Ever feel that all the lawyers in thh Country need to give their lives up for our freedom, by exiting the planet forthwith? Yes, me too. In an article in CCJ-Commercial Carrier Journal entitled “Ticking Away” The Insurance Time Bomb. It discussed how the trucking industry is limiting their insurance expenses by skipping some of the more prevalent coverage. For this reason the trucking companies have begun to add to our service contracts in the service sector, higher limits and more comprehensive additional insured certificates.

All of this just in case a lawyer files a lawsuit. So here you have it one of our most important needs as a society our distribution system being hurt by the legal system, which was suppose to keep us safe. The lawyers are terrorizing the populous and hurting our future as a civilization by hurting our quality of life and high standard of living due to artificial inflation. Yet the same group tends to yield enough political clout to keep this going year after year. Insurance in trucking is up 34% in two years for the basic coverage.

And are you ready for this 87% for the umbrella coverage, which actually trucking accidents and incidents by US DOT statistics is down. So why is this happening? Lawsuits and higher damages and so many frivolous suits are causing the increases in insurance, we all pay this every time we buy something as most of the costs are passed on. This year one accident victim in AZ with a Swift Trucking carrier was awarded 7 million dollars and another for four million, but no one even died and it was not the truckers fault in full. One of the accident’s victims had no driver’s license and had been suspended and was speeding?

Many trucking companies are asking for 5 million additional insurance certificates for each occurrence when previously 1 million for a service company was high and aggregate was acceptable. These increases in exposure to lawsuits promted the Risk Management teams of these companies to pass the buck to the service companies who raise rates for everyone. One small Onan Cummings dealers has a shop rate of $94.00 and hour for working on portable generators because they average their insurance costs company wide for all services, much of their work is in trucking. The labor is paid $10.00 per hour and it is estimated that $34 for every hour is pure insurance costs? Scared yet? It is still getting worse. And with lawyers spreading reality of responsibility of the lady barreling out of theMcDonalds Drivethru who spills coffee to the pourer of the coffee is a bit insane.

If every single mile a truck is driven costs $.20 in insurance then the drivers get less money meaning they quit and newer drivers take over with less experience and Bingo you guessed it you have a self fulfilling problem, due to additional accidents. Now trucking companies will be more dangerous adding to the downward spiral of our current distribution system, with costs passed on and on, on and one, on and on. And do not think this does not effect other forms of transportation like ships and rail, because look at their costs too.

http://nafc.truckline.com

Check it out. It is time to let the lawyers become fallen heroes for saving the free world, they can do this by losing their jobs. We need not create more of them as the legal schools churn out more of these clowns? Over regulation, incessant lawsuits and increased insurance costs are a recipe for disaster which will spill over into all sectors of our economy.

Lance Winslow is a retired entrepreneur; http://CarWashGuys.com and works with the World Think Tank; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

What does this mean to you? Simply, the U.S Government encourages their vendors to seek accounts receivable factoring of their invoices in order to help them grow, improve cashflow, increase performance, and level the playing field.

Access Unlimited Capital Through the Creditworthiness of the U.S. Government Any government contractor, under the the Assignment of Claims Act of 1986, may assign it’s rights to be paid amounts due or to become due as a result of the performance of a contract to a bank, trust company or other financing institution. Larger vendors have been doing this for years.

Invoice Factoring is when a business sells unpaid accounts receivable invoices to a specialized financial institution called a Factor. The factoring company buys the invoice from the business for an amount less than its actual face value, then later collects the full amount of the invoice from the account debtor when it finally comes due. This service is useful to a business that cannot afford to wait 30, 60, or 90 days to collect payment from customers, cash is needed immediately for growth or survival.

When a business delivers goods or services to another business, an invoice is generated stating the amount owed and the terms (number of days) in which the invoice must be paid. This invoice along with its terms becomes an accounts receivable: money owed to a business, from a business, for goods or services delivered. The terms for these invoices are usually 30, 60, or even 90 days. After the business sends out the invoice it must wait the length of the term (or longer) to collect the debt and recognize the revenue generated. Waiting for these long billing cycles to close can be difficult for a company that is growing fast or just struggling to survive.

Rather than waiting for long billing cycles to close, a business has the option to sell some or all of its outstanding invoices to a Factor (for a discount) and receive funding within 24 hours or less. The Factor will eventually collect the full amount of the invoice from the account debtor.

Afra AmirSanjari is the Principal for Peacock Capital. Peacock Capital specializes in solving the cash flow challenges of Small/Medium Businesses, Government Vendors and Individuals with innovative financial solutions by providing a network for securing operating capital.

http://www.peacockcapital.com; info@peacockcapital.com

Leaders may want to capture the benefits of creativity and innovation, yet there may be relevant and almost contradictory issues that they have to deal with, including:

a) It may be that a conservative culture is desirable (may result in a greater fit with the client base, for example).

b) Culture change is time consuming and needs constant monitoring and measurement.

c) Large-scale changes may not be desired.

However, it is possible for leaders to have the best of both worlds. That is, it is possible to combine a conservative culture with a creative one and without large-scale change. Some methods include:

a) Creating teams outside the core organisation whose job it is to manage creativity and innovation, identify problems, generate ideas, select the best ones, and see them through the development and innovation cycle.

b) Allowing the culture of creative teams outside the core organisation to gradually diffuse its way into the core culture.

c) Creating direct links to decision makers. Whenever employees have good ideas, having them addressed by powerful people encourages further good idea generation.

d) Removing layers from idea generators to decision makers. Good ideas often get filtered and diluted when they are passed between management layers. This slows feedback times and reduces the encouragement levels that push idea generation.

e) Visible progression of ideas through to tangible results. Motivation quickly declines if ideas do not progress. People will not see the value of today’s idea generating activity when yesterday’s was fruitless.

In conclusion, creativity and innovation management does not necessarily involve large-scale change. Incremental changes can lead to radical effects. Further creativity and conservatism are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

These topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com. You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop MBA is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com

• What if their resume looks great but they have a bad attitude?
• What if they put on a good act and then don’t work hard?
• How can I tell how they will perform after I hire them? A great way to answer these questions starts with a well-defined interview process…

I often hear leaders from all types of organizations ask questions about hiring the right person. Their questions usually sound like these:

• What if their resume looks great but they have a bad attitude?

• What if they put on a good act and then don’t work hard?

• How can I tell how they will perform after I hire them?

A great way to answer these questions starts with a well-defined interview process. I have heard the procedure called many things. I first learned it as the Behavioral Event interview process. The guiding thought behind this system is that “while it is no guarantee of success, past performance is the best indicator of future performance.”

Here is the main idea — develop an interview system that forces the candidate to tell you, in direct and specific terms, how they have worked in the past. You want the candidate to do more than recount where they have worked and what experience they have. You can read their resume to get that information. You want the candidate to tell you: how they think, how they work, and how they relate to other people.

Actual implementation can get a little involved, but the basic process goes like this:

1) Identify the key skills (attributes, attitudes, etc) for success in your organization. In a big company, you might develop the list by interviewing successful people in the organization. In a smaller company, you could brainstorm with the owner(s) about what they want to see in an employee.

2) Rank the competencies to separate the “must-have” traits from the “would be nice” traits. Write your list in the form of a checklist for use during interviews.

3) Develop a series of questions that get people to tell you specifics about their experience. The best series start with broad, open-ended questions and lead to follow-up with questions that dig for specifics.

For example, the series could go like this:

Start with an open-ended question like “Tell me about a time in your high school (college, internship, last job, etc.) when you had to convince another student (co-worker, etc.) to help you?” or “Tell me about a time from your last job (internship, college, etc.) that you had to make a sudden change in plans?” Let them pick the scenario; you probe for specifics.

When they give you the scenario, begin the process of “peeling the onion.” Ask follow-up questions like “When that happened, what was the first thing you did?” Then, “Who did you talk to to make the change happen?” Maybe you could follow that with,”Did they react positively or negatively to your request, and how did you respond to them?”

The idea is to get the candidate talking about how they handled a specific situation (their feelings, actions, and responses). By addressing a specific situation rather than a hypothetical scenario, you get a good feel for how they might handle a similar situation in the future.

4) As the candidate responds, look for evidence of the core competencies you identified in step 1. Use your checklist to keep track of your observations.

5) Train several people to conduct this type of interview. Always have more than one person involved in the process. I suggest having several people interview the candidate. Each interviewer should ask about a different part of the person’s life and work experience (school, work, volunteer work, etc).

6) After the interview process, get each interviewer together to compare notes and observations. If the candidate demonstrates the key skills you are seeking across several areas of their life, they are likely to bring those skills into your business. Now you have a good basis for deciding whether this person fits you and your organization.

I have been through this type of interview on both sides of the table. I find that it works very well and creates a win-win scenario for both parties. For the qualified candidate, the process feels good because there are no “trick” questions. For the interviewer, it gives you concrete information that you can use to make an informed decision about the candidate’s fit in your organization. Only the unqualified candidate loses. For them, the process is uncomfortable. They must give specifics; there is little room for “shading the truth” to get the job.

You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to the author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact the author prior to use in printed media.

Copyright 2005, Guy Harris

Guy Harris is a Recovering Engineer. He works as a Relationship Repairman and People-Process Integrator. His background includes service as a US Navy Submarine Officer, functional management with major multi-national corporations, and senior management in an international chemical business. As the owner of Principle Driven Consulting, he helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders improve team performance by applying the principles of human behavior.

Guy co-authored “The Behavior Bucks System(tm)” to help parents reduce stress and conflict with their children by effectively applying behavioral principles in the home. Learn more about this book at http://www.behaviorbucks.com

The majority of companies can no longer escape the need to buy, sell or work with people from different cultures. Multinationals have offices spanning the globe; manufacturers increasingly rely on foreign markets and distributors; services and products are no longer solely marketed at native audiences and many industries rely on immigrant labour. In short, very few businesses escape the need for intercultural communication.

As a result, companies are increasingly recognising that in order to grow, diversify and retain a competitive advantage, intercultural management skills are critical. ‘Intercultural management skills’ is a loose term used to refer to the capability of a manager to communicate and deal effectively with people from different cultures. ‘Communication’ has long been recognised as the key to business success; however, ‘intercultural communication’ is now an increasingly critical term..

Intercultural communication is critical to business performance in a variety of ways. Internally, an intercultural manager needs to be able to act as a medium between senior personnel and staff; communicate clearly and effectively with colleagues; build and nurture efficient intercultural and transnational teams and display strategic global thinking.

Externally, an intercultural manger must demonstrate business acumen within a framework of intercultural awareness to supervise entrance into foreign markets; oversee the proper selection, mentoring and guidance of company representatives working with foreign interests; negotiate and manage conflict with clients and provide insight into potential areas of success or failure emanating from intercultural differences.

The intercultural manager is therefore tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that communication between colleagues, clients and customers is clear, coherent and free from intercultural misunderstandings.

In order to achieve this, the intercultural manager must possess certain key attributes. These are namely, intercultural awareness, flexibility, capitalizing on differences and patience.

Intercultural awareness is the fundamental foundation of all intercultural management skills. One must possess hands on experience of living and/or working in different cultures, an understanding of how culture manifests in interpersonal interaction and have received intercultural training to consolidate those insights and awareness. Only through an appreciation of intercultural differences will the manager develop further skills.

Once intercultural awareness is active within a manager and they are able to see beyond surface level manifestations of cultural differences, flexibility naturally occurs. Flexibility refers to the ability of the manager to adapt their behaviour and management style to deal effectively with intercultural challenges and to think out of the box when it comes to offering solutions. The flexible intercultural manager is able to cushion intercultural tests and control outcomes positively.

Similarly, the intercultural manager needs to be astute in using intercultural differences positively. Cross cultural differences do not inherently lead to negative consequences. They only do so when mismanaged. It is therefore the responsibility of the intercultural manager to assess the potential of personnel, products and policies being steered by cultural differences and ensuring it does so for a constructive outcome.

Finally, the intercultural manager needs patience. As the Dutch proverb says, “A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.” Patience is the key to a successful intercultural manager as it allows one to maintain focus, analyse problems coherently, evaluate options and implement solutions.

In conclusion, the success of businesses in today’s globalized world economy relies heavily upon them investing in cultivating intercultural managers. With human traffic across borders constantly on the increase and business interests dependent on foreign markets, the intercultural manager is critical to the co-ordination, supervision and implementation of clear intercultural communication.

The steps need to be taken to prepare an organization for ISO 9001 2000 registration:

Whilst the following text is not exhaustive in its content it should give you a reasonable idea of what’s involved in setting up an ISO 9001 2000 registration within an organization.

First and most importantly you should either purchase a copy of the ISO 9001 2000 standard or read a copy at your local library.

At first glance many of the terms referred to in the standard sound quite confusing but if you study the content of this web site you will soon become familiar with the terminology used.

Now that you are a little more familiar with the ISO 9001 2000 Quality Management Standard and its terminology you should start to analyze the current practices of your organization to those documented within the ISO 9001 2000 standard,This process is known as a gap analysis audit. You can either carry this process out yourselves or employ the skills of an ISO 9001 2000 consultant to carry out the task for you.

It is very important to get this audit right as the results will be used to set the direction of your organization on its route to full ISO 9001 2000 registration. In short if this audit is wrong or incomplete your organization will happily steam along in the wrong direction, wasting resources as it goes, until someone tells you otherwise. If I were to give one piece of advice here it would be to recommend using a professional, a small amount of money spent at this stage could save you unnecessary expenditure if you were to get it wrong.

As the gap analysis audit on your organization progresses you will be able to identify the processes which are already documented, and those that are not. It will be useful to your organization to compile a list of documents that you will need for the Quality Management System as you complete the gap analysis audit, there is no sense in doing the same job twice.

It is important to remember that just because a process is documented does not necessarily mean it is compliant with the requirements of the ISO 9001 2000 standard. Almost certainly your organization will have to tweak existing processes and or instigate new ones in order to comply with the documented requirements of the ISO 9001 2000 standard.

For this purpose you may decide to bring together a team of employees and have them review the processes and suggest improvements which will make the process compliant with ISO 9001 2000. Alternatively you may wish to employ an ISO 9001 2000 consultant to carry out this task for you. Whilst a consultant may initially seem expensive he or she will have the experience to complete the task expediently and cost effectively.

Now that the organizations processes and any short falls against the ISO 9001 2000 standard have been identified they have to be documented in a within a controlled document control system. Whilst there is not a definitive, prescribed method to document an ISO 9001 2000 Quality Management System there are, as with most things, easy and hard ways of doing this. If you are unsure how to do this there is an example procedure here or once again you can employ a consultant to complete this task expediently.

Design and implement the Quality Management System to comply with the requirements of ISO 9001 2000.

This will typically require:

Establishing a quality policy and measurable quality objectives.

Documenting a quality manual, describing your Quality Management System.

Documenting procedures which describe the processes in your organization.

Creating a document issue, withdrawal and re-issue of documents system.

Documenting test and inspection methods.

Documenting a corrective and preventive action process.

Identification of training needs and necessary job skills.

Calibrating and controlling measuring and test equipment.

Measuring and monitoring customer satisfaction.

Measuring process, and product conformity.

Training employees on the operation of the quality management system.

Planning, conducting and following up internal Quality Management System audits.

Continual improvement of the Quality Management System.

As each process in your organization is revised, documented and implemented you need to ensure that your employees are trained accordingly in the operation of the revised process and that their documented training records are updated. All employees must have had at least basic ISO 9001 2000 training so that they can demonstrate that they understand what is required of them. You can either attempt this training your self or employ a consultant trainer to do this task for you.

You must generate and keep documented records of employee training in accordance with your new processes procedures which, of course must be compliant with ISO 9001 2000.

These records will be used as evidence to prove to your ISO assessor that you are operating your Quality Management System in accordance with your documented procedures and ISO 9001 2000. Driso’s Easy ISO 9001 2000® software will record, control all of your organisations training records in an ISO 9001 2000 compliant format.

As your processes evolve you must start internal quality management system audits so as to satisfy your organization that it is in fact operating its processes in accordance with its own documented procedures and the requirements of ISO 9001 2000.

Your ISO 9001 2000 auditor will look at the records generated by your internal audits. ISO 9001 2000 relies on Quality Management System audits to provide assurance that the organization is meeting the requirements of the ISO 9001 2000 standard.

An audit includes an inspection of the documents and records that make up your quality system. Most importantly it is an inspection of the way the people in the organization work and the knowledge they have about the operation of the quality management system. management reviews must be carried out by the top management in your organization to ensure that your Quality Management System is working effectively and that it is geared to produce continual improvement of your products or service.

Registration requirements vary slightly between the various certification bodies but it is usual to have a Pre-Assessment. A pre-assessment is a mock audit similar in duration to a full registration audit which your organization neither passes nor fails. The important feature of a pre-assessment is that it will provide a full list of any short falls between the requirements of the ISO 9001 2000 standard and your Quality Management System.

As a senior lead auditor I would always advise an organization to opt for a pre-assessment.

You now need to select a registration agency.

There are many registration agencies to choose from and in theory they are similar inthe services they provide, chiefly because they all have to abide by the same to EN standards, EN45011 and EN45012. In practice they offer different service levels, response times and re-assessment periods. So my advice would be to choose your registration body very carefully.

Finally the day has arrived for your registration rudit. This is where an auditor from the chosen certification body visits your organization and carries out a comprehensive audit of your organization.

When the auditor identifies a discrepancy or non-conformance between the work that is being performed and the requirements of ISO 9001 and how you say you operate your processes the discrepancy or non-conformance will be written up. There is no specific number of non-conformances that have to be raised for your organization to either pass or fail. It depends on how serious each point raised is or if a number of minor issues are all raised against one clause of ISO 9001 2000, say for example design.

For example: If only a few minor non-conformances are found during the registration audit, the registration body will issue a certificate of registration to ISO 9001 2000 stating that your organization complies with the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard. If however a major non-conformance is raised this results in your organisation being told that you must correct the non-conformance(s) and re-apply for another registration audit. This is why I would always recommend that you have a consultant carry out a Pre-Assessment audit on your business, re-applying for a complete re-assessment from a registration body can be a very expensive business.

Once a certificate of registration is issued it typically expires after three years, however some registration bodies certificates never expire. All registration bodies typically require Quality Management System surveillance audits of your organization at six months intervals to maintain the validity of the certificate.

At this point, you deserve to celebrate your accomplishments! However, once the certificate is issued you need to continue to monitor your own Quality Management System to ensure you continue to comply with the requirements of ISO 9001 2000.

Driso provide ISO 9001 2000 consultancy, auditing, software, and training Services. They also supply Easy ISO 9001 2000® software for initially setting up an ISO 9001 2000 compliant Quality Management System or improving upon an existing one.

The ISO 9001 2000 standard is designed to manage and improve organizations processes. There is a great deal of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the meaning of the process approach to Quality.

If you have at all been involved with quality assurance I am sure that you will at least heard of the “process approach” to Quality Assurance even if you are not fully aware of its meaning. The process approach to Quality Assurance is based on the idea that an organization is a system of interlinked processes.

If an organization does not define how its individual activities work together and the order in which the activities are performed it cannot deliver a quality product to its customers.

The process approach to quality involves analysing and then documenting the actual activities and links between those activities within an organization using simple process flowcharts. This technique is typically used by an auditor when conducting a gap analysis on a business. If you are unsure about your ability to identify your processes then you can employ a consultant to assist you.

Once the process and their interactions have been identified a framework of procedures and work instructions can be built around them.

It can often be the case that the output from one process in an organization is the input for another process within the same organization. As can be seen in the diagram below where the output for activity one is the input for activity two and similarly the output of activity two is the input for activity three.

When analysing the processes within your organization it should be remembered that processes may link to processes outside of your organization. A typical example of this might be the product design interface between you and your customer.

Your organization sends a design concept to the customer (the Process input).

The customer approves the design (the Process activity).

You receive back the approved concept design (Process output)

In many organizations it may be possible to break down each process still further into their individual sub-process components, (please forgive the simplistic example).

For example: The posting of a letter might be broken down into.

Process 1: Selection of the envelope type. E.g. Padded, anti static, brown, white, anti-static.

Process 2: Selection of postal method. E.g. Courier, air-freight, secure, insecure.

Process 3: Selection of first or second class postage, same day, seven day.

Each of these processes can then be broken down into sub-processes. E.g. The closure of the envelope. Should it be the type you lick, self adhesive, secured with sticky tape, security fastener or wax seal?

One always has to look at the common sense approach as to how far you should break each process down into sub-processes. For example: If the customer does not specify the method of envelope seal to be used then any type of seal may be used as long as it is fit for purpose. However, if the customer specifies a particular type of seal for certain products the process becomes more important to both you and your customer and therefore the process is worthy of documentation.

If you have difficulty documenting your processes, especially regarding the amount of detail required then it may be worth employing a consultant to guide you through the process. If your procedures are too prescriptive you will end up with unmanageable documents which serve no real purpose. A consultant will be able to minimise your documentation while ensuring compliance with ISO 9001 2000.

Many organizations already have documented instructions in the form of standard operating procedures (SOP’s) and work instructions (WI’s) that define how individual activities are performed. However, it is often the case that the interfaces between these instructions are misaligned. In some cases the interfaces are not even considered let alone documented. Misaligned process interfaces within an organisaton often leads to process fragmentation and eventually to break down of the organizations processes.

The ISO 9001 2000 standard has adopted the process approach to Quality management systems which is designed to improve an organizations processes.

The following rules may be used to implement a process approach to your Organizations Quality Management System.

Identify your Organizations key processes.

Define Quality Assurance levels for those processes.

Decide how process quality will be measured.

Document your approach to achieving the desired quality.

Evaluate your quality level and continuously improve it.

The following example will help guide you through the methology of identifying process inputs, activities and outputs.

As an example, let us consider the Purchasing Process:

1. The Input to the Purchasing process is a requirement to purchase materials, components or services.

2. The Purchasing Activity involves selecting a supplier from our approved supplier list and preparing a purchase order. We will interact with – The supplier: to place the order. – Receiving: to notify them of the material ordered. We may interact with – Engineering: if Purchasing specifications are needed. – Quality Assurance: if Receiving inspection is needed and to disposition the product if it is non-conforming when received.

3. The Output of the purchasing process is an approved purchase order released to the supplier.

A typical manufacturing company will have the following product realization processes:

Customer Enquiry.

Review and Quote.

Receive Order

Prepare Process Control Documentation

Purchase Materials

Receive Materials

Production

Pack

Label and Ship

In addition, we have the following support processes:

Management Review

Training

Document Control

Internal Auditing

Corrective and Preventive Action

Summary: As you develop your quality system, you must define the sequence and interaction of your processes in your quality manual as required in Section 4.2.2 of the new standard.

As you define your processes and prepare the accompanying documentation, be sure that the inputs, activities, interactions and outputs are fully defined so your quality system is effective.

Driso provide ISO 9001 2000 consultancy, auditing, software, and training Services. They also supply Easy ISO 9001 2000® software for initially setting up an ISO 9001 2000 compliant Quality Management System or improving upon an existing one. To contact Driso Consultancy Services visit the web site below and see what they can do for you and your business. Contact: http://www.driso.co.uk for more details.

a) Competition forces some individuals to produce a greater number of ideas than they would do otherwise. But crucially, competition forces other people to shut down. Exactly who raises their game and who shuts down depends on the game, the rules, the competencies, the level of evaluation anxiety and other factors. People choose which areas they want to compete in.

b) When forced to produce, through competition, people are more likely to be non-synergistically extrinsically motivated – that is they may produce to fulfil an ulterior motive but the activity leaves them feeling controlled and dependent and they do not tend to engage in the task to the degree necessary for rich insights.

c) Competition causes individuals to withhold information and thus reduces the degree of intellectual cross-pollination, networking and collaboration required to achieve the best ideas.

d) Most competition doesn’t allow the mind to incubate problems long enough for truly rich insights to emerge. Some of the richest insights have occurred when the individual is distant from the problem, rested and engaged in unrelated activities.

e) Competition increases evaluation apprehension, which causes a reduction of expression and lower risk taking and higher levels of conformity. This is not conducive to good idea generation.

f) Competition causes individuals to generate ideas according to the value system indicated at the start, reducing lateral thinking, decreasing the number of diverse and novel ideas and lowering the separation of creative from critical thinking.

g) Collaboration is much more valuable during the innovation stage (idea selection, development and commercialisation), where the competencies of many people are required to successfully commercialise.

These topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com. You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

**********************************

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on

Also, continually hiring open positions from outside the organization can be detrimental to morale when a qualified candidate is available internally. Topics covered in this competency are: perceived opportunity for advancement, existence of a career development plan, and organizational commitment to staff development.

This short story, Providing Career Opportunity, is part of AlphaMeasure’s compilation, Tales From the Corporate Frontlines. It illustrates how employers can offer career opportunity to their employees using a well-planned career development strategy, and reap the benefits of a knowledgeable and dedicated workforce.

Anonymous Submission

While searching through the employment ads in my local newspaper, I noticed that several companies made a point of adding the line—-”we promote from within”. Those are definitely the companies I would apply to – if I were on a job hunt.

But, the fact is, I am currently working for one of those companies. That’s not to say that we never hire from the outside; sometimes it’s unavoidable. If an employee leaves the company with a unique level of skill or training, it may have to look outside for a replacement. The point is that whenever possible, our company offers a career opportunity to a current employee.

This advancement doesn’t happen magically. Employees have to be on the lookout for career opportunity within the company, and prepare for it. Our company helps them by operating a structured career development program. Managers are entrusted with the duty to help employees evaluate their skills and performance on a regular basis and create a plan for the future based career goals.

Departments also form career development teams. They meet regularly and help employees to define their goals, provide feedback about applicable training programs, assign duties to employees to help them gain new skills, formulate job descriptions and generally make sure that employee career development programs are on the right track.

As for my own career development, I’ve been promoted three times over the past five years. Once because of an opening left by a retiring coworker, and twice into new positions created due to expansion. A few months after I was hired, my manager sat down with me and began to work up a career development program. He was very helpful in evaluating my current skills and finding ways to learn new ones that would help me to advance. He evaluated me honestly and encouraged me to alleviate any shortcomings and examine problems before they grew into major issues.

I can’t imagine working for a company that doesn’t offer its employees substantial career opportunity. It takes more than just posting job openings, it’s a lengthy process that takes time, effort, organization and planning. Companies must be willing to invest the effort and money to cultivate their workforce. It’s a worthy effort, in my opinion. I’ll stay where I am – and those classified ads that I mentioned earlier? I’d be willing to bet that those positions are filled quickly – with no shortage of qualified applicants.

This is particularly interesting to me as one of my family tree offshoots was Friedrich Winslow Taylor, whose mom, Emily Winslow was an offshoot of the Winslow’s in the Philly area, which are my direct ancestors after they had moved from the Mass andMaineareas. Thus Freidrich Winslow Taylor had similar beliefs in organization which also I had nurtured into my upbringing and therefore find such items fascinating and apropos to running a nationwide service business like the Car Wash Guys http://www.carwashguys.com, which is my company.

Here are some thoughts of value to add to the comments and findings in these research projects of the UCLA Anderson School of Business. First item to be discussed is an article by Bhaqwan Chowdhry a Professor PhD (not to be automatically granted superior expert status as Einstein said-Pile higher and deeper comes to mind) although in this case the work is relevant and very good, so the PhD in this case has been noted as such social norms dictate. I thoroughly enjoyed Bhaqwan’s research on Organizational Capital (OC). This is quite good.

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/bhagw…dhry/orgcap.pdf

I think when teaching this concept to future executives, governmental leaders, non-profit leadership personal, coaches and military top brass that a few points of value might be added in summary, for instance: First and most basic is: “Bet on the Jockey not always the horse” might be looked at a little closer. Winners usually win and therefore bet on a winner. In a team atmosphere the best team can beat a team made up of superior single players with better skills. Bet on the team or jockey and not necessarily the horse or industry. Another comment might be “Chainsaw AL destroys OC”, cutting organizational capital that it took time to build destroys rather than builds and we should be looking at companies such as Microsoft and Bill Gate’s theory of organizational and intellectual capital in this realm. When other companies cut back he continued supporting and advancing his team on new projects. Another point is that of competition during periods of OC flux of the opponent, whether it be generals of a hostile country, downsizing of military due to economic situations of your potential adversary and with that theories of Von Clauswitz on first strike and reciprocal response to serve your political will. Look atChinaand other countries forcing their hands at times of our military down sizing?

So this comment is worthy of note to add to the cliffs notes of such a research report on OC; “The best time to try new products or marketing techniques is when your rival competitors are going through transitions such as lay offs, large department cost cutting, mergers or changing of the guard due to retirements. Their OC is at an all time low as it is readjusting and cannot adapt to chase you into the newly opened market sector”. OC is also exponential in many cases depending on it’s usage. Try this concept to be added to the debate on OC. “The longer a groups works together, the greater the chances of increased OC provided primate politics and innate human characteristics to not impede the flow of information and rapid transfer of communication”. All these items and the OC of any company is critical when discussing flow of information for good decision making in a non-linear fashion. Here are some thoughts on flow, which will increase your ability to convey these concepts and this message to future leaders. I have always determined that the OC as is called in this report, which is appropriately named was far more important than the Physical Capital. For instance our company runs our entire business and operates in many states from this unit.

http://www.carwashguys.com/blitz.html

And with that said our physical capital besides the service vehicles is nearly unworthy of mention from a Balance Sheet perspective. But the rapid ability to adjust to new markets and take them is our strength as the game becomes faster and theories such as the Fast eat the Slow abound, I to am a firm believer and perfect case study for this most recent evolution in management theory and OC enlightenment. This research paper is correct in that regard for the building of teams. And I submit of further value for the new leadership, which will be taking over CA from Gray Davis. CA is a large state and needs a team akin to that of the White House team with top notched brilliant visionaries and people with incredible strength of character and passion. I would also submit that part of our problem in this country is it takes a while to get adjusted as a team to work smoothly, this president was lucky in that he was able to bring on many experts who had worked before under his fathers administration and had become ego-less in their many years of taking hard knocks of politics and media attacks in stride.

But as we are witnessing currently the country is dividing and the current population is divided about 55% – 45%. And the nine opposing candidates are blasting the team and the team is forced to defend itself instead of focusing maximum efforts on the future and strategic positioning of this great nation for the rapidly increasing rate at which we must deploy our efforts to stay at the top of the game. We can tell by the poles of the people and approval ratings that the country is divided on the means, but still believes in the ends. Keeping a team together means the time needs to allowed for the leadership to work together for the betterment of the American people, the more chaos is involved and the every four years attempts to change the guard is at issue, just as it would be in any company. As we watch the divisiveness of the Maryland Senator Sarbaines attack the Forbes gal appointed for the economic team in the white house you have to wonder what would happen if every company executive of GE, first had to have all the applicants reviewed and voted on by the competing companies before they could serve as a officer, middle manager, board member or janitor? See the problem, the opposition is trying to destroy appointments to the team and therefore threaten them and influence their future decisions on capital hill.

How can they then be able to do their best and use those skills to help us, the people, in the case of a Sports team the fans, in the case of the Military the people you are liberating, in the case of a company the customer, which is the reason that they are allowed to make money. How many levels of disruption should be allowed to build a strong team. In the government they are attacked as appointees,Supreme Ct, Secretaries, department heads and advisors to the leadership. Then they are attacked by frivolous lawsuits, then by the media, then again by the wannabe incoming politicians throwing stones who live the terrariums of glass, who are not even a half a step away of Hurricane Isabel? All this hurts a team. And since we are all on the same team, in that we are all Americans, why do we allow the flow of information, the recruiting of the best of the best and the guidance of the most qualified and passionate of those who serve to be attacked?

This does not pave the way for future communication on the team, which is suppose to serve free men. The people, damn it, you and I. At one point Sarbaines laid into the Mrs. Forbes for going to a benefit, $5,000 hot dog gig where the President would be along with all the leadership. She would soon be appointed to help on the economic committee, which we need the best and brightest. By attending such an event she could get a good feel of who she will be working with a noble cause indeed, what is wrong with that? Nothing and this liberal school we call UCLA even has a study on why this is the best. So we have an opposition party attacking a future team member who will be serving us, while they attack the Corporate world and cause 7 trillion to exit the market and slow the flow of returns of capital into markets which would allow me to grow our company and provide jobs? Meanwhile calling all businessmen evil, complain there are no jobs? What is going on here, there is an incredible lack of communication, ego games, politics as usual and you and I have to listen to these idiots grandstand while we are wondering how on Earth we are going to make our payments while we are laid off and why our insurance was cancelled and credit cancelled due to traffic tickets because the strapped state budgets are increasing fines and the number of tickets quota to be written per period to help out the budgets?

Excuse me but no one is communicating. The Liberals or the Conservatives, meanwhile we attack the team members destroy teams of doers for photo-ops and pay backs in politics. Obviously mother nature is pissed too after you saw what happened with Isabel in theWashingtonarea. What is the difference between a company run by leaders and leaders who run a country, from an MBA standpoint, like a company? Or a team, or a military or a Bee Hive for that matter?

It is interesting to watch such research papers in modern management theory try to mathematically quantify it on paper. This is because of the publish or perish rules and modern academia standards of quantification of all theories even though the mathematics used to describe such theory will not work on a case by case basis, since there are too many factors and simple or even complex equations cannot adequately describe many simultaneous relationships of simplicity drawn out into complexity by the order of ever increasing magnitudes of Government Intervention, regulations, types of individuals, market regions, East-West, Mid East, etc civilization differences in hierarchy and culture. In that regard these simple observations cannot be rendered absolute and therefore much of the mathematics involved in these things are best guess at best, which is certainly not better than natural observations of the uninhibited and open mind in an out of the box viewpoint of the interactive dynamics of egos, pecking order, Machiavellian competitiveness and/or relationship building personalities.

You do not have to be on a team very long to under stand you need to stroke the egos of those who hog the ball. I believe that their is an exponential grouping not mentioned in that companies which divide and continue such a nurturing of new managers which operate in that realm, produce offshoots of other market sectors with the mentors of the previous whole for the individual divisions. Such as GE, 3M, Battelle, Fed EX, etc. I see this happening with our team (the company I run).

I believe that such an observation also servers well in coaching, military leadership, Presidential Administration and R and D non-profit efforts. As you probably have also looked at the benefits of such OC management theory for things like NASA, UN, NATO, etc. I grant Continued success to those PhD research people at the UCLA Anderson School of business and surely applaud those who walk the walk and are able to practice such theories in the real world and not only on the Meade Paper water mark, this research is definitely onto something big and it is correct and a good paper.

Each month I receive the Books of the month audio book summaries on tape of the best business books, each month one or more are about Organizational Psychology, Leadership, Management and you know what all the books are looking the same. I can tell you the old professor who comes every night and eats on the waterfront in George Town drunk off his ass may as well be running things if we cannot get our act together and get on the same page, because this infighting Beltway buzz BS is hurting America. It is not solving the problems we face, the team must be strong, every one who is elected or appointed to such capacities must be on the team. In it to win it. Darn it. Any comments of my observations are welcome in my efforts to beat the best efforts of the past period leaders in all sectors. Too many people are not studying the whole game out there.

Now then I would Also like to comment on another research project which is quite good. So with regards to Bart Bronnonberg’s research on multi-branding of retail consumer goods. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Bart’s on the Multi-brand issues and having purchased Salsa at Wal-Mart last night and last week at an Albertson’s, these thoughts went through my mind. And as I build my business across the country, I see things and think of such issues often. I enjoyed Bart’s Bronnonberg’s paper:

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/bart…./sustain_v1.pdf

Having traveled to every city in theUSover 10,000 population, I find it interesting that this paper comes to my similar conclusions, about these same topics and even goes further into quantifying mathematically the truths that we observe and the reasons behind the decisions. I therefore applaud Bart’s efforts as this is important information to any Entrepreneur. Also I have to wonder what Bart’s thoughts about the article in CFO Magazine about these manufactures amortizing the shelf space costs over 40 years as brand capital? If the product fails they keep the cost against the Brand Capital for the forty years even if the particular product is a dud, or that sub-brand did not take hold in the minds of consumers and the product was therefore cancelled. Estimated in one study I have read 60% of new products are duds and even the ones, which survive a small test market often when rolled out are mistakes. By separating out the shelf space costs to get at eye level of the consumer, and calling the product successful when it sells, maybe a way such a company can bring out more products faster and still retain operational profits to keep up stock valuations thus giving them the edge to go into new markets or cause greater market share in Duopolies where the other competitor does not use such creative accounting. Whereas there maybe good enough reason initially for such off P and L accounting techniques, once it starts when would it ever stop?

So then, I would like to know other people’s and Bart’s thoughts on this as well. And what are your thoughts with newer Web Based operations, which are run by large retailers for home delivery, the basic WebVan concept, but done by the grocery chains themselves? I was recently inJacksonville,FLand Piggly Wigglies and Publix are both considering if they should ditch these efforts or continue while it takes hold. Safeway and Albertson’s as well as Bashams in AZ are also going after these niches. If these retailers continued the symbiotic relationships with Manufactures of let’s say salsa, then the web listing space placement would be of significant value thus offsetting costs to consumers for delivery and thus the consumer wins from this symbiotic relationship. However, the accounting for such is at issue also as well as your thoughts and numbers and equations are called into question since the bidding for space would be more instantaneous and product testing faster. Has anyone considered these things yet?

Lance Winslow is a retired entrepreneur; http://CarWashGuys.com and works with the World Think Tank; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs