Make Big Decisions

One of my major life lessons has been the importance of actively making big decisions. I like big decision points and I like to make big decisions, but sometimes this requires me to consciously frame a problem and force a big decision. In many cases, unless we force ourselves to make big decisions, we make a series of incremental decisions that may not seem like much at the time. However, when taken as a whole, these series of incremental decisions may place us in a position we never would have chosen if it had been viewed as a “big decision”.  Let me offer a specific example.

Relationships often require big decisions. For the most part, we all want positive relationships that make us better people and allow us to be a force for good in other’s lives. Few of us would choose to be in a negative relationship, much less an abusive one – this would definitely qualify as a big decision. However, relationships change over time. What starts out as a positive relationship can morph, over time, into a negative relationship and a series of small decisions to excuse or allow certain behaviors can have negative implications on the quality of our relationship.

So how do we understand and address this behavior? One approach is to regularly review our relationships, determine our options and force a big decision. What’s a big decision? A big decision might be to launch a major effort to repair a relationship or even to end a relationship, at least for a season. One of my early career mentors taught me this important lesson in respect to making big decisions for employer/employee relationships.

Some employees stay in a job they hate, with an employer they dislike or a boss that makes them miserable, simply because they have made a series of small decisions and have not made a big decision. Few people would make the big decision to work in a position that is non-fulfilling, but a series of small decisions have led them to an identical place. 

My mentor countered this by consciously scheduling a personal resume review and update session each quarter, timed to occur when our publicly traded employer released quarterly earnings. After reviewing and updating his resume, my mentor would make a purposeful decision to put the resume back in his desk or to begin looking for a new job. In the three years he mentored me, I never knew him to look for a new job, but I also knew this was a big decision he had made.

He literally forced himself to make a quarterly big decision so he would never be in a position where a series of small decisions have replaced a big decision. This approach doesn’t solve all life’s problems – sometimes decisions are made for us or are made outside of our control. But for the most part, actively making big decisions puts us back in the drivers seat.

So, how about you? Are you making big decisions?

A Startup Guy in a 30-Year-Old Startup

My second job out of college was my first startup - a third-party logistics provider. We handled warehousing and transportation and our clients included a truck transmission manufacturer and a retail framing company, both accounts I managed. We were a real startup, but we were owned by a Fortune 50 trucking company. I didn’t know much about startups but I was two years out of college, fresh out of a sales job and loved the heady excitement of figuring out how to do new things that always seemed to pop up in a startup.

After a couple years, my startup started dying. Several reasons really, but it mainly came down to an experienced management team (experienced in corporate America but not with startups) and a parent organization that ran out of funding (due to a Teamsters strike. Really, I’m not making this up). After growing the company to several million dollars in revenue and 150 employees, I rode the elevator down through five floors of layoffs to the bottom floor where there were only three employees left. Then we had a final layoff, sort of an escalator to the basement. Lessons learned - evaluate the senior leadership team, ensure the startup has adequate funding and don’t over-stay your welcome.

The layoff wasn’t a big a problem as I thought it would be. I was working again in four weeks for a new startup. But first, let’s backtrack a bit. My first job after school was selling long distance. Yes, back in the old days when we actually had long distance. Our CEO came to my city to meet us and speak one afternoon. During the Q&A, someone asked him about the future of the company. He started off by saying long distance would not exist in five years and a new technology called Personal Communications Services would be the new lifeblood of the company. There was an auction that summer that my company would win and build the company on this new technology.

Wow. What a blow. Long distance, the service that paid for my house and car, would not exist just one year after my new was paid off. Then another blow. My CEO’s prediction was wrong and we didn’t win the auction that summer. But another telecomm startup in my current city did. This new startup was funded by a big long distance company and three cable companies. I did my homework. Management team? Check. Funding? Check. Four weeks after losing my gig at the first startup, I was working at my second startup.

Now work was fun again. This company was growing, not shrinking. We hadn’t started launching markets yet, but we would soon. And then we couldn’t keep up with the demand. Traveling from city to city launching new markets was an adrenaline-fueled rush. This was not a job. It was a crusade. We were changing the world of telecomm. And our results showed it. We were the fastest startup to reach one billion dollars in sales.

And right when we were on top, the long distance partner bought out the cable partners. I thought we’d be alright. Then our rock star CEO resigned. I should have sold all my options. But I stuck it out for the next five years. It wasn’t a roller coaster, but more like a slow slide. It wasn’t all bad….they paid for grad school. With the craziness of startups, I never had time to go back for my MBA. But when the post-startup rush slowed down, I found myself accepted into a Top 25 business school. And my startup, now part of the big telecomm company, paid for the whole thing.

Two years later, fresh MBA in hand, I started looking again. Building a company was fun but being a small cog in a big machine was not. I decided to change industries to work in the outdoor industry, something I was passionate about as a hunter and fisherman. After two years of looking in the outdoor industry, I found a new company in the middle of my home state in the middle of a country.

My new company isn’t a startup….we’re over thirty years old. But in a lot of ways, we’re a 30-year-old startup. In the six years I’ve been there, we’ve met our shareholder requirements of double-digit growth each year. A lot of this growth is due to a great management team. Based on a challenge from our CEO, we applied for and received our state’s quality award three years ago and then received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award the next year. We’re still growing and it still feels like a startup, even though we really aren’t.

I think my best years are in front of me. I don’t know if I’ll do another startup, but I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned from my experience with them. Great management team? Check. Solid funding? Check. And a history of results.

Tired of Being Tired?

Nearly every morning, I say something to my wife like, “I am completely and utterly exhausted.” Even though I’m just waking up, I am completely exhausted. I’m sure all of us can relate. No different from most, I’m tired because I have too much going on. Mostly work related, but it's not like I don't keep busy in my personal life. It seems like we all have too many action items, too many meetings and too many goals.

Two weeks ago, Dianne and I spent some time at the Missouri District Church of the Nazarene’s Family Camp at Pinecrest Camp outside of Cherokee Pass, MO. The week was good for a lot of reasons, namely that it reminds me of whom I am. It does seem a bit like Mayberry and that’s a good thing. Oh, there are things to do, but mostly things that seem like Barney, Andy or Opey would be doing. Aunt Bee isn’t there, but Aunt Marty is. Most days are composed of fishing, shooting, church, dinner at the cafeteria and lunch at Dog N Suds. Lots of time for rest and reflection.

I’ve been thinking about what, if anything, I learned from Campmeeting and this Sunday, Ryan Wampler at The Crossing preached a message entitled, “How should a Christian approach the Sabbath?” The main point of his message was that God made man to require a Sabbath, but man’s focus on himself has lead to an exhaustion that can’t be resolved by his own deeds. He started off by talking about an article by Judith Shulevitz in the NY Times entitled “Bring Back the Sabbath”.
Her article is notable if for no reason other than this quote.

The Sabbath provides two things essential to anyone who wishes to lift himself out of the banality of mercantile culture: time to contemplate and distance from everyday demands. The Sabbath is to the week what the line break is to poetic language. It is the silence that forces you to return to what came before to find its meaning.

Ryan also asked a series of questions to address.
1. What kind of rest does God call for us?
2. How do I fit this kind of rest in?
3. Do I need to rest on Sunday?
4. Why Sunday and not Saturday?
5. What do I do if I have to work on the Sabbath?

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be working on these answers.

So Where Have I Been?

Great question. Where have I been and why did I leave. The answer to Question One - I’ve been busy with life. The answer to Question Two – I just got busy and a lack of discipline kept me from posting. But I’m back. Part of me is inspired by my cousins’ efforts at blogging – you can check them out here, here and here.

A lot has changed since my last blog posting in March 2005. A lot beyond just three plus years. I have a new address - we are now living in Columbia, MO. I have a new job – now working for an internet and catalog retailer of shooting and hunting products. We have a new church – we attend The Crossing here in Columbia – you can check out our church blog here. Thankfully, I do have the same wife…..Dianne is still trying to help me keep life together. We have a new dog – our 13-year old lab Dakota passed away last year and Gauge, a six-month old now, came to live with us in February 2008.

In my absence here, the St. Louis Cardinals have won a World Championship, the MNU Pioneers have won a NAIA Division II National Championship (and have now moved up to Division I) and the Mizzou Tigers were actually ranked Number One in Football for one week. Maybe I should go away more often. But now I’m back.

what do we owe our employees?

As executives at a publicly traded company, what do we owe our employees? In this day and age, some executives might believe we do not owe our employees anything other than a paycheck. But I believe our obligations to our employees go far beyond a simple paycheck. In fact, there are at least three obligations I believe an organization owes the individual.

First, I believe we owe our employees a clean, safe work environment free from harassment of any kind. Employees need access to the tools and information to do their job well. And their environment should be conducive to performing their work functions.

Second, I believe we owe our employees the benefit of smart decisions. At the end of the day, employees need to believe that their management team is making correct decisions, smart decisions. And they need to know their executives are managing by fact rather than emotion.

Third, I believe employees deserve the basic respect due all individuals. One manifestation of this respect is valuing an individual’s contribution to the greater good. It is true that each of us performs a function in return for compensation – money is why we work. But employees often place value on more than simple compensation. Employees want to understand how their job fits in with the overall purpose of the company. Even further, employees want to be appreciated for the value they create as individuals for the good of the organization.

These obligations are not fulfilled for altruism’s sake. Rather, these obligations are fulfilled out of necessity for providing value to the shareholders. Employees are not simply our greatest expense line item on an income statement. Employees, and the corresponding knowledge within the employee base as a whole, are a company. Their hands are the hands that create our products. Their feet are the feet that deliver our services. They are the face of our company to our customers.

When employees reach the point in any organization where they realize the executives they work for have neither the intellectual capacity nor the moral integrity to meet a minimum performance standard, yet this performance is not only tolerated but rewarded, commitment to the company declines dramatically and employees will quickly seek our organizations that are meeting their obligations to employees.

How many or few companies deliver on these obligations? According to recent upturns in the job market, we will likely determine the answer sooner rather than later. When individuals realize their company is not meeting basic obligations to employees, and when new opportunities are created at organizations that do focus on the individual and the critical nature of culture at any firm, individuals will likely jump ship. After all, what do employees owe a company that owes them nothing?

are your customers evangelists?

I was reading this note on the "What's Your Brand" blog this afternoon.

This is a great question, and one I am going to be asking in my office tomorrow. We can all agree companies like Apple (ipod anyone) or Mozilla (how many people have downloaded Firefox again?) would probably spring to mind, but how about my company, or yours?

And the next question is even more key. A leading indicator is your employees' passion about your company. "If your employees aren't passionate, your customers probably aren't, either."

Seems to me the first step is engaging your employees before trying to reach your customers. The latter without the former will likely fail.

Thoughts?

february......

For an outdoorsman, February is a tough month. Hunting season is over.....fishing season, at least for most of us, has not kicked off yet. For some of us, the closest we'll get to the outdoors is the February issue of Field & Stream with the annual "It's February but Spring is Coming" article and ruminate with the rest of our outdoor brethren (at least those in the midwest and northern climes) about the dearth of outdoor activities.

It seems like February might only be good for hanging up waders, cleaning and restringing decoys and cleaning out a blind bag. But it could be a great time to look over the hunting trips from last year and record the highlights.

Like the trip where Ben, Steve and I went to the smokestack for an afternoon duck hunt. And yes....we know....afternoon duck hunts are rarely worth taking, at least in eastern Kansas. But I remember hurrying down the path because we could hear shots....on a Sunday afternoon.

Or the time Matt, Matt and I got to the Smokestack at 3:20AM to beat the crowd and get a good spot. And we were the fourth group to set up. So much for beating the crowd.

Or the time I shot a bufflehead as it cruised in overhead from behind, forty yards high, and he dropped over 350 yards away across the cove. And how Steve and I took the boat across the cove and dropped Rem off.....and he returned with the duck less than two minutes later.

Or the time Matt, Matt, Den and I were taking pictures of the day's harvest and one of the Matts turned and shot the lone greenhead cupping into the decoys while we were taking a picture.

February is a tough month....but even a bad season can be a great season. Season's are not measured by the number of ducks in the freezer, but by the memories made afield.

Pretty cool stuff.

Interviewing......

I received an email this week from a firm I had applied to for a marketing communications position. The position sounded interesting – MarCom is an area I am interested in - and the industry was one I had targeted for interest. I was even more intrigued in the company when I received the list of essay questions they sent to me to fill out as the first round of interviews.

The questions ran the gauntlet from MarCom-specific questions to philosophical questions on leadership and management. The essay-type format provides the firm with a better insight to the prospective interviewee – not just in terms of their writing ability but also in terms of their thought process. And as a individual interested in the firm, this shows me the firm is interested in the thought process of the individual walking in the door.

Here are a sample of the questions and my responses…..

What kind of experience do you have with the Internet?

From a professional perspective, I have experience working with the internet teams at Sprint supporting eSales and eService applications. Specifically, I have worked with these teams to design the applications to deliver eService functions such as mobile phone account changes, invoice delivery, service plan changes. I have also worked with the teams to design eSales applications to deliver product and service plans via the internet.

From a personal perspective, I am an experienced user of the internet for business and recreational purposes. I participate on a number of web boards dedicated to hunting and the shooting sports as well as other sports web boards. I am an active subscriber to a number of RSS feeds for marketing and branding blogs. A 2005 personal objective was to design a new personal webpage. While this effort is still in the development stages, you can see my current blog web page draft at www.ideastream.blogspot.com.

Lastly, I am familiar with most standard browsers, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.

Do you have experience with both Macintosh and IBMs?

Absolutely. At work, I use a Toshiba laptop running Windows 2000 and the standard Microsoft Office applications. I am an experienced, near-expert user of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I am also very familiar with mobile billing system software and have a basic understanding of database packages.

At home, I use an Apple iMac G5 running the Apple OS X operating system. I am also a very experienced user of the standard Apple applications and familiar with graphics production programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

Have you been involved in the design of product packaging?

I understand the general concepts of package design from working with our Marketing Communications team, who designs the packaging for Sprint’s mobile phones, but I have little direct experience myself. However, I do have experience in the design and setup of things such as trade show booths, which I have direct experience supporting in the past.

What is the difference between Management and Leadership?

Good question. According to Jim Collins, management can be defined as the “maximization of the output of the organization through administrative implementation.” A manager would tend to be very tactical in terms of scope, use a formal, rational approach and possess direct line authority over those who follow.

Leadership, on the other hand, is generally viewed as the maximization of the output of the organization by leveraging the power of the human resource. Stephen Covey defined leadership as “communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.” A leader would tend to be very strategic, use an emotional approach and may or may not command line authority over those who follow.

Do you aspire to be a Manager or a Leader?

I aspire to be both a competent manager and a great leader. I do not necessarily accept the premise that one must decide between management and leadership. I believe leadership skills are critical for any true manager to excel (versus simply attain competence) and management skills are helpful for any leader to attain greatness. Said another way, management skills are an entrance criteria and leadership skills are a key differentiator – an opportunity for individuals to distinguish themselves from competitors.

Take Jack Welch for example. Welch did not build GE – GE was already a success when Welch took over from Reg Jones in the late 1970’s. Welch continued to build on GE’s successes through two primary actions. Especially in the early days of leading GE, Welch focused on managing the company – eliminating poor-performing business units and replacing management where needed – these were distinctly manager-type actions. However, Welch’s legacy was founded on an intense focus on developing the next generation of leaders in the company – a distinct leader-type action.

In my position today, I manage a team and, as such, I am a manager. However, I am also responsible for working with other teams that I do not directly manage. My focus is not on having employees do what I say because I am the individual who may deliver a performance review on a quarterly basis. Rather, my focus is on leading this team, some members who may or may not report directly to me, to deliver excellence in terms of well-thought out marketing programs that exceed customer expectations. Management skills are necessary, but an autocratic management style is not.

What is the single most important Key Measure of any Company?

In my opinion, the single most important measure of a company is profitability. A company without profits will not remain a stand-alone entity for long. This is even more critical to a public company with shareholders demanding results. For a publicly traded company, the profitability measure is even more important – not only must a firm make money, but the firm must be able to exceed the cost of capital to ensure shareholders are rewarded for investing in the company.

However, a focus on profitability cannot be single-minded. That is to say, a focus on simple profits at the expense of other factors, such as customer satisfaction, is a short-term strategy, at best. The leader of a company must maintain a focus on three primary stakeholders of any publicly-traded business – customers, employees and shareholders.

Customers generally look for great products at a fair value. A focus on delivering great products can ensure customers stay with a firm, and keep providing the firm with a revenue source. Employees are frequently one of any firm’s highest cost factors. However, a focus on simply paying employees the least amount possible can lead to higher costs in terms of turnover and the level of service delivered to customers. A firm must balance controlling costs with maintaining the talent level of the organization. Shareholders are looking for a return on their invested capital. A balance must be struck between delivering great products or services to loyal customers and controlling internal costs in order to deliver long-term value to shareholders in terms of profits.

What are the two ways to create profit?

Generally, profit is viewed as the difference between top-line revenues and bottom-line costs. In this view, the first opportunity to create profit would be to increase the top-line revenues by expanding the customer base or expanding the product line. In short, a firm would look to maximize the revenue stream. Generally, growing top-line revenues is seen as the optimal way to generate increased profits.

The second way to create profits is to decrease bottom-line costs by a focus on cost control. Lowering real costs by reducing fixed costs, outsourcing non-core competency variable costs or improving productivity are key opportunities for reducing a cost structure. Generally, the cost reduction is a valuable tool for a firm’s management teams, but not the optimal method for achieving profits.

mnu versus wjc

so this is probably of no consequence other than obscure basketball fans that follow naia division two men's basketball. however, if you live in the midwest, more specifically, in kansas city, and follow naia div two sports, you might be familar with the heart of america conference. and in the haac, it seems like arch-rivals mid america nazarene university and william jewell college, of liberty, mo, are perennial favorites to win the haac conference.

as a mnu alum, i'm sure you can guess where my loyalties lie. every year, my wife and i trade home and away games with some friends of ours...liberty residents and wjc alums. when mnu plays in liberty, they host us for dinner and the game. for the game in olathe, we reciprocate. in the last few years, it seems as if i walk away from the game almost feeling apologetic. i say "almost" because i'm a fan....and it's not like i will every apologize for winning.

going into the first game this year, i thought this was the year i take my lumps. mnu already had multiple losses in-conference while wjc was rated number one in the country. mnu was going through a tough time as a young team while wjc seemed to have it all together. you can see where this is going....mnu won the first game at home by seven.

"but wait for the game at wjc," their fans said. yeah...that was last monday. and the result....mnu by seven. now i'm not demeaning wjc...they have a great school and a great team. but it seemed like we owned them over the last several years. so i looked up the official records.

in the last six seasons (1999 - current), mnu stands at 12-3 versus wjc. this record includes a 7-2 record at home, a 5-1 record at wjc, a 10-3 record in the regular season and a 2-0 record in the haac tourney.

it's a lot easier to say because of my affiliation, but it's all great basketball. two good teams willing to leave it all on the court. while they don't play under the really bright lights, these teams do play good ball.

"d-up pioneers" and wjc....good luck in Point Lookout this year at the national tourney.

what's up with fly fishing?

a great man once said, “life taught me how to learn, fishing taught me how to think.” just kidding….i said that. and i bet you thought i was going to start with, “in our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” actually, while I did grow up in a parsonage somewhat similar to norman maclain, my family did not embrace fly fishing. in fact, my father was and is a passionate hunter, but did not have the patience for any type of fishing.

seriously, though, not to get too zen or anything, but fly-fishing does become life. my favorite fishing is extremely low key....wet wading with only a pair of sandals, shorts, a tee and a cap. no fly vest...fit a few accessories and a fly box in a pocket. fly fishing, like life, tends to get complicated if you're not paying attention.

rainbow trout on missouri's taneycomo 

why idea stream?

My wife would say I a lot of ideas…. mostly ideas about how to invest time at work and at life.

At work, I am passionate about startups (I’ve done two) and finding the next great idea. Since college, I’ve held jobs in marketing, strategic planning, operations and sales. More than what I have accomplished, though, I am excited about the future. The future is all about the next great idea…..so what is it?

Away from work, my wife would say my great ideas manifest themselves as expensive hobbies. What hobbies? Could be fly-fishing (warm- or cold-water); hunting (waterfowl, upland and big game); the sports teams I follow (Missouri Tigers, MidAmerica Nazarene University Pioneers, Dallas Cowboys, St. Louis Cardinals, St. Louis Blues); cars (mostly vintage Mustangs and Jeeps); and any other pursuit which strike me as interesting (I’ve been mountain biking for a while but kayaking is pretty cool, too).

Combining my passion for work (the next great idea) and my passion for life (flyfishng a small stream) gets you here…..idea stream.