Give feedback. Evaluate consistently and regularly, using the same metric for everyone with the same job description.
Be fair. Always, and in all things in the workplace.
11. twenty minutes to meditate
Creative Sparks
We don't necessarily mean meditation in the literal sense. But mental downtime of any sort can have the same idea-generating effect. Consider the case of Cecil Ursprung, CEO of sign maker Reflexite Corp., in Avon, Conn., who gets some of his best ideas while he's a million miles from work.
Some years back, on a beach in the British Virgin Islands, Ursprung was idly building a sand castle with his young son. As he sculpted parapets and moats, Ursprung found himself mentally sketching out the blueprint for a new compensation scheme for his work force. No matter that Ursprung found inspiration on the beach. He hadn't gone looking for it. Nor should you. The wildest ideas rarely emerge when you lie in wait for them; the trick is to let them ambush you.
Creativity, which flowered in us all as children, can be recovered. It must be recovered, because it's a priceless competitive tool. It's what helps tiny players trip their towering counterparts, as Drypers, a disposable-diaper maker and the fastest-growing company on the 1993 Inc. 500 list, did with rival Procter & Gamble not long ago. (Drypers' ads said parents could use any P&G discount coupon to get $2 off the price of a pack of Drypers' diapers instantly.)
But creativity is rarely enhanced by throwing yourself at the project in the wee hours after the umpteenth cup of java. Instead, it erupts in all its finery in the quiet times when your mind is on simmer.
Some people cultivate creativity; they leave the mental door open for catalytic thoughts by scheduling quiet time for themselves. For some it's 15 minutes of meditation; for others, a leisurely lunchtime walk. And for you?
KIT-BAG EXTRAS
CEREMONY
Celebrate, Don't Cerebrate
Those at the helm of growing companies are often so busy raising their own personal performance bars that they don't stop to congratulate themselves -- or anyone else.
Steve Berglas, a clinical psychologist and president of the Executive Stress Clinic, in Chestnut Hill, Mass., puts it this way: entrepreneurs "chronically manifest greater and greater levels of competency to feel psychologically secure." Perhaps because there's no formal feedback, no boss's evaluation of them, company builders apply outlandish pressure to make themselves score even better in an encore performance.
Time out! Make a realistic appraisal of all you've achieved so far. Pat yourself on the back -- heck, reward yourself -- and make sure you do the same publicly for those who helped you crack the sales goal this year. Ceremony, after all, builds a sense of kinship and teamwork. Over time, your business won't be quite the same contender without those qualities.
PRESENTATIONS
Here's Looking at You
You've sat through enough eye-glazing speeches to know that you never want to be to blame for anything so narcotic. But how do you know you're not?
A reminder: if you can't sell you, you won't sell much. A tip: get your next public presentation on videotape. (Often, the organizers are taping the conference anyway, so ask for a free copy.) If need be, take a course on presentation skills, where you'll be taped for sure. Use the video to help you rehearse away that stiff body language. While you're at it, make an audiotape of you in full song, and play back all those umms, ers, and bombed jokes in the car on your way home.
GIVING BACK
Soup Serving
Forget for a moment that you have matchless leadership credentials for heading the fund drive for your neighborhood's homeless shelter. Go serve soup there instead.
As you set places, sweep off tables, and wash bowls, you make personal contact in a way you cannot if you are organizing the volunteers' schedules or shaking down other business chieftains for contributions. While following instructions, you gain a perspective your workaday week doesn't include. Most important of all, you're making the banter and extending the human warmth that's needed just as much as the hot soup.
WHY YOUR COMPANY EXISTS
On a Mission
In your heart, you know you are not your company. But it's easy to slip into a lot of "I" statements when you're giving the bankers strategic profit goals or market-penetration targets. We trust you've already penned your personal "purpose statement." (See "Here Lies the CEO," page 2.) Now it's time for a clearheaded assessment of your business's reason for being. So don't do another thing until you've logged the company's mission here:
Treats
A really terrific cup of fresh coffee and a couple of anise biscotti once a day
Toys
Office basketball hoop (10 minutes' shooting per day encouraged)
Squirt gun (to hose down the idea nixers)
Information Tools
A notebook computer (color, 486 or equivalent, with modem and fax built in) that "docks" with your desktop PC unit
A microcassette tape recorder -- to capture great ideas
An alphanumeric pager -- to sift through your myriad messages
A cellular phone
Transportation
A car that doesn't break down
1. Lexus LS400 6. Acura Legend
2. Lexus SC300/400 7. Ford Crown Victoria
3. Infiniti J30 8. Lexus ES300
4. Infiniti Q45 9. Toyota Paseo
5. Toyota Camry 10. Buick Park Avenue
(These are 1993's top 10 cars, ranked according to which vehicles had the fewest reported problems in the first three months of ownership, according to J.D. Power and Associates' Initial Quality Study, 1993.)
Research assistance provided by Christopher Caggiano.
