Lowest level of Americans employed since 1978. "Employment" is being re-defined. Isn't it time for economists to catch up?

Steven Worth

President, Plexus Consulting

"Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in December, but the drop came mainly from workers leaving the labor force.

"Only 62.8% of the adult population is participating in the labor market -- meaning they either have a job or are looking for one. That matches the lowest level since 1978.

"In the job market's 2007 heyday, unemployment was under 5%, but in the two years that followed, the recession wiped out 8.7 million jobs. To this day, not all those jobs have returned." (from the BBC News)

In all this economic turmoil I am sure there is ample opportunity for people and organizations that can connect the dots and harness creative impulses to find new ways to address chronic problems.

I rather doubt this change is going to come from our established educational institutions or any classic employer-employee relationships as we have known them for the simple reason that thinking outside the box is hard—like the old saw that generals are always preparing for the last war—the older, wealthier, and more established the institution, the harder it is to change.  I think this is what we may be seeing in these numbers--organizations breaking apart (creative destruction) and people coming together again, formally and informally, according to need and interest.

Technology plays an important role of course--like the fast growing “Linked-in” forum we are increasingly using as a firm. But it seems to me there is a role in all of this for insightful, vision-driven nonprofit organizations that are ideally suited in their fluidity to bring together like-minded brains and talent for needs and opportunities wherever they may be found.

The multi-dimensions of fact-finding

Steven Worth, President at Plexus Consulting Group, LLC

When you have a room full of "type-A" personalities ready to make strategic decisions we have found nothing focuses attention and provides direction like the facts. Lacking independently-generated facts a group of decision makers will tend to be dominated by the strongest personality in the room or whomever claims to have possession of the "facts." A fact-free environment invites chaos and almost always results in poor decision-making.

But finding the facts is not easy. Our most thorough fact-finding follows a five step formula:

Step One--review existing research and seek out trends knowing that individual snapshots in time can sometimes be misleading. Use this secondary research to create the basis of a quantitative survey.

Step Two--When large databases of stakeholders exist they offer an ideal opportunity to develop "statistically valid" information--a quantitative sampling that can provide a picture of what larger population segments think within a relatively small margin of error.

Step Three--Usually quantitative survey results uncover interesting findings that lead to other questions along the lines of "why are we seeing this?--what is motivating people to say this?" Such questions can only be explored usefully in one-on-one conversations with people who are widely regarded as well-informed. These "opinion leader" interviews are usually done by phone and are designed to flesh out our understanding of the statistically valid findings from our survey even though the interviews themselves are not usually representative enough to be statistically valid.

Step Four--By now we should have a fairly good understanding of the key opportunities and challenges that we face, and we may even have a glimmer of various ways forward. We also know perhaps that different stakeholder groups may have different responses to all of this; and this is where we use focus groups to flesh out what those differences might be. The idea of a focus group is to put similar stakeholders together so that they can react as a group. It is in such groups that we see if men and women, older and younger professionals, Europeans and Americans, see the facts in different ways and would react differently according to their interests and perspectives. This step allows us to be able to predict what ideas and approaches will work and what will not among different stakeholder groups; and sometimes these groups unveil entirely new ideas and approaches to consider. (The thing I always find fascinating is how individuals may say one thing when interviewed separately but who might voice an entirely different opinion when in a group of peers. Peer pressure can produce sometime strange results!)

Step Five--By the time we have reached this step, we will have a fairly good idea of the various directions the organization is likely to want to consider, so we use this step to examine benchmarks or best practices of other organizations that have undertaken similar programs or projects to see if there are relevant lessons to be learned.

Not all clients have the budget to undertake all five steps, but those that do find themselves with a treasure trove of data that can be turned into intelligence for multiple uses. They also inevitably find strategic decision making a much more pleasant and productive experience than those groups that try to wing-it!

Leadership Quotations

By Virgil Carter

All of us compile lists of leadership quotations.  They can be illuminating, inspirational, and often are funny, helping us understand that leadership is also about humor and enjoyment of the human condition.

Here’s some of my favorites:

• To lose patience is to lose the battle (Ghandi)
• Even if you fall on your face you are moving forward (Victor Kiam)
• Until the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of change, no change will occur
• When I feel the heat, I see the light (Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen)
• Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your feet on first (Frederick Wilcox)

And since I brought up baseball, here’s several from the great philosopher Yogi Berra:

• It ain’t over till it’s over
• You can observe a lot by watching
• The future ain’t what it used to be
• Baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical

Concluding with:

• We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm (George Orwell)
• The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits
• Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect (Mark Twain)
• The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away (Linus Pauling)

I invite you to submit your own favorites!

The Limits of Virtual

By Steven Worth, President, Plexus Consulting LLC

In the early years (1990-93) when we were laying the framework for the global firm that Deloitte, Touche, Tohmatsu would later become I recall seeing the eye-popping travel expenses we were incurring as well as the reaction of senior management. Were these costs really necessary? Couldn't we invest a fraction of these expenses into audio-visual technology that would enable us to meet with our colleagues around the world real-time without ever leaving our offices?

Apart from the expense of travel, those who spend a good deal of time on the road know there is also considerable hassle and inconvenience associated with building your frequent flyer miles—so why not rely on video teleconferencing instead and leave the jet lag and travel delays to others? The idea found traction and Deloitte did invest considerable sums of money in teleconferencing technology and we did get great use out of it—but we also discovered its limitations.

Management groups that relied primarily on video teleconferencing to coordinate their activities found that over time certain hard-to-define frustrations often built up and that they needed periodic face-to-face meetings to clear things up. Within minutes of meeting face-to-face, misunderstandings and tensions disappeared like a morning fog with the sun. We came to conclude that as the social animals that human beings are, communication is not limited to the written or spoken word. We need face time as well.

We came to appreciate the difference between “high context” and “low context” cultures. The US, Canada and North-Western Europe are mostly low context cultures—that is, we don’t need to know people very well to feel comfortable doing business with them. We can and do sign contracts with people we have literally just met. But most of the rest of the world doesn't work this way. They are high context cultures who would never undertake any serious engagement with anyone without first developing a solid understanding of the person. They rely less on lawyers and contracts and more on personal trust based on family ties and friendships—which in turn are based on frequent, face-to-face contact. So we came to understand that if we wanted to work effectively in these cultures, we needed purposefully to get out of our offices and meet our clients and business associates face-to-face on their home turf.

Technology is critical, but it does have its limitations—as every family who has had a teenager texting at the dinner table knows…..

Lobbyist Registration Requirements—A Brief Overview

By Steven Worth

Regulating private sector influence over the democratic policymaking process is a constantly shifting landscape in the US as policymakers and public interest advocates seek to maintain the integrity of the process and limit the influence of money while not infringing on the Constitutional rights of citizens to make their views known to policymakers.  Rules are constantly being made and revised as gaps or unintended consequences become exposed (usually by the news media)—so even veteran lobbyists need to periodically re-read these regulations in order to be in compliance.  Penalties can be severe with financial fines and even prison time as punishment for those who make mistakes or who purposely ignore the law.

Most organizations and their employees that depend directly or indirectly on the government are not allowed to lobby or make political contributions at all.  Employers have strict restrictions on soliciting their employees to make political contributions.  And until a controversial Supreme Court ruling last year, there were absolute limits to the amount of financial contributions wealthy individuals and businesses could give political candidates.   

Mark Twain once noted that “mankind is the only one of the animal kingdom that blushes—or needs to.”  To that point, the best constraint on undue political influence on the democratic process is simple transparency—a requirement for lobbyists to list themselves publically according to whom they represent, what their purpose is, and how much they are getting paid to do that work.  This is how the European Union got started in regulating their lobbyists and is how the United Kingdom regulates itself.  In fact with this level of transparency in the UK, they even allow Members of Parliament to be paid lobbyists as long as their payments are publically disclosed.

Here are the links below to the four entities in the US Government that share responsibility for monitoring and regulating lobbying in this country.  FARA is run by the Department of Justice to monitor foreign money being spent in the US to influence public policy.  This was a program started just before the Second World War and is still in force today.
  
http://www.fara.gov/
 
http://lobbyingdisclosure.house.gov/
 
http://www.senate.gov/
 
http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml
 
These are not perfect regulations but they have made the policymaking process in the US more transparent and somewhat more honest than it used to be.  I recall hearing stories of dinner parties hosted by lobbyists a generation ago where Members of Congress could expect to find hundred dollar bills under their dinner plates.  That sort of activity does not happen anymore.  While money still plays a huge role in politics, at least the common citizen is more aware now of who is being paid what, by whom, and for what purpose—and that does make a difference in determining how people vote and perhaps why.

The biggest conflict of interest remaining for Congress that has not been addressed to-date is their ability to buy stock in companies that are affected by their legislation.  In the private sector this would be considered “insider trading” and is illegal, but not so for the US Congress.

The Keys to Effective Communication

By Steven Worth, President, Plexus Consulting LLC

More often than not, membership organizations find their stakeholder communications to be a source of frustration for all concerned. Stakeholders complain they are not “getting the messages” sent to them even while those poor souls responsible for communications can document that they are sending out clear messages at machine gun frequency. So what is going on?

It is an old lesson—saying something is not the same as being heard. Communications occurs best when there is an innate understanding between the sender and the receiver. Among other things, the sender knows whom the message is intended to reach, why it should be of interest to them, as well as how and when best to reach them. And therein lies the catch—just because you feel the urge to say something, doesn't mean the person or people you want to speak to is going to hear you—or if they do, that your message will have the desired effect.

Carpenters have a saying that communicators would do well to heed: measure twice, cut once. Too often communicators feel that frequency and volume can compensate for ill- conceived messages that do not seem to be having their intended impact.

Content of course is important. Are those you are trying to communicate with interested in the subject matter? Ever notice how in a noisy room of people you suddenly notice when someone has mentioned your name on the other side of the room?—or that in a noisy theater someone suddenly gasping the word “Fire!” is heard by all? Personal interest tends to filter out the noise and to focus sharply on matters related to self-survival or simple vanity.

But the means and timing of communicating are also important. Using the telephone works, but not at dinner time or at 1:00 am if you ever want that person to take your call again! The print media—newspapers and magazines—used to be a good general way to reach large numbers of people, but people under the age of 30 tend not to rely on the print media for their information as much as previous generations. If you want to reach members of that generation the social media might be the better approach to take.

So yes, you probably can prove your audience has received the newsletters or emails you are sending them, but you may be deceiving yourself if you think they are getting your message. Spending the time and resources first to understand what your audiences want as well as when and how they want to hear from you will save you in time, effort, expense and frustration later!

What to do About Silos?

By Virgil Carter

You know silos. According to Wikipedia:  “A silo is a structure for storing bulk materials. Silos are used in agriculture to store grain (see grain elevators) or fermented feed known as silage. Silos are more commonly used for bulk storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, woodchips, food products and sawdust.”
In non-profit organizations silos tend to result from “vertically” structured business functions where each major business function—membership, education, publications, meetings, etc.—is a separate, stand-alone, fully self-contained business operation.  Silos are often the way small and start-up organizations organize early in their organizational life—by individual function.  Silos can be an efficient way for the conduct of limited, similar business operations. 

As organizations grow, however, silos may grow to reflect an inward focus by an organization--to prioritize and do the things that those in the silo “like to do”.  The longer an organization functions with silos, the greater the importance of the individual silo becomes to those working within it.  Soon, the importance of the silo may outweigh the importance of the overall organization, at least to those dwelling in the silo.

When this perception of the importance of an individual silo takes hold, it frequently doesn’t matter (to those in the silo) if there is a market for their products, or if operations are profitable.  Further, it’s not uncommon for there to be strong competition among silos for organizational resources—financial and human.  The result?  The more silos that an organization has, the more that internal competition may inhibit organizational responsiveness, performance and viability.  Am I right on this?

Is there an alternative for improved organizational performance?  Here it is folks:  market focus!  That’s it:  market focus.

Market focus means identifying the markets critical to organizational success as the basis for the development and sales of all of an organization’s goods and services.  This involves “the voice of the customer”:  learning and understanding the customer’s expectations and requirements, delighting customers and building loyalty.  This is a far cry from “producing what we like to produce” and trying to get someone to buy it.

This perspective of market focus can be a cultural and functional shift for non-profits where volunteers and staff in silos “do what they like to do”.  Market focus is an “external view”, as opposed to silo’s “internal view”.  Implementing market focus, using the voice of the customer, involves an annual process to assess and guide an organization’s portfolio of goods and services.  This means encouraging and supporting innovation for new programs; it means sunsetting some existing programs, in a planned, orderly basis.

Market focus means new opportunities.  New opportunities mean new revenues and resources, which will benefit all organizational members and customers.  Want to trade your silos for new opportunities?  Become market focused!