The 10 Most Common Workplace Anxiety Dreams And What They Mean

Are you a dreamer? According to psychologists,
everyone dreams—sometimes five times a night.
And it’s not all sugar-plum fairies. Surveys show
that some 50% to 80% of us dream about work,
with a significant portion admitting they often wake
up in a cold sweat and experience work nightmares
once or more a week.
“Dreaming about work is incredibly common,” says
dream expert Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, author of
Dream on It: Unlock Your Dreams, Change Your Life.
“Work is the largest part of our waking life. It’s also
a big part of our identity.”
While work dreams are often banished to the wacky
and inexplicable files—perhaps it was that midnight
Chunky Monkey—those who study them warn not to
dismiss them so quickly. After all, they are the
language of the subconscious, created by you for
you as a means of working out issues in your
waking life. Those that are frightening or
emotionally charged are all the more significant.
“Recurring dreams and nightmares happen because
your subconscious is trying to get your attention,”
says Layne Dalfen, founder of The Dream
Interpretation Center in Montreal, Quebec. “You
may not even realize what’s bugging you.”
See: The 10 Most Common Workplace Anxiety
Dreams
Dalfen says there are five entry points to
interpreting a dream, which can in turn help you
understand and resolve the real-world issue:
feelings, symbols, word play, plot and actions. If
you feel panicked in a dream, ask yourself what’s
making you anxious in your life. If there’s a distinct
item, character or color that stands out, consider
what significance it holds to you symbolically. Also
think of the double meanings in the language—if
you’re being pursued in a dream, is there some goal
you yourself are pursuing at work? Finally, the basic
plot and action of the dream may represent an
overarching theme you’re working through, like a
loss or a failure.
While dreams can be extremely personal, it turns
out that some are nearly universal. According to
several dream researchers and counselors, the
following represent the most common workplace
anxiety dreams and what they mean.
Late For Work
The Dream: Usually in this dream you either can’t
get to work on time or are missing a deadline.
What It Means: Loewenberg says this dream is a
really good indication that you feel like you’re
missing out on an opportunity or what you really
want in your career.
Sex With A Coworker
The Dream: It involves inappropriate intimacy with
a colleague or, more often, a boss. Usually there
isn’t a real attraction in waking life, so the dreamer
wakes up feeling confused or concerned about what
it means.
What It Means: If it’s a coworker that you’re not
attracted to, Loewenberg believes it represents
knowing that you need to unite with them on a
project or goal, or that you want to take on a skill or
personality trait they possess. Alternately, if it’s a
boss, Ian Wallace, a psychologist and author of The
Top 100 Dreams, says it may symbolize a
subconscious recognition that you have a big idea,
and you’re trying to give yourself the power to act
on it.

Unprepared For A Task
The Dream: This one is marked by anxiety over not
being ready for a big presentation, event or work
task. It’s often specific to the profession, like an
actor not knowing her lines.
What It Means: It can usually be connected to an
upcoming event that you’re nervous about, in which
your performance will be judged. If it’s recurring
and not tied to anything specific, Loewenberg says
it may suggest a lack of confidence.
Being Naked At Work
The Dream: This dream involves being either
completely naked or inappropriately dressed in the
office. Usually the dreamer is panicked, but no one
else in the dream seems to notice.
What It Means: According to Wallace, this dream
symbolizes feeling vulnerable and exposed at work.
You may also be concerned about how others
perceive you.

Getting Stuck In The Elevator
The Dream: Workplace elevator dreams usually
involve an elevator stalling, moving sideways or
dropping down rather than going up.
What It Means: Loewenberg says elevators
represent our ability to progress in our careers. If
it’s not moving smoothly upwards, it reflects your
fear that your career is not progressing as it should.
Can’t Find The Bathroom
The Dream: The dreamer is usually wandering the
halls and unable to find the bathroom. Alternately,
he may be in the bathroom and can’t close the
door, or the toilet is exposed without any doors.
What It Means: Wallace says any dream about a
bathroom represents your fundamental needs, and
if you cannot find one at work, it means your needs
aren’t being met or you’re having trouble
expressing them. If you can’t secure the bathroom
door, you may need to establish clearer boundaries
with colleagues.
Driving To Work
The Dream: Often the dreamer is driving and loses
control of the car. Alternately, she may be on a
train or bus that is swerving or off course.
What It Means: Wallace believes this represents
your drive in your career and your efforts to make
progress toward an objective. If the vehicle is
spinning out of control, it means you feel that you
don’t have enough control in your waking life.

Seven Ways To Ruin Your Professional Reputation

When career consultant Emily Bennington started
researching her upcoming book on women’s career
success, Who Says It’s A Man’s World: The Girls
Guide To Corporate Domination, she came across
an interesting theme: If the choice is between being
respected and being liked, it’s better to err on the
side of respect. “Your reputation is everything,” Jan
Fields, a 35-year business veteran and the former
president of McDonald’s, told her.
Bennington says corporate reputations are typically
formed from a series of successive questions: Who
is she? Do I like her? Is she capable? And can she
lead a team? “When you have respect, you have
the ability to make people galvanize around an
idea,” she says.
However, while performance may help drive a
positive professional reputation, Bennington says
it’s the small day-to-day mistakes that undermine
it. She outlines the most common (and gender-
neutral) ways people “royally screw up their
reputations.”
Make Excuses
“People make excuses in part because they see
themselves as un-empowered,” says Bennington.
For example: But no one told me… or I couldn’t do it
because I didn’t have the file. She calls people who
make excuses “work victims” because they don’t
take responsibility for their success. “If you don’t
have answers, ask questions,” she counsels.
Otherwise, you spend so much time stewing over
what you don’t have that you end up wasting time
that could be spent finding the resources you need.
After all, “part of being great is being resourceful,”
she says.
Miss Deadlines
An easy way to lose respect is to be that person
who’s always late and needs reminders about
upcoming deadlines, says Bennington. One of the
best (and easiest) ways to project composure and
control is to turn in assignments unprompted and
on time. So why do people screw up such a basic
reputation-builder? “Their perception is off,” says
Bennington. When a worker perceives their
circumstances as stacked against them, they react
in ways that reinforce that perception rather than
owning their own actions.
Don’t Prepare For Meetings
Meetings are the primary way people outside your
immediate team are exposed to your demeanor
and work. Yet Bennington says too often people
prep for meetings at the last minute, making them
appear disorganized and, well, less-than-brilliant.
Part of it may stem from fear. “I had a Monday
morning staff meeting with my boss, which I was
constantly angsty about,” says Bennington. She
would go into the meeting feeling constricted and
expecting to fail. However, over-preparing for
meetings not only helps you feel more comfortable,
it makes you look better.
Be Too Tit-For-Tat
Bennington recalls one salaried sales
representative who considered any work past 5
p.m. overtime that the company should make up
for. Once, the rep planned to take a two-hour flight
to a regional sales meeting, which would end her
workday at 7 p.m. To compensate, she asked her
boss if she could come in to work two hours late the
next morning. “Not only did her manager flatly
deny her request to come in late, but in that
instance any leadership equity she had built with
him was damaged,” says Bennington. She
recommends taking a more holistic view of your
work and what’s best for the team.

Be Unresponsive
Bennington says many workers make the mistake
of thinking not responding to an email means they
have said “no” or communicated that they’re
unavailable. Instead, it makes coworkers wonder if
you received the message at all, if you’re waiting to
make a decision or if you’re just avoiding them.
“It’s rude,” she says. Even if the answer isn’t what
they want to hear, she recommends showing the
other person the respect of responding.
Make Self-Deprecating Jokes
While appropriate humor can help facilitate
relationships and make you more successful at
work, frequently making yourself the butt of a joke
can do two things: First, you may gain the
reputation of the office clown, meaning not a
serious person and a distraction to serious work.
Second, you affirm your faults in the eyes of others,
showing that you don’t respect yourself. It’s one
thing to know how to take a joke and another thing
to make yourself a joke, says Bennington.
Underestimate The Details
Don’t forget the small stuff because lots of little
mistakes add up over time. “You build your
personal brand through everything you do, whether
big actions or small decisions,” former McDonald’s
executive Jan Fields told Bennington. “That brand
will stay with you throughout your career.”
Bennington says sometimes workers become so
focused on future goals and advancement that they
don’t put enough time and effort into their current
job. “Worry about the work in front of you, and do it
extremely well,” she advises. “Manage experiences
with colleagues and clients moment by moment.”..

Diesel Jeans Mogul Renzo Rosso Joins Ranks Of Forbes Billionaires

Blue jeans may be an American invention, but 57-
year-old Italian entrepreneur Renzo Rosso has built
a global empire by turning jeans into high-end
fashion. In turn, he’s earned a spot on Forbes’
ranking of global billionaires.
Rosso founded Diesel in 1978 with partners he’d
worked with for a few years at an Italian clothing
manufacturer that produced pants for a variety of
brands. The company, Genius Group, was behind a
number of successful brands including Diesel.
Seven years later, in 1985, Rosso bought Diesel
outright. The story goes that Rosso chose the name
Diesel because it’s pronounced the same around
the world. Also, diesel was considered an
alternative fuel and he wanted his brand to be
thought of as an alternative to the clothing trends
of the time.
The popularity of the brand grew quickly, helped by
marketing and advertising campaigns designed to
make customers sit up and take notice. The stores
soon followed. In 1996, Diesel opened flagship
stores in New York, Rome and London. By 2010
there were more than 400 stores in 80 countries.
And Diesel had become much more than jeans.
Today there is a sportswear line, sunglasses,
fragrances, and shoes.
In 2000 Russo began to acquire other fashion
houses and companies. His first was Staff
International, which manufactures and distributes
clothing under license for brands such as DSquared,
Just Cavalli and Marc Jacobs Men. This was followed
by picking up controlling interests in two fashion
houses; Maison Martin Margiela in 2002 and Vikton
& Rolf in 2008. On December 20, Diesel parent Only
The Brave announced that it had purchased a
majority stake in Milan-based ready-to-wear brand
Marni for an undisclosed price.

The company is headquartered in Molvena, a few
hours away from Italy’s fashion epicenter, Milan.
However, Rosso makes his home in nearby
Bassono del Grappa, where he owns the local
soccer team.
A spokesperson for Rosso’s holding company Only
The Brave confirmed that Rosso is the sole owner
of the privately held company. Consolidated
revenue was 1.4 billion Euros or $1.8 billion for
2011; applying price-to-sales multiples from a
range of publicly traded competitors values Rosso’s
fashion empire at more than $2.5 billion and makes
Rosso a billionaire.

Alfredo Chedraui Obeso, Head Of Mexican Wal-Mart Competitor, Now A Billionaire

The Chedraui logo promises “It costs less”
For years now, Alfredo Chedraui Obeso of Mexico
has been keeping a low profile, quietly overseeing
the family business his grandparents started back
in 1920. Today, thanks to the growing chain of
hypermarkets–Wal-Mart-esque mega-stores in
Mexico and the American Southwest–Chedraui
Obeso joins the billionaires club.
A recent pop in the publicly-traded Grupo Comercial
Chedraui, S.A.B. de C.V. plus past stock sales
pushes Chedraui Obeso to a net worth of $1
billion. He owns 30.3% of the company, which went
public on the Mexican stock exchange in May 2010.
As co-president, together with his brother Jose
Antonio, this new billionaire has
overseen aggressive expansion of the retail empire,
which had sales of US $4.1 billion in 2011.
The company’s strategy is simple and much like
Wal-Mart’s: Promise low prices. In Mexico (as in the
U.S.), mom-and-pop shops can’t compete on price
with mega-stores like the Chedrauis’ three brands:
Chedraui, department stores with food, electronics,
and clothing in cities with at least 100,000 people;
Super Chedraui, slimmed-down stores aimed at
smaller cities; and El Super, mega-stores aimed at
the buy-happy consumer in the U.S. At the end of
2012 Chedraui had 198 stores.
Chedraui is a family business and family wealth:
the clan owns 84% of the stock. After Alfredo,
brother Jose Antonio Chedraui Obeso is the second
largest stockholder; his shares, however, are worth
less than $1 billion. The two brothers have three
sons who are also stockholders.
The founders of the chain were Lebanese
immigrants to Mexico. Their original store in
Xalapa, Veracruz, sold fabric, clothes, and sewing
supplies and was called El Puerto de Beyrouth–a
creative translation into Spanish of “Beirut.” It was
the new billionaire’s father, Antonio Chedraui
Charam, who began to expand the business,
building the first multi-department store in 1970. By
1985, the business had expanded to six stores.
Then chain continued to grow, and in 1995 invested
in El Súper, a chain of hypermarkets in Southern
California that caters to Mexican-Americans. In
2005, Grupo Comercial Chedraui bought 29 stores in
Mexico from Carrefour; three years later the
company purchased seven Gigante stores in the
American southwest.

The End of Middle Managers (And Why They’ll Never Be Missed)

In my opinion, a company needs leaders—not managers. From the top down, every employee has the opportunity to lead, starting with the organization of one within the larger organization that we call “Me, Inc.” Every individual is responsible for shaping and creating their own future (What does that look like? We start with two of our 7 Non Negotiables of leadership—we Trust and then we Empower. You know how leaders will typically say “I empower my people”—and then they don’t? The tendency is all too common. The minute there’s a mistake it’s like a rope around your neck that snatches back—you either get your head taken off, or you get yanked back so hard the natural reaction is to hunker down and become “less” instead of growing to “more.”

With my own paired leadership partner, Fishbowl president Mary Michelle Scott, we start at the top of the company with a holistic, high altitude view of what we want to achieve. Then we bring in the department captains (there are 3 pairs) and say, “This is what we’re thinking. We think it’s time to open up Canada, the UK and South Africa.”

We give that big piece of meat to the captains. They chew on it for awhile and come back with either 1) they don’t like it (generally coupled with a counter proposal), or 2) the multiple ways they see to go about achieving the goal. The captains are leaders who play a core role in the strategy’s formation. Then they run the day-to-day deployment of the strategy that’s been jointly created and set.

Yes, there’s a fine line between leadership and management—but there’s a massive difference as well, I maintain. Our approach makes the groups and leaders autonomous, but also interdependent. They are bright. All voices are heard. We decide on the “best” idea, no matter who originates it, and most of the time, we actually forget who brings the idea forward. Nobody worries about “the glory” because all will benefit as a team (my compensation strategy is here.) They come up with better answers than we could ever hope to achieve on our own.

The captains don’t “manage” every day. They have just one meeting as captains per week. That meeting determines the deployment of strategy. We hand off to the captains—then they hand off to the teams, who hand off to the individuals who deploy day to day, and then they get out of the way (as they resume their own production roles, side by side with their teams.)

At this point, our entire company is flat. With no hierarchy, everyone leads within their areas of stewardship and responsibility. Many will have excess capacity and offer to help another teammate or even go to another department to ask how they can help. (Yes, this really happens—in some cases, it happens every day.)

While my door is always open, my policy is simple: “Don’t come to me with a problem.” In traditional settings, it’s all too tempting for anyone to drop their problems in the leader’s or manager’s lap. I tell them, “Don’t come to me with your problem until you’re ready to come forward with your best solution, or your best set of possible solutions, as well. And did you take it to your teammates? What did they say?”with collaboration and a little assistance, of course.)

Brad Smith, Intuit CEO: ‘How to Be a Great Leader: Get Out of the Way’

In honor of Entrepreneur Month, I’ve been writing here and at Harvard Business Review with my paired leadership partner Mary Michelle Scott, Fishbowl president, about launching and scaling a company in a high growth phase. We’ve been hitting some hot buttons, particularly in our Forbes article “The Case for Hiring ‘Under Qualified’ Employees,” June 14. The responses have been phenomenal. (216 comments and some 144,000 views. Keep them coming, folks—I’m loving the dialogue.)

In that same vein, I’d like to continue discussing the entrepreneurial skills required to run a great company. We’re talking today with Brad Smith, president and CEO of Intuit, one of the world’s largest and most successful financial software companies. Intuit, of course, is maker of the QuickBooks accounting software we have fully-integrated with our Fishbowl Inventory software, that we offer to midsize companies as a complete business management solution through Fishbowl Enterprise (FBE) software, and that we use to run our own growth company as well.

Intuit is a public company with nearly $4B in total revenue, currently, and a market cap of approximately $16.5B. Even more importantly (in my opinion), Intuit has been consistently ranked one of Fortune’s “Best 100 Companies to Work For” and one of Fortune’s “Most Admired Software Companies” over the past several years. Here’s what Brad says about the importance of entrepreneurialism from the helm of Intuit (which I’ll compare and contrast to the task of running a 100-person growth company such as our own).

David: What entrepreneurial traits of your own and of your company’s have most influenced your company’s path?

Brad: I’ve always valued and encouraged teamwork, and that collaborative spirit of “we” versus “I” is core to Intuit’s success. Innovation has been part of Intuit’s DNA for nearly 30 years. We pride ourselves on two core capabilities that differentiate us and allow us to deliver solutions that truly change people’s financial lives. The first is customer driven innovation, a mindset and methodology that helps us uncover important, unsolved problems. Customers are at the heart of everything we do. We conduct nearly 10,000 hours of follow me homes a year where we observe customers where they live, work and do business – from home offices and coffee shops to rural farms in India. Customer driven innovation was at the core of Intuit’s first product, Quicken, and it continues to guide us as we look to solve new problems in areas like mobile payments. Products like Intuit GoPayment and the IntuitPayment Network are helping small businesses get paid faster, keeping cash flow strong and their business healthy.

The second process, Design for Delight, enables us to create better ways to deliver what’s most important for customers. Design for Delight is grounded in deep customer empathy, going broad with ideas then narrowing with possible solutions and finally, rapid experimentation with customers. These principles were integral in a product we recently launched called Snap Payroll, a free, mobile application that allows small businesses on the go to calculate paychecks in minutes and determine how much to set aside for taxes.

Collaboration, customer driven innovation and Design for Delight, allow us to continually reinvent ourselves to deliver for the future and provide our customers anytime, anywhere access.

David: How does being an entrepreneur at the helm of a very large enterprise differ from entrepreneurial leadership of a small startup or growth company?

Brad: Regardless of whether you are leading a large enterprise or a small team, you need to remove barriers to innovation and get out of the way. At Intuit, we operate like a company of startups. We create and foster a culture where our nearly 8,000 employees worldwide have the courage to take risks and grow by learning from success and failure. Idea Jams and unstructured time give passionate employees opportunities to collaborate on new ideas to solve customer problems. To keep ideas moving and teams nimble, we embrace the “Two-Pizza rule,” making sure product development teams are no larger than two pizzas can feed.

At the end of the day, it’s about empowering individuals to contribute ideas and make an impact, as well as setting goals that challenge employees to step outside their comfort zone. We realize the importance of recognizing employees for their innovative work. Recognition comes in the form of Intuit co-founder Scott Cook’s annual Innovation Awards, patent rewards and the opportunity for employees to showcase their work at Innovation Gallery Walks held throughout the year. The best reward for employees is seeing the profound impact of their work on the lives of our more than 50 million customers.

David: It’s interesting that at a much smaller scale, the approaches you are taking are what we’ve been trying to accomplish at Fishbowl as well. As each new hire begins, as with all employees, we expect them to assume the role of their own business within our business. I call it “Me, Inc.” That perspective accelerates everything they do –from the questions they ask to the programs they propose. The creativity goes through the roof. They are in a position to be creative, to be more efficient, and to find ways to increase revenue and reduce the bottom line. We have no managers; we have leaders who are resources and examples of what we espouse. While I have an open door, I expect individuals to come to me or any leader with several proposed answers to the questions they have. Nine out of ten times, they have the answer and my role is to support them.

We train them not to come and ask me to answer the question, or what I think they should to do. Our “Me, Inc.” approach flavors their experience from the very beginning – and quite frankly, without this approach, our company wouldn’t be where it is today.

It’s very heartening to hear those same messages resonate within a company as large and as successful as Intuit.

So—in conclusion—I would say that a company is never too large or too successful to continue to behave and think 100% as an entrepreneur. Innovation is as critical as ever. It’s safe to say that making a company a great place to work is essential for a successful global company, too.

How to Be The Worst Manager — But The Best Boss

The worst managers can make the best leaders. And a great leader can become the very best kind of boss. How can this be true? I’ll explain.To begin with, what is a manager? In the prevailing sense they are individuals whose job is to accomplish work through others. Managers instruct, supervise, motivate, evaluate, and mete out rewards and punishment. They manage from behind by cracking the whip, micromanaging, and shouting orders in the same way cattlemen or shepherds manage by fear, intimidation and authority.

Problem one in this scenario is the way people come to be managers in the first place. Most typically, managers are employees who are promoted because of their expertise in a certain subject matter. They became managers by becoming highly proficient in their original jobs.

As managers, they are generally untrained and they have no mentors or positive role models to guide them in this much different path. Even when training is provided, it is generally schooling on the various facets of measuring work production and controlling employee behaviors. (I refer to this as “managing from behind.”) Little or nothing is taught on the character traits and values a company stands for, and would seemingly want its managers—the face of the company for every employee within it—to represent and exude.

So what do these individuals do? They become terrible managers.

They micromanage.
They take credit for others’ ideas and projects.
They focus effort on rules for the many that are meant to police and control the behavior of a few.
They make decisions that support their near term compensation at the expense of the organization’s long term goals.
They hire and fire the wrong people—for the wrong reasons.
They rule by force, fear, intimidation and title

We could write many articles—even books–on bad managerial behavior. In general, however, the result is the work environment we all know too well: Fear, mistrust, worries over job security, and feelings of unfairness and ill will. And, of course, a terrible company culture.

These are the reasons I’ve worked to eliminate traditional managers altogether, as many of you know and as I’ve written about here and here.

So what should businesses do?

In our own company, we extend the principles of agile development into agile leadership (management is not a word in the Fishbowl vernacular.) We create paired leadership teams who guide and empower employees to do their jobs in the way they see fit. Our “captains” work side by side with their teams, rather than directing and controlling them in a traditional sense. They lead from the front and set the pace. They show by example and their people follow.

Captains are terrible managers, but they are incredible leaders. Their teams produce great results. Here are a few of the traits that can turn one of these “terrible managers” into an incredible boss:

Trust your employees, and also trust in your employees to get their jobs done. No micromanaging.
Help others get ahead when deserved, even at your own expense. What a novel idea. Don’t worry about climbing the corporate ladder. If your people and teams are successful, you’ll rise, too.
Give credit where it is due – Don’t take unfair credit for others’ work, however enticing the idea might be. It will not pay off. Here again—when you allow others to rise freely, you rise, too.
Set the strategy, but allow others to choose their own tactics. It’s amazing how empowering and motivating it can be when individuals get to manage the details of how the strategic goal is achieved. They will become unstoppable.
Hold fewer (and more focused) meetings – The fewer people at each meeting the better. Define exactly what you need to achieve in each meeting, and stick to an agenda when you arrive.
Celebrate failure and reward innovation – Encourage team members to try new things, even knowing they won’t always produce perfect results. They will make mistakes. These mistakes will be opportunities to learn and fail forward. This will result in employees who are brave and excited to work.
Be in the people business. Truly be in it. If your people know that you have their backs, you trust them, you care for their well being and their families (beyond the job—such as helping employees complete a college education, and including families in departmental parties and company events), you will naturally and gently lead your team to a positive outcome.
How do you find individuals with this “terrible manager” potential? Again, against prevailing wisdom, they may not be proficient (or even familiar) with the tasks of the team. But they will be highly capable and teachable in the values your organization stands for. The rest will follow.

An anthropology graduate could become a development lead. A licensed attorney could lead a world-class sales organization. A culinary student could become a standout leader in customer support. An electrician could become a top sales executive. A banker could become a top Account Manager. The list could go on and on.

What are the right core values? For Fishbowl, they are the 7 Non Negotiables: Belief, Loyalty, Trust, Commitment, Respect, Courage and Gratitude. For us, these traits have produced 60-plus percent growth for the past six years—award winning software—and a set of national and global corporate awards.

Even if—and especially if–you are a terrible traditional manager, what could this bigger vision of leadership be accomplishing for your company? Or for you?

Top 10 List: The Greatest Living Business Leaders Today

With the passing of my dear friend Stephen R. Covey, I have been taking some time to consider many of the greatest business leaders who are wielding strong influence on the business world we live in today.

I’d like to present my personal top 10 list of the people I consider most influential in terms of innovative thinking, focus on customers, and their desire to serve the less-fortunate, which is a strong and continual interest of mine.
Without further ado and in no particular order, I present to you my personal Top 10:

1. Jeff Bezos, Amazon– Jeff Bezos is a pioneer in world of internet commerce, and was instrumental in defining this space that is now defining many aspects of the internet world. It is Jeff Bezos who innovated the concept of “predictive analytics”–recommending products to customers based on search history and buying habits. Whether you like the concept or you hate it, the idea has made online commerce more profit rich and efficient, and is making online shopping a better experience for consumers throughout the world.

Microsoft Could Change The World With Windows 8

Microsoft reported earlier this week that it had sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses since its newest operating system went on sale on October 26 last year. That’s a boatload of units, though it roughly kept pace with number of PCs shipped during the fourth quarter (just under 90 million). So the idea that its sales kinda fell off the back of a truck isn’t that far off. Industry analysts weren’t overjoyed with holiday sales, with IDC suggesting Microsoft heavily advertised the touch capabilities of its OS while the machines on store shelves didn’t always offer it.

Really? Consumers turned out in droves for that cool new Windows touch functionality?

I predicted that nobody would care about Microsoft’s new OS products because the company would produce brilliantly generic marketing. They’ve lived down to my expectations, doing their best to tell us that Windows 8 devices work like iPads. The TV spots have been endearing little snippets of digital lifestyles that could have been sponsored by any tech brand. Even a budget north of $1 billion hasn’t changed the fact that they have expertly told us nothing compelling about what they’re selling.

I hate the fact that I was mostly right, wishful arguments of “it takes time” and the stark fact of 60 million unit sales aside…because Microsoft deserves so much more. Yup. I said it: not just more, but better.

Windows 8 is a revelation, at least to those of us who haven’t been initiated into the ranks of all-knowing Digerati (i.e. consumers). It is a total rethinking of device interface that seems on par with the way Apple gave us icons and apps instead of a Start Menu…or maybe the very GUI on which all Macs and PCs are based. It changes the way we envision our gizmos, seeing them less as collections in our hands of things that run on our command, and more as live connectors to communities/content around us.

It’s a big deal, only you wouldn’t know it from the company’s marketing. So here are three ways Microsoft could change its marketing, and perhaps change the world:

Stress differences, not similarities. The idea behind Windows 8 is that it’s a next generation operating system that gets out of the way between people and what they want to do (or something like that). Talk about it in big, bold terms, focusing on what it does differently and demonstrating how that’s better, not just more fun. It’s a new way of interacting with devices that, once experienced, changes your approach forever after; it’s the design bar for others, including Apple, to strive toward. In other words, talk like an industry leader, not a committee.

I would shelve all the feel-good ads and come out with really blunt, Big Picture spots about the NextGen OS (or the Last OS?). Call it “invisible” or something — maybe the punchline is that Microsoft has blown up the OS on which it was built — and give us tangible things it does (and other operating systems don’t). I’d scrap all the pretty imagery on the company’s home page and replace it with a fully-functioning Windows 8 simulator so people could see and play with how their PCs would be different. And touch? Zzzzz. Nice to have, but it’s a cost-of-entry function at this point.

Enable new device engagement. If the tiles interface is as cool as I think it is, Microsoft should offer unique services (or access to them in unique ways) that accentuate the benefits of the interface. Offering just another way to click through to Facebook isn’t such a big deal; what does Windows 8 do differently? Why aren’t there proprietary tiles that aggregate functions and/or create new tools (and if there are, why the hell doesn’t anybody know about them)? Spend marketing dollars on this stuff instead of pretty ads.

Here are a few thought-starters: Instead of giving kids access to the cloud, which is kinda like inviting them to walk the streets of a major city unaccompanied by an adult, create a protected kid cloud for the exclusive use of Windows 8 families. Host a massive developer contest for new tile functions or services. Create online communities and actively manage conversations on really timely stuff, like gun control, and thereby elevate the identity and status of product users to something more than just the non-Apple crowd.

Invent the industry’s next pricing structure. Microsoft’s pricing strategy is cutting-edge circa 1950 or so, and it gets rather Byzantine when it comes to different versions for different users (a matrix has often been invoked, which is a kiss of death for any self-respecting communicator). Scrap the traditional pricing nonsense and figure out how Windows 8 buyers could be subscribers to the OS. This would redefine how they think of it (and the brand), and it would be in keeping with the live, interactive nature of the interface.

Once the company figured out the basic pricing structure, it could come up with a way to incentivize usage and ownership over time…so that when Windows 9 comes around, people will have all but already bought it/into it. This new product should be a chance to lock folks into a lifestyle that they won’t want to leave because it works so wonderfully and is priced so fairly.

There’s so much Microsoft could do to truly change the world, and $1 billion could finance a lot of much. 60 million units sold might be on track with past Windows launches, but the company should be shooting for a far more successful future. Their goal should be to inspire people to flock to stores looking for the OS.

No, it should be to change the world.

Rory McIlroy Joins Highest-Paid Athletes After Blockbuster Nike Deal

The worst kept secret in golf was confirmed today when Nike announced the signing of Rory McIlroy to a long-term endorsement deal that covers apparel and equipment. McIlroy is making his season debut this week at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship and will use a Nike ball, putter and driver.

The deal is worth a reported $20 million annually, although multiple sources told me the deal is worth significantly less than $20 million (terms of the deal were not announced). Even at $10 million to $15 million a year, the deal catapults McIlroy near the top of the world’s highest-paid golfers. McIlroy ranked fifth in our August look at the sport’s top-paid players, but after leading the PGA and European Tours in earnings in 2012, as well as signing with Nike, McIlroy will jump to third behind only Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson among active golfers.

“Rory is the sport’s new number one and its future,” says Ed Kiernan, president of sports marketing agency Engine Shop. “Nike fills its global rosters with the best athletes in every sport, and clearly it has decided that Rory is the future of the sport based on his performance on the golf course and his ability to attract the public eye.”

The deal has been telegraphed over the past few months as McIlroy ended previous endorsement deals so he could sign a “head-to-toe” Nike pact. Acushnet announced in October that it would not extend its deal with McIlroy. The Irish golfer used the company’s Titleist and FootJoy gear since he turned pro in 2007. Longtime partner Jumeirah said this month it would part ways with the golfer after five years. McIlroy’s agreement with Oakley was set to expire at the end of 2012, but the sunglasses-maker sued McIlroy and Nike, citing breach of contract because Oakley did not receive “right of first refusal” to match the Nike deal. McIlroy will continue his endorsement deal with watchmaker Audemars Piguet.

In Pictures: The World’s Highest-Paid Athletes

Nike’s golf division had revenues of $726 million for the fiscal year ending in May, up 10% from 2011. This comes on the heels of three straight years of declining revenues. The McIlroy signing pairs him with Woods, who Nike used to launch a golf division when Woods turned pro in 1996. The two recently filmed a TV commercial together that Nike aired at Monday’s press conference.

What does this mean for golf and Nike’s alpha dog Woods? “This shows that Tiger has been moved into second position when it comes to the future of Nike Golf,” says Kiernan.

McIlroy might be the future of Nike Golf, but Woods is still expected to cash a bigger annual check from Nike under his current agreement (ranking and tournament bonuses will ultimately determine who earns more). Woods re-signed with Nike in 2006. The deal paid Woods as much as $30 million a year, as Woods racked up 14 major championships. Woods’ latest deal was scaled back, according to multiple sources, after his 2009 car accident that knocked Tiger from his perch as the perfect pitchman. Woods’ Nike deal and Mickelson’s deal with Callaway Golf are the only endorsement deals in golf comparable to McIlroy’s.

Woods is still the most dominant brand in the sport, delivering nearly 50% more airtime for sponsors than McIlroy in 2012, according to a study done for Forbes by brand analysis and research firm Repucom. Woods is a polarizing figure, but he remains a much more popular player among sports fans in the U.S. than McIlroy. Repucom’s monthly survey of fans asks people to select their three favorite golfers and 45% picked Woods. Mickelson ranked second at 42%, while McIlroy ranked fifth with 16% between Fred Couples (19%) and Tom Watson (15%).

In Pictures: The World’s Highest-Paid Golfers

McIlroy is gaining momentum though as only 10% of U.S. sports fans choose him among their favorite golfers at the start of 2012. Nike will put its full marketing muscle behind McIlroy because the demographics of golf fans make them an attractive target. Die-hard golf fans are twice as likely as general sports fans to earn more than $100,000 annually, according to Repucom. This group buys a lot of golf balls, equipment and apparel. Golf fans are also loyal with 78% of die-hard golf fans saying they’d consider a sponsoring company’s brand, behind only Nascar (80%) among the major sports. This is what Nike had in mind when committing millions to McIlroy.

“Nike needs the faces of its brand to be competing at the elite level, and it has determined that Rory is the next superstar of golf,” says Kiernan. “By signing this deal, Nike is making a huge statement about who it thinks is the new face of golf on a global scale.”

The Happiest (And Saddest) Countries In The World

The United States is a nation in decline. Last year the land of the free and the home of the brave came in 10th place in the annual rankings of World’s Happiest Countries. This year the U.S.A. has slipped to 12th.

This marks the first time in the six-year history of the Legatum Institute‘s Prosperity Index that America has not placed in the top 10.

The U.S. has slipped in the areas of Governance, Personal Freedom, and most troubling, in Entrepreneurship & Opportunity. The slide in that final category, according to the report, “is due to a decline in citizens’ perception that working hard gets you ahead.”

Whether you think this is a temporary fluke or a leading indicator of the collapse of a great country depends on what your politics are. (Please leave your comments on that topic below.)

The Legatum Prosperity Index is based on a study of 142 countries comprising 96% of global population. Nations are analyzed and ranked on 89 indicators in 8 categories such as education, government and economics. Per capita GDP — basically how rich a nation is — is a factor in the index, but the whole point of the Legatum study is to look beyond such a simple measure at all the myriad issues that make up wellbeing and prosperity.

In general, the most prosperous (thus “happiest” in my book) countries enjoy stable political institutions, a strong civil society with freedom of expression, good education and healthcare, personal freedom and a feeling of being safe and secure.

Under those measures the U.S. is getting less happy.

U.S. unemployment remains stubbornly high and start-up costs are rising, while high-tech exports are in decline. As Nathan Gamester, project director of the index, explains:

“Even within the realm of economic health, broader measures can illuminate the drivers of change and serve as leading indicators. Take, for example, citizens’ perceptions of job markets. In India and China, the percentages of citizens who think that it is a good time to find a job is 40% and 36%, respectively. In the U.S. and U.K., those percentages are, respectively, 26% and 12%.”

So who are the happiest people in the world, as measured by Legatum? Norway takes the crown, followed by Denmark and Sweden (which leapfrogged Australia and New Zealand this year). Rounding out the Scandinavians is Finland, just a few steps behind in the seventh spot.

Luxembourg is the healthiest nation on Earth. Iceland is the safest. Switzerland has the world’s best economy and governance, according to Legatum.

What’s Norway got that the rest of the world doesn’t? For one thing, a stunning per capita GDP of $57,000 a year. Norwegians have the second-highest level of satisfaction with their standards of living: 95% say they are satisfied with the freedom to choose the direction of their lives; an unparalleled 74% say other people can be trusted. It sure doesn’t hurt that the massive Norwegian welfare state is bankrolled by high taxes and big reserves of offshore oil and gas.

On the other side of the spectrum, the lowest ranking, or saddest country on the Prosperity Index, is the Central African Republic. There the per capita GDP is $790 per year, life expectancy is 48, and just 2% of people have internet access at home. Right behind the CAR at the bottom are Congo, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Haiti.

Though the good people at the Legatum Group (founded by New Zealand billionaire Christopher Chandler) are certainly making a good faith effort toward figuring out the key traits of successful societies, there are some areas where their data is unreliable.

Many of the inputs for the Index come from surveys of citizens in the countries. This is problematic because opinion polls are inherently subjective, and because of cultural and educational differences people in different countries may have starkly varying takes on the same circumstance.

For instance, one of the inputs for Legatum’s economic prosperity measure reflects whether citizens of a country “have confidence in financial institutions.” Last year only 48% of Americans reported being confident in financial institutions, versus 61% worldwide. It cannot be the case that America’s banks are less secure than the global average. And it’s silly to rely on subjective opinion for such a thing when there’s plentiful objective data on bank health (see Forbes Rankings of America’s Best and Worst Banks.)

The measurement of “social capital” is problematic as well, as one of the inputs reflects the percentage of citizens who “attended a place of worship” in the past week. I agree that many people glean a lot of social cohesion by going to church, temple or mosque, but there’s also plenty of folks who get the same sense of peace from going to yoga class on the beach or a walk in the woods.

That said, the Legatum survey does a better job of measuring true “happiness” than some of the similar surveys out there.

Full List: The Happiest And Saddest Countries In The World
The Gallup organization did a recent survey seeking to determine which country had the happiest people by going out to 148 countries and asking thousands of people questions such as:

Swatch Group Acquires Harry Winston’s Luxury Retail Division For $1 Billion

The Swatch Group has acquired the famed Harry Winston luxury diamond jewelry and timepiece retail business for $750 million plus their assumption of up to $250 million of pro forma net debt. When this transaction is completed the company, Harry Winston Diamond Corp., will be solely in the diamond mining and distribution business.

The U.S. based division (Harry Winston Inc.) is a premier diamond jeweler and luxury timepiece retailer with salons in key locations—including New York, Paris, London, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Beverly Hills. The possible sale of the retail division was the subject of rumors for months, which the company denied in a statement issued in October.

The company’s namesake (Harry Winston, March 1, 1896 – December 28, 1978) founded the company in 1932. He was among the most famous jewelers in the world and the first jeweler to lend jewels to an actress for the Oscars red carpet in 1944. He was also famous for donating the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

The jeweler was bought by Canadian diamond mining group, Aber Corp., in 2006 to create the Harry Winston Diamond Corp., with divisions in luxury retail and diamond mining, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2007.

The transaction does not include the Canadian-based diamond mining activities of Harry Winston Diamond Corp., which has a 40 percent ownership interest in the Diavik Diamond Mine and is finalizing the purchase of the Ekati Diamond Mine, including its diamond sorting and sales facilities. Both mines are in the Northwest Territories of Canada.

When the transaction with Swatch is completed, this diamond business will operate under the name: Dominion Diamond Corporation.

Robert Gannicott, Harry Winston chairman and CEO, said changes in both luxury retail and the diamond markets, as well as the need for cash, led to the decision to sell its luxury retail operation.

“At the time that we purchased the Harry Winston brand, resource investment opportunities for diamonds were rare and expensive following the euphoria of the Canadian diamond discoveries, and the involvement of the large international mining companies,” Gannicott said in a statement. “The Harry Winston brand was competitively priced compared with its peers and we could bring diamond expertise and strategic connections to enhance value. Today there is a range of diamond resource opportunities while the value of heritage luxury brands has increased dramatically. This transaction represents a sound return on our original investment. It will leave us well equipped to realize upstream opportunities in an environment where cash has become a strategic resource while preserving and expanding our relationship with the downstream diamond business.”

Gannicott added, “The Harry Winston brand now has a new home that can provide the skills and support that it deserves to realize its true potential.”

The Swatch Group, based in Biel, Switzerland, is the world’s leading supplier of finished watches and watch movements and one of the world’s largest buyers of polished diamonds. The two companies said that they will also explore the opportunities for a joint diamond polishing venture bringing together the manufacturing and diamond expertise of the two companies.

“Harry Winston does brilliantly complement the prestige segment of the Group,” said Nayla Hayek, chairwoman of The Swatch Group Ltd. in a separate statement. “We are proud and happy to welcome Harry Winston to the Swatch Group family—diamonds are still a girl’s best friend.”

The transaction is subject to the approval of the different regulatory authorities.

5 Things Overachievers Do Not Do

. Think Small They Do Not. Yoda could have written this post.

Tim Ferriss, of Four Hour Work Week fame, recently did a video interview (posting on that tomorrow) with Leo Babauta about goals or no goals. During this conversation, he talked about how he is okay with a 60% success rate on his goals, on his achievement. He knows he can’t hit 100%, not on everything. But the important point was to make your goals so big that achieving anything on that goal makes it worthwhile.

2. Overachievers do not ask permission.

The flood of emails, tweets, and shares on the 13 Things Overachievers Do post inspired this idea to look at the “do nots.” As I researched and contemplated the many responses, the oft-quoted maxim: “Seek forgiveness, not permission” came to mind.

3. They do not use email before 9 am nor do they live in their inbox, unless of course they work for Google and work on Gmail. Same would go for overachievers at Microsoft working on Outlook. At U.S. News & World Report, Rebecca Thorman wrote about 7 Productivity Traps For Overachievers To Avoid and talked about stressing to have “inbox zero.”

Inbox Zero is when you absolutely have to maintain an empty inbox to feel satisfied. Here’s my advice: delete them. It feels quite lovely. And if it is really important, you’ll get a call or another email from that person. So, why do they not use email first thing? Because they want to get stuff done and even Yoda knows that you don’t fly into a black hole. At least not before lunch. Email is a black hole. We should call NASA and ask them to name a black hole with that term.

4. Go-Getters Do Not Try To Do It All Themselves

Did you read that post years ago about a Wall Street Journal reporter who tried to hire out ALL of his work to a virtual assistant (VA)? He even tried to send his VA to his therapy appointment. His therapist drew the line and said no, that he had to attend his therapy sessions on his own.

Trying to do everything yourself is a recipe for face plants. Not good. My friend, Michelle Mangen, runs a virtual assistant business and she has a useful resource page you might want to read: Resources – Your Virtual Assistant: Providing Virtual Services to Small Business Owners. It isn’t just for small biz owners, by the way. In the age of eLance, Guru, Odesk and other matchmaking services for contractors, you can easily find help for your projects. Or, do what I do and ask your network on LinkedIn or Twitter for contractor referrals.

5. End weakly. Rebecca wrote about this in her post: Many of us start with a bang and then peter out. Overachievers do not allow this; they finish strong. They recalibrate during the week to keep on task, on track. So, it is Thursday and I’m recalibrating. I do not want to end the week on a low note, but a high note, so give this post some love and help a recovering overachiever to succeed.

Don’t Hire the Perfect Candidate

Companies often throw good money after bad when looking for the perfect candidate for an open position. Due to the lingering effects of the recession and the perception of a glut of talent, hiring managers are still picky about their hires and many jobs remain unfilled. Who can blame them? The cost of hiring the wrong person is extremely high, especially when you factor in many of the hidden costs.

When the right candidate doesn’t materialize, the common solution is to keep searching, add more recruiters, or tap a search or staffing agency to help increase the chances of finding Mr. or Ms. Right. But, keeping a job open for months on end or redoubling a company’s recruiting efforts doesn’t actually address the core reasons why it is hard to find the perfect candidate. One of those reasons is that perfect candidates are too rare to bank on.

At the crux of this problem is the “purple squirrel,” a term recruiters and hiring managers use to define the rarest of candidates, almost mythical in nature. These candidates are near-impossible to find in an ultra-competitive industry and possess the perfect mix of skills, education and experience. A good purple squirrel will work for peanuts (also known as the pay and benefits you’re willing to offer) and just happens to live in the same town as your company.

Purple squirrels are the trophies of the talent acquisition world. Everyone has a story about how they almost gave up a search until something happened that changed their fortunes. Being a former recruiter myself, I’m pretty proud of my purple squirrel moments, too.

For every purple squirrel hire out there though, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of open, unfilled job openings. Look at the career pages of some of the largest companies. Some of the best places to work in the tech industry like Google and Microsoft have hundreds of job openings that have been there for four, five and six months or more. They aren’t the only ones by a long shot. Hiring managers and recruiters keep them open hoping that one day, they’ll get a notification of the perfect new applicant.

Too often, that candidate never materializes. If the purple squirrel doesn’t show, you’ve spent money and time on a fruitless endeavor. It cost you the time the recruiter spent on the opening, the opportunity cost of time the recruiter could’ve spent that time on another opening, and the time of those impacted by the opening (managers, colleagues).

I’m not suggesting you go the other direction and hire whomever you want, no matter the consequence. It is time, however, to think much more strategically about purple squirrels and the pursuit of perfect candidates everywhere.

Let’s imagine a fictitious future where all job openings had to be filled in no more than 60 days. In this future, if you miss getting someone hired or you wait too long, you lose the position for good and your business has to adapt. What would change?

Those purple squirrels would disappear. Very few companies could fill jobs in a timely manner while also chasing the scant possibility of snatching one of these rare creatures. Even companies with the budgets for it would at least hesitate with that sort of deadline. How would companies adapt to this new reality?

1. They’d better analyze what the job market looks like: One of the hot, ultra-competitive fields for talent is in the engineering field, especially in Silicon Valley. Now, if you’re a firm and you understand the competitive landscape, you can better decide on a winning strategy. Your chances of getting top talent across the board is next to nothing but your chances of getting one or two very talented people that you’ve targeted and laid out compelling offers for is much, much better. You’d spend the rest of your time finding capable, but not top, talent.

2. A better focus on training and retention: In some cases, it will be impossible to find even good matches for all of the positions you need to fill. Sometimes that can be because of location or a labor shortage in the industry itself. Some companies choose to escalate the salary until they start landing the people they need but others are using training programs to supplement their workforce. Keeping existing employees happy and onboard is the cheapest form of hiring. Retention would have to become a huge strategy to avoid hiring.

3. Throw cost-of-hire concerns out the window: If time is everything, the effectiveness of a hiring tool (whether it be a job board, a referral program or even social media recruiting) must reign supreme above its cost. San Francisco State University professor of management Dr. John Sullivan banned cost of hire calculations when he was a chief talent officer because, as he writes, “cost per hire had the negative effect of causing our recruiters to shift their focus toward cost reduction and away from our real job, which was to produce high-performing hires.”

4. Recruiting would become a hunting profession again: The term headhunter is a little out of date, not just because of its taboo-sounding name but also because many recruiters don’t hunt. They are administrators, project managers or coordinators. They post jobs to job boards, social media sites and then wait for the results to come in. If you only had 60 days to fill a job, you’d want some assurances that your team could do it, even if the application flow wasn’t there.

5. A more honest evaluation of what the organization needs: With a better understanding of the job market and what’s available, along with recruiters who are empowered and enabled to find those folks in a timely manner, hiring managers and recruiters will be able to have a really honest discussion about priorities. When you can’t float out a job opening forever, it forces all parties to understand the capacity of a recruiting department as well as what are the highest impact positions you should be hiring for.

This exercise is about is planning and preparing for the best realistic talent acquisition outcomes. Even if you can’t live in this ideal, you can better understand your situation to aim for more realistic candidate expectations.

I can guarantee that a senior software engineer with seven years of experience in all of your programming languages is going to walk through your door and say they are willing to work for a salary well below the typical median pay. Purple squirrels aren’t measures of success. At the very best, they are a measurement of luck and at the very least, they are the sad result of a poor understanding of the employment market and a company’s recruiting capabilities and consequences.

Hijack! How Your Brain Blocks Performance

So there you are, when suddenly you hear that song
that reminds you of that person. And you’re
emotionally hijacked—just like that. Good or bad,
the song interacts with your neural net and triggers
the emotions you have associated with it.
Emotional hijacks happen every day, often
unconsciously, often with debilitating results.
An expression on a team member’s face
subconsciously reminds you of Mom at her most
critical, yet you have no idea why you dislike
speaking with her. But the team member actually
has chronic indigestion, her facial expression has
nothing to do with you, and she wonders why you
haven’t shown her the report…invited her to the
meeting…told her what’s up…smiled on the way to
the coffee machine.
And so it goes. Trigger—response. Trigger—
response. Trigger—response. All day, every day.
Human beings are meaning-making machines. The
trouble is we often assign meaning where it doesn’t
exist.
Now most of these internal programs—the neural
connections and associations we make that give
experience meaning—are programs we “wrote”
between the ages of zero and six years old. Many of
our programs were either provided for us by our
parents, or were coded by our very young and
inexperienced reaction to what we perceived as
threatening people or situations. Even the most
wonderful, well-intentioned parents are going to
make a few coding errors. I know I have.
Now that we are adults, the question becomes, how
can we rewrite our own programs to set the
meaning and get the results we want? Further, as
leaders, how can we assist others to get the results
and experiences they would like? How can we use
this knowledge to increase our own and our team’s
performance, innovation, and engagement?
In my upcoming blogs you’re going to learn how to
deactivate your own and your team members’ fear
triggers, and to assign appropriate meaning. You’re
going to learn exactly what to do to create a team
that acts as a team, one that supports each other to
outperform, outsell, and outinnovate the
competition. A tribe whose culture you created. A
SmartTribe of whom you are justifiably proud.
The Reptile, The Mammal, The Executive
Our brains do an amazing and wonderful job, but
they don’t usually like change very much. You may
like the idea of change. Heck, parts of you may be
very interested in change theory, talking about
change, managing change—and especially
describing how other people should change.
However, actual change involving ourselves is
scary to certain parts of our brain. The parts that
exist to keep us safe have created elegant
patterning based on one-trial learning.
Your brain has three essential parts. The first part—
the brain stem—sits at the base of your skull. This
part is commonly called the reptilian brain. It’s the
oldest and most primitive part of the brain, and it
controls balance, temperature regulation, and
breathing. It acts out of instinct and is primarily a
stimulus-response machine with survival as its
focus.
Layered on top of the brain stem is the mammalian
brain. The mammalian brain controls and expresses
emotion, short-term memory, and the body’s
response to danger. The key player here is the
limbic system, which is the emotional center of the
brain where the fight/flight/freeze response is. Its
primary focus is also survival, though it is also the
seat of anger, frustration, happiness, and love.
Let’s combine the limbic system with the survival
mechanism in the reptilian brain. This creates the
powerful combo pack we’ll call the “critter brain,”
as my mentor Carl Buchheit of NLP Marin terms it.
Once our critter brain has equated a particular
phenomenon with safety or with survival, it will
continue to carry out that program. And it will do so
as long as we are not dead, because it really
doesn’t care about our quality of life—it cares about
survival. And speaking of staying alive, one key
component of staying alive is belonging, or being
like the other critters in the environment.
The third part of the brain is the neocortex. This
part of the brain is most evolved in human beings,
and the area of it we are most concerned with is the
prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex enables us
to plan, to innovate, to solve complex problems, to
think abstract thoughts, to have visionary ideas. It
allows us to measure the quality of our experience,
to compare it to an abstract ideal, and to yearn for
change. The prefrontal cortex has enabled us to
have a number of advanced behaviors, including
social behavior, tool making, language, and higher-
level consciousness.
For the purposes of simplicity we’ll distill the above
down to two states: the Critter State, where we
don’t have access to all parts of our brain and thus
are reactive, in fight/flight/freeze, or are running
safety programs; and the Smart State, where we
have easy access to all of our resources and can
respond from choice.
Today, innovation and growth through the next
revenue inflection point depends on making sure
the Smart State–not the Critter State–is driving
management decisions and behavior in
relationships. Management methods that rely on
fear to enforce compliance keep people in their
Critter State, or in old safety and survival patterns,
and reduce innovation. This cultural practice of
keeping people in their Critter State has grown
increasingly obsolete.

Apple still casts a long shadow over CES

For a company that hasn’t attended CES since 1992,
Apple dominates the show.
You can’t walk more than a dozen feet here at the
Las Vegas Convention Center without seeing an
iGadget or iAccessory of some kind. Apple’s
overwhelming presence by proxy is impressive, and
underscores the immense place the company
occupies in the consumer electronics sector.
Of the 3,000 or so exhibitors here at CES, nearly 500
reside in the iLounge pavilion, a section dedicated
specifically to Apple-related products. And then there
are the hundreds of audio, automotive, health,
gaming, and accessory companies hawking iOS and
Mac peripherals.
There are more iPhone and iPad adaptors, docks and
dongles than you could possibly imagine. Vendors
are showing off iPad camera rigs, solar-powered Mac
batteries and even an iPhone-connected plant sensor.
And then there’s the sea of bedazzled and bedecked
iPhone and iPad cases.
The biggest reason for this is, of course, Apple’s
dominating presence in the consumer electronic
space. It’s a lot easier for startups and established
players alike to ride Apple’s coattails than those of,
say, Google or Microsoft.
“We know that Apple is doing well,” said Howard
Cheng, Just Mobile’s director of operations. “We know
that it’s better to make Apple products than anything
else.”
Another advantage to going down the iRoute is
Apple’s tight focus on a few products and form
factors. It’s far easier to tailor accessories to Apple
than anyone else.
“Accessory makers can reach virtually the entire
installed base of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owners
with two products, determined by the connector,” the
30 pin or Lightning, said Charles Govin, an industry
analyst with Forrester. “Similarly, a case maker must
create many SKUs for the Android market, but
essentially only three (iPhone 3G, 4, and 5) for the
entire iPhone market.”
The relative ease with which companies can develop
peripherals for Apple is made all the more appealing
by the fact Apple customers have proven themselves
only too happy to shell out money to accessorize
their iDevices.
“Apple owners have a demonstrated willingness to
spend for accessories, cases, and other
customizations,” Govin said. “Essentially, the
potential return on investment is more promising for
Apple-related products.”
CES also shows just how willing people are to build
on Apple’s iconic “i” branding. There’s iLounge,
iBattz, iSkin, iConnectivity, iPort and even iCat all
within a few feet of each other on the show floor.
Spend five minutes walking the floor and it becomes
clear there’s no need for Apple to be here. Hundreds
of companies are only too happy to carry Cupertino’s
banner.
Apple’s presence here has grown rapidly. In the three
years since the iLounge Pavilion launched, the space
has quadrupled to 120,000 square feet, all but taking
over an entire hall and pushing the automotive
industry into another space.
But does anyone wish Apple were actually here? Not
really.
“I don’t care,” said Raymond Meng, president of
iSmartAlarm. His company is releasing an iPhone-
controlled home alarm system, which Meng says was
inspired by the burglary of Steve Jobs’ house this
summer. Meng said that it doesn’t matter that Apple
isn’t at CES with a booth or keynote, because CES is
already the most successful and popular show for
companies like his.
Cheng, from Just Mobile, agrees. “At this point, I don’t
think Apple needs to be here,” he said. “They have
their own events and that works for them.”
Just Mobile already has eight products in the Apple
Store and uses CES to expand into the international
market and meet clients. As for meetings with Apple,
“We visit them at their campus,” Cheng said.
Of course, CES could be a much hotter destination if
it had the hottest tech company involved. With
Microsoft dropping out, CES is losing even more of its
sizzle. But the CEA, the organization that puts on the
show, says that Apple skipping out isn’t a big deal.
“Apple is a CEA member. It’s just there prerogative to
not exhibit and they’ve found it more cost effective
to host their own events,” CEA spokeswoman
Danielle Cassagnol said. “They’ve never keynoted or
exhibited at CES, so them not being here isn’t really
a loss for us.”
That’s not entirely true, since Apple did introduce the
Newton at CES in 1992, but perhaps the CEA wants to
forget this fact. But the fact remains that Apple and
its products are the widely seen, and discussed, at
CES. It’s here, even if it isn’t.
“They have employees that attend the show, so in
that way, Apple sort of is here,” Cassognal said.

Madonna Lists Beverly Hills Estate for $22.5 Million

After 10 years of ownership, Madonna has officially
put her enormous Beverly Hills estate on the
market for $22.5 million.
The Material Girl has been wanting to get rid of the
property since early 2012; she first listed the French
country-style estate as a pocket listing for $28
million. While pocket listings can sometimes garner
the kind of buzz a high-end property needs to sell, it
apparently wasn’t the right sales tactic for Madge’s
place. And even though the home is officially listed,
Madonna is still keeping the place under wraps,
releasing only an aerial photo to the MLS.
Madonna bought the home for $12 million in 2003
when she was married to Guy Richie, and like many
of her properties, the residence received a
complete overhaul from the singer-songwriter-
actress. Built in 1912, the home sits on 1.25 gated,
landscaped acres. Spanning 17,000 square feet, the
house has 9 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, a 2-story
dining room, full-size home theater, gym, outdoor
pool and tennis court. The home also has several
sets of offices — including assistants’ offices —
staff rooms and guesthouses.
Madonna doesn’t own any other homes in L.A., and
it appears that she is set on the East Coast. She
recently listed her Upper West Side duplex for $23.5
million, choosing to spend her time in a $32 million
Georgian townhouse she purchased in 2009.
Madonna also owns an estate in Bridgehampton,
NY.

Madonna Lists Beverly Hills Estate for $22.5 Million

After 10 years of ownership, Madonna has officially
put her enormous Beverly Hills estate on the
market for $22.5 million.
The Material Girl has been wanting to get rid of the
property since early 2012; she first listed the French
country-style estate as a pocket listing for $28
million. While pocket listings can sometimes garner
the kind of buzz a high-end property needs to sell, it
apparently wasn’t the right sales tactic for Madge’s
place. And even though the home is officially listed,
Madonna is still keeping the place under wraps,
releasing only an aerial photo to the MLS.
Madonna bought the home for $12 million in 2003
when she was married to Guy Richie, and like many
of her properties, the residence received a
complete overhaul from the singer-songwriter-
actress. Built in 1912, the home sits on 1.25 gated,
landscaped acres. Spanning 17,000 square feet, the
house has 9 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, a 2-story
dining room, full-size home theater, gym, outdoor
pool and tennis court. The home also has several
sets of offices — including assistants’ offices —
staff rooms and guesthouses.
Madonna doesn’t own any other homes in L.A., and
it appears that she is set on the East Coast. She
recently listed her Upper West Side duplex for $23.5
million, choosing to spend her time in a $32 million
Georgian townhouse she purchased in 2009.
Madonna also owns an estate in Bridgehampton,
NY.