Rothacker Reviews

Executive Newsletters

I have a subscription to Harvard Business Review so consequently, I receive all types of offers targeting executives through the mail.  For the sake of clarification, the only place where I retain executive status resides in a small room that houses a sink, shower and porcelain chair.  Last week I received an offer for an Executive Leadership newsletter (they sent a free copy).  The cover price for this piece is $192.00 but I can receive the Professional Benefit Price of $96.00.  I wonder if after the first year discount I get tagged a hundred and ninety-two bucks?  (this method seems to work quite nicely for the cell phone companies)

I scanned the free copy and am convinced that there isn't any content that cannot be found on a blog...somewhere...if blogs were written twelve years ago.  I really strained to find the value.  Perhaps this company believes that most execs think blogs are nothing more than an alternate place for the PR department to hang out.  Maybe they believe that execs have more than enough disposable income. 

I think there is some valuable information to be extracted from just who and how many people subscribe to these newsletters.  IMHO, they are the same type of folks who continued to invest in the passenger railroad business in the mid 1900's.  I sure hope the cats running my company don't subscribe to stuff like this!

Lousy Service...But we'd go back

We had stopped into a local restaurant between the holidays and encountered a young lady, who might be the world's worst waitress.  Or perhaps, might have been experiencing personal problems.  Through the course of our visit, we had to ask seven or eight times to correct something.  Here's an example:

Rosemary and I asked for un-sweet iced tea.  The young lady brings out sweet tea.  Two minutes later we discover her error and call her over.  She walks away with our instructions.  Now hang with me here  because this really happened.  Not more than three minutes later she comes back without our iced tea and asks if everything is alright and do we need anything else.  In the emotion of the moment, I believe we were more embarrassed (for her) than she was.  And, in case you were wondering, this girl was not mentally challenged.

Would we return to this restaurant?  Incredible as it might sound, yes.  Here's why:

• The food was good
• The other wait staff balanced out this young lady

This operation is a franchise and a sports pub, which was actually founded in the area.  I like the food.

Although perhaps the other server was related to the owner or even the owner, this forty-something year old woman almost single handedly made up for the younger one's short comings.  She helped us with two or three of our server's errors...and she acted like she wanted to be there.

We left that day however, not feeling too good about the overall experience.  Later on, when Rosemary checked our bank account online, we learned that our server had placed another order on our card.  Ouch!  She immediately called the manager and explained our entire adventure.  They had already caught the billing mistake and corrected it and he offered to cover our next meal there.

Ordinarily I would be praising the manager, other server and naming their establishment.  But I'd like to cut that young lady some slack...it wasn't like she was mean or vicious.  I hope things work out well for her in school, work and life.

Books: The Feeling of Guilt

Have you ever started reading a book only to be bogged down by dwindling interest....like two fifty pound cinder blocks tied to your ankles while trying to tread murky, brown water?  A pang of guilt however, will not let you set the book aside.  It must get better you think.  So you plod on a little longer.  But now you have another emotion to contend with - jealousy.  As you pretend to be engrossed with your present book, the stack of unread books sitting on the shelf begin to watch you...and you know they're looking.  Soon you're just reading words in the book that lost your interest early on...and soon those looks become sharp and pointed.

I have wrestled with this dilemma many times over the years.  And the reason that I cannot simply cast the boring book aside is a few times, not many, but a few times, the book changed course and did become interesting.  I have found if I abandon the book but still keep it in view of my reading chair, I still feel guilt.  For me, it's best that I either give the book away or box it up...with others that can keep much better company than I.

Now, if you want to stir up a whole other set of emotions, try choosing which book to read next out of your stack.  It might be best to place your stack out of view or cover it with a towel...for there is nothing worse than a set of scorned books...or is there :-)

Discrimination Against Women - Retail Style

My cousin, who is in her early seventies, was browsing in a golf pro shop in Clearwater Beach, Florida, with the intent to make a purchase.  Three or four men came in after her and were waited on while she was completely ignored.  (I found out later that this isn't the only time it had happened to her in this store...just the last)  I asked my cousin if she complained to anyone about this rude treatment.  She said, "no need to, I'll never go there again!"  She also said that she would mention this experience to her friends.  No big deal, right?  This kind of stuff happens all the time.  After all, how many folks could a seventy-something year old lady know?  Well, in this case, more than you could imagine.  My cousin however, is not the evangelistic-militant type.  Good thing for this golf shop, because she is Internet savvy and is extremely connected and I am relatively sure that the folks she is connected to have younger sons, daughters and friends.

I am of the opinion that one should never take anyone shopping in their place of business for granted.  And although the damage to this store's reputation that will take place will be akin to a slow, steady drip of cyanide, I wish there was a way to measure its loss of business.

Mavericks at Work

Mavericks at Work by William C. Taylor & Polly LaBarre

Mavericks at Work, to use Bill and Polly's own terminology, is not a book of best practices, it is a book of next practices.  It is a book about what the companies of tomorrow are doing today.  Tom Peters says that he didn't just read this book, he devoured it.  Nuff said.  Just get it.

I Smoked-n-Signed Mavericks at Work.  I did so because it resonates most strongly with what I yearn for in business and the companies that I associate with.

I am going to tweak this review ever so slightly, changing course from the status-quo tell-you-what-the-book-is-about.  First, I am going to list words that I wrote in the book's margins which captured my attention and then I am going to list the folks that Bill & Polly write about, their position and their company.  I got the inclination to do this from Gary Hamel writing about Enron in his book Leading the Revolution.  When Gary wrote the book there was nothing to lead most of us to believe Enron was on a crash course to oblivion.  For my own message in a bottle purposes, my kids can look back at Rothacker Reviews here (or where ever we can store it) and capture both people and company names at a snapshot...hopefully most folks will have moved in the direction of progress.

Inspired Thought

• Language creates the edge
• Hire from another industry
• Recreating an industry - it's about story
• Human voice - Internet - Craig's List
• Fortune - big business voice
• No focus on brand demonstrates how little control a company has over its brand
• Power of language within companies
• Language, culture, sense of shared values
• Why does your company exist?
• Be who you are, don't go mushy
• Freedom to express
• The Linux Story
• Collective intelligence of the network
• Collaborate with smart people outside of your organization
• Define a problem crisply
• Purple cow
• Get the most out of ordinary folks
• Do you have a warrior spirit?
• Vibrant company defined
• Company design - how the company sees the world
• Understand the people, understand the company

These were just a few notes that I made after reading once through the book.  My second pass through a book, or the reason that I pass through a book more than once, is determined by how much I highlight the book.  In this case, a lot.  The second pass usually inspires more writing in the margins.