North Versus South

Now that I live in the South, I see how different the social environment is here. It's friendly and relationships definitely come first when doing business. When I lived in NYC, it was enough to say who you were and who you worked with or for and you'd be accepted on your own merit.

So, culturally, the North and South have its differences. Since the south has been a bit behind in a lot of ways, I find myself teaching some of the women here techniques to be noticed more, and how to assert them more. Additionally, I find that the younger men here view their age as a detriment as opposed to an asset. They want to appear older, or have the confidence of an older person. Again, that wasn't' anything I dealt with in NY. People there are judged on their results, not their age or sex. It seemed to me anyway.

For myself, I find that I'm not as well received here in the South. When I come to a company, I bring a lot of experience to the table. I have been coaching and training for over 10 years! But when I am seen upon first impression here, the feeling (I've been told) is "who does she think she is?" My son's preschool teacher told me this. She said that she didn't think we'd ever have anything in common with me. I dropped him off at school dressed for work, and walk and talk fast. This was overwhelming to her at first. When she took time to get to know me she said: "I had NO ideeeaaaa you were SOOOO. niiiiiice" .. in her southern, charming way.

My clothes say that I like trends. I do have a lot of classics in my wardrobe, but I add accessories that are fun. This area is very conservative. The best outfit to wear is a dark suit. The best personality to show off at first is a reserved, under toned and one that brings no attention to you. Conservative is the best word to describe the south. The Bible Belt is alive and well!

Women here are very sweet. I've also noticed that many of them want to come off as more powerful to get the respect they deserve. There are a few of those "good ol' boys" around. Their attitude is "don't worry your pretty little head about anything; I'll take care of it". Meanwhile, they are calling the woman's clients and trying to scam on them, they are making golf plans when the woman goes to the ladies room with the client and they are doodling when the woman is conducting a meeting.

I've coached several of the women here to fight like the men! One of my clients was actually told recently not to get her (get ready!) "panties in a ... bind". I coached her to not only get her PANTIES in a bind, but to get all of those men in a room, stand before them as they sat down, stare them down and stand up for what she knew to be right! She did and she woke them up to the fact that they had a JUDAS in their midst. It's an ongoing saga, but she took the reins and confronted an ugly situation.

Women have to take themselves seriously before others are going to take them seriously too. Half the time, it's the other women who are posing problems for the go getters in the office. Women here have some sort of clique thing going. At one company I coached for, they called themselves "the beautiful people". Well, in my mind, beauty is more in the actions than their looks. And if that's at all the case, this group was the ugliest group of women anywhere. They were awful to the other women in the company. As a result they are hurting the environment of the whole company. They are protective of their turf, and they severely punish the other women who are outside of their clique by gossiping or spreading rumors. I'm sad to say, that the ringleader of this group could be found daily reading her bible in the women's lobby. I just wonder if she really paid attention to what she was reading?

Okay, I know that northerners have politics. I've maneuvered enough people through their company politics to know that you have to be smart about it. But in the north, you know right up front where you stand. You know when you mess up and you know what you have to do to achieve more status or more money. (Unless you are in a corporate environment... where anything can happen!) Here in the south, they'll do all of the nice things to your face, and they'll ruin you behind your back.

Since I'm not employed full time in any organization, I've seen the same thing happen over and over with different clients. I've coached the women to refrain from making friends if they are shut out of a clique. If they are being treated with dirty politics, sometimes you just have to be smarter. Being friends with the boss' wife is a good one, or landing the biggest client is another way to secure your position with the company. One of the women I am coaching was so hated for her beauty, that she threw caution to the wind and got HAIR extensions! It made the women rage, but they ended up copying her look.

The people who do the best in organizations tend to stay OUT of company politics. They don't gossip and they have one or two friends in the company but they don't rely on their co-workers for their emotional support. Work is work and it's best to put your best foot forward every day.

The people who gain respect are those who are consistent. They come prepared for meetings and bring value to the team every day. They go out of their way to help each of the team members and work late often if they have to.

There are many things to take away that are great about the south. It's slower and it's more manageable. You don't have to wear tennis shoes to the office because you are commuting from an hour away and walking 2 miles from your car to work. The traffic is bad but mostly people are polite. People don't usually cut in front of you and they wave you in.

When you walk in an office, people say hi. They're always friendly and willing to talk and share. It's easy to make friends here. People don't look at you suspiciously if you ask them to get together for lunch or dinner. They actually thank you for taking the initiative.

The people you meet in everyday life are nice and talk. Sure it takes time, but it's probably more enjoyable. And, it's not as competitive. The northerners who come here have to SLOW down in the work place. Often times, people can't physically keep up with the work load that the Northerners generate.

Charlotte has become a melting pot. There are people from everywhere, but it still has the social mores from the south. It's best to WATCH first and LEARN before diving in and taking it for granted that you'll be successful here.

I've learned that the ol' line from Frank Sinatra's song "if you can make it in NY, you can make it anywhere" is NOT TRUE. It's far from the truth. I say, if you make it in NY, you'll have to change your ways to be successful elsewhere.

Measuring Training Programs: Cost Vs Benefit

For decades companies have been struggling with the real costs,
benefits and return-on-investment of training costs. With
increasing online learning opportunities, organizations are finding their focus shifting from providing costly onsite training programs to the use of new tools and technology now available. Companies need to understand and apply the business analytics in order to fully appreciate the effectiveness and impact that e-learning and training offers.

Companies invest large amounts of money, resources and time in
training. According to a 2002 ASTD State of the Industry Report
where over 375 major corporations were surveyed, companies spent
between one (1) and three (3) percent of their total payroll on
training. This translated to a per-person basis of more than
US $700 per employee per year. In cutting-edge companies that
significantly increases to US $1400 or more per person per year.

If training expenses are viewed as a percentage of the company's
profits, then the training budget could represent as much as
5 - 20% of the total profit margin. With increasing costs
associated with travel and lodging, as well as increasing costs
and expenses to register and attend meetings or to develop in-house training programs, training budget costs are undboutedly going to increase, which only underscores the need to justify its cost.

In order to effectively measure training programs, companies
are faced with three critical issues: efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance. Every major decision made regarding training falls into one of these three areas. Fortunately, each of these three areas can be benchmarked and measured.

The ASTD 2002 study reported that only one-third of companies
measured the effectiveness of learning and that 12% or less attempted to measure job and business impact of their training programs. Why? Interestingly enough the top reason why companies fail to measure training is that they lack the experience, tools and infrastructure to do so.

It is impossible to improve or effectively optimize the training
program if it is not benchmarked or measured. Training should be measured and evaluated just as companies measure productivity, profit or quality. There have been many scorecards, dashboards, algorithms or metrics developed for this purpose.

If one considers the total training investment per person in the
company (see above), the question is how much should they spend
on measurement and evaluation? One, five or ten percent? Looking back at the ASTD 2002 study of best practices, we find that most companies spend 40-50% of their total training dollars on content development, 8-10% on infrastructure and the remaining resources on salaries and facilities costs.

For many development of measurement and evaluation tools sounds like additional costs and expense to the organization. Companies who allocate a small, but fixed percentage of the training budget to this purpose will find themselves able to effectively measure the effectiveness for their overall investment in training. One study found that organizations who adopt this model, and who spend US $2-10 per employee on learning analytics reported noticeable improvements in the measurability and return on investment.

Companies will need to justify the costs associated with measuring learning by identifying the business impact and risk of not training its employees. This could be quantified by fines, or profit loss as a result of being out of compliance with laws or standards. Often times this can result in fines levied against the company or even lawsuits or other forms of profit loss.

In healthcare, for example, lack of compliance with correctly
collecting, coding and reporting cancer incidence could have far-reaching impact on budget dollars spent not only in the training and operational costs associated with the Cancer Registry department, but could also negate the costs associated with cancer program development and community outreach programs. Although program development and outreach programs have the ability to compete with the consumer's dollars, all this could be for naught if the required reporting is not done accurately and in compliance with the State or accreditation program standards. Training programs for the Cancer Registry can ensure that the data management processes are appropriately managed.

So, in summary, companies should be focusing on the development
and measurement of their learning programs. The investment in
learning analytics will outweigh the risks of inadequate training. Success for any organization will directly depend on their employee's understanding of their products, services, operations and policies. Employees must be thoroughly trained in compliance, standards, confidentiality, non-disclosure and other legally sensitive areas of the company. And, companies must be able to track and measure this using effective learning analytics.

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Knowledge is Business

Knowledge is the business fully as much as customer is the business. Physical goods or services are only the vehicle for the exchange of customer purchasing power against business knowledge".
Above statement was made by Peter F. Drucker, a prominent Management and marketing guru.
Any economic result is the result of differentiation. What is that niche you posses that make you hot property in any market. It comes from knowledge. Knowledge is held by organization people. One day all labour can be automated by machines. But knowledge specifically is a human asset. If you have knowledgeable people you can target the sky. Books are more collection of information. Internet is one of the best medium for generating information on particular subject. But information is not a business.
Knowledge itself is not a business when used inside. When it do not produce value to the holder of knowledge, it is useless. It becomes business when applied outside of a business, to the customer, market and end-uses.
Mittal steel is king of steel market today. It posses a peculiar knowledge of converting non- performing public business and factory into highly profitable steel producing entity. It has done this numerous times Laxmi Mittal, Chairman and managing director, and his people do not change much in the plants. According to Aditya Mittal, CFO, and son of Laxmi Mittal, they apply their knowledge and past experience to turn thing around, Mittal steel turned their early acquisition around in 18 months. But now they have refined their knowledge and make any plant they capture profit producer within 6 months. That's where I say business is knowledge and knowledge is business.
Looking at GE, they have an uncanny ability to mark a new opportunity and jump into it in a big way. GE is one of the leader and rare gem in America to dominate the whole 20th century. None have done that. They posses best of best talent in the market. But still there is no example of a business which they have acquired and which is the leader in its market. They messed up with RCA, and their finance acquisition. Yet they are king with GE capital, a blue eye child of GE.
So what make an organization successful in a specific area, while a distant runner in other area? Assets and money could be acquired but it is the knowledge which turns that asset into real business.
That why an old edge say. Give me 10 knowledgeable people and I will conquer the world.

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The Greatest TV Story Ever Told

The gains we get from increased productivity come to us in two main ways: higher wages, or less expensive products. Let's take a look at one product that costs less and delivers more value because of higher productivity:
When I grew up in the 1950s, everyone in the neighborhood took notice when a new television set arrived. The cost of a set represented a big portion of a family's income.
And then there was upkeep. In those days, we could count on our TV sets to make a funny noise and go black just before the car chase came to a climax, just before the big wedding on a soap opera, or just before the championship game. So we called a TV repairman, who came to the house, replaced a tube or two, and gave us a bill for which we hadn't budgeted.
On the other hand, when you go to a discount store and buy a new TV set, the cost likely represents less than a day's pay, and you'll probably never call a repairman (assuming you could even find one). Your set will last for many years, and when it shows its last commercial, you will simply throw it out and buy a new one. In effect, TV sets have become so inexpensive they're a disposable product.
Our television sets are just one of the many products that cost less, at least in real dollars, because of productivity improvements. If we look through our houses we will see many products that effectively cost less and do more than they did a generation ago.
We might even say that the greatest television story ever told is one you won't see on the screen; it's the story of a half century of improvements that pulled the real prices of television sets way down, and pushed product quality way up. And that's true of many household products, especially electronic products.