A View from Blue Grotto

The party principle

2010-11-02T13:12:00.004-05:00

As I prepare to give my workshop on celebrating nonprofit milestones, I am reminded of all the discussions from our Beyond the Birthday Cake participants. I’ve worked with folks representing a nonprofit staff of one, volunteer coordinators, executive directors, and members of boards of directors. Many have gone on to be Blue Grotto clients, deploying thoughtful and clever tactics to celebrate, reinvigorate and, of course, raise money.

I reviewed proposals and PowerPoint presentations I’ve given over the last few years, and came up with a few salient bullet points for nonprofit staff and boards of directors to consider. Am delighted to share them as a blog post.

What anniversaries are not…
Anniversaries are not simply a celebration of your organization’s past. The groundwork for your vision of the future is laid with an anniversary program, ensuring that the leaders of tomorrow are guided and inspired by yesterday’s dreams, ethics, and best practices. I use the term ‘leaders’ broadly in this statement – consider not only the leaders of your nonprofit, but also the individuals whose decision-making can impact your organization: members of the business, government and legislative, media, and philanthropic communities.

Anniversaries are not simply about throwing yourselves a party. A bash is a one-time event. A one-time event that costs money, and time, with a lingering message that only says: “That was a great party.” Unless you plan to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars at your party, your nonprofit should be considering additional tactics - some that require little investment, but can offer amazing impact.

Anniversaries are organic…
Milestone activities should be reflective of your organization’s overall strategic direction and vision. Don’t get sucked into seductive tactics (like a party) that redirect your energies, often with diminishing returns.

Anniversaries are a non-manufactured opportunity to connect with key stakeholders. Consider audiences you would like to grow, or reconnect with, or audiences you would like an introduction to. What tactics will allow you to communicate with them?

You didn’t get to be 100, a half-century, a quarter century, or even five years old with out the hard work, determination, and development of your staff, directors, volunteers, funders, even your vendors. Celebrate in meaningful ways, reminding stakeholders of your stewardship of their resources, and highlighting the role they play in your history of success.

I am presenting the Beyond the Birthday Cake workshop for Hands On Twin Cities next week (November 10). Email me for more information, or with questions or suggestions on creative ways nonprofits are leveraging their milestones. I will blog again with suggestions that bubble up from participants next week. And remember, Tom Peters once reflected “Celebrate what you want to see more of.”

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

What are your nonprofit's values worth?

2010-09-08T06:54:00.001-05:00

As nonprofits become more knowledgeable in the areas of planned giving, they are all trying to better understand the process donors go through in deciding how they want to allocate their estates.

According to David Bromelkamp, President and CEO of Allodium Investment Consultants, his team takes their clients through a detailed planning process as they prepare them for the future. Many of Allodium’s clients are philanthropic, and take their giving decisions seriously. Bromelkamp says that nonprofits need to be more strategic and planful as they approach donors, working to connect people to the organization’s core values and to engage them in its mission.

I have heard Bromelkamp speak on several occasions about a variety of topics regarding investment and best practices for nonprofits. Each time, what impresses me most is not just his strong financial advice, but his ability to speak the language of nonprofits. With his background as a CPA and financial advisor, I find his proficiency in the nonprofit world a rare combination.
His own volunteer involvement includes serving on the Board of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

I interviewed David recently in the hopes of bringing some of that knowledge and perspective to Blue Grotto clients and my blog readers.

Each time I hear you speak about Allodium’s nonprofit clients, I am impressed with your proficiency and knowledge of the nonprofit field. How have you built that expertise?

Our financial advisors have extensive experience working with both individual and institutional investors.

Individuals are philanthropic, and they think about giving. Nonprofit institutions think about donors and receiving. If you can look at it from both sides of that same coin, you understand the connections between donor intent and a nonprofit’s mission.

When those align, that’s when a nonprofit gets gifts. In my twenty years of financial experience, I know that the really big decisions individuals make, they make based on their core values. Organizations, similarly, are driven by a mission and set of core values.

An individual investor who has taken care of their priorities - put their kids through college, taken care of their retirement - may then turn their attention to charitable giving. They get very values-oriented, and become increasingly thoughtful about how an organization fits their values before they make major gifts, whether through planned gifts or campaign contributions, like a capital campaign.

How can a nonprofit be more strategic about their development efforts?

Personally, I am very planful and strategic. So, things like planned giving make a lot of sense to me. Estate planning makes a lot of sense to me, retirement planning makes a lot of sense to me.

We have seen a trend in development - nonprofits are becoming more knowledgeable about the importance of planned giving and that donors want to do more than simply write a check. So the idea of estate planning, and planned gifts and trusts, is becoming far more important

It is all about planning. Investors make plans. They make estate plans, retirement plans, etc. They think ahead five or ten years and make plans. Organizations need to emphasize the strategic planning element of their development efforts, and how that dovetails with donor values.

Why do you think values are so important to the development-philanthropy relationship?

Donors make decisions based on their values. The larger the financial amount, relative to their financial situation, the greater likelihood it will be a values-based decision.

If you asked me for $100 for your organization, I might give you $100 because I’m trying to be nice to you. But, if I have to decide how to carve up a $10 Million estate between three organizations when I die, I’m going to think about what three organizations are the most important to me and my life, and what I want to leave as a legacy. Those are going to be values-based decisions, not seat-of-the-pants decisions. They will be very values driven.

People tend to go to their core values when they are forced to make hard decisions. In periods of stress or duress, you’re going to revert back to your core values. And there are different sets of values that drive people’s decisions.

You’ve talked about converting that $100 donor into a significant or a lifetime donor. What do you think nonprofits can do to help make that conversion in their donor base?

I think the most important thing is for organizations to develop a relationship with donors – relationships that enlighten the donors about how the organization’s mission dovetails with the donor’s core values. The better that the organization can get at that enlightenment of the donor, the larger the gift they can achieve. Or the larger share of the wealth from that donor.

It’s all about enlightening the donor about what the true mission of the organization is, and connecting it to the donor’s core values.

Nonprofits also have an opportunity to demonstrate their own strategic map to donors– for growth, or a narrowing of focus, for improvement or delivery of service, even fundraising strategies. Donors of large gifts want to know that you, too, are being strategic in your stewardship of their gift.

Sometimes it’s a chance to more deeply engage a donor in the organization. One organization I think does a good job is St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN. They often invite alumni to give counsel on a specific issue. For example, if they want to build a new library, they include donors in the discussion on their approach to launch such a major capital campaign.

Getting donors involved in that strategic planning process engages them more deeply with the organization, and reminds them how much they value the organization and its mission. Increasing their commitment to the organization philosophically will inevitably increase their commitment to the organization financially.

David Bromelkamp is President and CEO of Minneapolis-based Allodium Investment Consultants, an award-winning independent investment advisor. Contact him at 612.230.3702; dbromelkamp@aicria.com.

And email me with examples of how your organization is passing the values test.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

Values drive nonprofit donor investment - Part II

2010-08-24T08:47:00.003-05:00

Values-based resource development requires nonprofits to examine and articulate their values as reflected in their philosophies of service, strategic planning, and the stewardship that sustains them.

The 2010 Minnesota Council of Nonprofits directory lists more than 2,000 nonprofit members, so your donor base has thousands of options for spending time, money and resources. Today’s donors are a savvy group; they are approached frequently and in a variety of effective ways. Donors of the highest level carefully consider whether or not to align their giving strategy with your fund development strategy.

I interviewed David Bromelkamp, president of Allodium Investment Consultants here in Minneapolis, for his insight on how nonprofits can be more strategic in their relationship with donors.

Our interview appeared as a guest blog posting on The Ritter Group’s website. You can read the full interview at www.therittergroup.com (part 2 of the interview has now been posted).

Email me with examples of how your nonprofit is building relationships, especially in the 2010 financial landscape. What has changed? What has improved? And remember, Bill Gates once said, “Giving away money effectively is almost as hard as earning it in the first place.”

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Values drive investment in nonprofits

2010-08-16T12:21:00.003-05:00

A colleague, Nicole Harrison - partner in the Ritter Group, asked me to write as a guest columnist for the Ritter Group's webpage/blog.

Delighted to take her up on her offer, I submitted an interview I conducted with David Bromelkamp, president of Allodium Investment Consultants here in Minneapolis. I've attended several of his company's quarterly presentations on fiduciary responsibility and stewardship of nonprofit boards of directors and am so impressed by his fluency in the language of nonprofits.

Increasingly, nonprofits are using their core values to strengthen their funding relationships. At the same time, leaders in both corporate social responsibility and individual philanthropy are choosing organizations based on values of stewardship including management, decision-making, leadership, innovation and business philosophy.

As you know, Blue Grotto Inc., works closely with organizations to develop organic communications strategies that articulate their vision for the future.

Link here to the Ritter Group's site www.therittergroup.com where you can read the blog. Would love to hear your feedback, and commentary on the relationship-building process for nonprofits.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

From barista to venture capitalist, what's your company's giving strategy?

2010-04-20T21:18:00.004-05:00

I came across a slightly dated (May 2007), but interesting report from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Target Corp commissioned the report to find out more about innovations and best practices in corporations’ support for nonprofits.

The fairly short list of companies that were interviewed for the study included: Boeing, Cisco Systems, General Mills, IBM, Levi Strauss, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks, Target, Toyota, and Wachovia.

Companies I assume have strong corporate giving programs would be Target (think 5% back to your local school), Starbucks (one of the most prolific values-driven companies on the planet), and General Mills (one of Minnesota’s early members of the “5% Club” – contributing 5% of their pre-tax income through philanthropy).

I was eager to learn more about the giving strategies of companies like Cisco and Levi Strauss. And I couldn’t help but think about how the corporate social responsibility strategies of Toyota and Wachovia must have changed since the report’s 2007 date. Yikes.

The kickoff sentence of the overview is especially appropriate: “In the last two decades, corporate giving has gone through a transformation from an afterthought directed by a CEO’s preferences to professional staff with strategic objectives.” I think it’s safe to say that in the last two years, corporate giving has gone through a transformation. With the economic stall out, companies are forced to be more strategic than ever about their community dollars. And I don’t mean just how well community outreach boosts their image. According to the report, companies are more thoughtful, more purposeful, and are looking for results.

Two criteria that stand out for me: 1) companies are looking for greater employee development opportunities in their nonprofit partnerships – giving employees and their families a chance to engage with an employer on a different level, and 2) corporate giving programs have shown a direct positive impact on sales for consumer driven companies – customers are taking note.

The full report is a little wonky, but a relatively quick read, even at 42 pages (1 ½ inch margins all around). I found the callout statements the most interesting. I began to wonder how the companies’ philosophies might have changed, or tweaked ever so slightly, in the three years that have passed since their interviews.

Here’s a sample:

* Toyota takes on environmental issues – even some that have little to do with automobiles – in part because proprietary research for that firm identified the environment as an important issue for people when thinking about cars.
* Target provides consumers with a direct opportunity to choose where Target’s philanthropy goes, through its Take Charge of Education program.
* At Starbucks, a good charitable “fit” for a national Starbuck’s funding partners is an organization that baristas can explain to customers when preparing an order.
* At Cisco, staff members compete for the opportunity to be matched with a non-profit partner because projects were a chance to test knowledge and develop new skills.
* Levi Strauss employs a venture capital-like model - giving a large amount of its grant making dollars in one-time grants to launch new efforts.
* General Mills works with consulting firms it hires to offer no-cost capacity building and leadership sessions for nonprofits in General Mills’ headquarters community.

I did locate an online PDF copy of the report:
http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/research/Corporate%20giving-Target%20project%20July%202007.pdf

Email me with ideas on the next generation of corporate philanthropy innovations. Baristas are essentially venture capitalists, too.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

The more things change...

2009-11-11T17:37:00.003-06:00

So much change is happening today. In fact, it feels as though if something does NOT change, there is something afoot. I recently saw a billboard for the College of St. Catherine: “Do you have what it takes to lead change, not just manage it?” And I got to thinking about just that, managing change. It is one thing to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem here, and we need to fix it.’ And quite another to roll up your sleeves and help others see the problem and agree to be part of the solution.

When I Googled the term leading change, thousands of references to John Kotter’s work on the topic popped up. But, on page three of the search was a 2005 article in the Graziadio Business Report, published by Pepperdine University. Way back when, in 2005, PhD and research scientist Christopher Worley wrote a series of articles, one of them titled “Leading change management involves some simple, but too often forgotten rules.”

Worley and co-author Yvonne Vick outlined six of those forgotten rules:
1. Do no harm
2. All change involves personal choice
3. The relationship between change and performance is not instantaneous
4. Connect change to business strategy
5. Involvement breeds commitment
6. Any good change effort results in increased capacity to face change in the future

I would venture to guess that these six statements may be rules of sound business strategy in general, not just in an organizational change situation. And I think that all six are essential to managing change, not simply mandating it – that manage versus lead question.

All too often executive leadership hands down directives of change to those in the middle tiers of management, but without the tools to help their peers and their own direct reports to understand the change, adapt to the change, and to perform in this new environment.

Within the outlined rules, I found some simple wisdom.

Not everyone will be excited about change (sorry to sound so obvious). Even the people who know, deep down, that there has got to be a better way. Many companies help navigate change by offering mentoring and coaching strategies to the team leaders who will be responsible for implementing new processes.

Give the gift of time. Knowing that there is no silver bullet, but that systemic changes will take time and effort on everyone’s part can help alleviate anxiety about immediate performance.

And lastly, and always my favorite, give people the opportunity to reflect. By allowing staff time to “…pause from “doing” the work to reflect on how the work was going, what they had learned about implementing change, and how they would do things differently in the future…” you keep the team motivated and ready for new challenges.

Email me with ways your leadership is preparing you and your team for managing change.

You can find a copy of the Worley article at: http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/052/change.html#cworley

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com
http://twitter.com/bluegrottoinc

Opportunity knocking

2009-09-24T23:11:00.005-05:00

I sat down to write my blog this morning, after just having 'tweeted' a link to the College of St. Catherine on their flash book of the Centennial 100 celebrating my alma mater's anniversary, and I got to thinking about all the fabulous, and creative, and sometimes not so expensive ways organizations are honoring their milestones.

It is a natural tendency to focus on major milestones, for example, a centennial. But even the smallest anniversaries - of programs, product launches, leadership and leadership changes, partnerships - offer unique opportunities to celebrate, to reinvigorate and to learn.

So, I decided to use this blog post as an anniversary montage, with links to some of the coolest anniversary tactics I’ve come across. Maybe you’ll see one or two you can replicate or use as a brainstorming launching point for your own milestone celebrations.

A quick top ten (eleven if you count St. Kate's):

Loved this very clever milestone opportunity – a ring tone to celebrate Big Ben’s sesquicentennial in London http://www.parliament.uk/BigBen/.

In addition to being able to book your flight and handle online check-in, Virgin Atlantic’s website is loaded with fun 25th anniversary stuff - http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/us/25thbirthday.jsp. My favorite: a retro television commercial – makes the job of flight attendant look hip again.

NASA used its 50th anniversary to offer scholarships for middle school and junior high student winners of an Essay Competition - http://www.nasa.gov/50th/home/index.html.

The Guggenheim organized free and city-wide events in celebration of its 50th anniversary, including its first live music series - http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/about-us/50th-anniversary.

Lego, of course, celebrated 50 years with what else? A new brick! http://cache.lego.com/2057/anniversary.htm. And 100 other new products – way to supersize that half century mark!

Barbie fans worldwide celebrated the “Small doll. Big deal.” 50th anniversary of her royal pinkness. I particularly enjoyed the eight stories about Barbie milestones - http://barbiestyle.barbie.com/history.aspx.

The Colorado Nonprofit Association celebrated 20 years with a narrative video on the history of philanthropy in Colorado - http://www.coloradononprofits.org/news_20thanniversary.cfm. Truly inspirational stories!

Securities America used their quarter century milestone to give back with 25 weeks of community service in the communities they operate in – http://www.securitiesamerica.com/downloads/Invest%20in%20our%20Communities%20release%2009-09.pdf.

Similarly, the attorneys of Williams Mullen committed to 100 hours of community service or pro bono work to honor their law firm’s 100 year anniversary – nearly 300,000 hours of service to the communities the law firm operates in. Wow! http://www.williamsmullen.com/one-hundred-years-of-service/.

Share Our Strength, a nonprofit dedicated to ending childhood hunger, used their 25th anniversary as a platform for discussion, to generate ideas and to build momentum for their plan to end childhood hunger by the year 2015 – http://strength.org/conference/.

And, of course the College of St. Catherine created an entire year of Centennial activities in 2004-2005, even creating their own Centennial rose plant – http://www.stkate.edu/centennial/ … “putting a woman in the corner office for 100 years.”

Milestones are a chance to examine and celebrate what differentiates your organization from your competition. Be creative, be realistic and be proud of your accomplishments – big and small. Most of all, don't waste this opportunity.

Email me with examples of anniversary activities,

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com
http://twitter.com/bluegrottoinc

It's not a popularity contest

2009-08-06T19:20:00.003-05:00

Do you ever find yourself pulling teeth, cajoling, even bribing others to get a project completed?

You are not alone. I recently unearthed a June 2005 HBR article titled: Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Formation of Social Networks, in it authors Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo studied the work-related interactions of employees.

Their research broke individuals into a four-part matrix: the competent jerk, the lovable fool (nice but dim), the lovable star (nice AND smart), and the incompetent jerk. Notice how those labeled ‘jerk’ need no further description.

Obviously, most people would prefer to work with the lovable star. But not everyone can offer both attributes – high likability and extremely capable. Maybe not surprisingly their research showed that if you can’t land the star, you’ll settle for the competent jerk. One executive said, “I can defuse my antipathy toward the jerk if he’s competent, but I can’t train someone who’s incompetent.”

Likability is, of course, subjective. As Casciaro and Lobo note, one person’s idea of charming is another person’s reptile. Likability also relies heavily on familiarity - seeing similar values, beliefs and attributes in a colleague. Simply being around a colleague for a length of time can breed that familiarity and then likability. But, is it entirely healthy? To rely only on people who reflect your preferences? Would a devil’s advocate – the competent jerk – afford a different dimension to the team?

Throughout the article, I found myself wondering if the context of their research would be different in today’s economic climate. Does personality matter right now? Is doing more with less, cost cutting, and holding our collective breaths taking precedence over personality differences? Or does it matter now more than ever?

I also found it interesting that the authors framed much of the conversation around knowledge sharing – the competent jerk may hold some incredibly valuable information, but at what price? While the lovable fool is likely to offer up his menu of nuanced information, contacts, and opinions more freely.

The meatiest content comes when Casciaro and Lobo offer suggestions on how best to leverage the array of personality types. How do you capitalize on that lovable star performer, so that they don’t burn out too quickly? Can a leopard (the competent jerk) change its spots? And most importantly, can you build a culture where everyone learns to play nice with one another?

Email me with examples of how you navigate personalities in your organization.

Link to a free copy of the article from the world wide web: http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Competent_Jerk.pdf

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Communicating like a CEO

2009-04-01T22:18:00.002-05:00

An MIT Sloan Management Review article by Paul Argenti, Robert Howell, and Karen Beck caught my eye. Though the article was published in the spring of 2005, their topic is still timely: The Strategic Communication Imperative.

The article begins by lamenting the age old challenge of ‘from strategy to implementation.’ How do you get from point A to point B? Or more importantly, how do you get your company – your direct reports, the guys and gals in accounting, the folks in production, even the janitor – to all be going in the right direction on that point B path? And, then, how do you communicate that map to your other constituencies: shareholders, Wall Street, federal regulators, and your customers?

The strongest argument of the authors is that the CEO is seen as the chief communicator. The article gives excellent real-time examples of how important communications are to, well, communicating. Thoughtful planning in how you communicate will get you a whole lot further than a press release and a prayer.

Often, communications strategies are born out of a crisis. But as these CEOs illustrate, crisis communications are not the same as having a communications strategy. A communications strategy is really a new opportunity to articulate your messages.

Here’s my top five take away based on the CEO’s reflections:
* Communications professionals need to have a seat at the strategy-making table. Don’t relegate communications to a marketing function. Consider it a senior level priority.

* Communicating with key constituencies is obviously important, but how you interpret constituency responses as they relate to organizational strategy is the real bonus. Communications should be a two-way street.

* As companies grow in complexity, consistent communications become paramount – consider the variety and layers of your audience.

* Because audiences may over lap – your suppliers may be your customers for example, it’s important to have “harmony” in your messages. Make sure you are not sending mixed signals, and assume that your audiences are savvy enough to access all your messages.

* And, maybe most importantly, messages need to be truthful, based on something real. That’s a given. Again, assume your audiences are pretty darn savvy, and with Google – they have access to just about everything you say.

And here are my top five of the CEO’s quotes:
“A key part of strategy is communicating it.” Michael Dell, Dell Inc.

“You can’t execute strategy if you can’t communicate it.” T. Michael Glenn, FedEx

“The only way to communicate is to communicate with passion, face-to-face, all the time with the same messages.” Lewis Campbell, Textron

“You can never over communicate.” Henry Silverman, Cendant

“You only have to go through one or two communications debacles as a senior executive to understand the importance of communications.” Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo

Well said.

Email me with examples of how you have elevated your communications to a strategic proportion.

For a copy of the article: http://files.cxo.com/ep/uploads/WorkshopArticle.pdf

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

Ecosystem of corporate culture

2009-03-06T15:30:00.004-06:00

A culture of innovation. That was the topic presented in a 14-minute video interview of Soumitra Dutta, Professor of Information Systems at INSEAD Business School.

Dutta’s newest book Innovating at the Top was written based on interviews with CEOs at companies he considers “highly innovative” – including Bosch, Genentech, Nokia, 3M, and Toyota.

Though Dutta sought out diversity in industry and across continents, not surprisingly, these successful CEOs consider innovation to be a part of their core responsibilities – as CEO. These executives see themselves as champions of innovation within their organizations, rather than delegating innovation as a task of the “men in white frocks” as Dutta described R&D departments.

Dutta tries to dispel the characterization of innovation as simply the playground of the quirky folks who wear mismatched socks. He argues innovation can be embedded in an organization’s culture, a process to encourage/enable innovation can also be created.

I found the most interesting few minutes of the video to be Dutta’s commentary that innovation is no longer an internal function of a company – deployed to R&D departments. Rather, innovation extends outside the company – to include partners, suppliers, and customers – in a new environment of “collaborate and compete…Opening the ecosystem of innovation” as Dutta describes it.

I got to thinking…if you are going to share knowledge about your innovation - outside your organization - a culture compatibility becomes paramount. Beyond the intellectual property concerns, partnering with other companies, potentially competitors even, requires a certain understanding. A similar set of values. Nearly every company lists innovation in their “values” (see my previous blog). But valuing risk-taking, and a shared responsibility in taking the risk, regardless of success or failure, runs much deeper than the statement “We at Blue Grotto value innovation.”

Here’s where a company’s culture becomes an asset, demonstrating to a potential innovation partner, similar to a merger or acquisition candidate, what truly is important in your organization and how you stand behind it. As important as a strong culture itself, is a company’s ability to communicate those values. You can’t simply post it on your website.

Blue Grotto clients work hard to not only define and capture their organization’s culture and values, but to articulate that culture. Our single most effective platform for communicating a company’s culture is the narrative process – storytelling. Concrete examples of your values in action are more richly illustrated through the narrative process, helping to reinforce your integrity and commitment to your culture.

Note how Professor Dutta chose to document the practices of the highly innovative CEOs – through interviews.

Think of how you communicate your organization’s culture. Email me with examples of how you are leveraging the anecdotes and history that illustrate your values and best practices. And, what would you consider adequate evidence of a potential partner's commitment to those same values?

And, you can view how 3M chooses to communicate its own culture of innovation, with a 250-page publication - A Century of Innovation - a project the Blue Grotto team is incredibly proud of: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/our/company/information/history/century-innovation/

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

Stop the presses

2009-02-05T12:01:00.006-06:00

Values matter.

I couldn’t blog fast enough about the February 2009 Fast Company magazine article on Olympic snowboarder Shaun White.

Mark Borden’s article starts off with a quick tally of White’s accomplishments, and the clichéd endorsements expected to follow this daredevil with blazing red hair. Borden tells of how, at the tender age of 15, White was keen to control his image, being sensitive even to the quality of photos he was autographing for his young audience.

And then I read the stop-the-presses moment when he describes White’s formula for sponsorship: “…White has sought out companies he truly connects with…White sees these deals as a long-term investment portfolio…”

At the (still tender) age of 22, this phenom recognizes the value of his values.

Branding is still king in business right now. Just Google the phrase “brand is everything” and see what you get.

To most, brand equals reputation. So little time, and marketing dollars, are spent on communicating a company’s values. Isn't your brand a direct result of your values? Your brand identifies you, allows your customers to expect consistency, and can be trademarked. Your values allow stakeholders to decide if they will ‘truly connect with you.’ Shaun White seems to understand that he is more than a branding opportunity.

So why don’t companies exert more effort articulating their values? Is it because we innately expect a ROI report to pop up when we use the term value? Because values don't translate easily into an ad campaign?

Is it generational? Boomers did not grow up in a touchy-feely corporate America, but generations X, Y, and millennial rank company values high on the reasons for joining, or leaving, an organization.

Is it too expensive? Branding is big bucks. Would a company have spare change left over to spend on an expression of what matters to the company?

Most companies have values statements, usually clearly posted on their websites. Most include some statement about diversity, innovation, community and the environment. What company would not want those as core values? I tire of the bullet-pointed list of your “values” – Microsoft’s values read the same as Chrysler’s.

But what do they tell me? As a customer, as a potential employee, as a shareholder, as a merger/acquisition candidate? WHAT DO THEY TELL ME?

Here are links to a few company values statements I found. Some are simple, others much (in some cases much, much) more complex. Who would you truly connect with? And, flip side, who is/could/should connect with your company? Who would include your company in their long-term investment portfolio?

http://www.levistrauss.com/company/ValuesAndVision.aspx
http://www.macysinc.com/AboutUs/Vision/default.aspx
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/corevalues.php
http://www.tribune.com/about/values.html
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/corporate/company_values.html

Email me with feedback on companies you believe articulate their values, not simply bullet-point them.

As Roy Disney so eloquently put it: "It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

118 years

2009-01-29T10:27:00.003-06:00

I read with great sadness a January 26 WSJ article – Recession Batters Law Firms, Triggering Layoffs, Closings.

The article leads with the closing of 118 year-old San Francisco firm Heller Ehrman, and further recounts 160 year-old New York firm Thatcher Proffitt & Wood’s closing.

My sadness was not simply because the article signaled again how hard hit every industry is during a financial crisis, but because centuries-old companies are forced to close their doors. The US itself has only 233 years under our belt, so a 100-year-old company says a lot.

And each time I hear of another American institution shuttering its doors, I despair. Each community, each industry has their own landmark institutions – in Minnesota they include 107-year-old 3M, makers of Scotch Tape; the dry goods company General Mills, founded in 1928; and the nearly-50-year-old Target, originally a subsidiary of another, now since gone, MN icon – Dayton’s. Target opened its first store in Roseville, MN in 1962. My family shopped at that very Target store from that first year. Now, I shop at the Super Target on that same footprint in Roseville.

Members of the Blue Grotto team worked on 3M’s centennial celebration, producing a significant publication that documented not just ad campaigns of Scotch Tape, but their 100 year road to success – with the bumps and bruises that come with being a centenarian. Think of your own family, your grandparents…if they lived to be 100…what they could tell you. Not simply nostalgia (in MN, it’s stories about walking to school, up a hill, in -5 degrees, in the middle of a blizzard, before Thinsulate), but having lived through war(s), Depression, recessions, Presidential firsts like JFK – the first Catholic president, and Ronald Regan – the first divorced president, the Cold War, and the coldest year on record. One hundred years of life buys a lot of experience, for people and businesses alike.

Maybe your grandparents were small business owners, or big business owners, and you are responsible for the next generation of success. Maybe you are following in their footsteps as a lawyer, a grocer, an ad exec, a mechanic, a publisher, a CEO. Maybe you are carving your own niche and you are the pioneer for your family. What would you most want to pass down to the next generation of your family, your employees, your community?

With extremely harsh financial conditions, the kind that force 118-year-old law firms to close up shop, it’s hard to justify spending money on your history. But, if for nothing other than posterity, think about how you would/could/should take an accounting of your organization’s past. And how you would like to be remembered.

Email me with examples of ways you are capturing and communicating your organization’s history. I’m pretty sure the folks at Heller Ehrman did not expect that their 118th anniversary party would be their last.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

Raising your IQ

2009-01-23T15:26:00.003-06:00

“Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.” Alan Kay, computer programming pioneer

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was interviewed in the October 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review on the topic of leading strategic change. In an article titled Institutional Yes, Bezos talks about creating, and sustaining, a culture of “entrepreneurial optimism.”

It was interesting to read about a company I must admit I know little about, other than having made purchases at Amazon.com. Bezos was incredibly candid about the culture of the company and their guiding principles.

One of the questions the authors asked: does strategy rely on a key ingredient – the CEO/founder? Or is it an institutional capacity? Bezos’ reflections indicate he and his team (he demurs on the imprint he naturally has on the company) have built a culture that propagates breakthrough ideas, as well as the capacity to implement them.

For example, Amazon’s senior team meets weekly for four hours to discuss strategies. That’s a significant chunk of time each week to devote to throwing stuff against the wall. But that overall commitment to strategic planning is affirmed throughout the company, and, as Bezos says, “is informed by a cultural point of view.” The company relies on everyone from senior staff to fulfillment center guys and gals to bubble up ideas on everything from customer service improvement to cost savings.

It’s true. Every level of your organization contributes to your success. I quoted Scott Thurm of the Wall Street Journal in an earlier Blue Grotto blog: “Trying to make conversation during a recent elevator ride, I asked a package-delivery courier whether it was more efficient to start at the top of the building and work down, or start at the bottom of the building and work up. "It depends on the time of day," he replied.” So, instilling the value of your employees’ perspective only increases your chances of success. But you have to ask for, and they in turn need to expect to give, their input.

Bezos explains one of the challenges of success is to create repeatable processes, and a culture that reinforces Amazon’s commitment to its customers is paramount to their growth and continued success. Every employee spends time in the fulfillment centers within their first year on the job and every two years they spend two days working in customer service. “Everyone has to be able to work in a call center.”

I’m guessing that some of the more refined perspective comes out of the call centers. And, greatly impacts those strategic planning sessions.

Email me with examples of how your organization is “informed by a cultural view.” And whether or not you leverage your culture to your advantage.

My favorite Bezos quote: “Be afraid of our customers, because those are the folks who have the money. Our competitors are never going to send us money.” Good advice.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

Tie a bow on that milestone

2008-12-17T15:59:00.003-06:00

Everyone is hunkering down. It’s obvious. The evening news, your colleagues’ sales reports, the Sunday sermon, all point in the direction of a holding pattern. How then, can you motivate – yourself, your direct reports, your customers, your shareholders?

Even though Christmas is strained on many levels this year, I am reminded of the ever optimistic Auntie Mame – “We need a little Christmas right this very minute.”

And almost every company has a “Christmas” they can pull out of their hat, or their stocking, every once in a while – a milestone.

Why a milestone?

Milestones are the chance to celebrate, and to reflect. With the pressure on managers to produce more, with less, celebration and reflection may be the last thing on your mind. How do you keep your team innovating, creating, and moving forward in a climate of anxiety and layoffs?

Give them something to celebrate. One of the greatest gifts a company can give to its employees is the celebration of their culture and history. Especially at a time when they need it most. Being reminded that you are a member of a company that has been a leader can go a long way in developing the resilience a corporate culture needs to sustain and grow itself.

Reflecting on what brought you success is one of the greatest opportunities to help you refocus and propel you forward again.

It's natural to focus on major milestones, for example, a centennial. But don’t wait for that major milestone. Even the smallest anniversaries - of programs, product launches, leadership and leadership changes, partnerships - offer unique opportunities to celebrate and to reinvigorate.

Macy’s is reminding us this Christmas of their department store’s magic in a one-minute television spot that underscores the company’s place in American history – “Only one store has been a part of your life for 150 years.” The message: During a holiday season that follows economic crisis, they are a reliable, known commodity. The chicken soup for the retail soul. They’ve seen, and weathered, crisis before. And many of their customers have, too.

OnStar has been running full-page ads in the WSJ highlighting their 100,000 crash activation system. Something to be said for good news in the auto industry.

Marriott introduced "250 ways to use your points" in honor of the 25th anniversary of their Rewards program. Good resource for folks hoping to economize on everything from dinner for two to a five-night stay in Latin America.

Blue Grotto just completed a project with nonprofit Wilderness Inquiry for their 30th anniversary. What started as an anniversary party transformed into an amazing evening that helped Wilderness Inquiry celebrate three decades of outdoor adventure, reflect on what has made them successful, and reaffirm the real nature of the organization’s mission. Thirty years of stewardship is a great marketing tool.

Email me with ways that you have leveraged your organization’s milestones. And remember - People want to celebrate your success.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
www.bluegrottoinc.com

Ready...Set...Talk!

2008-11-04T15:45:00.003-06:00

I have to give a shout out to my friends at ReadyTalk. ReadyTalk offers audio and web conferencing services. And what better way to advertise their services than with FREE webinars – the ReadyTalk Web Seminar Series. This series offers a hugely diverse range of speakers and topics. I subscribe to their newsletter and regularly receive updates on upcoming seminars. I forward on links to colleagues I think might find the topic, or the speaker, of interest. I am also a regular participant on the calls.

I’ve prepared content for many clients that use ReadyTalk services to communicate with audiences ranging from the local and national media, to key shareholders, and even a volunteer recruitment effort.

The very best thing about the ReadyTalk Web Seminar Series (beside the fact that they are free, which I cannot emphasize enough) – they catalog and make available (for free) each of their previously recorded seminars. If you miss the original broadcast, you can go back and peruse the topics/speakers at your leisure.

And that’s what I did when I found myself with an extra hour on hand and the need for a blog topic.

I was thrilled to see the webinar titled Storytelling and Strategy, hosted by Mickey Connolly, the founder and CEO of Conversant, a communications consulting firm based in Boulder, Colorado.

I was super impressed with, and super envious of, Conversant’s client roster which includes McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Capital One, and Honeywell to name only a few. Mr. Connolly rightly acknowledges that their client list illustrates the investment companies are willing to make in storytelling.

An interesting observation Connolly made was that stories are told before, during, and after meetings and that the stories told after a meeting concludes often have the greatest impact. Meetings, especially meetings of the “marathon” kind, are chocked full of information, data, bullet points. Storytelling allows people to put that concentration of info into a more useful context.

Of the hour-long webinar, I found his list of five key purposes stories have in an organization to be right on. According to Connolly, stories:
1) Need to make sense
2) Create relationships among people
3) Improve your memory, and help you to better retain information
4) Inspire insight
5) Stimulate action

Since we consider ourselves of an expert level in storytelling at Blue Grotto, we agree that storytelling can reveal many valuable lessons about your organization’s management, decision-making, leadership, innovation and business philosophy.

And, storytelling may be your best approach to duplicating your key messages. A story, more so than those flow charts or power point presentations, can motivate someone to action.

Email me with an example of how you leverage storytelling in your organization.

And visit http://www.readytalk.com/web-seminar-series to peruse the webinars offered.

One amusing comment by Mr. Connolly: “Not all stories are valuable.” Hmmm.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Houston, we have a problem

2008-09-15T23:12:00.005-05:00

Who can forget those infamous words from the crew of Apollo 13 during its 1970 trip to the moon?

And though, now, those words ring hollow to describe the smallest of hurdles, they can still categorize the same magnitude of crisis.

Today Denise Tyrell, spokeswoman for Metrolink, resigned after making statements this weekend regarding the horrific commuter rail crash that has tallied up 26 deaths. Her statements indicated that the failure of a Metrolink engineer, by ignoring a red-light warning signal, caused the crash with the Union Pacific freight train.

Though her statement may be factual, Metrolink, has tried to rescind her comments as “premature,” saying they will wait for the NTSB to investigate.

Lots of companies prepare for and regretfully struggle through emergencies that threaten their public image as well as their bottom line. Think of Tylenol, DuPont, Lockheed Martin, Exxon. Just this year, we had a nationwide warning of possible salmonella contamination of tomatoes.

Twenty-six deaths is definitely a crisis.

How do you prepare for a situation that is so unexpected, so overwhelming, and so grave?

I came across a 2004 interview with Annette Veech, senior lecturer of business communications at the Olin School of Business at Washington University, who acknowledged that the nature of emergencies does not leave a company or organization a lot of time – time to analyze, synthesize, and prepare to deliver a response.

She offered three lessons to consider before a crisis occurs:
1. Expect the unexpected.
2. Own the problem and apologize.
3. Match the facts to spokespersons' words and the company's actions.

The first, expect the unexpected, seems a little trite. But the second and third points are legitimate and I believe can have the greatest impact on your outcomes. Both speak to a company’s authenticity. And both are a reflection of a company’s values and culture.

A company’s values are tested and revealed in times of crisis. What would your organization’s actions and statements reveal about your company? Is your leadership team empowered by your company’s values? Would your spokesperson be able to deliver a sincere, credible, and truthful message?

I was amazed when I first heard of Ms. Tyrell’s statements over the weekend. Refreshing, I thought. Admission moves you to the next step, restitution, and then to regaining trust.

Now, I fear, by trying to take back her statements, and calling for her resignation, Metrolink has simply delayed the inevitable – a suspicion of future statements and conclusions by the families of victims, the communities that rely on Metrolink for transit, and regulators.

Godspeed to the fall guy, or gal, in this case. The Wall Street Journal quoted Ms. Tyrell in an email: “The statement was and is accurate. It was the right thing to do regardless of how ticked off it made the NTSB."

Email me with examples of how you have prepared your leadership and staff to speak and act with the conviction of your company’s values in the face of a crisis.

To view the Washington University Olin School of Business article: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/4352.html

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Christmas comes early

2008-09-09T23:08:00.004-05:00

It’s like Christmas at our house.

I love elections. I must admit it – I am a political junkie. Even more so than I am a history junkie. I was riveted to the television these past few weeks, watching every minute of both the Democratic and Republican conventions – the Republican convention being held right here in my home town of St. Paul. What I wasn’t able to watch live, I taped. I mean DVR’d.

I loved Michelle Obama’s speech. I was moved by Fox News commentator Juan Williams’ emotion as he spoke about watching an African American woman speak to the nation as a possible First Lady. I cried during the video introduction of Barack Obama, when he talked about the influence his grandparents had on him as a young man.

I cheered for Sarah Palin as she spoke about the delicate balancing act of mother, wife, elected official and hockey mom {Go Girl Power!}. I cried as she brought that beautiful new baby out on stage and held him, face out, for all of us to see, and to cheer for. I was awed as I shook Henry Kissinger’s hand as he inched along the concourse of the Xcel Center – people mobbing him to have their photo taken with him, to exchange a few words with him, some reaching out just to touch him.

All-in-all I cheered for, was awed by, and inspired by the real meaning of this election, of any election – the history of our country.

The milestones represented by this particular election year interest me most, and might surprise many. Hillary Clinton was not the first woman to run for President. But, she was the first First Lady to seek the top spot. And Sarah Palin was not the first woman to be nominated as Vice President.

Even with the furor over Barack Obama’s campaign, he was not the first African American to run for President. In fact, it was an African American woman, Shirley Chisholm, from the great state of New York to run for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972. Ms. Chisholm was also the first African American to be elected to Congress in 1968.

As I listen to the evening news and ongoing coverage of the election {and for those of you not nearly as excited as myself, as of Primary Tuesday there are only 56 days left} I catch snippets of some great American election trivia. For example, 2008 is the first election to see two sitting Senators face off. I did not know that. Today, I heard an Obama defender cite President Abraham Lincoln’s short experience of only two years in the Senate. I almost laughed out loud. Not at her choice of defense, but of the little-known, and probably never recited factoid about Lincoln. There is a mini-history lesson in every segment on CNN, MSNBC and FOX.

Love it or hate it, the election cycle is a great opportunity to learn, to remember, to appreciate, and to be proud.

Email me with your favorite factoid or American history question from Trivial Pursuit.

And don’t forget to vote on November 4.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Model T celebrates the big 100

2008-07-24T11:56:00.002-05:00

This week, in Richmond, Indiana, Ford Motor Co. celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Model T.

People must think I am a car enthusiast, several of my blogs feature tactics of the auto industry. I am not – a car enthusiast. But I am a Ford Motor Co. fan. I LOVE Ford, not necessarily their vehicles (though I do drive a Volvo, a member of the Ford family with sagging sales, unfortunately).

I love Ford because of its rich history – in America, in the auto industry, and in the lore of true car enthusiasts.

I love that a member of the Ford family, William Clay Ford, Jr., plays a prominent role in the company’s leadership as Chairman.

I love Ford because of the sense I get that they are really trying. That the Ford team is still working hard, despite the sometimes grave conditions they work within: demands in supply chain efficiency, the forces of environmental sustainability, competition within the industry, even retiree benefits are now affecting the legendary cradle to grave employer.

I list these not to impress you with my Market Weekly language proficiency, but to acknowledge the environment Ford operates in, and that I am not simply nostalgic and hoping for the return to the good times. The really good times may be over forever for the auto industry.

But I cheer for Ford. That rich history is powerful. In my last blog I lauded former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca for helping to inspire workers at his one-time auto powerhouse. Ford has an even greater opportunity for inspiration, in my opinion. The Model T alone being the first mass produced auto. Did you know that Henry Ford inaugurated the $5 a day minimum wage for his employees? Revolutionary at the time. You probably didn’t know that WWII icon Rosie the Riveter was in real life Rose Will Monroe, a worker at Ford Motor Company's Willow Run plant. And Ford denotes the Mustang as “an instant legend.”

The century-old involvement of the Ford family is impressive. To me, it shows that they still care. They care enough not to sell out. I’m sure it was hard for Bill Ford, Jr. to read rants pegging him as the “worst CEO in history,” and admitting defeat in some people’s eyes when he handed the reigns over to Mullaly. And despite the value of the Ford family's stock being cut a half a billion dollars, there is resistance to overtures by Kirk Kerkorian to buy out the family's shares in the company. One reason, bloggers speculate, is Kerkorian’s suggestion of retiring Mercury – a division close to one young Ford heir's heart. Elena Ford began the turnaround of Mercury in 2001.

That’s the illustration of a great company’s history.

It’s that all-American, apple pie thing. That security, knowing that things may be bad, but they are still cranking out sedans back in Michigan. I cannot imagine a U.S. without a Ford. And I hope I never have to. What can we do? All run out and buy a Ford? Not likely, but we can cheer for them, and celebrate with them the innovations a significant American company made to American culture and business.

Email me with examples of companies, or products, with rich histories that impress you.

One great quote from the man himself… “You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.” Henry Ford

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Legendary leaders

2008-06-27T21:55:00.003-05:00

“Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they'll say, 'God, he said exactly what I was thinking.' And when they begin to respect you, they'll follow you to the death.” Lee Iacocca

I was inspired today by Bill Vlasik’s article in the NYT - A Pep Talk At Chrysler – Hailing Its Hero of the 80s.

I have commented over and over again about the indelible impression a leader makes on the culture of their company.

If ever there was a leader to make an impression, I’d vote for Lee Iacocca, beloved CEO of Chrysler. Iacocca was invited back to Chrysler, 16 years post retirement, to deliver an important message – don’t give up.

I am impressed that current CEO Bob Nardelli astutely chose Iacocca to rally the troops. Understanding the need to root yourself in the fact that you once were great, and deferring to a leader with celebrity-like status to deliver the message takes courage, considering Iacocca was “welcomed back Thursday to thunderous applause from Chrysler workers who are, once again, facing tough times.”

Stories from a company’s past – Chrysler’s repayment of the $1.2M government loan in three years, and the launch of the American minivan for example – have the power to inspire, excite and support everyone in the organization, from the CEO to the janitor. And sometimes, it’s the storyteller who most captures the audience’s attention.

At one time in Chrysler’s history, Iacocca was the storyteller. He served as the ultimate spokesperson for the company. He brought an authenticity to Chrysler. Do you remember Mr. Iacocca appearing in Chrysler ads – “If you can find a better car, buy it.” What modern day CEO appears in television advertisements? Not H. Scott Lee, Jr. of Walmart. Not Rex Tillerson of Exxon. Not Jeffrey Immelt of GE. Not even Bill Gates. You wouldn’t be interested in them if they did. And they likely would be much less convincing in their sales pitch of their companies products.

And though many of Chrysler’s current employees were barely out of grade school when Iacocca retired, the stuff of legends carries on throughout a company’s campfire lore. These same employees have never known first-hand the enormous success of being one of the Big Three. On the contrary, they have been plagued by layoffs, metro Michigan mortgage foreclosures still rank the highest in the nation, and just today, the company fended off rumors of bankruptcy.

One of the greatest gifts Mr. Iacocca can give to the people of Chrysler, and to the auto industry in general really, is the celebration of their culture and history. Especially at a time when they need it most. Being reminded that you are a member of a company that was a leader, part of an industry that led the country in manufacturing, part of American history, can go a long way in developing the resilience a corporate culture needs to sustain and grow itself.

Email me with examples of other corporate leaders you think people would “follow to the death.” And you can’t say Jack Welch. He’s too obvious.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Link to the NYT article

To brand or not to brand?

2008-02-21T21:33:00.002-06:00

Is “branding” losing its relevance?

I love the whole concept of branding. As a consumer, I truly buy into it. I am brand conscious. Helping clients, I am acutely aware of their branding when producing materials that need to reflect that brand.

Most people understand a brand to be a promise. A promise of value.

I continue to argue that a brand is a reflection of, an extension of, a result of a company’s culture. And that promise is a promise of your values, not necessarily a valuation of worth. A brand promise is a statement that reflects the brand’s core values in a way that pays off for the customer.

So, how is branding changing? Umair Haque addressed the issue in his February 15 post -The Shrinking Advantage of Brands - for Harvard Business School’s Discussion Leader blog.

Haque pointed out that the most powerful brand in the world today is Google. Not surprising to me, a Google addict. But then he also pointed out that compared to other brand legends like Coca Cola and Procter & Gamble – Google spends nothing on advertising.

Branding of old, Haque says, just won’t work in today’s 24-hour information access environment…“Now, for the economics of an industrial era, branding made sense. Interaction was expensive – so information about the expected benefits of consumption had to be squeezed into slogans, characters, and logos, which were then compressed into thirty-second TV ads and radio spots. The complex promise of a Corvette, for example, was compressed into shots of cute girls, open roads, and lots of sunshine.”

More unorthodox strategies of what Haque calls “cheap interaction” are filling the advertising gap. And, when consumers have access to one another, “information about expected costs and benefits doesn’t have to be compressed into logos, slogans, ad-spots or column-inches.”

It’s challenging to sum up your company’s culture and values in that logo or slogan. I wrangle with clients all the time over silver bullet messaging. Not every company is suited to a Nike’s “Just Do It.” How can you communicate culture and values to multiple audiences? And through what meaningful medium?

My favorite line of Haque’s posting: “The cheaper interaction gets, the more connected consumers can talk to each other – and the less time they have to spend listening to the often empty promises of firms.” Yikes! An ad exec's worst nightmare.

Email me with examples of how you are combating, or embracing, the changing landscape of advertising.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Affinity for Sale

2007-09-02T13:26:00.000-05:00

Corporate Objective: Increase brand recognition in the United States; drive U.S. sales of new vehicle, the 2007 Audi Q7.

Strategy: Partner with companies that have similar values and share a high-income target audience to promote Audi as part of the luxury lifestyle.

Tactics: Create an upscale, 10-city road show with product displays, educational seminars, and interactive activities by affinity partners. Let attendees test-drive the new vehicle and other Audi vehicles under a variety of conditions.

Results: Sold 2,800 vehicles as a direct result of the event, generated more than 100 media mentions (about 21.3 million impressions).
{taken from Audi of America: Affinity Marketing, Summer 2007 Corporate EVENT magazine}

In the category of Impressive Marketing Campaigns, I cast my vote for Audi’s 2006 product launch of its Q7 SUV. It sounded like a brilliant idea – create upscale events that would draw in customers. The strategy to “partner with companies that have similar values” is what struck me as most intriguing. Though of course, the end-game is to sell the car, Stephanie Valentine from Audi explained that the real objective was brand marketing, “Our goal was to focus 50 percent on vehicles and 50 percent on lifestyle…” So, how does an automaker focus on lifestyle?

By aligning themselves with other products and services that reflect the same “premium value proposition as Audi: performance, quality, luxury, and personalization.” So if a young couple at the 2-day event could picture themselves enjoying the most recent DVD release on their $100K Bang & Olufsen home entertainment system, or learned how to create the perfect salmon bisque through a hands-on cooking demonstration, they might be able to also envision themselves driving the Audi SUV (base price of $50K).

At Blue Grotto, we are continually helping clients to articulate their history and values. I think it is rare that a company invites another company to help position, even define, their brand. But, Audi risked it, and the risk paid off. According to Corporate Event magazine, nearly 15,000 people attended the 10-city tour, 81 percent of them new Audi prospects, and Audi sold 2,800 vehicles as a result. In identifying companies who represent the same values of Audi, Audi proved it is indeed the company you keep.

I am curious to hear about other "Impressive Marketing Campaigns." I would also be curious to hear about whom you would invite to partner with – on a product launch, an event, a research project…And, of course, there are bonus points for how the campaign supports your company’s values and philosophies.

Log onto http://www.exhibitoronline.com/ to read the full article in the Summer 07 magazine.

By the way, this is the second post in a row that I have referenced the marketing tactics of the auto industry. They've either got it right, or are working hard to figure it out. Clearly, personal values play a BIG role in the kind of car you purchase. $50K is a lot of money, no matter how you look at it.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Tea ceremonies at Lexus

2007-07-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

I have found new resources to affirm my belief that a company’s history plays a big role in their future. And that increasingly, companies are using their history and core values to strengthen their external image.

In the last two weeks, I read two articles about companies revamping sales using important elements of their heritage. It’s not surprising that they are both Asian companies – Japanese to be specific. A July 9, 2007 WSJ article outlined Toyota’s campaign for Lexus’ brand recognition “by plunging deep into the world of ancient Japanese hospitality traditions.” And the very next day, the NYT reported on Subaru’s attempts to boost sales of its 2008 Impreza WRX “by invoking the history, heritage and popular culture of its home country, Japan.”

Now, we are talking about cars, here. But I think the underlying premise is awesome! Leverage your own best practices, and more importantly – your history of what makes you uniquely able to provide services or products.

I say it’s not surprising that the companies are Asian because Asian culture deems great respect for tradition. Every US company doing business in Asia has quickly learned of the importance of formality. In my corporate history work, I have often thought US companies with decades of experience behind them (3M with 100 years, for example) have a leg up in dealing with the Asian business community and governments. Conversely, the article on Subaru demonstrates that American consumers appreciate the history and traditions of an ancient culture.

In efforts to outperform its European counterparts, Toyota is employing traditional Japanese customs to help Japanese car buyers identify with its luxury line, Lexus. Reporter Amy Chozick says the company “decided to offer a flavor of customer service that would be difficult for its European rivals to match.” I’d say. Can you imagine the German BMW employees, from sales people to mechanics, practicing flower arranging and tea ceremonies?

Put into those terms – flower arranging and tea ceremonies – it would be hard to imagine any American company digging deep into its history to come up with a Samurai pose or anime film as best practices. But, put into context, a company’s history of success, and the challenges overcome to reach success, and their ability to repeat success can make a huge difference in their strategic planning for the future.

Email me with examples of how your company leverages its history or traditions. Arigato gozaimas! (Thank you)

To search for free copies of the articles:
Subaru Turns to the Land of Forbidden Secrets
http://newstape.net/news/test/57316/en/

The Samurai Sell: Lexus Dealers Bow to Move Swank Cars
Search by article title: www.finance.yahoo.com

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

The Next Six Sigma?

2007-06-17T16:49:00.000-05:00

Who would know who to call if your entire computer system crashed one day?

Scott Thurm of the Wall Street Journal framed the idea of knowledge management in very practical terms in his January 23, 2006 article titled: Companies Struggle to Pass on Knowledge …“Trying to make conversation during a recent elevator ride, I asked a package-delivery courier whether it was more efficient to start at the top of the building and work down, or start at the bottom of the building and work up. "It depends on the time of day," he replied.”

When you hire staff they often arrive on the corporate doorstep an empty vessel. And, during their time in your employ, no matter how brief, they gain knowledge.

In addition to salary and benefits, think of the costs to your company for hiring, training and often retraining. You may even have a program that financially supports employees going back to school for continuing education or even an advanced degree. Then, think of all the time your employees spend on the front lines, with your customers, your vendors, and their peers in your industry.

That brings us to this current buzz word - knowledge management.

Who does what inside your company? Who knows whom? How important is this information to the growth or success of certain elements of your business? Regardless of the tenure of your employees, they gather day-to-day information that may be critical to your operations.

A competitive advantage may soon become not the employees a company can retain, but rather retention of the information that moves your business forward. The example of the delivery man may seem innocuous to many, but not if your business is UPS, or FedEx or the local messenger service.

Many companies are facing this new reality – that every scrap of knowledge, from the delivery man, to the CEO, is an important piece in the puzzle of a company’s internal working knowledge. I thought Thurm’s example of Raytheon using peer-to-peer coaching was an intriguing idea. It illustrates the fact that many do not fully comprehend how much, and how valuable, the information they’ve accrued can be to others – teams working on unrelated projects, sales and accounting projections, human resources’ understanding of unique capabilities needed in job applicants…the list is endless.

The Blue Grotto team has built a reputation on helping clients to successfully document and communicate their best practices. We love that it has become the new buzz word. My prediction? That knowledge management programs will be the Six Sigma of the next decade. Your company’s internal knowledge has intrinsic value to your future success. Email me with ways your company maintains knowledge continuity.

Link to a complete copy of Scott Thurm’s article http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06023/643015.stm

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Music to my ears

2007-05-21T16:09:00.000-05:00

“What is corporate culture, and why is communicating clearly and precisely about it important?” Music to my ears. And I found it two thirds of the way into John Hamm’s article The Five Messages Leaders Must Manage (Harvard Business Review May, 2006). Hamm begins his article with the premise that words can speak louder than actions for leaders of organizations. Think of all the clichéd phrases you’ve heard uttered over the years – at staff meetings, at annual meetings, you may read them in the company news letter. Usually intended to inspire you to perform better, these “messages” can send unclear, even confusing, messages to your employees, your shareholders and eventually your customers.

Hamm outlines five areas his research defined as posing the greatest risk from vague communications, but also the greatest opportunity for influence:
* Organizational Structure and Hierarchy – because it represents individual power and influence, it can be an emotionally-charged subject.
* Financial Results – leaders have the opportunity to communicate the connection of employee behaviors to the organization’s long-term desired results.
* The Leader’s Sense of His or Her Job – how a leader defines their role in an organization can propel a direct report forward, or hold them back indefinitely.
* Time Management – leaders have a responsibility to communicate priorities, understanding there are only so many hours in a day.
* Corporate Culture – leaders who are best able to communicate their vision for the future, are the most likely to lead success.

I have referenced corporate culture in several past blogs. A company’s culture is the reflection on its mission and values – the best practices under which it operates. As Mr. Hamm says, “Culture is not created by declaration.” And, true to Mr. Hamm’s research, leaders in any organization – Fortune 500, family business, to nonprofit – are the chief purveyors of that mission and values.

Now, think back to the original premise of Mr. Hamm’s article – managing key messages. Think of the messages you send about your company’s culture. Are you puffing up your communications with superfluous clichés about “making a team effort,” or “we value our employees,” when you could be giving clear statements to employees about the expectations of your organization’s culture and their own role in it? Consider how to de-clutter your communications, and focus on clear direction that actually helps your employees do their jobs more efficiently, more effectively and more successfully.

Email me with your strategies for avoiding imprecise communications. Mental note to self – if it sounds like a cliché, it probably is.

John Hamm’s full article can be found in the May 2006 Harvard Business Review. You can also email him at: johnhamm@mac.com for more information.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Just miles away from Hong Kong

2007-04-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

Like everyone else on the planet Earth, I LOVE earning frequent flier miles. So when Northwest Airlines emailed an invitation to join e-Miles® Miles for Minutes® to answer on-line market research surveys for partnering companies, I jumped at the chance. The surveys take only a minute or two to answer and ask a series of questions, ranging from relevancy to your interests or needs, to specific questions about which cruise line is featured in the pop-up advertisement, with a multiple choice list to select from. As if testing to see if you really read the advertisement copy for Oceania Cruises.

Survey completion nets you, on average, 5 miles. Sometimes I receive a survey worth 10 or 15 miles. Jackpot! When you accumulate 500 miles, you can make a deposit into your WorldPerks account. With some surveys only three questions long, it’s very little effort to bank some miles. So little effort that every other survey I feel guilty not providing feedback of real value. On three different occasions I have emailed the folks at e-Miles® and told them so. Urging them to urge their partners to draft surveys that give context to my responses.

I found out I’m not the only one concerned at the lack of qualitative research in these “research” strategies when I came across Jeanne Bliss’ presentation How to Become a Consumer Action Hero in 10 Steps. Bliss suggests that common customer surveys are designed to fail, with the emphasis put on achieving a certain score. She argues that “Any time a business asks a customer how they’re doing, it should be for the purpose of doing something with that information.” Number six, on her list of actionable suggestions is: Don’t ask any question without knowing how you’ll use the answer. Bliss reaffirms my frustration – I am taking the time to answer these silly surveys (though I’m grateful for the chance to get closer to a free trip to Hong Kong) and I’m not sure that you really care about the answers. In my opinion, the silly survey may garner you a deficit in customer satisfaction – demonstrating you already have an answer in mind, and you hope I will cooperate. Companies are essentially training customers to give Pavlov responses.

In Blue Grotto’s knowledge management work, we are often called upon to shore up a client’s collective knowledge to be used in strategic planning, branding, communications, etc. Email me with your approach to acquiring feedback from your stakeholders – customers, employees, vendors – and more importantly, how you use it.

For a copy of Jeanne Bliss’ full presentation:
http://www.changethis.com/30.05.CustomerActionHero
I also liked #10 on the list: Redirect that survey budget.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Some light reading

2007-04-12T14:30:00.000-05:00

I am currently reading Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbuck’s. I enjoy reading about Schultz’s passion – for coffee, the culture of his company, and leadership. So, I found a March 2006 Harvard Business Review interview, Leadership in Literature, with Joseph Badaracco, Jr., the John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School, of particular interest.

There is growing concern that today’s business students receive far more training in the quantitative elements of business and less of the soft skills of leadership – emotional intelligence, judgment and a moral compass. Badaracco teaches a business course in literature, hoping to engage students in an analysis of the complexity and often very personal nature of challenges facing managers and executives.

One point, that most managers can relate to, is the clash between individuals based on a deep, personal commitment to their own values. Using the Greek tragedy of Antigone as an example, Badaracco explains: “We see the same thing today in organizations when leaders are unable to see beyond their own agendas for truth, change, and human development.”

Acknowledging the complexities of characters in literature helps executives to acknowledge the basic flaws of human nature. Conflicts, both personal and professional, will arise throughout a person’s career. How an individual chooses to learn from those conflicts can be a deciding factor in their success as a leader.

Part of what we do at Blue Grotto is to encourage clients to frame information into narratives, allowing a better understanding of principles and values. Bullet points, pie charts and graphs lack the ability to convey what went into the decision-making process to get you beyond the second quarter slump - or sales goals. While some information requires a visual vehicle, like a graph, I challenge you to augment that graph with a narrative that articulates the choices and outcomes that were considered.

Though Schultz’s tale of turning a commodity like coffee into the worldwide phenomenon that is Starbuck’s is laden with protagonists and antagonists, with lots of shelf space at stake, I might also need to brush up on my Shakespeare. Email me with the book titles crowding your nightstand.

Note: Joseph Badaracco writes frequently for Harvard Business publications on ethics and character in leaders. You can search by his last name at -http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu - for additional article titles.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

A tale of two Chief Executive Officers

2007-03-20T07:42:00.000-05:00

While researching nonprofit best practices, I came across an interesting article, What Business Execs don’t know – but Should – about Nonprofits. Les Silverman and Lynn Taliento, of McKinsey & Company’s Nonprofit Practice, discuss the differences in challenges facing leaders of nonprofits and their counterparts in the for-profit world.

Beyond the obvious, that leaders of nonprofits are forced to do more with far less resources than any for-profit management team, two challenges cited by nonprofit leaders stood out for me.

One was the difference in the role of the board in corporate and nonprofit communities. While agreeing to the mission of the organization, the nonprofit board often reflects diversity in its members’ vision of how to achieve it. And while the competitive nature of industry requires for-profit companies to be highly-responsive and definitive in their decision-making process, the volunteer capacity of nonprofit board members calls for consensus-building and they can be slower to act. Peter Goldmark, former president of the Rockefeller Foundation, described it as needing “a much more consultative, inclusive decision-making style."

The second point I found interesting was the role of communications and its importance in an organization’s success, especially in fundraising. The nonprofit CEO is almost always the chief communicator for the organization, both internally and externally. And the comparison of investor relations in for-profit CEO responsibilities to that of “chief fundraiser” title of the nonprofit CEO highlights the unique nature of communications in a nonprofit.

Storytelling is an incredible tool in nonprofit communications. Not just the feel good, pull at your heartstrings stories about your mission of “saving the world” “one child at a time,” but the micro-level stories about your organization’s best practices - the purposeful ways you accomplish great things. As the authors of this article found, quantifiable results can sometimes be elusive in nonprofits, yet important to the corporate community when asked to support a nonprofit’s mission. Corporate leadership can better understand and appreciate the challenges their nonprofit counterparts face, and overcome, through an evaluation of decision-making, leadership, innovation and philosophy.

Email me with examples of how your organization leverages the inherent philosophies, values and best practices that make up your competitive advantages. And I challenge you to think strategically about communicating your organization’s traditions of leadership, advocacy and innovation – beyond the mission statement.

You can find the full article on the Stanford Center for Social Innovation website:
www.ssireview.org/articles

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Debriefing enhances organizational knowledge

2007-03-03T15:32:00.000-06:00

I just met with a colleague the other day to discuss the Value of Storytelling workshop we developed at Blue Grotto.

In describing our work on helping clients to collect and communicate their best practices through a narrative process, I mentioned an article by Jimmy Guterman – The Lost (or Never Learned) Art of Debriefing. In it, Guterman tells how the model of military debriefing can be extremely useful in business.

At Blue Grotto, we talk a lot about nuanced information, the information you can’t get from an elevator speech, a customer satisfaction survey, an employee exit survey, etc. I can go on and on about all the sound bite tools companies use in the quest for better, more quantifiable information.

In our work, we’ve found that the nuanced information is usually locked away inside someone’s brain. Perspective from hands-on work and experience. Information a person didn’t know may be valuable to someone else, maybe everyone, in the company. And they typically don’t know how to convert that knowledge to the company’s knowledge infrastructure. Debriefing may be just the tool to get you started.

A few of Guterman’s suggestions for debriefing:
· Build in the expectation that the employee attending the conference or event will be providing detailed information upon their return.
· Be succinct and debrief as soon as possible to leverage enthusiasm, stick to the highlights.
· Remember the power of stories – narratives will help your audience to digest information and understand the impact of it. (Of course, I am particularly in favor of the storytelling component.)

There are dozens of ways to incorporate the debrief process into everyday communications and reporting. The “from the field” aspect of the debrief makes it credible. The trick is to successfully synthesize the details into information that everyone can use. Helping people inside your company – from sales to facilities management - to understand why something worked is as important as congratulating the team on the fact that it worked. It really is an art. One Blue Grotto client took the debrief seriously and managed to incorporate knowledge they had acquired the year before to develop an award-winning tradeshow booth two years in a row.

Email me with examples of how you use the debrief inside your own company or organization, and I’ll debrief everyone in a future blog.

Link: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/2940.html to view the complete article by Jimmy Guterman

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Taking Stock

2007-02-13T04:50:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I spent the day driving to and from a small town in Minnesota called, Brownsville. My daughter’s close friend had lost her father from an unexpected heart attack. We went to Brownsville to celebrate the all too short 52 years of his life.

I think the entire town showed up for the memorial service. People were asked to come early to pay their respects. On tables in the community room, next to the family who greeted us, were pieces of his life lovingly arranged. Personal items: his fishing rod and hat, his glasses, and albums full of the articles he had published in the course of owning and working as a newspaper columnist. Many people, like myself, leafed through his life’s work organized in three ring books. I stopped and took some time to read.

It’s hard to document the work people do on a daily basis, even though we spend so much our time at work. But driving home from Brownsville I found myself thinking about how I felt connected to this man’s life by seeing the volumes of work he had published over the years. So, on the drive home I decided to make some sort of archive of my own professional life. I don’t know what that will look like, but a know it’s a value of mine and one that I shared with this amazing man whose life ended far too soon.

Email me if you have experienced any extraordinary ways that families have honored the professional life of their loved ones. And remember “life is short… but it is also wide.”

Rachel Fine
Creative Director, Blue Grotto Inc.
Rachel@bluegrottoinc.com

Recommended reading: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

Q & A

2007-02-07T20:22:00.000-06:00

Whether you’re the boss or the direct report, interrogation is never easy. Sometimes you won’t like the answers to your questions and sometimes you’re not asking the right questions. In the October 2006 Harvard Management Update, Judith Ross says the later may be the real problem. In her article Real Leaders Ask, Ross outlines suggestions on how to ask effective, and more importantly, empowering questions.

By asking for an employee’s input, managers convey that they value a member of their team’s ideas and, in turn, the employee becomes more confident and competent. Ross adds that empowering questions build more than just confidence, empowering questions help to develop critical problem solving skills.

Ross urges managers to model effective questioning, recognizing when you may be asking questions that demand a negative result, like leading questions (the ones you know the answer to or hope to influence), and striving instead for questions that create value. Don’t assume everyone is on the same page when it comes to problem solving. Everyone may not even yet agree on the problem. Effective questions by a leader can help to move your team to alignment on an issue and more quickly to a solution.

I appreciated two of her examples of how empowering questions create value: that they encourage breakthrough thinking, and that they create ownership of solutions. Two fundamentals most organizations find themselves continually in pursuit of.

My favorite line in her article was a quote of Michael Marquardt, professor of human resources and international affairs at George Washington University, who asked each of his direct reports: “What one idea and/or strategy that we are not currently implementing do you believe would best contribute to the success of our company?” Can you imagine the responses?

Empowering questions are yet another tool in the arsenal of internal communications. Email me with examples of other ways you have found to communicate more effectively with people in your organization.

P.S. I also liked Ross’ examples of poorly-worded questions like “Why are you behind schedule?” and “Is this a good time to talk?” Both made me shudder.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Anniversary fit for a Queen

2007-01-27T15:43:00.000-06:00

I read today that Jamestown, Virginia is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of America’s first permanent English settlement. 400 years – now that’s an anniversary!

Not many of us will ever plan for or participate in an anniversary with quadruple centuries, but the Jamestown example offers some key lessons on celebrating a milestone.

Beyond the hoopla - the parties and souvenirs a quadricentennial naturally brings - anniversary organizers have created a calendar of events and activities to showcase the role Jamestown colonists played in the creation of American democracy.

Hoping to draw more than 2.4 million visitors during the 18-month celebration, organizers found ways to engage every level of the community through events like a symposium titled the State of the Union: African American Imprint on America, a series of conferences in Williamsburg to discuss the future of democracy, an American Indian Intertribal Cultural Festival, and a children’s essay and poetry contest.

There is even a trans-Atlantic angle to the festivities. The Queen of England is considering a state visit to Virginia some time in May to commemorate the anniversary, and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine attended Jamestown-related events in England this past December, to “celebrate the friendship between the United States and Great Britain.” This would be only the fourth visit of Her Majesty to the US, a real distinction for anniversary organizers.

The Jamestown anniversary team appears to have worked hard to frame the celebration in ways that connects us with our past - the seemingly insurmountable challenges and risks of founding a new nation, the unequivocal belief in freedom and democracy - and inspires us for our future.

Cities across the country will mark centennials, sesquicentennials, bi-centennials in the next few years. My own home city – St. Paul, will mark its 150th anniversary in 2008. It will be exciting and interesting to read about, and compare, how communities plan to mark the occasion. Email me with examples of how your city plans to celebrate and inspire, or email me with a suggestion for how a city might expand beyond the balloons and birthday cake.

For information on Jamestown’s anniversary events, visit www.Americas400thAnniversary.com.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Spirit Week

2007-01-12T16:13:00.000-06:00

Last weekend my husband and I found ourselves cheering on high school students from across Minnesota in the Spirit of America Cheerleading Championship at the Mall of America. They wowed the crowds in the Rotunda of the Mall with truly daring pyramids and stunts. And, as we stood there, applauding our approval, I turned to my husband and beamed a smile – “It feels like spirit week at high school all over again.”

The music blared, the energy was undeniable - of the squads performing, their families and friends anxiously awaiting their favorite team, and the relief after each performance. There was evidence of the event throughout the Mall with parents proudly wearing t-shirts emblazoned: Proud Parent of a Sibley High School Cheerleader, and young women in cheerleading garb talking excitedly in line at the Gap Store. I commented to my husband that the Mall could not have asked for a better event to host – think of all the discretionary dollars of 14-18 year-old young women who would be spending the better part of the day, or maybe even the weekend, at the Mall.

Retail dollars aside, I started to think about all that unbridled energy as we headed home. I told my husband ‘I think we need a Spirit Week in corporate America.’ My husband, showing early signs of becoming a curmudgeon, replied, “Isn’t that what your paycheck is for?” Now, that may be the expected response of a lot of middle management, folks who find themselves sometimes pulling teeth, cajoling, even bribing others to get a project completed.

Employment research data shows that employees need motivation. Today’s top talent can shop around for an employer culture that is compatible with their own values and they don’t hesitate to job hop when their needs are not being met, often regardless of compensation levels.

The Small Business Association lists seven key areas for creating an environment that “inspires people to do their best day in and day out,” and Appreciation tops the list. Tangible demonstrations of thanks for work well-done, pride in your employees and celebrating successes are all contributing factors to work environments.

Now, can a Spirit Week assuage all ailments of troubled morale? Probably not, but a little bit of fun, energy and pride can go a long way. Email me with examples of how your company injects a little energy and excitement into the workplace. Pajama Day not required, though I did find one – SouthEast Telephone in Kentucky that even documented Pajama Day in the Corporate Photo Gallery.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

The experience economy

2007-01-04T15:50:00.000-06:00

I just came across an article from the July-August 1998 Harvard Business Review that seemed to prove timely even now – Welcome to the Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine and James Gilmore. And even though eight years ago feels like a lifetime in the context of 24-hour news, text messaging and Tivo, I clipped it way back then because their topic – creating value by creating an experience for the customer, not just by simply providing a service or product – seemed so cutting edge.

In the article, Pine and Gilmore discuss the evolution of economies as moving from distinct products and services to a business climate that demands more than widgets. They claimed the “next competitive battleground lies in staging experiences.” Walt Disney aside (he may have been the original purveyor of experiences for sale), their examples would appear today to be obvious: Niketown, Cabella’s, the Hard Rock Café – all offer activities, displays and interactive opportunities during the shopping/eating excursion.

Now, eight-years later nearly everything feels like an experience. I wonder if the authors realized how prophetic their research would prove to be. Pine and Gilmore took up eight and a half pages of HBR, with charts and graphs to boot, to academically outline the progression of this new experience economy of which I am not capable of a full translation.

But as I read through it again, I was struck by one of the call out quotes: “Companies should think about what they would do differently if they charged admission.”

Two relatively simple observations from the authors: 1) You don’t have to develop your own theme park to convey a sense of experience {“…when a Rainforest Café host declares, ‘Your adventure is about to begin,’ it sets the stage for something special.”}, and 2) The challenge of ensuring the integrity or consistency of the customer experience.

We work with Blue Grotto clients to document their best practices. Documentation interviews allow our clients to better gauge things that may not be obvious to management – the nuanced information as we like to call it. Anecdotal research often offers a more realistic reflection of what is and isn’t working. A dialogue with customers, employees, partners, even people in the communities you operate in gives you a better foundation of what’s needed to inspire, excite and support those who are vital to your purpose.

Email me with examples of how your company has generated value by making your business more than just a transaction. And I will scour my collection of past issues of HBR for equally interesting ‘research.’

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Recipe for success

2006-12-26T08:16:00.000-06:00

I was looking for something to blog about during the year-end holiday weeks. The days when most people tend to check out from the routines of business and spend time with colleagues, family and friends relaxing and celebrating.

I found my inspiration in the mail today when I received the holiday greeting from the Rider Bennett Law office in Minneapolis. Instead of the typical card on glossy stock with an impersonal inside imprint of “From your friends at Rider Bennett Law,” I opened a darling six inch by six inch cookbook. With a table of contents and total of 44 recipes, this cookbook called on the employees and clients of Rider Bennett to contribute a favorite recipe – along with a little anecdote about the origin of the recipe, why it’s their favorite, etc.

Not only are the recipes mouth-watering, the narratives that accompany them are genuine and personal: on the Crabby Deviled Eggs, “I’m required to bring these to all family gatherings – but a dozen or two usually aren’t enough!” I read through every page, becoming more hungry by the minute, and thinking to myself that this is, by far, the nicest holiday greeting I have received from any vendor or client.

Though the novelty of the cookbook-as-greeting-card is impressive, even more so is the tie to Rider Bennett’s commitment to community service and their values by making a donation to the Second Harvest Heartland Food Shelf “on behalf of the clients, friends and attorneys of Rider Bennett LLP.”

The typical cards on that glossy stock with that impersonal imprint will hit the trash before the new year. But I will likely attempt more than one of the recipes from the cookbook. And you can bet that I will think of Rider Bennett each time I use it.

Email me with examples of clever marketing projects, especially those that tie in with your company’s values or history. And feel free to ring up Rider Bennett, LLP to request a copy of that cookbook.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Stories illustrate values

2006-12-12T09:01:00.000-06:00

Recently, I came across a podcast series - Stanford’s Educators Corner, a weekly seminar - Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders with presentations by some of Southern California’s preeminent business influencers, including Scott Kriens, CEO of Juniper Networks, and Joe Liemandt, founder and CEO of Trilogy.

Each podcast is nearly an hour long and is an audio of an actual college seminar. Rick Wallace, CEO of KLA-Tencor, shared the tenets of the company’s philosophies in a presentation published Wednesday, October 18, 2006. It was fascinating to hear first-hand commentary on some of the challenges and resolve of three decades of development at KLA-Tencor.

Of the 57-minute presentation, I found two points of particular interest: KLA-Tencor’s current strategies and philosophies are reflective of the company’s past leaders and history, and the challenges of managing the company’s culture when growing through acquisition.

Wallace stressed the understanding and communication of his company’s values. His examples illustrated the challenge of staying true to your values in an incredibly competitive market. One anecdote Wallace gave was when founder, Ken Levy, instructed KLA representatives to walk away from a deal with IBM - a key tenet of the company: be willing to turn away business in order to not compromise your own model.

And the importance of managing a company’s culture was evident in the merging of two major competitors, KLA and Tencor. Today, KLA-Tencor is mindful of their values when seeking out partnerships and acquisitions.

At Blue Grotto, we emphasize capturing and communicating the essence of what has made a company successful and the values that guide operations. Most companies enjoy long-time customer relationships as well as a loyal base of employees and vendors. Thoughtful communication of values and history is a chance to deliver a renewed sense of commitment to stakeholders while articulating the vision of today’s leadership.

Organizations that reach milestones, celebrate successes, plan for transition or embark on new initiatives generally have important stories to share. These stories have the power to inspire, excite and support those vital to your company’s purpose. It is stories like Ken Levy’s risk of walking out on a major customer like IBM that become a part of company lore, but more importantly become the vehicle to communicating the best practices that will serve as a road map for the future.

Email me with examples of how you capture – and communicate – the values and history of your organization. As Fred Talbot, former writer for Saturday Night Live, and communications professor at Owen Graduate School of Management/Vanderbilt (two diametrically different professional lives?) said: “All leaders have to be great storytellers.”

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Giving money away

2006-12-04T15:37:00.000-06:00

“Giving away money effectively is almost as hard as earning it in the first place.” Bill Gates, quoted in the Economist in 1997

I would be willing to bet that statement still rings true today, for Mr. Gates as well as many people who are approached regularly, even daily, with philanthropic requests. Just this year, Warren Buffet joined philanthropic forces with Mr. Gates in an effort to streamline his own planned giving.

The 2006 Minnesota Council of Nonprofits directory lists 4,500 organizations, so folks have thousands of options for spending their time, money and resources. And today’s donors are a savvy group; they are approached frequently and in a variety of ways. Individuals as well as foundations are looking for stewards of not only their money, but stewards of the values and beliefs most important to them. In announcing the gift to their foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates commented on the “generosity and trust” of Mr. Buffet, crediting Mr. Buffet’s influence as their own inspiration for philanthropy. Could there be a higher compliment paid?

The most savvy nonprofits have learned the important lesson that successful development efforts rely on clearly communicating the organization’s values when raising friends and funds in a highly competitive market. Values-based development gives an organization a distinct advantage. It can bring about a stronger and more sustained relationship. Developing resource relationships based on shared values requires a thoughtful examination of just what an organization is and why it does what it does.

Every nonprofit has a carefully thought-out mission statement, and every nonprofit exists for a specific purpose. But there are likely several organizations that serve the same purpose. So how does an organization set itself apart? How does a nonprofit recruit and, more importantly, retain resources - donors, volunteers, staff and board members? How do the most successful nonprofits encourage long-term relationships?

Values-based resource development requires that a nonprofit examine and articulate its values as reflected in the philosophies of service, strategic planning, and stewardship that have driven and sustained it through many years. Taking an inventory of how those values have changed, or remained the same, is an important part the process.

We at Blue Grotto have helped many nonprofits to more effectively communicate their values, and more importantly, to illustrate those values – through the narrative process – to connect with donors of all shapes and sizes, from the average holiday giver, to family foundations, to corporate community relations offices. I am interested to hear how your organization is working to connect with donors. Email me with your own examples of making it easier for people to give their money away.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

The Magic of the Mouse

2006-11-29T21:35:00.000-06:00

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” Walt Disney

I just returned from a family vacation to Disneyland in Los Angeles. At dinner the last night of our trip, my family - three generations of us - sat and talked about what makes Disney, well, Disney. What is it in the pixie dust that makes the entire Disney experience magical?

This is the third blog in a row that I’ve discussed culture, but after having witnessed the most impressive, inculcated and authentic culture in the corporate world today, I must comment on it yet again. The Disney culture is possibly one of the most studied corporate cultures in the world. Google the words Disney corporate culture and you get 1.1M results.

I asked my Dad, on several occasions, during our trip, “How do you think they get their people to buy into the whole Disney thing?” meaning: how does a culture become so ubiquitous that you are almost guaranteed that your Cast Members will smile on cue, will act as if your family is the only family they have to cater to today, will be in costume, signing autographs on main street at the exact appropriated time, will make sure the ladies restroom stalls have toilet paper from 8 a.m. – midnight…and make it all look so effortless, so natural, so… magical.

There is a Disney University. And the Cast Member training is extensive. But somehow, each day they convince every single Cast Member from the person in the Mickey Mouse costume, to the gal walking the grounds picking up trash, of the magic that is Disney and more importantly of their own personal responsibility in helping visitors experience that magic. Can you imagine if your own staff or workforce were able to carry your company’s mission, branding, and commitment to service and success to your customers so completely as the Disney Cast Members do? Clearly Walt Disney’s gamble on creating the most ironclad culture in the world has paid off. The unofficial numbers say that more than 14.5 million folks passed through the gates into Disneyland in 2005, close to 39 thousand visitors each day.

Lots of people have Disneyland experiences, and I’d love to hear about them. Email me with your favorite Disneyland memory, or a comment on how they’ve kept the magic up for 50 years now.

The note Minnie Mouse wrote to my very tearful niece as she explained that this was the last day of our visit summed up our family’s trip “Remember, no distance or place or lapse of time can lessen our friendship. We are pals, Minnie Mouse.” That’s about as authentic as you get. Disney University or not. That one Minnie Mouse continues to help make Walt Disney's dream a reality 50 years later.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

More than a mission statement

2006-11-20T15:36:00.000-06:00

“The biggest defense against pilferage is a strong culture.” Orin Smith former CFO of Starbucks.

I was moved to write again this week about corporate culture upon hearing the news that former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling, who was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the biggest corporate scandal in U.S. history, is to begin his sentence at the low-security federal prison in Waseca, Minnesota. And, partner in crime, David Delainey, may also be sent to the Waseca prison.

When the collapsing Enron inundated cocktail hour conversation back in 2001, people would ask incredulously, “How could the top people not have known?” When folks inside the company, some long-time employees, asked the same question, with the same sense of incredulity, investigators appropriately became suspicious.

A company’s culture is organic. And it’s viral. It spreads quickly. It is defined by leadership and emulated by direct reports. In the 9/29/03 issue of Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3689.html, Michael Sisk asks: how does a commitment to "do the right thing" as it's applied to customers, employees, and other stakeholders affect an organization's daily decision making?

In this brief article, Sisk gives examples of the challenges every company - big or small, corporate or independent consultant - tackles regularly - maintaining your values under constant economic pressures. Executives he quotes credit communication as an important piece of the shared values puzzle. Continually articulating a company’s values and vision is a constant reminder to employees of all levels.

I would also argue that finding ways to illustrate your organization’s values – not just stating them, posting them up in the lunchroom, but rather finding ways to incorporate them into key messages…in newsletters, weekly reports, messages from leadership…gives employees concrete benchmarks and a richer understanding of what you mean when you say: “UPS believes that corporate commitment to core values and ethical decision-making are the foundation upon which all aspects of the company must be built – the foundation which ensures the company’s long term viability. This commitment creates a climate for success in which our customers, employees, shareowners and communities can trust in UPS’s legacy of leading with integrity.” {Summary of UPS mission statement, yes, summary}. It sounds nice. And very official. But what does it mean? To the customer shipping millions of dollars of merchandise every year, to the shareowner, and most importantly to the person in the brown truck carrying your most prized possession to, hopefully, your door?

Email me with examples of how your organization stretches beyond the mission statement. I am eager to hear of examples of living your values.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Messaging affects branding

2006-11-13T22:00:00.000-06:00

Can a nonprofit have a brand? Just like that of Starbucks or McDonalds?

Absolutely, according to authors John A. Quelch and Nathalie Laidler-Kylander. Both were interviewed in a March 14, 2005 Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter Q&A{http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4686.html} to promote their book, The New Global Brands: Managing Non-Government Organizations in the 21st Century.

It took me a minute to think of as well-known a brand as Starbucks in the nonprofit world, but I nodded in acknowledgement when the authors mentioned the American Red Cross (an internationally-known brand) and Habitat for Humanity.

The authors remind us that funding for nonprofits is becoming more competitive and that corporate partnerships are seen as a viable option for new development dollars. Branding becomes especially important when seeking corporate funding. Quelch and Laidler-Kylander refer to the co-branding opportunities of corporate sponsorship.

Companies are looking for the right fit in sponsorship packages. Sponsorship of an organization’s mission gives the corporate community a specific role to play in your efforts. Conversely, a sponsorship initiative allows leading community businesses to demonstrate their participation and investment in achieving your organization’s vision.

Many Blue Grotto clients are in the process of developing sponsorship relationships to support their development efforts. And in working with clients on these new opportunities we find that an organization’s brand is a reflection of, an extension of, even the result of the organization’s culture and philosophies.

One important facet of a nonprofit’s branding and outreach is key messaging.

Key messaging helps an organization to:
· Define what you know about yourselves
· Understand how others perceive the organization
· Articulate your best practices

Key messaging can be used to communicate and reinforce your organization’s culture and core values - to staff and clients, current and future board members, partners and donors, legislating bodies and the community in which you operate. Duplicating a consistent message is an important, but often elusive, element of a nonprofit communications and development strategy.

Consider how any one person’s description of your organization can affect another’s view of your nonprofit - the domino effect. Then imagine how that same person’s message, when consistent with the key messages of your organization’s values can be propagated over and over. Imagine further, the impact if everyone connected to your organization - your board, staff, and volunteers, your own donors, the media, even competing nonprofits – were duplicating your key messages. Thus the critical branding process – full circle.

Email me with examples of how your own messaging and communications reflect your organization’s culture and philosophies.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Managing your culture

2006-10-30T15:48:00.000-06:00

Corporate culture has taken center stage in the last few years. With the well-publicized collapse of some companies, the hostile resignations of CEOs and board chairs, and the merging of companies far and wide, there is no doubt that the environment of corporate culture will never be the same.

Your organization’s culture is a reflection of its values. And values are organic to any organization – you can’t simply make them up, or transplant them from one company to another, or worse yet – dictate them from the corner office.

Most companies’ values are not brightly illuminated until there is a crisis. But the company’s values, good or bad, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, are determined long before the crisis arises. And in many cases, the company’s values are what pulls them {everyone – from the CEO and executive team, all the way down to the janitorial staff} through to the other side of the dark tunnel {see the 9/29/03 HBS Working Knowledge article Do the Right Thing by Michael Sisk http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3689.html }.

How do you manage your organization’s culture when you’re not tacking into the wind?

Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, has written extensively on the role of organizational culture in success and adversity. In his April 12, 2004 HBS Working Knowledge Executive Summary Waking Up a Sleeping Company, {http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4054.html} George discusses his company’s challenge in managing, and ultimately trying to change, a successful culture. He addresses the question most leaders face: how do you manage values in a performance-driven environment? Or in Medtronic’s case, how do you infuse a performance-driven environment into your company’s half-a-century-old culture?

Working with a company as they prepare to celebrate an anniversary or milestone, or assisting a company with a knowledge management program, we inevitably end up documenting organizational culture. I had the great pleasure of working with Medtronic as they celebrated 50 years. Many of the learnings that bubble up are expected and are an affirmation of a culture, like the tenet that 3M is patient with its internal investment, allowing initiatives to root and take hold, rather than killing an initiative after the first quarter reports. Other clients have extracted from Blue Grotto’s research and oral history components a management analysis, or benchmarking and evaluation tools. One client, knowing their top leadership would turn over soon, asked interviewees what leadership attributes they felt would be congruent with the organization’s culture.

In the past, corporate culture tended to conjure up a ‘soft stuff’ image for executives. But as Roger Enrico, former CEO of PepsiCo, once said: “The soft stuff is always harder than the hard stuff.”

Email me with an example of how you are working in your own organization to understand and manage your company’s culture.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Narrating your own story

2006-10-23T10:13:00.000-05:00

Everyone is in to podcasts now. Me included. One of my favorite weekly podcasts is the Journal Report produced by the Wall Street Journal {http://online.wsj.com}

One episode of particular interest is Jeffrey Zaslow’s interview of professional writer and personal historian Paula Stahel about memoir writing, a topic near and dear to Blue Grotto. First published Thursday, June 22, 2006 this podcast runs about fifteen minutes.

Stahel, who co-authored The Wonder Years - My Life and Times With Stevie Wonder with Ted Hull, Wonder’s teacher, says that the most daunting aspect of writing your own personal history is that most people don’t see themselves as writers. You don’t have to be. She advises people to start by sitting down and writing a letter, as though you were writing a letter to a grandchild or future grandchildren. Include everything from the mundane to the spectacular. Decades and generations from now, your daily life today will seem fascinating. What was a podcast? Your heirs will ask.

The letter idea is a great start. String several letters, and you’ve got yourself a chapter. And think of the power of a letter. Remember President Ronald Reagan’s letters to wife Nancy? The letters of a man written to his wife over forty years gave a rare insight into the personal relationship of a very public couple. Think of the letters compiled of soldiers writing wives, sweethearts, mothers from the front lines of WWII. How do they compare to the men and women serving today in the US Armed Forces in far off places all over the globe?

Someone commented to me recently that, as a society, we’ve plain forgotten how to write personal notes – of thanks, of congratulations, of sympathy. Instead, we pound out a quick email, and attach electronic photos. When was the last time you received something personal in the mail, other than the electric bill?

One of the greatest gifts to a family is the celebration of their culture and history. Personal and family histories offer a unique opportunity to capture and communicate what makes a family distinctive – its stories of growth, success, leadership in the community, generational characteristics – all sources of pride and accomplishment.

Though many individuals may demur on their own story, their imprint on their family is indelible. It is often their own philosophies, hard work and devotion to family that allowed others to grow and succeed. And it is those same philosophies and perspectives that will remain important for decades to come.

Email me, or write to me on that fancy stationary collecting dust in your office, about your own efforts to chronicle experiences, accomplishments and memories.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Is What You Say What They Hear?

2006-10-16T14:05:00.000-05:00

How many times have you finished up a meeting with a co-worker, a subordinate, a boss, even a client, and they stare back at you with glassy eyes, a perplexed look, or, worse yet – as if you were speaking Japanese the entire meeting? In the end, for some, the question remains: is what you say what they hear?

I came across a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter article about effective communications. In Loosen Up Your Communications Style (http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/archive/3559.html), Theodore Kinni outlines the need for leaders to combine three effective styles of communication: Emotional, Factual and Symbolic.

Kinni presented a statistic I found both amusing and frightening: “… in a 2002 survey of 1,104 employees around the country, 86 percent of the respondents said that their bosses thought they were great communicators. But only 17 percent said their bosses actually communicated effectively.”

Finding ways to connect with your audience is only one step in effective communications. Making sure you give folks the tools to carry your message forward can be even more challenging. Remember, what you say does not always equate to what they hear. Think of the game of ‘telephone’ – how one person interprets your directive directly impacts how it is carried out.

Storytelling is an effective and powerful tool to use in presenting an organizational message. A story—more than a flow chart, a power point presentation, or even a mission statement— has the power to motivate an audience to take action.

Working with Blue Grotto clients on corporate and organizational histories and documentation projects, we see the impact storytelling has on everything from rallying the troops, to defining problems and brainstorming solutions, to crisis communications. Clients found that storytelling promotes the shared vision that strengthens their connection to listeners. And storytelling offers perspectives in a format that is both easily grasped and easily repeated. Imagine how successful you can be when your key message can be retold by staff, your clients, your vendors, even your competition.

Email me with your favorite example of a communicator or storyteller and why that person or business left an impression (hopefully a good one) on you.

Ohayo gozaimas! (Greetings! in Japanese)
Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

National University of Singapore celebrates 100 years

2006-10-09T14:14:00.000-05:00

I often refer to client success stories when talking about Blue Grotto’s work - real-time examples of organizations who truly take the message of leveraging a milestone to heart.

One organization, though not a Blue Grotto client but who deserves special mention in the milestone category, is the National University of Singapore, just concluding a year-long celebration of their 100th anniversary. I found out about them through my weekly tracking of hits to the Blue Grotto website. The folks at NUS visited our site several times throughout 2005-06.

Amazement would describe my feelings when I, in turn, visited their site. The comprehensive program, as outlined on their Centennial page, http://www.nus.edu.sg/centennial/ is truly impressive. From a video, to a roving exhibit, to more than a dozen pieces of memorabilia commemorating the Centennial – their organizing committee had significant resources available to them. And though not every organization will have that same level of funding devoted to an anniversary, resources, of any magnitude, and the support of the organization’s leadership are critical to the success of any milestone program.

Some may argue that many of the NUS “activities” go against the grain of the Blue Grotto philosophy that an anniversary is more than just a party, but the University also demonstrated a keen understanding of messaging and communications as well. An ongoing newsletter helped to keep visitors to the site updated and engaged, and served as a vehicle to articulate key messages throughout the year. Most importantly, the University communicated its strategic plan for the Centennial with an outline of the organizing committees, people charged with the tasks of implementing activities, and by making a copy of the Master Plan available to staff and faculty through the University’s intranet site. Communicating how you plan to maximize resources helps others to support your efforts.

The National University of Singapore’s Centennial campaign is a terrific illustration of the opportunities to reconnect with alumni, instill loyalty and pride in students, and articulate the importance of the institution in the commuity. Objectives any oganization or company would be eager to put to use.

Email me with examples of an anniversary message or campaign that impressed you.

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto Inc.
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Marathon offers Milestone analogy

2006-10-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

The Twin Cities Marathon, considered the most beautiful urban marathon in America, celebrated it’s 25th anniversary yesterday. Appropriately, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press offered up some wonderful historical facts in Sunday’s newspaper. Being a historian of sorts, I love factoids. They offer a snapshot, even if just in the highlights, to some of the successes, challenges and practical learnings of an institution. And, at twenty-five years, the TCM is indeed an institution. Runners from around the world participated yesterday, with many serious competitors for the $25k prize money.

We live just a few blocks from the marathon route in St. Paul, and each year my husband and I walk up to the route to cheer those determined, sometimes haggard – we are at mile 21 – runners, exhausted but still moving toward that finish line. And as I stood there on the sidelines, shouting for a guy with “My name is Mike, cheer for me” painted on the front of his t-shirt as he ran past me, I thought about the magnitude of running a marathon. It is essentially a game you play against yourself. Though you may be running alongside ten thousand other exhausted, haggard people, and hearing the applause of 26 miles of supporters, a marathon is a solo milestone experience. Marla Runyon, a two-time Olympian, and this year’s women’s winner, was quoted as saying “It’s a very humbling event.”

Milestones, big and small, are a part of every day life. And the Twin Cities Marathon illustrates some wonderful examples, from the folks out there running their first marathon, to the folks running to raise money, to the folks just wanting to run a marathon in their lifetime. Most importantly, milestones serve as benchmarks.

As in personal life, companies and organizations celebrate milestones as well. Anniversaries, milestones of programs, product launches (3M recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of Post-it Notes, who can imagine life with out Post-it Notes?), leadership and leadership changes all offer the chance to celebrate, to reinvigorate and to learn. Many business and organizational leaders can relate to the marathon experience. Think of how many times you hear an experience described with the analogy of a marathon.

Something worthy of that analogy could also be a milestone. Remember to celebrate even the smallest triumphs, use them as the chance to reinvigorate your troops and take the time to learn from them. Even the occasional 5K runner celebrates with a Powerbar, logs her finishing time, and makes note if she thinks she could shave a few seconds toward her personal best.

Email me with milestones you’ve celebrated or acknowledged. We at Blue Grotto hope you continue to make the most of them!

Yvonne Hundshamer
President, Blue Grotto
yvonne@bluegrottoinc.com

Family businesses leverage mission, values

2006-09-25T09:49:00.000-05:00

Harvard Business School’s weekly newsletter on best practices – Working Knowledge – has become a much-used resource for us at Blue Grotto. I forward articles weekly to clients, colleagues and friends. It’s loaded with current business research, links to their most popular stories and Faculty Q&A. And the best part – it’s free, so, you, too, can sign up and receive the weekly updates.

The link I am including today is to a February 14, 2005 article, http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4633.html Leveraging the Mission in Family Business, excerpted from the book Managing for the Long Run: Lessons in Competitive Advantage from Great Family Businesses.

Authors Danny Miller and Isabelle Le Breton-Miller, from the University of Alberta, discuss what their research shows to be four priorities of Family-Controlled Businesses. Along with the excerpt, they include a visual overview of the priorities cross-referenced with best practices and a series of footnotes with additional resources for information on how family businesses leverage their values.

Most experts agree: family businesses lead the corporate world in categories such as long-term profitability, employee loyalty, and shareholder value.

Blue Grotto wrote an article for Family Business Magazine (see our Resources Page on http://www.bluegrottoinc.com), to help illustrate the unique role that family businesses play in today’s economy. In it, we articulate how documenting your company’s history and culture helps to define the core ideas, values and strengths that have contributed to—and will remain a basis for—your organization’s continued success.

Has your company reached a special milestone? We’d like to hear how you celebrated an extended period of success. The stories of your business’ growth have the power to inspire, excite and support those who are vital to your purpose. And others can learn from your experience.

Email me with your comments on how your organization leverages your mission or history.
Yvonne
President, Blue Grotto Inc.

2006-08-08T08:39:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Blue Grotto blog!