Background

This paper was written after several years of organizational change surrounding the turnaround efforts at a large multi-channel retailer.  As stability takes hold, it is necessary to build the foundation for continuous improvement from an organizational standpoint.  After groups within an organization have prospered and learned significantly over a period of time, it is critical to maintain the desired growth for the business, as well as individual professional growth for the associates within the group.

Opportunity

An associate within a group should be developed to grow on three particular levels – Tactical, Analytical, and Strategic.  As an associate grows, he or she should become well versed in all three disciplines and these skills will be transferable upward within the group as well as into other groups throughout the enterprise.  As the group seeks new associates, it is imperative to look for moldable traits from each level in order to develop long-term growth.  The ultimate goal is to produce associates that can think strategically and understand the analytics and tactics within a program or group.  In turn, this produces a logical path as follows:

▲    –          An associate that is solely focused on tactical execution

■    –          An associate that has learned or is being trained in tactics, analysis and strategy

▼    –          An associate that has developed all three traits and leads through strategic direction

▲  –>     ■  –>    ▼

The director of the group should be ▼.  His or her direct reports should be ■.  In turn, all others within the group should be developed from ▲ to ■ over a pre-determined interval.  This creates opportunities and direction for associates while defining measurable objectives and creating a well-run and effective organization.  The following information outlines each level of development and how they inter-relate.

Tactical

Day in and day out, there are functions that need to be performed in order to keep programs running, customers happy, and analysis happening.  These tactical procedures are typically basic in nature and repetitive at different intervals.  This is the best training ground for associates as they grow into analytical and ultimately strategic associates.  Being grounded in the basic fundamentals of programs allows for easy movement between programs and ultimately to a deeper understanding of individual programs and enterprise directional thinking.

Traits:

• Detail Oriented
• Organized
• Learning Focused
• Process Oriented

Analytical

Being analytical does not mean printing out reports once a week, glancing at them and putting them into a binder never to be seen again.  Analysis means getting into the numbers, understanding the strategy set forth by the enterprise, and seeking knowledge to which action can be associated.  An analytical associate is usually grown out of tactical execution.  Someone that has done the day-today activities of a function should inherently be able to analyze the output of the function.  Current associates should be challenged and the organization should seek new associates that get into the business at a micro level and seek a thorough understanding of it in order to drive the program and enterprise ever-forward.  Finally, an analytical person should always have a sense of the metrics of the program and seeking new ways to measure the business.

Traits

• Detail Oriented
• Organized
• Critical Reasoning
• Contextual Thinking
• Intuitive

Strategic

Often, people confuse strategy with operational effectiveness.  In the article “Michael Porter’s Big Ideas” (K. Hammonds, Fast Company. March ’01),Hammonds writes “There’s a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness. Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. Operational effectiveness is about things that you really shouldn’t have to make choices on; it’s about what’s good for everybody and about what every business should be doing.”  He follows on to say “The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you’re trying to accomplish. The company without a strategy is willing to try anything. If all you’re trying to do is essentially the same thing as your rivals, then it’s unlikely that you’ll be very successful.”  Therefore it is imperative that associates can understand, derive, and deliver strategy in an effective manner.  The learning of this takes time and is built on a foundation of understanding of the enterprise, the business, and roles within the enterprise.  Before strength in strategy is built, an associate must first know the tactical and analytical roles within the program or group.  As each of these is grown it leads to a basis for strategic understanding.

Traits

• Visionary
• 360° View
• Tactical
• Analytical
• Strong Business Acumen
• Communicative

Summary

While these points may seem intuitive, it is necessary for a manager (at any level) to maintain a view of these types of traits and the corresponding development.  Often companies spend more time reacting to growth, positive or negative, than to developing a solid platform to attract, grow and retain associates that are ultimately responsible for the long-term goals of the company.  As an architect designs a house and a contractor builds it, each piece is reliant on another to be successful.

Looking ahead during that first walk on the first (cold) day of 2011 I thought “how on earth am I going to walk 250 times this year totaling 1,250 miles or more?”  By mile one my shins ached, my breath was short and I was just hoping I could get through the first 5 miles.  But as I got to mile two, the pain subsided and I found my pace.  I completed that day.  Then I completed the first week.  Next came the first month.  By the time I reached that point it was a habit.  The miles kept adding up and by mid-year I was genuinely ready for the 2011 Avon Walk in the Rockies.  That was a challenge.  We walked a marathon day one and a half marathon on day two.  The challenge was the altitude and the rolling hills (going mostly uphill). However, it was incredible and my recovery was fast because I was actually in shape!!

During the year, I did take off two weeks just to make sure that I did not burn out. Ironically, during the weeks I took off, my body craved physical activity.  When I got back to the daily walking I was even more eager the reach the 5 mile results each day.  Finally by the end of December I reached the 250th walk (and 1,325 miles total – including the training and walking for the Avon Walk).  Looking back I was not surprised that I did it.  But, I was amazed that I stuck to it and enjoyed it so much.  I highly recommend this approach to anyone looking for a way to start, continue, and complete an exercise goal.  For those with more visual reasoning, here is what 1,325 miles looks like as I tracked it on DailyMile (guess which month had the Avon Walk in it).

For fun, I looked for a relative distance so I could see what 1,325 miles represented.  Dallas to Washington, DC was the best view – and here is that map (now that makes me tired).

Today I was alerted to some fun Google is having with search results.  Much like the autocorrect parody’s seen with Word over the years, Google has taken a search result set to a whole new level.  I implore you to try searching on the following terms and enjoy the ensuing results -

• Tilt
• Askew
• Do a barrel roll

Initial Problem Description

Google released an update to their +1 button script sometime on Tuesday (10/25/2011). This new script had a line of code that interfered with most JavaScript frameworks. This script error only affected some of Internet Explorer browser users. Sometime on Wednesday night (10/26/2011), Google appears to have rolled back their script changes. Google has made no official announcement that references the problem or the original update that caused it. The only information about the outage was gathered here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-plus-developers/lOt_NJ2j7P8.

In this forum, the problem was confirmed on Google’s developer discussion group and was escalated by a Google support engineer around 10am Wednesday morning.

Effect on a website

Any page that loaded the Google +1 script would encounter script errors after the button had rendered.

We all know that Twitter is the best way to learn about things happening. Today, I saw that @aplusk had posted a link to a presentation done by the CEO of Fab.com. It is titled “21 things we’re learning at Fab.com – October 2011“.  The 21 things are easy on the surface, but the commitment to them, and the ability to stay focused on them, inspires me.  Thank you Jason Goldberg

If you are interested in getting an invitation to Fab.com, go here –> http://fab.com/whh0t

HandShake2.0 is an interesting site that caters to the interests of business people in an online social media way.  In their words -

“Handshake 2.0 is a business news, social media public relations, and business development site featuring new developments in entrepreneurship, best practices in business principles, business models, innovation, and the latest on company leaders and companies, from start-ups to moguls.  Handshake 2.0 synthesizes the personal, the social, and the technological, adds the fundamental business risk reduction principle of “It’s who you know,” and shares its clients’ corporate messages in multiple, well-established social media channels and mobile applications, resulting in “word of Handshake” leads and referrals for clients’ companies.”

That led me to go to the Texas website for unclaimed property to see if perhaps there was something I had forgotten about or not been refunded before moving away from one of my many addresses in Texas.  This includes forgotten bank accounts, uncashed checks, utility refunds, deposits, and more.  After all one in four Texans has unclaimed property on the books.  Sadly, there was nothing in my name.  However, I did a quick check of many people I know and lots of people had various amounts of money by their names.    The process to look up unclaimed property in Texas takes less than a minute to see if there is forgotten property.  The recovery process may take a little time.  The next step is for everyone to go check and collect that money.

By law, when companies end up with money or property from individuals or companies and cannot find them to return it, they are required to notify the state of the unclaimed property.  This includes unused gift certificates through a process called escheatment.  The state then enters this information into a publicly accessible database (in the case of Texas it is called “ClaimItTexas.org”).  In Texas, people can check the website or even call (1-800-654-3463), e-mail (unclaimed.property@cpa.state.tx.us) or mail:

I believe all 50 states have similar processes for finding unclaimed property – http://www.unclaimed.org/ is a single website with access to all those that participate.  In this economy, every dollar counts.  Go see if you have some “forgotten” treasure.