strategic planning: innovation: management:success

SOME DO’S AND DONT’S OF THE PROCESS

You’re finally going to do it. You are a born again believer in the benefits of business and strategic planning. To prepare you for the plunge here’s some rules of the road to guide you through the process.

The planning process can be exhilarating, frustrating, enlightening, demanding and a host of other descriptive adjectives. Hopefully you’ll find a nugget or two in these do’s and don’ts that will keep the emphasis on the positives of your unique organizational growth experience. Carpe Diem!

“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.“-Dwight D. Eisenhower

SOME PLANNING DO’S:

• It’s the process that counts! Think verb rather than noun. Bringing your team together, fostering interaction, and forming a climate of mutual interdependence and commitment is the real achievement. The final document is not as important as the process that gets you there.
• Do trust your instincts. You have lived and breathed what your company is all about. Your plan has to feel right in your gut. Contemplative logic and passionate emotion are good tools. Use them both.
• Keep the emphasis on communication. Your planning is the linkage between your future, the team that will take you there and the other stakeholders in your enterprise. It’s the glue that binds it all together and drives performance. Communication is the oxygen for your organization’s future.
• Focus on EXECUTION. Remember, results are what count. The best plan in the world is worthless if it can’t be executed. Unfortunately, they don’t give Pulitzer Prizes for business plans. An executable plan on a napkin is a preferable alternative to an elaborate document that gathers dust.
• Keep it flexible, adaptive and evolving. As Yogi Berra said, “the future ain’t what it used to be”. Your planning should be an ongoing living process that can adapt and change as competitive, technological and social conditions evolve. Keep it dynamic not static.
• Stretch. Challenge your organization to extraordinary achievement. Your plan should inspire, motivate and paint a compelling vision for performance. It should keep everyone’s juices flowing.
• Expect unintended consequences. There’s an old English Proverb that states “every path has its puddle”. Regardless of your collective wisdom, there will be unforeseen ramifications, pro and con. Acknowledge this as part of the planning process.
• Enjoy the process. What a wonderful opportunity to bring together the people you admire to form a compelling future together. Getting a lot done and having a lot of fun. Go for it.

SOME PLANNING DONT’S:

• Don’t delegate responsibility (embrace it). This is one management project you can’t delegate away. As CEO, you have to embrace and champion the process. Leadership goes with the position. Rise to the occasion.
• Don’t get caught in the terminology trap. Planning terminology (vision, mission, strategy, tactics, performance metrics, etc.) can murk things up. It should help your team communicate not hinder them. The challenge is to keep the process understandable to all. It’s not important what you call it as long as it drives team performance.
• Don’t get overwhelmed. Keep it simple. If it seems to complex, then back off. Try to rephrase and simplify the process. A plan doesn’t have to read like “War and Peace” to be effective.
• Don’t look for the perfect plan. Perfection is for the next life. As Patton’s’ law expresses it, “a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow”.
• Don’t deny the facts. Reality can be harsh, but the sooner you accept it, the sooner it can be addressed. There is a fine line between rationalizing failure and denial of reality. The challenge is to know the difference.
• Don’t get trapped by your plan. The purpose of the plan is guide and drive performance. If it becomes unrealistic don’t continue to follow a bad road map. Change it.
• Don’t do it if you’re not going to use it. Be committed to the process. Your passion must be overwhelming if it’s to be effective. You have the opportunity to develop a culture of performance. Don’t go through the motions if it won’t make a difference.

“It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”  Howard Ruff

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. It’s simplicity in action. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

HOW TO EVALUATE WHAT YOU NEED

We all need good information to monitor and manage our organizations. We need timely, efficient and effective management information to drive the decision-making process. To meet these needs, managers should be aware of the available criteria for a proper evaluation.

“You can not feed the hungry on statistics.“-Wilfred Laurier

The following 14 evaluative criteria are offered as a frame of reference for the planning, developing and monitoring of organizational information needs.

It is important to note that proper use of the criteria will involve the assessment of qualitative as well as quantifiable attributes and will require dealing in the unfamiliar and uncomfortable qualitative arena. Also, since the criteria will not generally carry equal weight, management will need an adequate grasp of the critical criteria of its own organization. Use of the evaluative criteria should, however, provide a framework for “relative ranking” of competing data requests and thus allow for a rational allocation of available organizational resources. The evaluation job will still be difficult, but a systematic approach should increase the likelihood that all the “bases” will be covered.

WHAT CRITERIA  TO LOOK FOR: 14 TO BENCHMARK AGAINST

• Feasibility – Can the desired information actually be derived, and if so, presented in a meaningful fashion in light of user and data developer lead time constraints?

• Necessity – How necessary is the desired information in assisting the management decision process towards organizational goals and objectives? Is the information fundamental or merely interesting?

• Usefullness – Is the information truly useful in terms of assisting the management decision process towards organizational goals and objectives?

• Cost Justifiability – Are the anticipated or actual benefits from the information development greater than the costs to derive such data? What about alternative opportunity costs?

• End User Oriented – Is the information conducive to the needs of the end user? Do personnel turnover and varied used backgrounds (different strokes for different folks) present additional constraints?

• Distribution Adequacy – Does the information circulate to the appropriate decision-maker? (Excessive distribution can produce as many hazards as insufficient or misdirected distribution).

• Desired Frequency – Is the frequency of data preparation the most appropriate under the circumstances or would greater or lesser reporting intervals be more fitting?

• Adequate Precision– Does the level of data preciseness conform to the usage requirements (neither too detailed nor too sketchy) of the information user?

• Adequate Format – Is the reporting format (method and mode of presentation) conducive to the needs of the information user or is the information produced in a canned or standardized fashion?

• Reliability – Is the derived information reliable (credibility quotient) for its intended use?

• Sensitivity – Is the sensitivity of derived data such that decisions will be dramatically affected by changes in circumstances? (Is the range of data confidence sufficient?)

• Efficiency – Is the data accumulated, processed, and used in an efficient fashion? (What are the potential improvements to the data development process?)

• Effectiveness– How effective is the generated data in achieving the desired informational requirements? (Was it worth the effort?)

• Suitability– Is the information generated suitable or of continuing significance to the changing requirements of the organization?

PITFALLS TO AVOID:

Management should also be aware of some common pitfalls involved in the management information process and do its best to avoid or circumvent their occurrence.

• Unnecessary Data – Avoid an organizational climate that proliferates and perpetuates unneeded management reports.

• Duplication of Effort – Attempt to minimize data duplication through more centralized data report preparation but remember a certain amount of duplication may be necessary to produce effective reports for varying management needs.

• Overdetailed Data – Don’t overwhelm the data user with reams of information. Keep it simple and conducive to the real needs of the user. It is important to determine the crucial information required and the “ability” of the user to digest and utilize the information. Remember, a perfect report that the user can’t understand or is afraid to use, is of little benefit.

• Untimely Data – Remember, the decision-maker needs the information before he makes the decision. A timely report containing only highlight data is a welcome alternative to a “stale” but extensively detailed report received after the decision has been made.

• Format Deficiencies – Avoid the tendency to dictate the report format. Communicate with the end user to know the what, when and how of his data needs. Slight format modifications can sometimes achieve remarkable results.

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”  Mark Twain

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. It’s simplicity in action. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR YOUR PLANNING MODEL

Technology and alternate ways of doing things are always in a state of flux. Whether it’s outsourcing some of your operations or looking at techniques that aid your decision process, it’s important to keep emerging tools and practices on your radar screen.

One example is the evolving nature of financial planning and analysis software that transcends beyond traditional spreadsheet tools. Do you ever wish you had a crystal ball to aid your business decision process? Would you use such a tool if it was available? With operations becoming more and more complex, having the ability to anticipate, analyze and assess alternate strategies BEFORE committing valuable time and resources is becoming vital.

“Anyone who says businessmen deal in facts, not fiction, has never read old five-year projections.“-Malcolm Forbes

Does your current financial forecasting model provide answers to these  SEVEN TYPICAL INQUIRIES?

1) What will happen to profitability, cash flow and our line of credit if the new product launch takes nine months rather than three? (How will we deal with such a delay?)

2) What are the principle activities that drive our business model, how do they impact our operations and how well do we know the inter-relationships involved? (Can activity based costing, planning and management put us back in control?)

3) What is our contribution margin percentage, how does it affect our break-even point and would we be better off with more automation that reduces our variable costs? (Do we really understand our product and service cost relationships, how they behave and how sensitive they are?)

4) What if we acquire the market leader in our southern territory, what synergies can we anticipate from the deal and how would that impact the EBITDA valuation of the combined entity? (Does the deal make sense given the current asking price?)

5) What if new technology and specific training can increase the productivity of our sales team by 35% what will that do for our staffing levels, our travel budget, and most importantly our bottom line? (Can we evaluate this alternate scenario with a few simple clicks?)

6) What if we drop the sales price of our flagship product by 20% how many additional units will we have to sell to increase our profits by $500,000? (Can we dramatically expand our market share by passing on manufacturing efficiencies to our customers?)

7) What are our key performance measures and can we view them as an interactive dashboard and test the validity of our assumptions? (Can we do the “smell tests” so important to effective financial planning?)

These are just a few examples of decision alternatives that confront today’s managers. The old analysis tools were good but the newer tools enable more strategic decision making. Financial tools that were only available to very large organizations are now becoming economically affordable to mid-size and smaller operations.

Your job is to pay attention to the emerging tools that leverage your ability to understand, manage and control your operation. Listen to your peers, read general and trade magazines, have a technology mentor and keep your pulse on what is developing. Your future will be the better for it.

“In baiting a mouse trap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse.”  Saki (Scottish Writer)

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. It’s simplicity in action. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

LIFE IS EVER CHANGING & DYNAMIC

Do you remember the challenge, the fear, and the thrill of learning to ride your bike as a child? Do you remember how proud you felt when you finally got the upper hand on gravity? Didn’t you feel like standing on your handle bars and screaming “I’m King of the World!” You had acquired the “art of balance” to keep your peddling in a mostly forward, albeit erratic, direction. Life was grand.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you need to keep moving.“-Albert Einstein

Well, balance remains a big part of our lives. It just takes on different forms when we grow up. I emphasize the art of balance since feeling might be more relevant than logic in determining the current state of balance in our lives. Although it’s a personal process and a private journey, here are a few questions to kick-start your assessment:

First, what does your gut tell you? Are the various components of your life in balance? Do you work to live or live to work? Are you becoming multi-dimensional or one-dimensional?

At Work:

• Is there a good balance between the various components of your business? If one sector is leading can the others keep up?
• Is there a good balance of skills within your management team? Do you encourage your team to continually learn new skills to expand their talent set?
• Do you seek and encourage alternate points of view to balance your perspective before reaching a major decision?
• Do you periodically assess both the strengths and weaknesses of your organization?
• Do you routinely seek feedback from your employees, your customers, your suppliers, your advisers, and the other stakeholders in your organization?

At home & everywhere else:

• Do you experience regret for not spending more time with your family?
• Are you “missing in action” from too many important family functions?
• Is religion and/or spirituality a part of your life?
• Do exercise, health and nutrition have a role in your routine?
• Are you a contributing part of the community in which you live? Is giving back part of the equation in your life?
• Are you developing and learning each day? Are your horizons growing or shrinking?

Remember, we thrive best when our lives are in balance and we generally know when things are out of kilter. We all experience periods when our lives are out of balance and we know it, but life’s circumstances dictate that reality for the time being. We can only change when we have the opportunity.

The challenge is to keep “the art of balance” on your radar screen as you navigate through the shoals of life.

“Love, work and play are the great balance wheels of man’s being.”  Orison Marsden

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. It’s simplicity in action. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

It's in the eye of the beholder

What do you see?

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

OUR PERCEPTUAL BIAS

Do you tend to see what you’ve always seen? Do your past experiences prevent you from seeing things from a fresh perspective?

Beware: limited perceptions can create some powerful mind traps. They become subtle tendencies in the way we view the world and can impede our ability to find creative solutions to problems and opportunities.

Let me share a few related stories from Robert Pirsig the author of the philosophical masterpieces Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Lila.

“For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.” -Robert Pirsig

THE PLATYPUS: THE LIMITATION OF CLASSIFICATION

In Lila, Pirsig recalls how early zoologists classified animals who suckled their young as mammals and those that laid eggs as reptiles. This simple split into two possible worlds worked extremely well until someone discovered the humble platypus who laid eggs like a perfectly good reptile but after the eggs hatched, suckled their young just like a perfectly good mammal. The reaction of the scientific community was to describe the platypus as a strange and unusual freak of nature. But the platypus had been laying eggs and suckling their young for millions of years before scientists deemed it illegal. The lesson here is that our classification systems and/or our natural predispositions can be extremely self limiting. Don’t create your own platypus with limited thinking. Be open to more possibilities. As Paul Simon observed, “there are 50 ways to leave your lover” so there are probably a few different ways to view what happens around you.

THE SOUTH INDIAN MONKEY TRAP:

This Pirsig example in Zen, describes how monkeys can be trapped by their own value rigidity. A coconut is hollowed out and chained to a stake. A hole is made on the other end of the coconut and rice is placed inside as bait. The hole is big enough for the monkey to get it’s hand in but small enough that the monkey can’t remove it’s hand when it’s formed a fist around the rice. The monkey has the ability to free itself from the trap at any time by simply letting go of the rice. But the desire for the rice is so strong the monkey traps itself. Does this remind you of any time when customers, suppliers, service providers or even your organization acted in a similar illogical fashion?

Years ago, provocative basketball star Dennis Rodman made a few disparaging remarks about the ability of Larry Bird implying that he had no real talent and was the most over-rated player in the game. When, then Utah Jazz coach Frank Layden was asked about Mr. Rodman’s remark, he replied “we’ve got to get him a better seat because he’s not seeing the same Larry Bird that I am.” Sometimes it’s a good idea to change our seat so we can gain a different perspective.

In summary, our perceptions and their rigidity limit how we view and perform in the world. Keep your eyes flexible and wide open.

It’s better to know a lot and say little, I think, than know little a say a lot.” -Robert Pirsig

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. It’s simplicity in action. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

MOVEMENT HAS IT’S OWN BENEFITS

“I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.” Does this describe your organization and how it deals with change? One could make a pretty compelling argument that General Motors suffered from this type of malaise for decades. Whether it is too little or too late for GM is certainly up for debate. But you have to respect their recent proactive course of action. The former giant is now in the role of the underdog but at least they are doing something. Commitment and execution are excellent attributes to embrace.

“Indecision may or may not be my problem.” -Jimmy Buffett

I heard a story years ago about a mule that was placed in a field with two equally attractive piles of hay on each side of him. Unable to decide on which heap of nutrition was most attractive, the mule instead died of starvation. Faced with a similar dilemma many a teenage boy has spent his prom night alone because he waited too long to decide which cute girl he wanted to invite. Inaction it seems is not a very productive decision.

Yogi Berra expresses the task well: “When you come to the fork in the road, take it”. Our collective challenge is to do something and do it with commitment. There is a fine line between a healthy analysis of a situation and the fear of making a decision. It’s your call!

Business like life consists of many decisions but that is what gives life its rich and dynamic nature. The process of living is a call to action. Just Do It!

How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom you’re on. -Ballance’s Law of Relativity

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

WHAT YOU SCORE CAN IMPACT HOW YOUR TEAM BEHAVES

Does your score keeping drive desired performance? Or does it produce individual and group behavior that conflicts with your primary goals and objectives? Finding the right metrics is not always an easy task. Be aware of the pitfalls that can happen if they are not the right ones.

People can and do change their behavior when they are measured, but it’s not always in the desired direction. Let me share with you a few related stories I’ve heard over the years:

“Tell me how you’ll measure me and I’ll tell you how I’ll behave.” -Famed management guru Eli Goldratt

THE RUSSIAN NAIL FACTORY

In the days when the Russian economy was centrally managed from Moscow, a soviet bureaucrat was sent out to instruct a “nail factory manager” on its production goals for the next year. In his innate wisdom, the bureaucrat told the plant manager that his performance would be based on the tonnage of nails produced. After the bureaucrat departed the plant manager thought a bit while enjoying his daily vodka. The next morning he informed his staff that they would now be making railroad spikes.

A year later after Russia had enough rail spikes to last 1,000 years, the bureaucrat returned determined to rectify his mistake. His new instructions were that plant performance would be based on the number of nails produced. Again, the plant manager pondered his goal over a few glasses of vodka. The next day he informed his staff that they would now be making thumb tacks. The moral here is make sure you anticipate how specific metrics might change behavior and to watch things closely whenever you make a significant change in your measurements.

THE MILITARY SUPPLY MODEL

A new base commander in the Mediterranean area was assessing the status of his new assignment. One of his early directives was to order a detailed inventory of the base food supplies. To his amazement he discovered they had a three year supply of canned asparagus in the warehouse. The commander called in his food service manager and instructed him to drastically reduce the supply of asparagus. Over the next month, the service men had asparagus omelets for breakfast, asparagus soup for lunch and a side of asparagus with every dinner.

The men were a pale shade of green by St. Patrick’s Day. Well, the inventory did go down and now all seemed right with the world. But alas, systems often betray their users! What the base commander didn’t know was that part of the reporting routine was to send a food consumption list to the European regional supply depot. A bubbling future General looked at those consumption reports and exclaimed, “WOW, those guys love asparagus” and then he doubled that amount for an expedited shipment to the base. The moral here is to know who else might be using your information and what they might do with it.

In summary, key performance metrics are great as long as they don’t drive behavior in the wrong direction. Make sure you score with metrics that work as intended!

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” -Mark Twain

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

COMPETITORS  SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS

A few years ago I remember watching the on again, off again, on again, launch status of  the space shuttle Discovery over the July 4th holiday. Having grown up in the 60’s I still marvel at each launch and think of the millions of events that take place with each flight.

In recent years it seems NASA has been dealing with an increasingly skeptical public and vocal policy opponents who want to severely limit or eliminate NASA’s future projects.

Maybe I’m in the minority but I’m nostalgic for the excitement, optimism, and commitment that President Kennedy triggered in America in 1961 when he challenged us to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. What a vision and what a mission! And what an exhilarating time for every citizen of the country to witness and enjoy the patriotic pride of the remarkable progress towards the achievement of that lofty goal in July 1969.

“When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” -Leo Burnett

WHAT PRECIPITATED KENNEDY’S CALL TO ACTION

But if it wasn’t for a little Soviet satellite called “sputnick” it might never have happened. America was complacent and smug in the 1950’s with our assumed “scientific superiority” over the Russians. Sputnick was a wake-up call of immense proportions. It was our old friend COMPETITION calling us to action. And act we did.

Today, I’m concerned we are in a mood similar to the 50’s. We are not compelled to action because of an increasing complacency and a lack of national conviction for space. The best thing for NASA and the entire space program would be for the Chinese to embark on an aggressive space exploration initiative like a flight to the moon to plant the Chinese flag. Then things would change and in a big way.

The compelling point is not to underestimate the power and value of competition in our organizations and in our lives. Competition simply makes us better and raises the bar of our performance. Just like Annika Sorenstam and Tiger Woods have elevated the games of their golfing peers. That’s what competition does!

Competition is definitely more friend than foe. I remember a story about when Walt Disney would give tours of his operations and during those tours the “story boards” of the projects his cast members were working on were highly visible. When asked about whether he had concerns that Disney’s ideas could be compromised or stolen he chuckled and remarked how his team at Disney could create faster than anyone could copy. How’s that for an attitude towards competition? What’s yours?

“There can be no progress if people have no faith in tomorrow.” -John F. Kennedy

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

strategic planning: innovation: management:success

TRACKING ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Does your score keeping track useful metrics? Or does it produce data that no one really uses? Finding the right metrics is not always an easy task. A good place to start is to challenge what you are currently producing. Who gets it? Do they use it? Is it what they need?

Times do change! What might have been helpful in 1975 might no longer does the trick. Let me share with you a story about a new plant manager we’ll call Tom who was assigned to turn around a troubled manufacturing facility several decades ago.

“We are glutted with data and yet there is a shortage of wisdom”- Michael Toms

DATA FOR THE SAKE OF DATA BENEFITS NO ONE

Tom was hard at work. He’d spent his first week trying to get an overview of the plant operations and the challenges he was facing. He met with his team, he smoothed relations with the union, and contacted and reassured key customers. He noted every morning he found a six inch high stack of computer printouts in the upper left hand corner of his desk. But he had been to busy to look at them, so they became a three-foot stack in the corner of his office. Tom was working late when Bob, one of his key direct reports, stopped by. As they chatted, Tom asked Bob about the daily stack of printouts. Bob revealed he received the same stack each day, as did the top dozen managers in the facility. Bob, also confessed, he seldom looked at them and did not use them to manage his activities.

Tom and Bob then took a walk down the hall to the EDP department. The staff was gone for the evening, but the “daily report” was printing away on an old dot-matrix high impact printer. The report was being burst into the individual stacks that would be delivered to desktops early in the morning. Tom walked over to the printer and stopped it. He took his trusty Cleveland Indian ball point pen and wrote as hard as he could, so it would penetrate all the copies. “I’ll pay $1,000 to anyone who reads this!”, and then, he signed his name. How many checks do you think Tom wrote out the next day? Zip, zero, nada! The old physics law of inertia (a body at rest tends to remain and rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion) had permeated the plant over the years. Reports that no one needed, no one understood, and no one used, had taken on a life of their own.

We are creatures of habit and it’s easy for complacency to set in. When was the last time you took a cold hard look at your existing information systems and the output they generate? You might be in for a nasty surprise. To stop doing the unnecessary is a big first step towards an improved information system.

“When you are drowning in numbers you need a system to separate the wheat from the chaff.” – Anthony Adams

Greg Pashke , CMC is  President of Pashke Consulting and provides business mentoring, strategic and tactical planning, and financial modeling services. Greg is a big proponent of The One Page Plan approach to managing the day to day performance of an organization. He is committed to continuous learning and skill development. Greg’s mantra is “to get a lot done & have a lot of fun”.
Website: http://www.pashkeconsulting.com/

enlightened orgs: inspiration

IS THE WORD -VALUES-AN OXYMORON IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY?

VANCITY IS PROOF POSITIVE -IT IS NOT

VanCity, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is in its sixth decade of operation, offering a form of social and spiritual capitalism that proves doing business in alignment with high values and integrity can also be profitable.

This unique blend of more than-a-credit-union and more than-a-bank, is a breath of fresh air in the midst of the tornadeo of devastation wrecked by banking institutions whose operating philosophies are more of a testament to the capitalistic prophecies born out of the ancient Greek myth of Erisychthon.

NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE MYTH?…

THE ERISYCHTHON EFFECT

OVID tells a tale of a wealthy timber merchant, Erischython, who lusts after a majestic sacred oak tree in the forest. He sees in the revered tree, only the dollars he can make by the sale of its timber. When he fells the tree, he is cursed by the gods of the tree with an insatiable hunger causing him to consume and destroy everything around him, including his wife, children …and ultimately, himself.

IN A FINANCIAL WORLD OF ‘ERISCHTHONS’ – VANCITY IS THE EXCEPTION

VanCity’s values are clearly stated on the Who Are We page of their website:

What we believe

We believe in the essential goodness of people.
We believe that dreamers are as unique as their dreams.
We believe that to rise higher, you must dig deeper.
We believe that balance in all things is the true measure of prosperity.
Wherever you are,
Whatever it is,
We believe you can.
Things grow here

THINGS GROW HERE…
When ‘who we are’ meets ‘what we believe’, things grow here. It’s the result when a rooted and reaching organization believes that all things are possible. And it is the central purpose across all our departments, branches and levels. To grow things — people, ideas, hope, finances, neighbourhoods and, of course, the dreams of our members.
– VanCity -  Who We Are

2004 VOTED BEST COMPANY TO WORK FOR IN CANADA

VanCity embraces customers who have been marginalized by traditional banks and make profits doing it. Here is just a short list of some of their accomplishments as “Firsts” in the nation. First financial institution to…

• Provide loans to women without the need for a male co-signer

• Include the lesbian and gay community through mainstream media advertisements

• Offer daily interest savings accounts and open mortgages

•Offer interactive home banking, wireless terminals, centralized banking by phone, an international ATM network and the first 24/7 branchless bank (Citizens Bank)

• Provide a socially responsible mutual fund – An EnviroFund VISA and low-interest loans for hybrid cars

• A three-year commitment to reduce vehicle trips to UBC (University of British Columbia)and SFU(Simon Fraser University) by sponsoring the student U-Pass program for transit access on buses, SkyTrain and SeaBus

• The highest employee participation rate (our fifth year in a row) in the Commuter Challenge, an annual transportation event to raise awareness of reducing car emissions

• Clean air loans and financing for energy-efficient home renovations

• Achievements in energy efficiency certified by BC Hydro’s Power Smart program

• A focus on building “extreme green” branches that maximize energy efficiency and minimize their environmental footprint

“we are reaching
As the trunk of the tree
stands firm, individual
branches and leaves
stretch beyond their
immediate place, upwards,
outwards, into territory
infinite and unknown.”

I think this VanCity tree has rewritten the Erischython myth!

In 2004, employees actually wrote the VanCity Story…read more…

The VanCity Story – Things Grow Here

VanCitys Goals:

1. To be Beyond a Bank, Beyond a Credit Union

2.To Value the Exceptions

3.To Be There at the Intersections

4. To Be Both a Neighbour and a Damn Good Banker

5. To Lead a Language Revolution

6.To Always Believe You Can

At VanCity they coined the phrase …Yes, You Can! We are thrilled to include this company in our directory of Enlightened Orgs!

BLESS BLESS
JUDY BERG
If you know a company that is making a Mindshift towards serving humanity while still turning a profit, we would like to know about them. Let us know by contacting::
attractingsuccess@soulabundant.com... or leave the information in the comments section of this post.

Organizational Behaviour Consultant

author: Imagine Your Soul Abundant: Attracting Success, Fulfillment and True Happiness
more about:  www.theconsciouscorporation.com www.soulabundant.com
Judy’s book can be ordered from her website www.soulabundant.com.  Special prices for bulk orders upon request. Seminars and retreats customized to the needs of your group or organization.