I have.

His sermons on teamwork ( and there were a lot of them ) rose to fevered pitch as he would claim personal embarrassment by the actions or lack of effort of others on….you guessed it, The Team.

He would pepper each of his speeches with time worn, worthless expressions such as:

“There’s no I in Team!”

“ We all have to pull together!”

“Who’s got the ball?!”

“ No one is better than anyone else in this company, we‘re a Team!”

Ironically this person knew only too well that individual effort is what really mattered but his efforts were put into convincing others that he was doing great things and marginalizing the truly productive efforts of others.

I have encountered many such teamwork advocates using what amounts to a holy word for some businesses.  You can get “Teamwork” paraphernalia, have “Teamwork coaches”, “Teamwork Rallies” and join “teams” at work and at play.

I have to admit that I never bought into it and when I read a book by Larry Winget I found myself cheering and yelling: “ Yes!”

I buy copies of his books as presents for people, especially for those searching for what I call “workplace common sense”.

Winget is one of my favorite authors, I appreciate his bluntness and common sense. His books mirror so many of my own beliefs that I’m beginning to think we were separated at birth somehow.

If you have an ounce of self determination you’ll enjoy his website and what he has to say.

www.larrywinget.com

He reminds me of my high school football coach who would wait until we were doing sit-ups on the dusty practice field, come over and stand on our stomachs while he recited a laundry list of skills and attitudes we needed to improve.

Coach Colburn understood that our success and failure could be traced to the talents and efforts of individuals and he taught us to take responsibility for our actions.

Basic cause and effect stuff.

Coach punished each of us according to the frequency and severity of our individual sins at practice:

Missed tackle or block?   1 full lap ( 1/4 mile ) of the track.

Dropped pass or fumble?   2 full laps

Smart off to a coach?  1 full lap

We were allowed to remove our helmets but stayed fully dressed, pads and all.

After one particularly poor practice a group of us set the all time record of 24 laps, that’s 6 miles, full uniform, in the rain.

He ended up with a group of players highly motivated and focused on doing tasks the right way and as a side benefit we were in such great shape we outlasted our competitors!

Those who were blessed with more talent and put forth more effort played and enjoyed the lessons learned from victories and defeats first hand.

Those who didn’t sat on the bench as spectators.

If the benchwarmers didn’t like their status they had the same two options we all did:

1.Earn the right to play

or

2.Quit.

We were all given the opportunity to excel and work towards a common goal.

The common denominator was not the team but the effort the individual made.

Think how well your business would do if the same common sense principles were applied.

I’ve included this except from Larry Winget’s book:

It’s Called Work For A Reason…You’re Success Is Your Own Damn Fault
Beware The Team Player

You often hear people talk about how they are “team players”. They brag about how it doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as the work gets done. They smile and say they have the ability to get along with everyone. People love them.

They espouse all of these admirable qualities that at first glance seem to be very positive. How can things that sound so good turn out to be so bad?

The person who doesn’t care who gets the credit is a person who has never gotten credit because her own contribution has never been worthy of the credit. Once you have gotten the credit for your own outstanding performance, you would never say it doesn’t matter. It always matters.

And anyone who says he can get along with everyone has the moral fiber of a wet rag. If you can get along with everyone and everyone loves you, then you don’t stand for much. A person who stands his ground for his principles and won’t compromise his integrity is not loved by everyone. He may be respected but he isn’t liked. What kind of person can get along with everyone? A person who can’t see or is willing to tolerate the stupidity of others. A person who doesn’t care that her coworkers aren’t working. I don’t want that person on my “team”. I want people who are in touch with their beliefs, willing to fight for them, won’t compromise, and won’t tolerate mediocrity in themselves or others.

Don’t misunderstand me here. Every person must be able to get along to the degree that’s necessary to get the work done. Getting the work done is paramount. But working with others to accomplish the job is different is different than being a “team player”.

Larry’s short list on ( not ) working together:

• Teamwork doesn’t work because someone on the team won’t work

• Instead of teams we should create groups of superstars, exploiting their individuality

• Superstars don’t like to share the spotlight. Don’t ask them to.

• Superstars love working with other superstars to achieve a common goal.

• The same rules don’t apply to everyone. Great results earn you slack.

• Good sales cover up a multitude of sins.

• Beware of the self-professed team player.
I always appreciate your comments and feedback, thank you for reading my blog.

Henry “Dutch” Hempel

Henry Hempel Associates

“Do good first.  Brand good later.”

I have friends who claim I peg-out their Dork-O-Meters every time I speak about this subject, but the shiny new images and catchy taglines produced (by) for some companies fascinates me. Whether by choice or necessity companies worldwide are using the cultural  shock waves generated by this recession to win market share or change their images. Surfing on this wave of change are the branding experts, adeptly manipulating the angst of nervous owners and executives.

Lucas Conley, author of OBD-Obsessive Branding Disorder writes:

“Reaching beyond reason, branding throws off business’s true north. Disoriented, obsessed with surface and sentiment over substance, companies apply their ingenuity to the disingenuous, perfecting names and nuances instead of responding to consumer needs.” …

” In the name of the brand, any idea can be defended as valid and any crackpot can assume the status of a guru. And when the snake oil salesmen roll into town shilling branding tonics and salves, anxious executives line up, their minions and dependents standing dutifully at attention. Branding now encompasses supply chains, partnerships, and in an especially unholy pairing, human resources. Corporate branding books dictate everything from language to dress to the font on internal memos. Along the way, the axis has tipped; something has gone awry. Once rooted in the physical world of consumer products, branding has transcended its humble beginnings. Now brands must have a smell, a taste, a sound. Voices, attitudes and “processes” must be branded. What was once made up of products and services is now increasingly built out of nebulous intangibles. What was once a brand is now a Brand”

I have witnessed many examples of what Conley describes and have noticed a simple, direct correlation to the depth of branding theories and services applied to the depth of inept management and their belief of that this newest business philosophy will fix damaged, dysfunctional companies.

Accelerated by recession panic, and opportunity, branding has produced the inevitable gridlock of vocabulary and structure used to represent each brand. In vogue are the left brain / right brain ( facts / emotions ) taglines loaded with words to sooth us and let us know that the associated company feels our pain and understands what is important to us. By using, reading and buying their products and services our lives will be better.

Watch TV commercials for awhile and you will notice certain words are being used repeatedly and a quick search of the internet for some of these produced this example of what I call “Message Gridlock”:

Pay Less / Live Better

Live Better / Live Bundled

Invest Well / Live Well

Invest Well / Live Better

Eat Better / Feel Better

Drink Well / Live Well

Build Well / Be Well

Eat Well / Live Well

Do Well / Be Well

Live Well / Be Well

Age Well / Be Well

Be Well / Live Well

Be Smart / Be Well

Live Green / Live Smart

Drive Well / Sleep Carefully

These are associated with dairy products, construction, exercise, vitamins, investing, diets and cancer treatments to name a few.

Creation of most taglines often costs companies thousands of dollars, involves lengthy interviews with employees and in-depth forensic investigations into a company’s “culture”. Is it worth the expense and effort?

I’ll let you be the judge.

Service is a verb, not a noun.

I want to bring all this back to the Service Conundrum part of the title of this article and I want to use my favorite and probably most visible example:

Walmart’s new  “Pay Less. Live Better” tagline which replaced  Always Low Prices.  Always.

Walmart’s aggressive charge to increase it’s market share is focused and impressive. I know many people who claimed they never have nor ever will shop at Walmart. In my part of the world Target is Walmart’s main competitor and Many friends have told me they are “Target people”. I’m not one of those people, I shop both.

Watch out “Target people“, Wal-Mart is out to get you.

The yellow, bouncing,  price cutting, caped, ball commercials are gone replaced by a stylized sun and attractive, happy, middleclass, families Paying Less so they can Live Better. Their print ads have been designed with fewer items per page with lots of space between each item that mimics the design principlesTarget has used for years in their print ads.

What Wal-Mart doesn’t mention via it’s tagline or TV and print ads is service and  believe me it hasn’t changed.

My last visit to Walmart was to get one item in the garden center. It sent me searching for an employee to ask a question about the availability of a refill for a product I was using. I walked every isle, over to the area’s check out area, which was deserted and covered with paperwork and products, outside where I asked someone watering plants who answered my query about the product: “Isn’t ( put name here ) in there?”

I walk back into the store where I met the person who greeted me as I entered the garden center and asked if he could help me. He said that he thought ( put name here ) who could help me “was on lunch break but should be back soon”.

I found what I needed at another store. I might have paid more but they didn’t waste my most precious commodity, time.

Here’s the point of the story:

Wal-Mart attracts customers with low prices on products.

A&E and Construction Services companies can’t because what they sell and what distinguishes them from their competitors is service

Service is performed not promised.

1. Do you think you have the most innovative design? You don’t because it will soon be copied or eclipsed and flashed around the world in days, hours or minutes!
2. Do you think you have a higher level of craftsmanship and manage better than anyone else, you better look around because you don’t.

When service is what you sell, all the branding, marketing and advertising you can afford will not protect you from the inevitable decline and assured failure that follows poor service.

Poor service will destroy your “brand”, chase away your customers, run off your most valuable employees, devalue your company and condemn you to a single strategy for success…the lowest price.