Progress = Motivation?

An article available at the Harvard Business Review website really resonates with my experience. In summary, the study authors found that "progress" on projects was the greatest motivator. In contrast, most managers surveyed cited factors such as "recognition" or "incentives" as most important.

This is great information for managers and leaders. We can focus on making real progress, and everyone wins!

See the first item in the article, "What Really Motivates Workers".

Retiring the Dream of Retirement

The US economy tanked over the last year, and took a lot of retirement dreams along with it. I'm pained by the loss of shareholder value and so many lost jobs. Watching your portfolio shrink or disappear is certainly not fun. Personally, I need to readjust my expectations for long-term equity growth as well as common notions of retirement.

It seems like retirement is a relatively recent phenomena. The idea that one could work through midlife, then stop working with the benefit of a tidy retirement nest egg is sure nice, but perhaps not realistic for everyone.

Working and being productive seem like important parts of human life. Contributing to your household and your community has both personal and societal benefits.I'm certainly not saying that a retiree cannot contribute, but a life of pure leisure likely is not healthy for anyone. I don't think anyone other than the most harried worker actually looks forward to doing nothing in retirement.

What would happen if we viewed work not as a race to finish, but as a lifelong pursuit? Does work have to be a sprint? Does it have to be a continuous race? Can it be a series of intervals, lasting a lifetime, with some breaks in between? Many professionals, including teachers, professional athletes, actors and musicians, all alternate between productive work seasons and time off.

And if work doesn't need to be a race or a sprint, is earning a big wad really that important? Consuming less means you don't need as much money now or in the future.Saving and building capital is a great idea, and maybe ongoing cashflow is should be considered as important as any retirement plan.

For most of us, a rich retirement is probably a fantasy, and perhaps that fantasy is not as sweet as we imagined. So instead of feeling shortchanged and overworked, maybe this is a chance to live more right now. I enjoy the old saying that, "Fools toast their riches, while wisemen toast their health."

If you have your health now, I say enjoy it while you can!

How Do You Innovate?

The topic of innovation certainly has a lot of buzz in the business world lately. I've seen a lot of consultants and business theorists offering up ideas about the process of innovation, but they seem to differ wildly in the approaches. Some are rational and step-by-step, others offer lightening breakthroughs.

For me, innovation is a solution to a market problem that is solved in new or much more valuable way.

I believe the key to real innovation turns some popular views of innovation upside down. While I see a lot of literature on the creative process, I've often felt short-changed by finishing a book and not recalling a clear picture of actions and techniques. A repeatable innovation process requires a rational process to identify the market problem to solve, and perhaps some faith and "irrational" leaps to create an innovative solution.

The folks at Pragmatic Marketing have done a nice job analyzing and defining the steps in innovative product development. Check out the steps to getting "Tuned In" on the site.

A principle of the process involves tuning into the needs of buyers and the market. I understand this priority, as I've been involved in plenty of unsuccessful product initiatives that were either internal "whiteboard" exercises or "me-too" features that just meet a competitor's offering. Understanding the needs of buyers is a lot of work, but so is building something without a clear understanding of buyer needs just to be "first to market" with something no one really needs.

Moderate, But Don't Stop!

Economics are in the news every day now. The news had been bad, and negative speculation has been worse. I read about a long list of companies announcing layoffs today. Clearly, several markets were in need of a reset after hot growth and loose money. But don't stop buying everything!

I was talking with a group of people recently and everyone was looking for ways to cut all spending dramatically. I know lots of people who genuinely need to cut back and "restructure" personal budgets because of job loss or too much debt. I also know several of the people I was talking with have no current need to cut back extensively--they were doing so out of fear of potential future economic deterioration. Hold on! If everyone suddenly stops buying, doesn't that guarantee that things will get much worse?

I'm not an economist and I don't believe we need to grow GDP at huge rates to have a healthy economy. I believe there are genuine environmental and human rights benefits to consider what a purchase means rather than spend indiscriminately. But if you have the means to buy, please don't run for the hills and hide your money in a cave. I suppose panic is a natural consequence of a downturn, but the reinforcing loop of despair seems pretty obvious. We're in a downturn, why exacerbate it? I would prefer to live with measured confidence, not fear.

Tree Hunting

We went up the the Mt. Hood National Forest today to hunt for a Christmas tree. We got our permit from the ranger station and headed up some soggy logging roads off the Clackamas River.

What a hoot! We hiked cross country until we found our little tree a ways up the hill. Good thing it was an easy carry because in some ways getting down a muddy hillside is a lot harder than climbing it.

I think it was a good experience for the kids to get to the source rather than just buy a tree from a local city lot. Stepping in deer pellets and checking out wild mushrooms was more fun than it might sound.

Flight Mysteries

I travel a lot, mostly on business. While there are a lot of air travel pains and delays can be awful, in my experience most of the time the airline staff is doing its best to get me to my destination safely and on-time. Still, I can't resist sharing a few air travel observations that made me think twice.

#1 Cup O' Germs
On long flights with drink service refills (which I am grateful for) I've noticed that flight attendants nearly always pick up cups by the rim--mine and everyone else's! My lips touch that same rim every time I drink. People worry about the recycled air on flights, but what about the fingers of the attendant who touched every cup on the plane? Yuck.

#2 Food That Tastes Good
I recently flew Alaska Airlines from Dallas to Portland. I was in coach and it was a full flight. But it was a good experience, partly because I was hungry and they served a tasty little burger for lunch for just $5. The airline made a couple bucks, and I really enjoyed the meal. So why can't more flights and airlines offer TASTY food at a reasonable price? It seemed like a win/win for everyone.

#3 What Bag Limit?
I've flown several airlines that seem oblivious to carry on bag numbers and sizes. Airlines seem to turn a blind eye to 3 or more items and bag sizes that will take an entire overhead bin. Then about 75 percent through the boarding process, overhead bins are full and passengers are running up and down the aisle looking for a place to stash a bag. If you're late to board, then you're bag is getting checked no matter what. That doesn't seem fair to me, and I think it slows the boarding process. So why not enforce the carry-on bag quantity and size limits? Boarding would move faster and there would be less stress because more passengers would find adequate luggage space.

What is Personal Integrity?

Integrity. There are a lot of definitions for what it means to have integrity. I am working in a corporate environment where there's emphasis on "integrity" and "ethics," but I don't often hear a common understanding of what it means to have integrity. The common definition at my office seems more like "honesty." I think that's a pretty low bar, and a weak standard to bear.

My definition of integrity is more like, "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."

If you understand yourself well enough to know how you feel and to know what you want, then you need to share it. You need to say what you mean--not what might sound good or what you think others want to hear. If you can't say what you want, then no one will ever know! No one can read your mind. Be genuine.

You should share your opinions, and stand behind them with conviction. You should mean what you say.

Now that's integrity.