Everybody's a Movie Critic

Here are some great movie review websites that allow user input:

Rottentomatoes.com
Moviereviewintelligence.com
Metacritic.com

The New Style of Business Training

Before the recession, companies often sent their star managers to executive training programs held at business schools around the country. With budgets in the hundreds of millions, top professors, and a generous schedule, these programs usually focused on general leadership development, rather than company-specific problems.

Now, however, companies are searching for cheaper alternatives with a more immediate impact. "Companies are asking for external experts to come in and do something very specific," says Josh Brand, a former senior director of executive education at Babson College and co-founder of Freemont Learning, Inc., an executive development firm. In a time of economic uncertainty, the focus has shifted to moving the company - not just the individual - forward.

As a result, executive-education consultancies are scrambling to create customized programs that provide managers with the skills to weather the downturn and come out on top. "When you have trained leaders in bad economic times, it makes a world of difference," says Tim Bray, vice president and chief learning officer for Quintiles Transnational Corporation. And it's the consulting firms, rather than business schools, that are able to offer the flexibility and support companies are looking for. In addition, web-based courses, traditionally offered to middle management, are now being used for top-level executives as well. The Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, NC, has even started offering ready-to-use courses that, while less specific than an on-site visit, cost a fraction of the price.

This trend is a good one; you can build a better business by offering your management team focused training and education to achieve specific outcomes.

10 Steps. 3 Areas. Emerge from Recession with Success.

Want to emerge from the recession with your organization ready for success? Then The Forum Corporation says they have the answer for you -- 10 steps spanning financials, people, and climate.

“By looking at past recessions we’ve identified 10 steps that can make the difference between success and failure in managing through our current downturn, and they all come back to leadership,” said Ed Boswell, CEO of The Forum Corp. “Following these steps will be particularly valuable in organizations that are undergoing cost-cutting and layoffs, which challenge managers to do more with less.”

The 10 steps recommended are as follows:

Financials

1. Move quickly to reduce costs and control spending by narrowing focus. Winners in a downturn focus on a few critical priorities where they can develop a clear lead, and they walk away from bad business. Losers chase unprofitable sales in an attempt to hold their top line.
2. Refrain from across-the-board cutbacks, being sure to preserve areas that customers value most. Businesses that uniformly cut costs often find that they end up damaging their ability to sell and deliver their products and services. How do you find out what customers value most? Ask them.
3. Consider alternatives to layoffs. Downsizing tends to bolster the bottom line and stock price in the short term, but often creates long-term negative repercussions. Alternative strategies include cutting management bonuses, freezing salaries and reducing compensation options. It’s critical to clearly communicate the rationale and impact to employees.
4. Invest in opportunity. A bad economy can present bargains, both in new assets and in new talent. Good areas to invest in are R&D, marketing and customer-perceived quality. By contrast, investing in working capital, manufacturing and administration doesn’t pay off as well.
   
   People
5. Retain and develop top talent. High-impact workers are often more susceptible to being poached by a competitor in a downturn. Organizations that provide development experiences and rotational assignments have better employee retention rates.
6. Make sure everyone’s on the same page. When alignment on key goals is absent, performance suffers, according to studies on strategy execution. Top leaders frame an agenda and meet with key stakeholders to gain support and build commitment to overarching goals and values. Ineffective leaders let inter-office politics fester and hidden agendas dominate.
7. Encourage questions and new ideas by making it safe for employees to raise them. Leaders who admit they don’t have all the answers and ask for input empower their people to contribute their best ideas.
   
   Climate
8. Manage the heat. Leaders are often tempted in difficult times to relieve the organization’s stress by making unilateral, tough decisions. That’s often a mistake. Leadership by dictate often doesn’t take because it lacks a broad base of support, and it often eliminates constructive conflicts that challenge the status quo and fuel good decision-making.
9. Communicate authentically. Strong leaders acknowledge the challenges they struggle with and, by doing so, build trust among followers. Rather than being a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength.
10. Create a positive vision and attitude that acknowledges reality. Businesses at the top of their markets often fall while “sleeper” companies sometimes jump to the top in a tough economy. When leaders exercise discipline and focus by mobilizing employees to respond to customers’ interests and values, they increase the chance that, when the downturn ends, they’ll come out on top.

Engage your managers to discuss and adopt these steps in your organization and you'll build a stronger business even in the toughest of economies.

The Pursuit of Happiness for Entrepreneurs

Experts validate what successful people already do by making effective choices both at home and at work. Consider these 6 tips and to what degree you're employing these in your life, especially as we approach the holiday season:

• Relishing the Day. Beware of "hedonistic adaptation," hold on to accomplishments for as long as you can. Celebrate career accomplishments by going out to dinner and have pictures and souvenirs from trips - these will help you remember them longer. According to David Schkade, a management professor at the University of California at San Diego, "'when something good happens, you want to find a way to hold on to it for longer.'"
• Dodging traffic. According to Andrew Oswald, an economics professor at England's Warwick University, "'lack of control is what tends to induce stress in human beings.'" People find it difficult to commute since they can never rely on traffic. Therefore, Oswald recently moved closer to his office, cutting him commute from 60 minutes to 20 minutes.
  
• Seeing friends. Surveys suggest that time spent with family and friends is among our happiest times. Richard Easterlin, an economics professor at the University of Southern California comments, "'Earlier on, I tended to sacrifice my family time to try and push research ahead. I do that much less now. Going out to dinner with family for me is always an enjoyable experience.'"
• Buying memories. Spend your time on memorable experiences. Professor Alan Krueger, a Princeton University economics professor, recalls taking his father to the 2001 Super Bowl as an example.
• Limiting options. Limiting your choices may help you be more content with your decision. Professor Gilbert of Harvard University comments that those who were the happiest with their choices were "'those for whom the choice was irrevocable. When options are open, the mind generates debate. When options are closed, the mind generates satisfaction.'"

Really successful entrepreneurs not only build a stronger business, but do things that lead to greater personal satisfaction.

Stay Calm to Maintain Good Health

According to the article "If You Keep your Cool, You may Heal Faster" in the New York Times, a new study finds that people who are stressed and have trouble controlling their temper may take longer to heal from an injury.

Researchers from Ohio State university say cortisol, a hormone related to stress, seems to interfere with the healing process. The 100 participant study led by Jean-Phillipe Gouin, appears in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Researchers focused on anger and identifying which patients were more likely to keep angry feelings to themselves and which ones expressed their feelings. They made a blister on each partipant's arm and covered it with plastic to see how long it healed. Those who expressed anger in a controlled fashion and those who did not express it healed quicker. Hot heads were about 4 times more likely to take more time to heal.

Another reason to keep your cool.

Close A Few Doors

Keeping too many options open is not always the best idea, according to "The Advantages of Closing A Few Doors" article in the New York Times. In the third century B.C. Xiang Yu, who took his troops across the Yangtze River, performed an experiment in decision making by crushing his troops pots and burning their ships. He explained this was to focus them on moving forward. In a series of experiments at MIT, students played a game that paid cash to look for money behind three doors on the screen. (you can play yourself, without pay, at tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com) Students were allotted 100 clicks and once they opened a door with the click of the mouse, each subsequent click earned a varying sum of money. The students could switch rooms to search for higher payoffs but each switch used a click. The best strategy was to quickly check all three rooms and stay in the one with the highest rewards.

A new feature was soon introduced to the students which baffled the students. If they stayed out of any room the door would shrink and eventually disappear. Instead of ignoring the shrinking doors, the students wasted time rushing back to reopen those doors that their earnings dropped 15%. The penalties for opening the shrinking doors increased (a cash fee was assessed) they still frantically attempted to keep all the doors open.

Another feature was added-the players had the option of making the door reappear at no cost if it had disappeared yet they still persisted on frantically preventing the door from disappearing. The players would probably say they were fixated with keeping their doors open because they wanted to try and keep their future options open. Dr. Ariely disagrees. They did not care about maintaining flexibility in the future; instead, they were motivated by the desire to avoid the immediate pain of watching a door close.

"Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of a loss" says Dr. Ariely. The cost in the game was lost cash; however, the costs in life can be wasted time, missed opportunities which are less obvious.

Since conducting the experiments Dr. Ariely has made a conscious effort to cancel projects and give away his ideas to colleagues. He suggests we should resign from committees, prune holiday card lists, rethink hobbies and remember the lessons of door closers like Xiang Yu.

Sometimes you've got to say "no" instead of "yes" to build a stronger business.

Please Fire Me

Here is a letter from a frustrated customer featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Sprint Nextel, you win. Please fire me. I am very upset that I was not included in your recent firing of customers who called your customer service too often to complain. Why not me? I have spent countless hours every month calling to have my bill adjusted. I have called your customer service more than my friends and family. You should have a plan that offers 10,000 minutes for customer service and 1,000 minutes for friends and family.

I beg you, please release me, let me go. You don't need me anymore. I am a bad customer like thousands of others and deserve to be terminated. Thank you.
Tom Froschle Ridley Park

When customers feel frustrated and unable to communicate with someone who can make a difference, they resort to sarcasm and cynicism.

Pay attention to customer feedback when building a stronger business and you'll avoid PR nightmares like this one.