Category Archives: Social change

Vote Local On Tuesday – Build The Pipeline

So, this is an “off year” election right? Isn’t that what most people call it because our national offices are not on the ballot? Maybe we should call it a “local year” or a “talent pool” year instead because there are a lot of important things on our ballots. You can and should vote for your school board representatives, and at least in Minnesota, your school district referendums – is there anything more important in your local community than the schools? What about the city council? Sometimes people joke that that job is all about stop signs and speed bumps but not in the suburbs where I live – they make important decisions about my taxes that impact transit/traffic, development, and public safety. Any interest in those things?

Even if you say you don’t care about some of these local issues or if you’re too busy to get involved or learn about the issues and the candidates, there’s another reason to vote local. In the corporate world, leadership and human resources talk a lot about the talent pipeline. Who’s the next person that’s ready for a leadership role? If you look at the demographics, the baby boomers are retiring – god bless them – they worked hard, they have experience, but it’s time for them to open the next chapter of their lives. So, you ask yourself two questions – who’s going to take their place and are they ready? In my experience in the corporate world, this is where an impact is being made on diversity. You can count how many women and people of color are in the C-Suite, and we should be doing that. But, another very important measure is about the pipeline. Do we have a diverse candidate pool for key jobs? Are we bringing diverse candidates into the company now and spending time and energy developing them so they are ready to lead?

So, how do you define diversity? There are lots of ways to do it by things like gender and ethnicity but what about experience and thoughtfulness? There’s something to be said for the need for experience both in life and in solving important problems and in managing people – that sets you up to be better at it than people with no experience right? So, why don’t we think about our local elections as the way we build a talent pool for our elected officials? What if we look at our presidential candidates? Are we happy with that talent pool? I’m not. There are people who have served in an elected or appointed capacity but there is no way that they deserve to be president of this great country. There are also people who have never been elected to anything or served anyone and there is no way that they deserve to be president either but they actually start to look pretty good when compared to the other group.

So, let’s vote local this week and build the pipeline for the future. Maybe our kids will actually have national elections where they have to choose between great candidates who are thoughtful, diverse, and experienced? Maybe our kids and their friends will be those leaders? Wouldn’t that be something?

Don’t judge a book by its meat dress

I find it very hard to watch the Oscars or any awards show any more. I’m in my 40’s and I’m getting crabbier every year. It’s not like I’m not happy for people that win and achieve their dreams. I think the Oscars are one of the few awards that still matter. There are so many music awards any more that it’s hard to keep track of them. I also find it very odd that there is “an academy” that votes for these awards and there are always really good performances and great movies left off the list and strange one’s that win and that makes me mad. It’s one of the reasons why I prefer sports with scoreboards like basketball or soccer or clocks like swimming and track & field to those with a panel of judges like gymnastics and figure skating. Never trust a panel or an academy to get it right.

This year, there were also a lot of very strong messages delivered by winners about women’s pay equity, and self worth, and terrible diseases that need cures. If you win, you get to have the microphone for like 45 seconds so by all means, make an impression. Not everyone can make a memorable impression by what they wear on the red carpet, so they better make people remember their performance and what they say. One performance in particular was shocking to most of us – Lady Gaga singing a “Sound of Music” medley. It made me think of one of my favorite lines from the movie Pretty Woman after Richard Gere walks in on Julia Roberts in the bathroom and thinks he catches her taking drugs but in actuality she was just flossing her teeth. Here was the dialog that ensued:

Edward Lewis: It’s just that, uh, very few people surprise me.
Vivian: Yeah, well, you’re lucky. Most of ’em shock the hell outta me.

I don’t think that many people recognized Lady Gaga or thought she could sing like that (or dress like that) so that shocked us all. If you missed it, here’s a link to her performance. I myself have never been a huge Gaga fan with her weird costumes and behavior but she has an incredible voice. I think that was a great message for a spectacle like the Oscars and from now on, I will appreciate Lady Gaga a bit more and I will try not to judge her just for her hair, or tattoos or her dress made out of meat.

What if we were nicer?

Two stories of bad behavior caught my eye this week. I get that it’s “business” not “charity” but there are examples every day of businesses with a heart – Costco, Lowes and Starbucks offer benefits to part time employees for example but President Obama singled out office supply retailer, Staples, for trying to prevent its employees from getting health insurance. I’m not saying that I always agree with the President or with his health care policies but you can read the story here: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Obama_slams_Staples_big_companies_on_healthcare_Shame_on_them.html

Here’s a quick summary of the situation:

  • The Affordable Care Act requires companies with more than 50 employees to pay for health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or more. Reuters has reported that some businesses are keeping staffing numbers below 50 or cutting the work week to less than 30 hours to avoid providing employee health insurance.
  • Staples, the No. 1 U.S. office supplies retailer, who just announced a merger with Office Depot worth $6 billion, has told its employees not to work more than 25 hours per week, according to a Buzzfeed report on Monday. Oh, by the way, Staples CEO Ronald Sargent brought home $10.8 million in total compensation in 2013. The company reported net profit of $620.1 million through Feb. 1, 2014.
  • President Obama said, “There is no reason for an employer who is not currently providing health care to their workers to discourage them from either getting health insurance on the job or being able to avail themselves of the Affordable Care Act.”
  • Staples responded with a snarky statement indicating that the president did not have all the facts (not sure I agree with them either).

It sort of all starts with leaders right? Leaders have to care and insist that their companies adopt policies that are people first. What if we use pay as a measure of fairness. Seattle-based REI has more than 12,000 employees and it’s CEO makes $750,000. That’s a pretty flat pay scale that most employees would look at and say, “well the CEO has more responsibility than me so he/she is entitled to make a little more.”

To quote some famous pop song, “it’s not all about the money, money, money…” right? What about how you treat people – are you nice to the people around you? Do a search for “who are the nicest business leaders?” The results include, the greatest, the best, the most innovative, but not a single result for “nicest.” I found a person who wouldn’t make the list this week.

Amy Pascal, former co-chairman of Sony Pictures who was involved in the now infamous cyber-attack on the studio and subsequently lost her job, commented publicly for the first time this week. Here’s the full interview with the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31434419

I don’t want to work for her. She doesn’t sound like a nice person or the kind of business leaders that we need in this world. She said things like:

  • “If we all actually were nice, it wouldn’t work.”
  • “Here’s the problem: I run a business,” she continued. “People want to work for less money, I pay them less money.”
  • And she closed out her master class on leadership (and niceness) saying that she “learned a lot from the hack about how to relate to people.” And said “You should always say exactly what you think directly to people all the time,” she said. “In the moment, the first time.”

So, do businesses have to make more net profit than $620 million to pay for their employees healthcare? Would it all work if we were actually nice?

That’s not farming

I know a lot about farming and I know what a farmer is, I was one for the better part of 20 years. When my kids make comments about how much fun they had at their soccer tournaments and sleepovers and ski trips, I jokingly say, “when I was a kid, I was working on the farm.” Yeah, I’m that guy.

I’ve written a lot about farming and every time someone makes a comment about organic this or GMO that or Free Trade or subsidies for “rich farmers,” I have an opinion. I actually hear the voice of my dad yelling in my ear and he’s using bad words. I saw a review of Super Bowl commercials this year and there were several comments that none of them were as good as last year’s “farmer” spot by Dodge with the brilliant voice of Paul Harvey – check it out here if you haven’t seen it in a while.

Well, my dad, Paul Harvey and I saw this story today and couldn’t resist commenting…

Apparently the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is intervening because a Fargo, ND-based “agriculture firm” is trying to buy 27,000 acres of forest land in north-central Minnesota to convert it to farm land. This particular agriculture firm is called R.D. Offutt and in addition to being the world’s largest potato producer at more than 65,000 acres and the owner of the world’s largest collection of John Deere dealerships (more than 82), they own tens of thousands of acres of land in other states and many other agriculture-related companies as well.

What do they want to do with this new land you might ask? Irrigate it, fertilize it like crazy and plant potatoes that can be turned into frozen french fries for the fast food industry. That doesn’t sound like a good trade to me. The world does have a food crisis but more frozen french fries (and less photosynthesis from trees) is not going to solve it. Now, when I say I was a farmer, I mean the kind that Paul Harvey describes – my family feeds animals by hand, my dad stayed up all night with sows when they were having piglets, we carried calves into our basement and bottle-fed them. I drove tractors and combines and spent hundreds of hours in our fields. That’s what a farmer is. An agriculture firm is not a farmer.

That’s what’s wrong with farming today – there are fewer and fewer farmers. Through its spokesperson, another thing that a farmer does not have, R.D. Offutt said that it was “committed to preserving ground and surface water quality.” I’m not sure that I believe them. My dad never cut down one tree in my whole life time so he could farm more land, in fact, we planted trees and cover crop and my nephew is planting more trees around the home that I grew up in. That’s what a farmer would do.

State of the union?

Did you watch the state of the union speech by President Obama last night? I didn’t but not because I was watching something else, I just chose to spend the hour with my family instead. I did some research and read about it today from a couple of news sources and even though I am a little reluctant to feature politics in my blog but I have some thoughts.

white_houseFirst, I received a very interesting e-mail from the White House yesterday – take a look at a screen shot of the e-mail here. I have to admit that I have written to the President before. I’m one of “those people” who takes democracy pretty seriously and I’ve been inspired to contact government officials at every level to share my perspective. Have I heard back? Not always, but the closer the branch of government is, the more likely they are to get in touch with you. I think it makes a difference. So, when I saw that a “3M” – not the company, but a “Minnesota Middle-class Mom” was going to be in the First Lady’s box last night, I thought it was great. The President read her letter and came to Minneapolis to buy her lunch and invited her to Washington D.C. so he could use her story. It’s all good theater right? I just wish he’d done a better job staying engaged with “us” all along. He and his campaign team did a great job of getting people energized and involved during his first campaign but to tell you the truth, this is the first e-mail I’ve ever received from him. I think he’s missed a huge opportunity.

I also wanted to share Matt Bai’s article from Yahoo. You can read his entire piece from today here: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-declares-victory–way-too-late-043549344.html. There is one quote from Matt that deserves to be repeated in my mind.

“He’s gone on talking mostly about economic suffering and inequality, at a time when the broad base of the country might well have responded to a more hopeful message — especially from the guy who used “hope” as his campaign slogan…He missed the chance to say, “Guess what? Things are actually getting a lot better now. You’re welcome. But we still face a serious crisis for your kids not too far down the line, and that’s what I want to focus on next.”

So, whatever you think about this President, I think his time in office will be judged by huge swings of emotion – excitement of his election and what it meant to the country to the economic and foreign policy crises that had his approval rating at all time lows. It’s a tough job however you look at it but I think he could have been more connected to us – I think it would have made a difference for how I feel about the state of the union.

Here’s to comebacks

Have you been watching football lately? There have been some great comeback wins. We like comeback stories and I wanted to highlight a couple of recent football examples.

First, I’d like to highlight the North Dakota State University Bison from Fargo, North Dakota. On January 10, the Bison capped a great game with a last second comeback touchdown for the national championship. That would make a great story all on its own right? That’s not the whole story though, this was their fourth national championship in a row. Actually, the senior class on this team had a record of 58-3, amassing more national championships than losses during their playing careers. A feat never equaled at NCAA Division 1 football. After the game, first year head coach, Chris Klieman, said “With our guys, I never saw any doubt in their mind.” That’s amazing right – no doubt in their mind.

The other comeback was from yesterday in the NFC Championship. I have a Seahawks fan in my house who stopped watching the game in the second quarter and being a lifelong Minnesotan, I wasn’t pleased with the Packers’ dominance at the beginning of the game either. For 56 minutes, it looked like Seattle’s season was going to be over. But, after a late touchdown, onside kick recovery, another touchdown and two point conversion, Seattle was ahead for the first time in the game. The Packers came back to tie and send the game into overtime but Seattle scored on its first possession when Russell Wilson hit Jermaine Kearse for an amazing touchdown – his only catch of the day. Doug Baldwin, another Seattle wide receiver, summed it up this way, “As a true competitor, you can’t have any doubt…we believed that we were going to find a way to pull it out. And obviously we did that.”

I find it amazing that neither team had any doubt. I had doubts watching these games and I have doubts about my own abilities all the time, it’s human nature right? What enables people to overcome doubt? I suppose for a team you need to have trust in each other, solid coaching, and a great game plan. What about for you, how do you overcome doubt? A positive attitude, a support system that encourages you, what else? Here’s to never having any doubt – that’s one story coming out of football that I like.

Thankful For Cancellations

So, I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. We celebrated a couple days before my “real” birthday as the kids call it, because this was supposed to be my schedule on the evening of my birthday:

  • Leave work early to see my son’s basketball game
  • My wife and I go in different directions, she brings my son home, I collect my daughter from play practice
  • I grab dinner for my daughter and have her change into her soccer gear in the bathroom or na phone booth like a super hero
  • Bring my daughter to soccer practice
  • My wife and I cross paths on the road as I finally head home by around 7:00 PM, she is on her way to collect my daughter from soccer and bring my son to soccer
  • I sit at home by myself while my daughter and wife wait for my son’s soccer to be done
  • My family arrives home by about 8:45 and my kids shower and go to bed by 9

Interestingly enough, we had a fairly significant weather event (a.k.a. blizzard) on my birthday that resulted in all of our kids’ evening activities being canceled. All of them! It was the best birthday present ever. We ate dinner together and watched some television and laughed and I wouldn’t have traded it for any present! So, on Thanksgiving, I can say that I’m thankful for cancellations every once in a while!

calendarNow don’t get me wrong, I want my kids to be active and involved but to what end? I realize that we are doing this to ourselves. I know that my mom and dad didn’t get up and look at their iPhones and see the message “you have 11 events scheduled.” When I was growing up, there were no multiple activities in one night. We did one thing at a time for the most part. I had some busy times but when I played football, that’s all I did, which was the same with basketball and track & field. How bad is it? My wife is a teacher and she’s had 5th graders suffer from nervous breakdowns caused by stress because of being over-scheduled with sports, music, tutoring, etc. Now, you could argue like “Tiger Mom,” that music and tutoring in math and foreign languages should be the focus. At least you could get some lifetime benefits out of those. What about having fun and playing sports? Do we all think that our kids are going to get full ride scholarships and go pro? Very unlikely, but that’s how we train. Here are a few sports examples from my experience:

  • I know a little girl who is 11 who played more than 140 hockey games this year in multiple year-round leagues. Do you know how many games the professionals of the NHL play? 82 from October to April.
  • My favorite sport to play as a kid was basketball. Do you know the schedule of youth travel basketball leagues? They practice at least two days a week and play league games and have 10 weekend tournaments from November through March. Then they go to camps and play 3 on 3 in the spring and summer and start up again in the fall.
  • Soccer is no better, spring and summer leagues with out of town weekend tournaments for 11-year-olds playing up an age level, and for 13 year olds, flying to tournaments in places like Florida and Nevada. I know another 10-year-old girl who plays soccer 7-days a week right now and in case you hadn’t noticed – it’s winter in Minnesota!

At least Sunday’s and Wednesday’s used to be off limits for church and family time and major holidays like Memorial Day and Christmas used to be sacred too but now they schedule stuff every available day and have holiday tournaments as well! I could go on but I better stop now, I can feel my blood pressure rising.

Among other things, I’m also thankful that I don’t have many days with 11 events but we want our kids to be active and well rounded. How do you manage your kids’ involvement in athletics and activities? What’s your record for most events in one day? What does balance mean?

The Future Of Farming Is Here

It’s November and another harvest has finished at my family’s farm in Minnesota. It was a very wet spring and summer followed by a very smooth harvest of wheat, soybeans, sugar beets and corn. Since the last three all need to be harvested around the same time, I don’t think my brother and nephews sleep in September, October or early November. I love harvest – except for the fact that I’m allergic to everything. I did get to visit this fall and my kids and I got to ride in the combine with my nephew as he harvested soybeans. The changes in the last 75 years have to rival that of the industrial revolution. My dad would have been in his early 80’s and when he was young, they cut wheat by hand and thrashed it in bundles. In fact, farming has experienced a generation of change in just the last 20 years since I moved away. I used to drive the combine, which was sayincombine_ipads_cropg something because I’m not real mechanical compared to my brother and nephews. Now, the combine drives itself – quite literally – while using GPS locked onto a Russian navigation satellite that transmits to a receiver mounted on the roof. If that wasn’t enough to blow your mind, all imaginable metrics from the field, the fertilizer used, and the current yield, are monitored by software that is displayed on three iPads mounted in the cockpit. All of this technology has driven yield gains and efficiency, which my dad would have never believed. Global demand for corn and soybeans is rising and my family is doing everything it can to meet that demand – now if they would only get paid a fair price – that’s a whole blog for another time.

As amazing as all of this is, it’s only one example of the innovations happening in the world of farming. In full disclosure, the company I work for is involved in both of these examples but I’m not advocating for any particular technology or approach, just pointing out some amazing possibilities:

  • First, there is an abandoned brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota that some entrepreneurs fish_crophave transformed into a closed loop aquaponics system. What is that you may ask? Basically raising fish in tanks with a twist where the waste from the fish is actually used to fertilize plants, which are in turn grown hydroponically (in water). The whole system relies on some sophisticated filtration but uses very little energy and wastes very little water but on a small scale can produce protein, Tilapia fish, plants_cropand fresh organic vegetables 24/7/365 in a place like Minnesota where it’s 13 degrees and dark more than it’s light this time of year. You can learn more on the Star Tribune, where they developed a nice graphic.
  • Second, I learned about more large-scale fish farming that’s happening at projects like Open Blue, where they are farming Cobia, a premium white fish. It raises the fish from eggs to provide complete traceability from the farm to the marketplace. Another unique part of this project is the use of open ocean technology to culture fish in offshore enclosures, several miles off the coast of Panama in the deep sea. Now let’s talk about scale, the small farm in the brewery hopes to produce 5,000 fish a year, the folks at Open Blue are expecting to produce 1,600 tons of fish this year. Learn more here, especially of note is the great video done by CNN’s “The Next List.”

So, the next time you eat, think about where your food is coming from and then think about the fact that the world has approximately 2 billion people in the middle class today but will have more than 4 billion by 2030 – driving a huge need for increased food production and efficient use of resources. As a farm kid at heart, there’s no one I’d rather have at the center of these huge challenges than family farmers.

Does Passion Belong In Your Work?

I’ve heard advice both ways – try to get paid for following your passion and keep your true passion separate from your work so you don’t ruin it. I can actually see the wisdom and usefulness in both perspectives. On one hand, the cynical side of me says that there aren’t many people in today’s world who get paid for pursuing their passion – maybe artists, musicians, philanthropists, professional athletes and some entrepreneurs. What about Rachel Zoe? First question is – do you know who she is? I’ve heard of her but had never read anything that she wrote until I saw her blog post on LinkedIn today. Here’s something that she said that sounded more like an inspirational speaker than a global fashion icon:

Define your passion and remember why it has ignited and inspired you to be where you are today. I believe that you can and should live your dreams – and that rule should apply even in your professional life. If you love what you do, the success will come. If you let your passions and strengths guide you, failure won’t be an option.

I have a new respect for Rachel Zoe but I don’t really think there are many actuaries out there who say that their passion is analyzing the financial costs of risk and uncertainty but maybe there are. I read a book once about a guy who got laid off from his corporate job and ended up becoming a carpenter right before the last building boom. Hammers and nails weren’t his passion at all but doing that work 9-5 instead of working nights and weekends at his other job left him with much more time to explore his hobbies – like writing – and spend with his family. That doesn’t sound all that bad either.

I was in a meeting one time when we were debating the company mission statement and trying to find words that conveyed our purpose. The word “passion” was actually suggested because we were trying to illustrate how important our work was to the world and how engaged our employees were. It was probably the wrong word but I’ll never forget the response from one leader in the room who said “this is corporate America, we don’t have passion here.” What do you think? Do we? I was reading Fast Company magazine recently and came across this article about employee engagement. There was an interesting quote:

…employee engagement has become the new currency in today’s economy.Some leaders are ahead of the curve. Inspirations like Tony Hsieh from Zappos and Chip Conley from Joie de Vivre Hotels put an extreme focus on organizational culture and a premium on employee happiness. In return, people in these organizations deliver extraordinary value and produce fanatical customer loyalty. There’s a problem though: The majority of us are disengaged–70% in fact. That’s a  half-a-trillion-dollar problem in the U.S. alone.

Does passion for your work lead to engagement? I’m pretty sure it does. When I worked in public education, we didn’t have mission posters anywhere but pretty much everyone was working in education because of their passion for kids and learning. Why else would you do it? The stock options? The cafeteria food? Nope, it’s pretty much because you believe in it. What about you, do you live to work or work to live?

 

How much is 115%

I was reading a job posting the other day. It was a posting for a consulting lead at a large firm that sponsors a really popular soccer team. One line in particular caught my eye, “willingness to work 115% of time to meet client needs.” What does that mean exactly? Am I required to find more hours in the day? The last time I checked, 24 hours was pretty much the maximum available right? What kind of company writes that into their job descriptions and what kind of candidate is attracted to that job? Do any of you out there work 115%?

It’s not like I’m allergic to work or anything. I grew up on a farm so I know what real work is. I used to do some chores before school and after school and then sometimes work in the fields for 12 or 15 hours a day. My dad used to work in the fields all day and then sit up all night when our hogs were having piglets. I know for a fact that my family who still works on the farm actually do work 24 hours straight. But my family is growing food to feed the world and they are often working against the weather – you only have so much time to plant and harvest after all. But why would you want to do that in consulting? What corporate client needs that kind of attention? I mean come on. I used to have a job that encouraged working nights and weekends. In fact, some managers would check online to see which people’s messenger status were green/available. It’s like when George Costanza left his car in the parking lot when he worked for the Yankees so that his boss would think he was working late. Of course that plan failed when he left it there too long; birds camped out on it and it got covered with garbage.

Here’s my closing thought. In a recent article in US News & World Report here: http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/articles/lebron-james-decision_14170.aspx#.VCQ16pQRCno, research highlighted how Lebron James’ decision to rejoin the Cleveland Cavaliers is reflective of his generation. Here’s an excerpt from that piece:

As a Millennial (those born between about 1976 and 2001), the 29-year-old James’s decision to return to Northeast Ohio reflects what studies have reported about his generation and the workplace. It’s a good idea for employers to pay attention. According to a study from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Millennials already make up 36% of the workforce and will represent 47% by 2020. As the best player in the NBA, James could have gone to many teams and commanded top dollar. He also could have been in bigger media markets – such as Los Angeles or back in Miami – rather than the relatively obscurity of Cleveland. Yet throughout his announcement James emphasized personal preference over professional glory. “My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now,” wrote James, an Akron native, in an essay for Sports Illustrated. He noted that he wants to raise his children in Ohio. “The more time passed, the more it felt right. This is what makes me happy.” That sentiment – focusing on personal happiness first and integrating a career into it – comes up in study after study of Millennials.

I know he’s just a basketball player who makes millions of dollars to play a game but I have a lot of respect for what Lebron James had to say and might actually agree with Millennials in that survey. This weekend, I think I’m going to focus 115% of my time on happiness.