be one of those people in the making. Let me give you just one reason why it may happen to you: You never intended to have your whole life come under God's direction. You never had the kind of conviction that said, "All of my life. All of it in totality. I don't know if I fully understand what 'all of it' means, but as I continue to grow in my relationship with Jesus, as I become aware of what He wants me to do, I'm up for it." You are tempted to think like that. You may make comments in public that tempt others to think that you think like that, but deep down under the water you know you don't.

We don't want an integrated life or a life of integrity. We want some perks that come from integrity. The last time I mentioned anything about integrity in a message, a woman came up to me after the service and said, "I want to be a person of integrity." Then she paused and said, "Actually, what I want is for people to think I'm a person of integrity." In that moment she came a step closer to her originally stated goal, because she realized that her statement wasn't whole. There was more to it than met the ear.

We aren't talking about being a moralist in this series. That isn't what God-honoring integrity is about. We are talking about drawing on a relationship with Christ that infiltrates every nook and cranny of your life including that which is beneath the surface. I encourage you to start paying the price that it takes to become a person of integrity. It will be the best investment you'll ever make.

Source: http://realplace.org/notesonline/1999/041199.html