Alan See

Former Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams’ keen ability to watch a baseball and react with a precise and powerful swing led him to the Hall of Fame. But he had a difficult time trying to pass on that skill. When he retired as a player and became a hitting coach, he was known to admonish his players repeatedly with: “Keep your eye on the ball,” likely not understanding that few players could follow a baseball as closely as he could.  A talented athlete isn’t always an effective coach.

The same is true in business. A salesperson with an exceptional record for consistently surpassing quotas may not necessarily be a good fit as a manager of a sales team. Managing takes different skills. His or her sales experience over the years may not be enough to propel him or her into a leadership role. Perhaps that tenacious salesperson could become an effective manager, but not without training on how to guide and motivate his employees.

Research shows that we tend to remember:

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 50% of what we hear and see
• 70% of what we say
• 90% of what we both say and do

In other words, you are more likely to learn and retain when you are fully engaged in the material. When I’m facilitating classes I keep those statistics in mind because it suggests that the students who are active discussion leaders, and are fully participating in the group assignments are engaged with the concepts I’m trying to get across. In short, they usually perform very well, and are a blast to have around.

As a marketer, I also like to reflect on what those percentages might suggest as it relates to customer engagement and retention. Net promoters, advocates, evangelists; whatever you call them, when they are engaged with your brand it’s a blast. But then again, does life always need to be a blast for marketing folks? Many social media...

Beloit College recently released their Mindset List for the class of 2015.  This year’s list contains 75 items that provide a look at the cultural touchstones that have shaped the lives of this fall’s entering class.  Most of this year’s freshmen were born in 1993, just for fun; take a look at the world through their eyes:

• There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.

• States and Velcro parents have always been requiring that they wear their bike helmets.

• The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been...

Somewhere in America, a business leader is standing in front of an audience prepared to use the phrase “Our most important asset is our people.” Do you think they really mean it? What about other key assets, for example:

1. Real estate

2. Rights to natural resources like oil and gas

3. Cash reserves

4. Patents

5. The corporate brand

OK, that’s not really a fair question because people are not something that’s owned by the company. Your “people” do walk out the doors of your business every night though. What would happen if they didn’t come back to work the next day? That could create a big mess, because for some organizations when you lose people you lose income. But still, nobody likes to be thought of as an object of production. So does the phrase “people are our competitive advantage” set a little better with you? That one is not so great if you are a not-for profit organization. After...