3qtr2007 - Book Review - Juicing the Orange

Title: Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage
Authors: Pat Fallon & Fred Senn
ISBN: 1-59139-927-0

Okay, this is another in a series of "Inside Secrets" books written by seasoned advertising pros about their unique strategies and resultant successes. And I'll admit that I really like books like this. (Other good ones include: Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands, by Kevin Robers, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi; and The Trendmaster's Guide, by Robyn Waters, former VP of Trend, Design, and Product Development at Target.) Advertising-folk are just so creative and upbeat when things are going right.

What I particularly like about this book - and the Fallon Worldwide agency - though, is that so many of the client case studies highlighted are for products and companies that I not only recognize, but actually like - something I directly attribute to their, ahem, really good advertising. Examples, include:

• Those animated, music-only, story-telling tv commercials for United Airlines
• Those "No, but i did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night" ads
• Buddy Lee blue jean commercials
• The way that BMW cross marketed with Bond, James Bond
• Those wacky Virgin Mobile holiday ads
• and more

Another favorite was for a barber shop in NYC called "7 South 8th for Hair," a small business with very little money for advertising. It was Fallon's very first account and they really wanted to show how they could be creative AND effective. So, they bought a few poster spaces at bus stops near the barbershop and, on them, featured big pictures of somebody famous with really bad hair ... and a cleverly related tag line:

• Moe Howard (of Three Stooges fame) - "A bad haircut is no laughing matter."
• Albert Einstein - "A bad haircut can make anyone look dumb."
• Susan B. Anthony (from the failed $1 coin) - "A bad haircut can take you out of circulation."

Fallon's Inside Secret? What they call the Seven Principles of Creative Leverage:

1. Always start from scratch.
2. Demand a ruthlessly simple definition of the business problem.
3. Discover a proprietary emotion.
4. Focus on the size of the idea, not the size of the budget.
5. Seek out strategic risks.
6. Collaborate or perish.
7. Listen hard to your customers (then listen some more).

It struck me that these seven principles can apply to far more than just advertising. I know many of them seem to naturally show up in my coaching conversations with clients, for instance. But think about it in terms of furthering important business initiatives, as well:

• "We believe that you have more creativity in your organization than you realize, and we believe that you can find it, develop it, and use it more effectively. " (page 20)

They're probably right, you know.

Here are a few other interesting creative advertising ideas that applies to people at work - and in life:

• "Our goal as an organization is to understand culture so well that we can use its idioms and nuances to transcend blatant selling messages." (page 65)
• "You can change people's minds, but only if they first give you permission, and that won't happen if they think you're a joke." (page 78)
• "The door to most business people's right brain is through their left brain. First the smart, then the exciting. (The consumer, ironically, wants it just the other way around.)" (page 97)
• "Just as a sports team needs a handful of players who have been to the playoffs, a marketing team needs members who understand the hard work and commitment it takes to make the most of an idea." (page 123)

Success in advertising, as in business - and in life - really does required more than just talking the walk.

• "...if we truly valued our culture, then it wasn't enough to hire brains and talent. we had to cherish the people who bets embodied our ideals. We call them culture players." (page 194)

And that's why I like this book - it not only had cool advertising stories and interesting creative strategies, but it offered some important conclusions for what it takes to be a success across a wide variety of venues.

1qtr2007 - Book Review - Mindless Eating

Title: Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Should
Author: Brian Wansink, Ph.D.

"The average Person makes well over 200 decisions about food every day. Breakfast or no breakfast? Pop-Tart or bagel? Part of it or all of it? Kitchen or car?" So says the author, a Stanford Ph.D. and the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. "Yet out of these 200-plus food decisions, most we cannot really explain."

"Traditional diet books focus on what dietitians and health practitioners know. This book focuses on what psychologists and marketeers know." As such, it's not a book about "dietary extremism." Rather, it's about "reengineering" your food environment so that it doesn't work against you - 200-plus times a day - without you even knowing it.

From the jacket sleeve: "Using ingenious, fun, and sometimes downright fiendishly clever experiments like the 'bottomless soup bowl,' Wansink takes us on a fascinating tour of the secret dynamics behind our dietary habits." Yes he does. And at the end of each chapter, he provides us with Reengineering Strategies to implement what we now know:

1. Reengineering Strategy #1: Think 20% - More or Less - For regular meals, dish out 20% less than you think you might want; for fruits and vegetables, think 20% more.
2. Reengineering Strategy #2: See All You Eat - See it before you eat it (when people "pre-plate" their food, they eat 14% less than when they take smaller amounts and go back for seconds or thirds); see it while you eat it (think popcorn and candy at the movie theatre).
3. Reengineering Strategy #3: Be Your Own Tablescaper - Mini-size your boxes and bowls (the bigger the package you pour from, the more you eat: 20% to 30% more for most people, so repackage your jumbo boxes into smaller Ziploc bags or Tupperware containers); become an illusionist (six ounces of goulash on an 8-inch plate is a nice-size serving, but six ounces on a 12-inch plate looks like a tiny appetizer).
4. Reengineering Strategy #4: Make Overeating a Hassle - Don't bring serving dishes to the table; de-convenience tempting foods (by putting them in the back of the fridge or cupboard); snack only on a plate (making it less convenient to serve, eat, and clean up after an impulse snack).
5. Reengineering Strategy #5: Create Distraction-Free Eating Scripts - Re script your diet danger zones (eg: chew a stick of gum after work rather than heading for the fridge); serve yourself before you snack (avoid eating out of the box, bag, or serving bowl).
6. Reengineering Strategy #6: Create Expectations That Make You a Better Cook - Fix the atmosphere when you fix the food (spend the last 15 minutes of prep time on "soft" and "nice" - soft lights, soft music, soft color, nice plates, nice tablecloth, nice glasses); enhance your description of "what's for dinner?" (add words like succulent, homemade, traditional, Cajun, and they'll like your food a whole lot more - and snack a whole lot less).
7. Reengineering Strategy #7: Make Comfort Foods More Comforting - Don't deprive yourself (just eat them in smaller amounts); rewire your comfort foods (from 'death by chocolate' sundaes to a smaller bowl of ice cream with fresh strawberries).
8. Reengineering Strategy #8: Crown yourself as the Official Gatekeeper - Don't use food to reward or punish; use the half-plate rule (half of your plate for proteins and starches; half of your plate for fruit and veggies); make serving sizes official (repackage single-servings in Baggies or Saran Wrap).
9. Reengineering Strategy #9: Portion-Size Me - Beware of the health halo (the better the food, the worse the extras: think Subway - some of their 'naked' sandwiches may be healthy, but not when you add the cheese and dressings, etc.); Beware of super-sizing (think McDonald's).

Wansink recommends you go through this list and pick three changes to focus on - no more; no less. More than three and it'll feel like a diet. Do that for 28 days and you'll be well on your way to making smarter eating mindless.

I recommend you pick up a copy of Mindless Eating.

4qtr2005 - Book Review - Crisis Management

Title: Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable
Author: Steven Fink

Sometimes the best books are the ones you've already read. Re-reading them gives you another chance to see what you missed the first time through, confirm what you know, and further deepen your learning on a particular topic.

So, given the impact Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, I thought it a good time to review a book about dealing with crises.

According to Fink, there are four distinct stages to a crisis:

Stage 1 - The Prodromal Stage - This is the "early warning" period. Sometimes referred to as the "pre-crisis" stage, it's when you get first glimpse of the potential of the crisis-to-come. The reasons why the Prodromal Stage is so important is that it's just so much easier to manage a crisis before it begins.

Stage 2 - The Acute Crisis Stage - This is the crisis per se. It begins once the damage has begun. How long it continues is a matter of how much additional damage occurs. The key, of course, is to minimize the amount of that subsequent damage, although that's not always possible.

Stage 3 - The Chronic Stage - Some call this the "post-mortem" phase. The damage has subsided, clean-up has begun, and now it's time to investigate what happened and what did not. It's a period of analysis, mea culpas, Lessons Learned, and recovery, and can sometimes last an extraordinary amount of time.

Stage 4 - The Crisis Resolution Stage - This is when things finally return back to normal (whatever that means!) or in Fink's words, "when the patient is well and whole again."

Fink goes on to explain that as bad as the physical damage of a crisis can get, the emotional damage is often more troubling. Emotionally-speaking, here's what we'd rather see than the 4-stage model:

But when it doesn't happen that way - and it rarely does - we can quickly find ourselves spiraling on an emotional roller coaster that looks more like this:

One of the recurring themes of the book is that crises, as bad as they can be, provide us with important opportunities to show how well we can handle the "decisive moments" inherent in them. In fact, once the chronic stage starts, the spotlight increasingly focuses on how well we do that ... or not. Former FEMA director, Michael Brown, experienced this phenomenon first-hand. So did former NYC mayor Rudy Guliani a few years ago, though, so you see it really does cut both ways.

Another of the author's keen insights is what he labels the crisis impact value (CIV). The questions to ask in assessing the CIV are as follows:

1. Is there a good chance that this situation will, if left unattended, escalate in intensity?
2. Might this situation foster unwanted attention by outsiders?
3. Is it likely that the situation might interfere with normal business operations in some manner?
4. Could it make you look bad or cause some people to lose confidence?
5. How is it going to affect your bottom line?

Simply stated, the more objectively - and accurately - you can answer these questions, the better you will be able to manage the crisis around you.

There's more good stuff in this book, including detailed reviews of what happened at Three-Mile Island, with the Tylenol tampering situation, during the Savings & Loan crisis, and around Union Carbide's Bhopal debacle. Clearly, if the book were to be updated today, it'd have much to say about our recent hurricanes, and probably something about the earthquake in Pakistan, too.

-----

If you've read this book and would like to share your thoughts on it - or have a book recommendation that you'd like to make - please post your comments. To that end, a great article on crisis management is "Managing the Crisis You Tried to Prevent," by Norman R. Augustine, HBR, November 1995.

3qtr2005 - Book Review - Hope and Help for Your Nerves

Title: Hope and Help for Your Nerves
Author: Claire Weekes
Link to Purchase: Buy the book

"They say it's 'just nerves' ... But it can stop you from working ... upset your personal relationships ... transform you from the busy and interesting person you used to be into someone else." So says panic disorder expert Dr. Claire Weekes about the tricks your nervous system can play on you. Whether this internal tension slows you down a little or a lot, the truth is that no one is completely immune from what fear, uncertainty, and doubt can do to you physically, mentally, or emotionally. And although this book was written for more severe sufferers of "nervous illness," it can help anyone suffering from anxiety learn its causes, better understand its symptoms, learn to relax, and finally break free.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, we have two main types of nerves: voluntary nerves, or ones that we use to consciously move our muscles, and involuntary nerves, ones that automatically control our internal organs, intestines and the like. The involuntary nervous system has two sub-systems: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is in charge of our adrenaline - it kicks in when we are in a 'fight or flight' situation (real or perceived), increasing our heart rate and blood flow, among other things.

The parasympathetic nervous system acts in the opposite manner by balancing the adrenaline rush and enabling us to relax. When we're over-stressed, over-tired, over-frazzled, etc. our adrenaline producing nerves tend to over-produce. Indicators include sweaty palms, that sense of nervousness, dry mouth, restlessness, dread, or a number of other not-too-pleasant side-effects.

Sometimes these side-effects can become quite unnerving - especially when combined with the shock and bewilderment of not knowing what the heck is happening to us. Fist we're frightened by something so our adrenaline naturally fires. But because our sympathetic system is so hyper-sensitized, it over-fires and our secondary fear kicks in. (We're now frightened by our reaction to being frightened.) This causes another, even bigger, shot of adrenaline to fire which causes the whole cycle to repeat itself with such increasing intensity and relentlessness that a full-fledged panic attack results.

It's really tough stuff.

What Dr. Weekes offers is a way to analyze and understand these symptoms so that there is no shock and bewilderment, so that our secondary fear cycle never gets started. To recover from (or avoid) panic, she instructs, we must realize and accept that our adrenaline-producing nerves are simply over-stimulated and not read anything more into it than that. The four-step process she recommends is this:

1. Face it - You are over-tired and quite possibly exhausted.


2. Accept it - The adrenaline in your system is a result of your exhaustion and nothing more. Do not be bluffed by a physical feeling.


3. Float past it - Knowing the root cause helps you prevent secondary fear from setting in. Recognize that what you are feeling is temporary and just a matter of having too much adrenaline in your system.


4. Let time pass - As you relax and learn to prevent that secondary fear, both the amount of adrenaline that gets fired into your system will naturally lessen, and your parasympathetic nerves will be better able to counter-balance the adrenaline that still does fire. You may still get an initial jolt, but knowing what it is - and knowing how to react to it - will greatly reduce it's negative impact on you.

For some, Hope and Help for Your Nerves may be too deep a look into panic disorders and nervous illness. But if you are at all curious about gaining more control over your counter-productive thinking - or learning more about how your mind and nervous system works - it is a very insightful and meaningful read.

And, in that there are more than 20 million Americans who suffer from some sort of anxiety disorder - approximately out of every nine, according to the American Psychiatric Institute - it may be particularly relevant and helpful for you or someone you know.

Thanks to LS for the recommendation.

2qtr2005 - Book Review - Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End

Title: Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End
Author: Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Link to Purchase: (Don't) buy the book

From the publisher:

From the boardroom to the locker room to the living room--how winners become winners . . . and stay that way. Is success simply a matter of money and talent? Or is there another reason why some people and organizations always land on their feet, while others, equally talented, stumble again and again?

"There's a fundamental principle at work--the vital but previously unexamined factor called confidence--that permits unexpected people to achieve high levels of performance through routines that activate talent. Confidence explains:

• Why the University of Connecticut women's basketball team continues its winning ways even though recent teams lack the talent of their predecessors


• Why some companies are always positively perceived by employees, customers, Wall Street analysts, and the media while others are under a perpetual cloud


• How a company like Gillette or a team like the Chicago Cubs ends a losing streak and breaks out of a circle of doom

The lessons a politician such as Nelson Mandela, who resisted the temptation to take revenge after being released from prison and assuming power, offers for leaders in both advanced democracies and trouble spots like the Middle East "From the simplest ball games to the most complicated business and political situations, the common element in winning is a basic truth about people: They rise to the occasion when leaders help them gain the confidence to do it.

"Confidence is the new theory and practice of success, explaining why success and failure are not mere episodes but self-perpetuating trajectories. Rosabeth Moss Kanter shows why organizations of all types may be brimming with talent but not be winners, and provides people in leadership positions with a practical program for either maintaining a winning streak or turning around a downward spiral.

"Confidence is based on an extraordinary investigation of success and failure in companies such as Continental Airlines, Seagate, and Verizon and sports teams such as the University of North Carolina women's soccer team, New England Patriots, and Philadelphia Eagles, as well as schools, health care, and politics."

The book was filled with a surprising number of case studies. Each one focused on a particular company and how its leadership addressed its problems. Many were absolutely fascinating and I liked how examples of failed turnarounds were also included to help add richness and depth to the materials.

Too, her central theme was a good one - that rebuilding people's confidence in each other is an essential step in ending a team's or an organization's losing streak. So was her discussion of the Three Cornerstones of Confidence, her methodology for enabling such a transition:

1. Facing Facts and Reinforcing Responsibility,


2. Cultivating Collaboration, and


3. Inspiring Initiative and Innovation.

And in what was, perhaps, the most important paragraph in the whole book - Chapter 1; Page 7 - Dr. Kanter succinctly addressed what confidence is, what it influences, and what it is influenced by:

Confidence consists of positive expectations for favorable outcomes. Confidence influences the willingness to invest - to commit money, time, reputation, emotional energy, or other resources - or to withhold, or hedge investment. This investment, or its absence, shapes the ability to perform.

Yet on the whole, I found the book to be a very long, difficult, and only somewhat rewarding read. The author took almost 200 pages to set-up her discussion on the Cornerstones, something her editor could have better addressed. Too, there were so many richly-detailed case studies that I found myself skipping over many of them just so I wouldn't lose the point the author was trying to make by including them. And, while Dr. Kanter has much to be proud of, I found her style to be unflatteringly self-aggrandizing. So it's good I read the book so you don't have to!

The important thing to remember about Confidence: How Winning Streaks & Losing Streaks Begin & End is that if you're looking to build confidence in your team, in your team members, or in yourself, you must be willing to invest an appropriate amount of money, time, reputation, emotional energy, and other resources. That idea is definitely a keeper.

1qtr2005 - Book Review - Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness

New for 2005, this section will focus on providing you a 'quick-hit-overview ' of an interesting book I've read. I'll share with you some its key insights, information, and points-to-ponder. And, if you'd like to order a copy, there's a link to do that, too.

Title: Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness
Author: Jeffrey Gitomer
Link to Purchase: Buy the book

A real personality, Jeffrey Gitomer pulls no punches when it comes to helping people get real, sell better, and sell more. And, what's more, his recommendations are surprisingly applicable to almost everyone, regardless of what they do for a living. As example, very early on in the book, he asks: What does it take to become a sales success? His "18.5" answers, which he insists are not so much Secrets of Success, are "fundamental steps that successful salespeople and entrepreneurs have been executing for centuries."

1. Believe you can.
2. Create the environment.
3. Have the right associations.
4. Expose yourself to what's new.
5. Plan for the day.
6. Become valuable.
7. Have the answers your prospects and customers need.
8. Recognize opportunity.
9. Take advantage of opportunity.
10. Take responsibility.
11. Take action.
12. Make mistakes.
13. Be willing to risk.
14. Keep your eyes on the prize.
15. Balance yourself.
16. Invest, don't spend.
17. Stick at it until you win.
18. Develop and maintain a positive attitude.

18.5. Ignore idiots and zealots.

Gitomer goes on to write about what he calls the positive and negative "senses of selling." There are 6 positive senses:

1. The sense of confidence.
2. The sense of positive anticipation.
3. The sense of determination.
4. The sense of achievement.
5. The sense of winning.
6. The sense of success.

And then he explores the 8.5 negative senses - the ones that your subconscious mind often presents and projects when selling:

1. The sense of fear.
2. The sense of nervousness.
3. The sense of rejection.
4. The sense of procrastination or reluctance.
5. The sense of justification/rationale
6. The sense of self-doubt.
7. The sense of uncertainty.
8. The sense of doom.

8.5 The sense of "I'm unlucky."

Make no mistake, this book is definitely focused on selling. But there's still an awful lot of practical and between-the-eyes logic and advice that this guru has to offer about how to be more successful than maybe you are right now.