Bunnies & Duracell Batteries

Bunnies & Duracell Batteries

By Ricardo Andorinho

An astrological crisis is installed since it was reported that Ophiuchus would become the 13th zodiacal sign, pushing all the other signs a month forward.

On this side of the planet, this discussion has a lighter weight since until now, nobody has pointed out the existence of a thirteenth animal sign in the Chinese horoscope. Consequently, we are about to leave the ferocious Year of Tiger and enter into the “mild-mannered” Year of the Rabbit.

During this festive season you should expect to see rabbits, bunnies and fluffy tails everywhere you go and, at night time, while you have a drink, you may also watch them on their hutch at Sands Macao.

The rabbit, bunny or hare are similar creatures which essence derives from the Moon. Being the icon of longevity they have been the chosen animal to represent and promote Duracell brand batteries.

As you may recall, the commercial advertisements of Duracell present several pink rabbits and the “Duracell Bunny” also known as the “Energizer Bunny”. This fluffy fellow is powered by a Duracell battery that allows him to win all races or games against his pink rabbit opponents powered by rival batteries. The point of the advertisement is that the bunny powered by a Duracell battery can continue functioning for a longer amount of time before its battery runs down.

However, and since these little creatures also symbolize graciousness, good manners, sound counsel, kindness, and having a huge sensitivity to beauty they have also been selected to be Playboy´s fantasy archetype.

According to the experts in Chinese Astrology, in each and every rabbit individual there is a strong will and a great self-assurance. They believe in their own ability to survive, relying on their judgment, which makes them at peace with themselves.

They might appear slow or over deliberate at times, but this is most likely due to their sense of caution and discretion. They never use harsh words or vulgarisms, which make them having their credentials flawless.

They jump any obstacles that come into their paths and recover from catastrophes with extraordinary resilience. No matter how the rabbit is tossed he always land on its feet and that is probably why in cartoons, Bugs Bunny always gets his carrots!

So, to benefit from this rabbit wisdom here are some tricks to get your carrots:

1. Admit your mistakes and quit trying to cover them up;
2. Stop blaming other people;
3. Return everything you ever borrowed;
4. Give things away to people less fortune than you;
5. Be kind to the unkind people in your life;
6. Wherever you go, always show up on time;
7. Be positive and speak in the positive language;

We strongly believe that in the long run, those small actions will unlock your potential, making you live a happier, bunny kind, inspired and longer life.

Life is nothing more than a daily race or fight. So, please make sure your batteries are Duracell and that you will take the batteries charger everywhere you go…

Social Media and IRL Lessons from Chris Brogan

Social Media and IRL Lessons from Chris Brogan: "

I’m excited to see “Trust Agents” co-author Chris Brogan present in person for the second time this year at the BMA Engage conference tomorrow. Having seen him earlier at the Kansas City IABC Business Communications Summit in February, his innovative presentation style is one unlike I’ve never seen, and I really can’t imagine anyone else pulling it off successfully.

Speaking from what seemed to be a handwritten “set list” on a folded up piece of paper, Brogan spent an hour sharing his strategic perspective on how people behave, interact, and expect to be treated. Quite frankly, he struck me like the smart, quiet guy you see in a corporation who observes everything, sees the strategy gaps the big business so obviously misses, and figures out all the answers while hardly ever getting the chance to share them.

Through a patient strategy of freely sharing insights and perspectives from his innovative viewpoint, Brogan has created the opportunity to share his strategic wisdom in increasingly rarified venues. For all the “GET MASSIVE FOLLOWERS, BE A SOCIAL MEDIA ROCK STAR QUICK ” scams floating around the web, Chris Brogan has transferred a consistently, strategically constructed online platform to an IRL business where he routinely gets the chance to share his much sought-after answers.

Among the great strategic insights at his Kansas City presentation about better cultivating and growing customers with the help of social media:

• A company can best help its people understand what it means to represent the brand by providing some level of media relations training to every employee.


• The best social media people come from customer service. They’re used to talking with customers and representing the business across many situations.


• The first steps in social media strategy should focus on prepping for crisis communication, marketing at the time of need, better addressing customer service, and conducting research on customer needs.


• Don’t spend so much time on yourself. Brogan tries to communicate 12 times more about others than about his own stuff (a remarkable strategy considering some of the authors who pound relentless tweets and Facebook updates all about themselves).


• A brand lives or dies by its database and how the company cultivates it between the times it is marketing to people.

His most important statement? The importance to Brogan of keeping people who matter to you when you don’t need anything at all from them. It’s an important life lesson, irrespective of whether you use social media or not. – Mike Brown

"

7 Extreme Creativity Lessons from “Cake Boss”

7 Extreme Creativity Lessons from “Cake Boss”: "

In the midst of a dreary day, we watched the Cake Boss marathon on TLC last Sunday. The show was fun and illustrated all kinds of extreme creativity ideas:

Shatter conventional definitions – The show is about cakes. But until Sunday, it never occurred to me a cake could be made from rice crispie treats, wood, screws, and PVC pipe. But look inside “star” Buddy Valestro’s “cakes,” and you may find any of those and more. If he stuck with traditional cake recipes, he’d never be the “Cake Boss.”

Get a team that’s better than you – Buddy appears to have command of many skills critical to making incredible cakes. Yet it’s clear he surrounds himself with specialized people who have stronger talents than he does in focused areas equally essential to creating the kinds of outlandish cakes he’s known for.

Your distinctive talents work all over the place – Why be just a baker? Carpentry, painting, and pottery skills were all used to create innovative cakes shaped like teapots, motorcycles, boats, and mannequins.

The impossible = amazing creativity – In one special episode, the challenge was to create a full-size NASCAR race car shaped cake. Two separate locations were used to make all the cakes for the more than 12,000 pound final creation. 12,000 pounds? That’s nearly 4 times how much a real race car weighs! That’s amazing!

Creativity doesn’t mean glossing over details – For an apple farm, the bakery had to make its first ever apple cake. While the apple grower appreciated the cake’s taste, what really excited him was the cake’s appearance – edible mini-pumpkins, apples, and a “working” tree swing.

Yell, laugh, and cry – Buddy’s family bakery is an emotional place. They wear their emotions on their sleeves; it’s all part of the intensively creative, deadline-driven process.

Shut up and fix disasters - Since it’s a reality show, disasters are a must. The front end of the NASCAR cake fell-off. A cake for a drag queen’s holiday show was too big to fit through any door to the theater. So what do you do? Throw more rice crispie treats at the NASCAR and get the holiday show audience to come outside to get their cake. No harm, no foul.

Put these lessons to work, and cook up some creativity for yourself! – Mike Brown

Zoom This!



"

Matt McGowan and Mike Grehan preview SES Toronto 2010

Part of the introduction – Strategy Execution Heroes

Superman on a ‘Strategy Rescue’ mission

Superman, otherwise known as Clark Kent, flies into the Magnatexx office.

Instead of his usual red cape, he has decided to wear his three-piece grey pinstriped Armani suit. “It just seems more appropriate” he had thought while getting ready that morning.

Superman is reacting to a ‘failing strategy’ distress call from 53-year-old Mike, CEO of Magnatexx, a large pharmaceutical company. It was the 267th call he had received in the two weeks since starting his new sideline – the ‘strategy rescue’ programme.

When he arrives at Magnatexx, Superman immediately identifies the execution issues and takes over the role of all managers. In no time at all, Magnatexx obtains the desired competitive advantage and performance starts to peak. And everyone lives happily ever after.

This story seems too good to be true. And it is.

But you don’t have to be able to fly like Superman, scale walls like Batman or become green and super strong like the Incredible Hulk to turn a great strategy into great performance.

You need performance-driven managers who master Strategy Execution.

Strategy Execution is no longer ‘the gap nobody knows’, the title of the first chapter of the best-seller Execution. Thanks to the authors Bossidy and Charan, Strategy Execution pioneers Kaplan and Norton, several leading articles in respected business magazines such as The Harvard Business Review and a host of research, organisations have become very aware that much great strategy is lost before it’s turned into performance mainly as a result of poor execution skills.

The performance gap is known. And it’s time for companies to close it.

This book will help you get the job done. Strategy Execution Heroes will help you to:

1. Approach Strategy Execution from a manager’s perspective.

2. Align individual and organisational performance in a simple, easy-to-communicate, sexy Strategy Execution framework.

3. Communicate your strategy effectively.

4. Set great objectives for yourself and your team members.

5. Coach others through the implementation maze.

6. Simplify your Strategy Execution process.

7. Select, manage and deliver your strategic initiatives.

8. Set up a development platform to boost the execution skills of others in the organisation.

9. Turn Strategy Execution into a competitive advantage.

In short, this book will help you get the execution job done. But don’t expect complex theories or fancy words. Strategy Execution Heroes gets right to the point and won’t waste your time. It will:

­ Boost your learning with more than 250 practical tips.

­ Put your action plan on the right track with 27 downloads with supporting material.

­ Inspire your actions with stories from best-in-class companies like BT, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, eBay and many others.

So whether you are a future manager preparing for the challenge, a field manager or an experienced senior executive, get ready to boost your execution skills. Become a Strategy Execution hero and turn your great strategy into great performance.

Strategy Execution Heroes

Shifting the People Management Worldview

Gary Hamel recently wrote about a survey that found that only 20% of employees are truly engaged in their work — heart and soul and yet he goes on to say that

I talk to a lot of CEOs, and every one professes a commitment to building a “high performance” organization

So why this huge, 80% discrepancy? I think Dan McCarthy get’s pretty close when he talks about helping leaders to ‘connect the dots’, writing that the biggest reason why we can’t seem to see what’s right in front of us is that our own “worldviews”, or “paradigms” obstruct our vision Shifting the People Management Worldview.

Other people have suggested similar things, Julian Birkinshaw at London Business School, Richard Donkin, Umair Haque and Lynda Gratton have all talked about new perspectives on management.

Why the 80% Discrepancy?

In my mind, the 80% discrepancy between what CEO’s say they want and what their employees report is due to the methods and means (i.e. the paradigm) available to help manage people. The methods and approaches that are used to bring out the best in people are very different to those which are used to run everything else in a business.

What do I mean by this? If you look at the history of organisations (Managing Value Based Organsiations by Dr. Bruce Hoag is one very thorough view), you tend to find the following themes emerging;

* The methods and technologies to do things define people’s day job
* These approaches are more useful if they are objective and can scale
* Subjective approaches are rarely as valuable or important
* New approaches only endure if they have advantages over the old ones
* People with P&L responsibility have the greatest power to decide things
* They also gain the greatest recognition from their decisions (if they go well)!

If we look at current examples of new methods and technologies, many suggest improvements for the organisations which choose to apply them. Improving knowledge management, green strategies, engineering influencing design, full body scanners, more powerful computers and improvements in transportation all correspond to the themes above.

How is this Different to how People are Managed and Empowered?

The biggest difference between the examples above and how people are managed and empowered is between;

* Approaches that are objective or subjective
* Approaches that are perceived to be valuable or not
* Approaches that improve P&L or not

If one looks at the myriad of methods and approaches that contribute to the management of people, it is hard to find any that fulfil the three criteria above completely. This is why there is no shortage of information along the lines of;

* Besides the transformation, why are there massive gaps in HR?
* It’s time for new thinking. It’s time to take note of new ideas
* HR = Hardly Relevant
* Critical HR Challenges for 2010
* Are Current Selection Tools up to the Task?

While there are many good things happening in people management and HR, I ultimately believe that right now, practitioner’s own world views remain unchanged. Hence the status quo endures, depsite calls for something different.

While practical, micro-level details may well be expanded upon later, I think the recognition of the different paradigms above might be a starting point, or perhaps a stepping stone on a bigger journey…

In FourGroups

Lawrence McDonald - Should Banks Break-Up

Where did I put my keys?

And I search and search and finally find them.

It's every time the same. We need to use our keys to unlock certain things in our life's. And when we need it we can't find them. Or not few times we aren't able to identify those keys that allows us go through our needs and goals.

There are great human beings on this planet. But the opposite is also true.
There are great professionals on this planet. But the opposite is also true.
There is a small number of great sources of information available and a huge number of bad ones. The answer is easy to understand: Money.

How can we deal with this in a beneficial way?

Every individual possess his own keys to succeed in life. What has worked for someone may not work with another. That's the human nature. The good news is that everyone can learn everything they really want to. Depends on him/her.

I don't really like the word success because it is too difficult to measure and depends on subjective judgements. I prefer to talk about a different approach that is responsible for you to experience some success. Are you happy? Doing what you do. Is your effort recognized by you, your boss and your family? Are you really happy? If not, at least professionally, change.

Success will be always the consequence of doing something right. I don't really know to describe success using a different group of words.

It's much more important to look inside for something that you would love to do as a professional than trying to find what others did to excel. This approach may not work with you, regardless the importance it has for helping us in drawing a better way of doing it.

Until today my keys are these:

-Realize that YOU can’t know about everything in this life. It is just impossible-

1. Realize that half of the planet knows more than YOU around your core skills.

2. Learn how to improve your skills by focusing on the strengths of the people you meet during your life, personally and professionally. And practice every day.

3. Learn how to be flexible. If YOU are not able to change, YOU can’t launch any new projects. YOU will learn how to change, if YOU practice receptiveness. Receptiveness is the need YOU should have to understand the point of view of others. And practice every day.

4. Learn how to integrate others strengths into your way of seeing the exact same problems. Integrate rational and logical thinking processes and ignore superficial issues. And practice every day.

5. Apply what YOU learned in the previous points and measure the results (good or bad). Practice every day, focusing on the good and don’t forget to excel in the bad. And practice every day.

6. Help others and involve them in your decisions. YOU will get more knowledge. This will give YOU real oriented knowledge to implement in real life. Forget the theories. Life is a practical field. Practice every day with someone.

7. Study and Teach. It will make a life that can be really interesting. Your body will die one day but YOU may remain in the mind of millions.

This is a personal perspective and it is a small part of the book I am writing.
My best regards,
Ricardo Andorinho

Strategic Planning Success Story

Years ago i was asked to step into a Biotech firm that had just been taken over by new management via a hostile takeover. The place was a wreck. It had been started via a small IPO, and the management team squandered the money on overblown facilities & unproductive staff. My first task was to stabilize cashflow, which I did by collecting past-due receivables and renegotiating just about everything. I then focused on the larger picture of redeveloping the company into a winner (note: they had never made a profit up th this point). I dumped the fancy facilities, reduced the staff to a small key group, outsourced production at reduced cost, and developed a marketing strategy that got the company into profitable status. Meanwhile, I courted a venture capital group who injected cash and took the company private. Ultimately, the company was consolidated with another firm which had national distribution channels. They went from being a near-bankrupt small-cap loser to a vibrant mid-cap winner. I'm proud of that and the many other contributions I've made over my career. There were many lessons to be learned from that experience, but the key lesson was to "get off my butt and do something". The biggest mistake of all is inaction; a lesson the old management learned when they sat on their butts while the company crumbled around them. The second-most-important lesson was to have a plan. Planning forces one to exerise the discipline of developing & thinking through their strategy, and provides a "bible" for running the business. Without a plan, most people are just throwing money away. I've got a great story about an Aerospace company that I'll tell another day.

Regards,
Al Walsh, CEO
Walsh Enterprises, Business & Financial Advisors
http://www.awalsh.us

Go to http://www.walshal.wordpress.com where you can access:
* Articles on Business, Economy, and Career
* Presentations I've written on various business topics
* Information Resources on varied business topics

Cristiano Ronaldo, Team Building and Results

Hello Top Strategists,

I am really surprised... 90,000 people in and outside a soccer stadium to present the new Portuguese player that was hired for Real Madrid, Spain. In this event he was not playing, just being presented.

I am a proudly Portuguese citizen that met Cristiano in the year 98, maybe 99, when we were both playing for Sporting in Lisbon. I must say that he is one of the best competitors I ever met. Their team mates were loosing with him in everything, not just in soccer. I played with him table tennis, and... I lost. And I was practicing with professional players almost everyday... Or I was really bad. That can be true too... He prepares himself to compete like few others. You can judge him in every field you want but I saw him practicing, and his focus on his professional goals is something to be commented. However the goal of this post is not running away from my field (Business Strategy and Organizational Development).

My question is:

• Do you agree that Media, as well as the sport industry is giving more importance to individual performance than team (brand) performance?

The result is that one team mate, without playing for this club, alone is able to bring 90,000 supporters to the stadium. I am not sure of what I say but I believe that last season the whole team of Real Madrid didn't had in every match they played in Santiago Barnabéu 80,000 supporters (the full capacity). In this specific case Cristiano Ronaldo won alone (in number of supporters) against Real Madrid, and without playing. And I don't really know if this is good or really bad in Real Madrid team building process. It's not my problem too, which is good.

I could talk about this issue several hours, however I can't loose focus and I don't want to be miss understood.

• Is it possible to build a Team to produce results when some members without producing any result for that company, are seen as "Gods" while others are "Nobody"? (I am being here too extremist, however today's leaders are facing these scenarios.)

Please feed us back about this article.
Best regards,
Ricardo Andorinho
MBUintelligence

Melanie Jordan

I met Melanie Jordan through a trusty (at least in my opinion) vehícle: internet.
It would be easier for me to write her link here and let the reader search for further information about the work of someone that really cares about us. Helping everyone to understand the principals of Infopreneurism.

I actually prefer to address these words in an attempt to drive you through this way of earning knowledge and in consequence Money.

What You Know Is Worth more Than You Know™ allows you to discover a new way of sharing expertise regarding each one's activity. It’s a powerful approach that excels your counciousness misspelings about the impact you might have on others (your followers). The ones that seek that specific information, on the Web or in real life.

Seth Godin is telling us that we are living in a tribus modus. I agree. We are organizing our lives and technology misspellings. Finding leaders and followers is becoming an everyday task. This is where the markets currently are: inside your network. This is the market that trusts you. Other martkets a re difficult to conquer and require financial and marketing efforts substancially more expensive.

Melanie main sources of knowledge:
The Podcast
What you Know is worth more

Melanie on Facebook
Melanie on Linkedin


Please feed us back about this article.
Best regards,
MBUintelligence

The Power of One

Dear readers,

I am now confident in addressing this article, talking about ILearning Global.TV.

I joined ILearning Global 8 months ago as a marketer and till today I was shy in my attempt of communicating the platform. I was afraid of being miss understood about the venue of the system and about the capabilities that we offer inside. This days are over and I would like to share my experience with you.

Before everything in my life, I consider myself a continuous student, and I deeply believe that just continuous learning can give you the preparation needed to compete in each market we are into. As I tried to prepare myself in the sports field, I believe that I need to do the same in my current professional life: MBUintelligence

The day I join ILG I didn't imagine what we were talking about. I joined because I research every material available over the web and I was very curious about it. I wanted to see the other side. I joined even before the access was available outside US. Today everyone around the world can join.

ILG is nowadays the web platform that incorporates more content on management education. The members of the faculty are people that worked or still work for one the best 500 companies in the world.

I am telling you this story because, when I started MBUintelligence I felt that I was missing my agenda on the time I had available for self-study. I need to study almost everyday.

Today ILearning Global allows me to have access to a knowledge that would be impossible for me to incorporate if I was doing my research by my own. So I strongly recommend that if you see continuous learning the way I see, please research over these links.

The tittle of this article is the power of one. Brian Tracy coached more than 2 million people over his life... Google was created by Page and Brin... Einstein was not an university. And I strongly believe that are people in today's world more brilliant than Einstein. Why? Because technology is allowing human brain to go faster. Do you agree?

Here you have some free resources to see how easy it is the interface usage:
Portal
To learn:
Platform
Global Presentation
To join:
MBUintelligence

When the company is ruled by sales!!!!

It's curious, isn't it? When there's lack of long term vision, the short term turn's to be very easy to predict.

I am a former handball player that played just for 2 professional clubs. The last one was Portland San Antonio, a club in which every player around the world would like to play. Unfortunately I am not able to take my sport shoes, run and jump like any other team mate.

The reason I am posting this story is because Portland San Antonio is living a difficult period, and the responsibility for this situation is not a direct consequence of the moments we are living in the financial markets.

I arrived Pamplona in the year 2004, and I remember the first time we were with Esther Koplovich. I realized that the amount of money Portland was addressing to handball was not important in the overall budget that the company was managing by that time. When I arrived home I commented with my wife Sara that the day Portland would want to see the return on his investment, it would simple stop sponsoring San Antonio's team. Today that money is important for the company...

What's the point of this story?

The point is that the revenue of many companies is seen has secure... I don't know why everyone think it's secure, because the truth is that it is not secure. Do you agree? When the company decide to take obligations that are not assured by the revenue, the risk for short term liquidity raises. Seems simple to understand, but it is difficult to observe.

I am not saying that we are not living difficult times, however I prefer to think that the best players in every market over the past will be the best players in the future, and here I am talking about management skills. What we are currently living will choose the companies and the players that are prepared to compete in the macro economical environment of the present.

I want to welcome Gonzalo Gonzalez Alorda for following this blog.

My best regards

Ricardo Andorinho

MBUintelligence

I don’t want to be anything other than me…

Songs often capture the spirit of a generation. In his song Gavin DeGraw captures the concept of being genuine:

“…I’m surrounded by liars everywhere I turn
I’m surrounded by imposters everywhere I turn
I’m surrounded by identity crisis everywhere I turn
Am I the only one who noticed?
I can’t be the only one who’s learned
I don’t want to be
Anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do
Is think of me and I have peace of mind
I’m tired of looking ’round rooms
Wondering what I’ve got to do
Or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything other than me…”

1. Do you think the song is a good representation of the new generation entering the business world?

2. What do you think SHOULD change in order to maximize the intellectual and emotional potential of this generation in business?

3. Same as 2 except I’m wondering what you expect will actually change as a result of the entry of this generation into the workplace?

Thanks for your insights,

Reut

Learn more about the three pillars that make KindExcellence the best organizational platform: the KE organizational culture, the 8 emotional and thinking habits of effective management and the subconscious training process. I’m always happy to share how KE applies to the areas of employee engagement, retention and performances: reut@KindExcellence.com

The vision behind the scenes

Hello TSN,

We would like to share these strategical views that have impacted our society and were recognized as success for a huge number of people.

We think everyone knows Eric Schmidt, however we are not so sure that everyone saw this interview... The vision was here... Much before Google... He is just one of the men.

We don't know the future of Google as we don't know the future of anything... The future is uncertain. There's a lot of information about Google's future, however we prefer to lock the keys that allowed the Google culture that we know today.



Another example we would like to share is Rolling Stones. Do you know them? Well, may be you didn't see this:



Well, we think leadership is on both example as it is on thousands of others.
Thanks to them we are able to study each strategy behind the scenes.
Every leader makes his vision so strong that influences not just the ones that follow them without significant effort.

Regards,
Top Strategy Networkers

Announcement from Top Strategy Networkers

Dear Strategists,
We are 630 members. Thanks for your support.

We would like to:
1- Spread the word, if you really think this group adds value around business strategy issues. To do so, please use this link to invite Top Strategy networkers: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=80341

2- We are always looking for new materials, articles, videos, etc. If you think you can deliver some of your time in helping us to growth as a family, please send us your opinions, thoughts and sources.

3- We are publishing the best content we receive and we are competing with the most innovative blogs I am aware of. Please visit: http://www.ideaconnection.com/innovation-blogs/ You will find us there. You can vote!

Thanks for being here.
Best regards,
Top Strategy Networkers

Communication Strategy - Movies can lead great classes

Lost Genertation - Word Strategy to deliver an important message

A special thanks to Andreja Lajh

Soccer Strategy

Are you using your subconscious to hire the right people?

Sometimes it takes going through a full circle to find that we had a very good answer to begin with.

In recent years recruiting experts developed some amazing tools to identify the right candidates for businesses—matching capabilities and aptitudes to the tasks of the position at hand and the organizational culture of the recruiting business.

There are, however certain things no test can reveal.

The willingness to give of oneself is one such key component.

Recruiting experts can pick up on such nuisances though. They can because they use a subconscious programming that has seen hundreds if not thousands of candidates linking details only the subconscious mind is capable of grouping together alongside an effective feedback loop.

It may seem out of reach, but it is as scientific as testing and screening at this point.

1. Is it fair to say that the willingness to give of oneself is one of the most important components of any hire?
2. Are there other elements that are critical in hiring people that can only be detected through subconscious thinking?
3. Do you know how to train your team of recruiters or do you evaluate the ability of your outsourced recruiters to effectively use subconscious thinking in interviews or do you only care to know which metrics and testing tools they can use?

Thanks,

Reut

Source: http://blog.kindexcellence.com/?p=264