Con artists get a bad rap: How to become a master “corporate pro-artist”

How to develop a leadership message that rallies the troops in times of economic crunch? Is it ethical to become a mega-cheerleader when you’re in the midst of rough seas? What can business leaders learn from the wink and nod attitudes of con artists that would instill the type of optimism in their employees that would lead toward upticks in business results? What messages work?

The Business Genome’s rules for How to Be a Master Corporate Pro-Artist provide the guide on the side advice for leaders trying to climb out of the downward spirals of business performance.

I see what you mean: The art and science of drawing (strategic business) conclusions

Business executives can now combine the power of data mining and business intelligence tools with computational drawing capabilities to clarify their strategic thinking. It’s time to get on the same page to accelerate business progress.

Rules for business survival: How to swim out of the current

by Andrea Kates, Founder, Business Genome™

We Are Human: The Checklist

My dad was a psychiatrist (and, after retirement, a stand up comedian, but that’s a story for another day) who developed a list of Rules for Survival that got me through every important transition in my life. It was a simple checklist that I could review when I was facing the big decisions. What I loved about the list was that just at the point where I couldn’t decide which major to pick, which industry to focus on, how to make it through big personal challenges like death and taxes, all I had to do was to review my basic instrument flight rules and I could catch my breath for awhile and figure out a new angle—a new way to swim out of the current and see new possibilities.

Learning How to Swim Out of the Current

These days we call it “hope.”

The list began with:

1. Face the Facts
2. Make a Plan

Which brings me to the observation I’ve had over the past few weeks as I witness business leader after business leader, in many different industries, confessing that they have no precedent for the current situation they find themselves in and are looking for ways to get unstuck (or worse, to stop the bleeding). I am reminded of a fact that we sometimes forget: as business leaders we are human.

And, as humans, we sometimes have to admit that we are stuck. We have to face the recent facts. We have to face new facts. We have to envision the facts to come.

Bernie Madoff & Steve Wozniak: Facing the Music

Sometimes we even have to face the music (this month it was Bernie Madoff on the one hand, and Steve Wozniak on the other).

No matter our circumstances, business leaders have to use some sort of checklist, first of all to assess which “facts they need to face” and second to figure out how to “make a plan” when their current checklist no longer applies. (Like the old joke about rule one.  Rule one: Follow all rules. Rule two: Get a new rulebook.)

Know When Your Current Checklist No Longer Applies

Which facts should we be paying attention to? How do we know that today’s tea leaves are leading to an important new conclusion?

One of the main lessons of the Business Genome™ is that business leaders who are stuck have a relatively quick checklist they should use as the first line of attack. This brings us to the Business Genome™ Instrument Flight Rules: Getting Unstuck, a list that is the crystallization of insights from 300+ business leaders about what to do first when times are tough.

The Business Genome™ Instrument Flight Rules: Guide to Getting Unstuck

1. Face the facts. Admit that you’re stuck. Experience is the best teacher here. Just sensing that there is something wrong is often the first sign that there is.
2. Read the trends with a new eye. And don’t just read the same old trends and reports from the past that you’ve been reviewing for weeks. But, the meteors that are about to hit from new angles (like, women entering the workplace, aging customer base, new suppliers in the supply chain, new headlines in the global news). Ask yourself: Are these trends starting to encroach on my business-as-usual?
3. Explore cross-industry ideas. Which solutions from other industries might help catapult our organization to the next level? Like the IDEO team that studied the details of NASCAR pit crews to improve the Emergency Room experience. Where is there an industry that is doing a kick-ass job of something that could be tried in your organization?
4. Make a quick experiment. Create a rapid prototype that cobbles together your hunches in a scientific way. Pilot your new ideas with small teams of intrapraneurs and pirates who love to stay up 24/7 working on a new idea. (Good for morale, good for taking the risk out of a new hunch.)

Dis-Card: Hewlett Packard Executive Discarded 3 x 5 CardI remember a few months ago when I was working with an executive from Hewlett-Packard who realized that it had finally reached the point where his team had to admit that they needed to face the facts and make a new plan. I have a vivid image in my mind of the reach of the hand into his shirt pocket, the 3 x 5 card that came out of the pocket (his “dashboard metrics cheat sheet”), and the ripping up of the card: his symbolic gesture for “it’s finally time to admit it’s time for a new 3 x 5 card.”

There’s a lot of talk about the how-tos of designing smart business experiments, like the recent article by Thomas H. Davenport in the February 2009 Harvard Business Review: How to Design Smart Business Experiments.

The worst mistake of all is not for the experiment to fail. It’s to not try to experiment with something new when it is clear that status quo isn’t working. Today’s theme isn’t about whether or not the end result of a new approach ultimately turns out to be a good idea.  It’s about realizing that it’s time to make a new plan and jolt ourselves into a break out mode.

We all have to learn when it’s time to swim out of the current and try a new direction.

For any business leader who hasn’t seen the Dancing with the Stars clip of Steve Wozniak’s routine to Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, it really is a classic.

Steve Wozniak Faces the Music: Dancing with the Stars

Sort of a blend of Geeks Gone Wild mixed with Why the Business Genome’s Cross-Industry Approach is Flawed. But you gotta hand it to the guy—he did face the music and made an effort to try something outside his comfort zone. And, he of course began by learning the new routine step-by-step.

Of course we are human. Of course sometimes we need to admit we’re stuck. And, we can rest a bit easier knowing that there is another checklist when our 3 x 5 card isn’t working for us anymore.

Which leads us to the musical refrain for this blog, courtesy of The Killers.

Musical Coda
Are We Human Or Are We Dancers by The Killers

Are we human or are we dancers?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I’m on my knees looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancers?

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance
They always did the best they could

And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye, wish me well
You’ve gotta let me go

Are we human or are we dancers?
My sign is vital, my hands are cold
And I’m on my knees looking for the answer
Are we human or are we dancers?