Fumble!

by Don Harkey

I love college football, so when I get to use college football in an example, I get excited... even when it is a painful example.

This weekend, my alma mater, the University of Nebraska played the Iowa State Cyclones in Lincoln. Iowa State had lost their previous 15 Big 12 away games and hadn't beaten Nebraska in Lincoln since 1977. Their starting QB and starting RB were both out with injuries sustained during the week. Nebraska came in after a painful home loss to Texas Tech the week before, but still feeling optimistic about the season.

Only 16 seconds into the game, Nebraska fumbled the ball and Iowa State recovered. The Blackshirts held, but Iowa State kicked a field goal (after gaining 4 yards on the drive... yes, that's 4 yards and 3 points). The day only got worse as Nebraska managed to move the ball for the most part, but kept turning the ball over. Iowa State played gutsy football scoring their only touchdown after a fake punt and a bomb to the endzone.

The final stats were some of the most unusual I have ever seen in football (at any level). At the end of the game, Nebraska had 8 turnovers and Iowa State had none. The final score was Iowa State 9, Nebraska 7 (remarkable in itself that it was that close). Perhaps even more remarkable was that Nebraska had 4 turnovers inside the "red zone" (less than 20 yards from the endzone) and 3 turnovers less than 5 yards from the endzone! Nebraska has a great field goal kicker, so if they had the opportunity to kick those field goals, they would have won 19 to 9.

What causes this "outlier"? The NCAA record for turnovers is 13 by Georgia in 1951. 8 is a new school record for Nebraska and the -8 turnover margin is unbelievable. Only 23 teams (out of 119) in 2008 had a worse turnover margin for the entire season!

If I could explain this outlier, I would fly to Lincoln and help Coach Pelini make the proper adjustments (or comfort him with the information that the planets were just aligned wrong on Saturday). The point I want to make here is that we can often learn a lot from these types of strange situations as they often point to something significant. It is tempting to chalk this one up to bad luck, but the number is so staggeringly "off" that it is probably not a wise decision.

When something really strange happens, your process might be trying to tell you something...

Game on

by Don Harkey

This week, I attended my weekly Rotary meeting (I am a proud new member of the Rotary Club of Springfield - Southeast) and watched Dr. David Mitchell (Assistant Professor of Economics at Missouri State University) give a presentation on the economy. The news was bleak to say the least.

I won't give you all of the details, but the message was that the current recession is bad, and Missouri's economic growth has been slower than than the nation's growth since well before the recession started. He talked about how the U.S. is losing manufacturing jobs and how he doesn't expect them to return. If the unemployment is currently at its peak, he predicts that it will be May of 2014 before we return to pre-recession unemployment numbers. The percentage of people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months is at a historic high. We've been hurt as a country and it will take us a long time to recover. Worse even is that there appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the economy in Missouri (the 3rd slowest growing economy in the U.S. behind Michigan and Indiana).

Dr. Mitchell was concise and clear in his presentation. He presented the data and backed up his conclusions. He wasn't presenting a "doomsday" scenario... it was more like a scientific evaluation of where we are. When he was done, he asked if there were any questions. The room, full of business leaders, responded with nervous laughter.

If you are a business leader, you must think optimistically while also confronting the brutal facts. The year is 2009 and unemployment is high (yet businesses still complain about not being able to find "good, qualified people"). The reality is that businesses that do not provide good value will not survive. The good news is that the demand for value is as high as ever. There are still plenty of people out there who are finding ways to provide that value, and they are the ones who will emerge from these difficult times stronger than ever.

It hasn't been easy, but that only makes us better. The indicators show that the problem is real, but history shows us that American's find a way to make things better. These times purge waste and redefine our economy. Its painful, but healthy. Know what you are good at, find the value you can provide, and find better ways to provide that value.

Game on.

Stealth Servant

This morning in Springfield, a person sleepily pulls through the drive-thru at a local fast food restaurant to purchase a cup of coffee. As she goes to pay, the person at the window informs her that her coffee has already been paid for by an anonymous person.

So begins the "Stealth Servant" movement in Springfield (note: I did not start this...). Check out the Stealth Servant blog at http://www.stealthservant.blogspot.com/ and find ways to make someone's day!

We ALL Cheat

by Don Harkey

We ALL cheat!

This is not an excuse or even an endorsement, but it might be the first step to recovery. Have you even been able to admit this to yourself?

I believe that everyone has cheated at some point. I can remember a take home test that a teacher gave. The test was VERY difficult and would take a single person a VERY long time to work on. The teacher clearly knew that students would work on it together and therefore compensated by making the test more difficult. The effect is that it made it difficult NOT to cheat on the test... and cheat we did. Cheat I did.

That's hard to say, isn't it? "I cheated". We tend to follow up that rare statement with the word "but" pointing to a justification that might be very legitimate. Often times we cheat because it is the easier of 2 paths. Either the way we are supposed to do it is so hard that we find another way, or the shortcut is very short. We have ALL been through this.

The point I want to make is that it is still wrong. I am not passing judgment on those who take the short cut, but I am encouraging you to allow yourself to realize what you have done. I would also point out the "short-cut" is easier to take every time you choose to take it.

I don't always make the right decisions, but I try to be aware of those moments and ask myself "what type of person do I want to be?". If I am driving home from the store and realize that they forgot to ring up the bottle of soda, I try to catch myself in the moment. It is very easy to bypass it quickly saying, "well, they screwed up". After all, the football game is already in the 3rd quarter and if I turn around, I will likely miss the whole game. The store was crazy busy and the employees won't care if you pay for that stupid soda. They probably would give it to you anyway.

When I find myself in the midst of that type of logic, I try to ask myself the question, "what type of person do I want to be?". Do I want to know myself as the type of person who turns around, returns to the store, waits in line, deals with an unhappy employee who clearly thinks I should have just taken the soda, misses the game, and gets home late for dinner all because the checkout person made a mistake?

When I am truly self-aware in those moments, the answer is "yes". Remember to take advantage of the times in your life that make you extraordinary.

Strategic plans are useless!

by Don Harkey

Strategic plans are useless… if they are not utilized. Too many times, strategic plans are carefully developed, cataloged, and filed, only to become obsolete at the first unexpected event that was not discussed in the creation of the plan. The reason this occurs is due to a common misunderstanding about the purpose of a strategic plan. Organizations start by developing a “desired future” and then try to plan a path to get from where they are to where they want to be. This works only as long as barriers don’t appear on the path. Great strategic plans don’t focus on providing the path, they focus on providing the criteria for making good decisions on the journey.

A military strategist typically has no idea what an enemy army is going to do. So in order to be successful, they must establish “rules of engagement” based on a master “vision” of what they are trying to accomplish. The most successful leaders successfully communicate that “vision” to all of their commanders and soldiers in the field. This way when (not if) they encounter an obstacle or a decision that needs to be made, they have a foundation from which to make the decision. If that foundation is based on something that the soldiers can rally around (be passionate about), then they will make more good decisions. The entire army is aligned, moving in the same direction rallied around a common goal.

Organizational leaders have come to rely too much on metrics and scorecards derived from strategic plans developed in the boardroom. These metrics are hard to rally around and seldom provide a truly clear path to success. Instead leaders need to spend time taking a hard and realistic look at their organization to determine its strengths and weaknesses and most importantly, its passion. This provides the foundation for making decisions with great clarity at all levels of the organization. It frees up the leaders and supervisors to innovate and create value toward that common purpose. It gives the “soldiers” a flag they can rally around.