Management is getting things done through the active support of others.

These "others" are more than your direct reports. And they are key to the Manager's success.

In this six week course we will review how the experienced manager,

1) Gains the support of his network,
2) Practices followership as well as leadership, and

3)Trains his staff to be self-reliant, not boss-reliant

We will review strategies that women can use to break the glass ceiling.
Your Business Blogger(R)
interviewed in The Washington Post

Watch the video clips at the end for a preview: The One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey.

The class is perfect for the manager looking for his next assignment.

The best time to look for a job is when you have a job.

Question: But what if you don't have a job?

How to look?

And what to do meanwhile?

Answer: Go back to school.

Alert Reader, FaceBook and Twitter Friend, Janet, asks Your Business Blogger(R) about a common challenge:

What do I do about gaps in employment history; gaps on my resume?

If you are in this situation here's what the job seeker can do to 'mind the gap.'

Enroll in a course at your local community college.

Continuous learning is, well, continuous.

And it doesn't have to be expensive.

Here are three F.A.B.'s, the Features, Advantages and Benefits of going back to class.

If you have a job or not.

First Feature

Meet a professor

Advantage

Learn subject matter.
Learn presentation -- interview -- life skills.
Get referrals.

Benefit

Cheaper than a personal coach.
Get a character reference letter.
Get employed faster

Second Feature

Meet other inquisitive minds

Advantage

Expand your Friend contact database.
Challenge assumptions.
Increased network of contacts for job referrals.

Benefit

Faster learning.
Cheaper than a job placement agency.
Get employed faster

Third Feature

Regularly scheduled class times.

Advantage

Encourages the student to get out of bed, out of the house.
Provides structure to the job seekers' week.
Forces the student to walk past career counselors' office.

Benefit

Get more done in less time.
Spend less time in Starbucks.
Get employed faster.

The purpose of continuing education is the gaining of new knowledge, skills and abilities. But this is even more important when one is out of work. A perspective employer is going to ask you a number of questions.

The first interview question will be, "What are you doing now?"

The perfect answer is, "As I look for my next position, I am taking a business refresher course at my local community college."

Remember: the best time to find a job is when you are working -- going to class is your job.

You may be unemployed, but you are busy: You are using your time wisely while you look for work.

As it happens, the Northern Virginia Community College has the perfect solution to help you find your next job.

Sit in my class.

NOVA has openings in my Business 200 class, Principles of Management. We will meet every Monday & Wednesday nights at the Arlington Campus, near the Ballston Metro. Beginning July 1 for six weeks.

Alert Readers know that Your Business Blogger(R) charges outrageous fees for a two day management seminar.

The same instructor at NOVA will set you back about 100 bucks a credit hour or about 500 bucks fully loaded for a three credit-hour class.

Course topics covered in Principles of Management:

1. Intro to Management
2. History of Management
3. Organizational Environments and Culture
4. Ethics and Social Responsibility
5. Planning and Decision Making
6. Organizational Strategy
7. Innovation and Change
8. Global Management
9. Designing Adaptive Organizations
10. Managing Teams
11. Managing Human Resource System
12. Managing Individuals and a Diverse Workforce
13. Motivation
14. Leadership
15. Managing Communication
16. Control
17. Managing Information
18. Managing Service and Manufacturing Operations

Call now to register. Operators are standing by.

Or apply on-line.

JYoest@NVCC.edu www.Yoest.com

This after hours, summer evening class is the perfect career-management strategy and allows the attendee to job-hunt early in the day.

Come join my class. And get employed faster.

Thank you (foot)notes:

For more on your job search: tattoos, lying, resume enhancement and trick questions follow links below.

Read Job Search? PASS This Test

See how "Sarah" is getting it right. To get your next job, assignment or project PASS this test! See how the mythical composite Sarah learned new behaviors to find new opportunities.

As first appeared in The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia, January 20, 2002

To get a job, first get a plan and then get busy...

Your Business Blogger(R) is of a certain age from a certain generation with teenage children and is confused by various body art. I do not understand tattoos. (Except on my dad, who was in the Navy...) A future employer also may not understand body art. Not even Starbucks. Tiny URL: http://tiny.cc/4FMr3

What is the first question hiring managers ask themselves? Get a Blog; Get Hired -- And the First Question

Be sure to ask some questions in your job interview, Job Interview: 3 Questions for Your Prospective Boss.

The Lie: A Guide to Fibbing in the Job Interview, it's not what you think.

Here's what your interviewer is really looking for, Job Interview: How To Tell If the Candidate Will Lie, Cheat, Steal?

There is actually controversy on hiring competence, Hiring Super Stars vs Tolerating Turkeys

Yes, High School still counts. Forever. What's the One Best Question to Ask a Job Candidate?

Why Were You Really Hired? The Two Qualities That Count.

Follow me on Twitter: @jackyoest

Watch The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey; short video
Part One

Watch the other videos at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 9:35 PM | Permalink
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Alert Readers following Your Business Blogger(R) on Twitter know that Charmaine has recently hired some world-class talent.

Where does she look for the best people?

The blogosphere.

Dawn Eden Senior Fellow, Publications and New Media Outreach

Start a blog. Follow on Twitter. You might find a job. An employer might find you.

From an AUL press release,

Author and Blogger Dawn Eden Joins Americans United for Life,

Washington, DC -- Dawn Eden has joined Americans United for Life (AUL) as Senior Fellow, Publications and New Media Outreach. Her focus will be on writing and research to promote AUL's legal expertise through both traditional media and "new media" outlets.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL President & CEO commented: "I am very pleased Dawn is joining our team. As a best-selling author and award-winning journalist, she brings a strong set of skills to the AUL team. With her dedication to the pro-life cause, Dawn will be a key part of our efforts to protect human life."

Miss Eden said: "It is my honor to join the team at AUL, America's oldest national pro-life organization. AUL is known for its unparalleled expertise across the spectrum of life issues and for its demonstrated success in motivating the grassroots. My goal as Senior Fellow is to expand the organization's publications and media presence in ways that will increase the public's recognition and support of not only AUL, but the entire pro-life movement."

Miss Eden is author of The Thrill of the Chaste (2006), a guide for young adults on being counterculturally virtuous. Now in its eighth printing, the book has been translated into Spanish, Polish, and Chinese.

A graduate of New York University, Miss Eden began her career as a music journalist in New York City. In 2004, she was awarded the Associated Press' top award for her work as a copy editor and headline writer for the New York Post.

In February 2002, she became a pro-life blogger (The Dawn Patrol), and has since contributed articles on politics and culture to the Wall Street Journal and National Review Online. In addition, she has been featured on NBC's "Today" and on EWTN, and has spoken throughout North America, England, Ireland, Poland, and Australia.

Get a job, start a blog.

Be sure to follow Jack and Charmaine on Twitter; jackyoest; charmaineyoest

Posted at 9:52 PM | Permalink
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Alert Readers following on Twitter know that Americans United for Life is making numerous key, high talent, hires,

Top Radio Talk-Show Producer Heather Smith Joins Americans United for Life.

Washington, DC -- Heather Smith has joined Americans United for Life (AUL) as Director of Communications. Her focus will be to oversee corporate communications including traditional media, internet, and new media.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL President & CEO commented: "I am very pleased Heather is joining our team. As a veteran producer of radio, television, and film, she brings a wealth of experience and an insider's perspective to our communications efforts."

Miss Smith said: "It is a great honor to join the foremost pro-life organization in the country. I look forward to expanding AUL's media outreach and working with the AUL legal team toward our goal of seeing a nation in which everyone is welcomed in life and protected in law."

She has produced three top-10 nationally syndicated radio programs: The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Laura Ingraham Show, and most recently, The Lars Larson Show. She has also worked at FOX News Channel, where she produced Weekend Live with Tony Snow and FOX News Live, and booked guests for FOX's breaking news special programming. In addition, she has produced film documentaries hosted by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and by Dick Morris. Previously she booked interviews for WFLA-AM's The Shannon Burke Show and worked on several documentaries for PBS and History Channel.

Miss Smith has been in front of the microphone as well, having begun her media career in 1997 as an alternative rock disc jockey and radio talk show host. She has also been interviewed on FOX News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, and nationally syndicated talk radio programs about grassroots-activism campaigns she oversaw in Florida.

Please join us in welcoming Heather Smith to the Pro-Life professional legal-eagles at Americans United for Life.

Posted at 10:51 PM | Permalink
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Well published and very expensive, Harvard JD, Bill Saunders has just been hired by Americans United for Life.

AUL's, president and CEO, Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., says,

We were lucky to get him.

The press release,

By Melanie Johnson | May 22, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, DC -- William L. "Bill" Saunders today joined Americans United for Life (AUL) as Senior Counsel. Mr. Saunders will be leading the development of an international edition of AUL's definitive legal guide Defending Life and contributing to AUL's work on bioethics, rights of conscience, and end of life issues.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL President & CEO said: "I am very pleased Bill is joining our team. As a Harvard-trained attorney with extensive publications and a prominent reputation in the pro-life movement, Bill's addition is a strategic move for AUL as we head into our next phase of development. He will be an important resource for us as we move toward the coming Supreme Court nomination."

Mr. Saunders said: "It is a great honor to be a part of AUL, an organization with a reputation for excellence and unparalleled expertise. Working to expand the protection of human life beyond our national borders and to provide more resources to pro-life allies around the globe is a significant venture. This new project is critical as we see the targeted threats to life growing internationally."

Mr. Saunders was featured in Harvard's first Guide to Conservative Public Interest Law in 2003, and again in the 2008 edition, and he served on Harvard's Advisory Committee for its 2008 celebration of public interest law.

He speaks and writes frequently on international law and life-related topics such as stem cell research and cloning. He has submitted testimony on several occasions to the President's Council on Bioethics and has briefed Congressional staff multiple times on stem cell research and cloning. He delivered the annual J. Michael Miller Lecture at the University of St. Thomas (on international law) in February 2007, the annual R. Wayne Kraft Memorial Lecture (on bioethics) at DeSales University in February 2004, and the annual James Moore Lecture (on Sudan) at Millikin University in 1999. He has also lectured, and/or has been published, in many countries, including Italy, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Mexico, Qatar, Malaysia, Romania, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom.

President Bush appointed Mr. Saunders to serve on the United States delegation to the UN Special Session on Children in 2001-2002. In 2004, he served on the NGO Working Committee in connection with the Doha Intergovernmental Conference for the Family. He served on the organizing committee for the conferences of the World Congress of Families in Mexico City (2004), in Poland (2007), in Amsterdam (2009), and is a member of that organization's Management Committee.

Mr. Saunders served previously as Senior Fellow, Human Rights Counsel, and Director of the Center for Human Life and Bioethics at the Family Research Council. He has also practiced law with the firm Covington and Burling and taught law at the Catholic University of America. A member of the Supreme Court bar, he has authored numerous legal briefs in state and federal (and foreign) courts.

Follow us on Twitter: @jackyoest @charmaineyoest

Posted at 8:56 PM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R) teaches business at the local college and loves the 'continuous learning' life style. So when Jack Welch, Ph.D., former CEO of GE has something to say about management, this student takes notes.

Welch appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning and graded president Obama on leadership.

Welch said Obama on leadership earned an "A."

(On leadership, said Welch; Not so on policy...)

Personnel is Policy, Ronald Reagan & Charmaine

Welch mentioned his criteria: Vision, Mission, Communication and Team Building.

Welch explained the value of having the right people on the president's team -- and how well the team works together because they each share the vision and mission of Obama's America.

This is what president Reagan talked about in "Personnel is Policy" when Charmaine worked in the West Wing. You hire people who think as you would think -- the boss should hire like minded deputies.

And this is exactly what Obama has done. Jack Welch is right. Obama's managers want us all to love and worship Obama's world (view).

So when an Obama Deputy - Napolitano -- publishes a directive to law enforcement officials -- those with the power to arrest -- that Pro-Lifers and Veterans are a danger to America; all Americans know that this is exactly how Obama thinks.

What happens next? Obama is dividing our nation. People are not buying Obama's vision for America. Texas talks about seceding (again). But this time the abolitionists Pro-Lifers will be in the south -- not Massachusetts. Salena Zito writes,

Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week declared the federal government had become "oppressive in its size, intrusion into the lives of our citizens and its interference with the affairs of our state."

Obama will push for the so called 'Freedom of Choice Act' or FOCA. Which will remove all local regulation of abortion and the offices where abortions are preformed. A social worker in a dirty back alley could do the baby-cutting.

Obama will allow open homosexuals to serve in the military which will destroy unit cohesion and effect our ability to complete any mission and will certainly cost American lives.

But red-blooded Americans are fighting back.

Charmaine was interviewed by Politico on the Obama backlash. CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN writes in Obama boosts anti-abortion efforts,

The first hint of a stir came just after Election Day, when the computer servers at Americans United for Life crashed. People were swamping the Web site to sign a petition urging President-elect Barack Obama to stand firm against abortion.

"I got a call from one of our guys, 'We have a problem,' " said Charmaine Yoest, the group's president and chief executive officer. "And I was like, 'The problem would be what?'"

Tech-savvy Charmaine knows that servers being overwhelmed with internet traffic is a high-quality problem.

Obama does not care for veterans such as Your Business Blogger(R) nor the Pro-Lifers such as Americans United for Life.
.


Join Fight FOCA

Thank you (foot)notes:

An Alert Reader, fred5676 writes on Michele Malkin's Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real,

So NumbersUSA and Americans United for Life are terrorist groups??? COUNT ME IN!!

Visit the Baptist Bulletin world news.

See the Pregnancy Resource Center at UAB; A student organization serving pregnant and parenting students on our campus,

More than 261,000 people have signed an online petition calling on Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation for Obama to speak at the Catholic university's May 17 commencement. The petition says Obama has carried out "some of the most anti-life actions of any American president," including expanding taxpayer-funded research on embryonic stem cells.

And Americans United for Life plans to expand its plans to expand its staff in Washington and, after the post-election crash, recently upgraded its computer system to handle the bump in online activism.

The King's Good Servant and God's First

Jill Stanek has excellent analysis at Anti-life (on steroids) Obama energizes pro-life movement

See Peter Shinn from Pro-Life Unity interview Dr. Charmaine Yoest.

Fight for Life here.

AUL Defends Doctors and Nurses

Oklahoma legislature would allow pregnant mother to use deadly force to protect unborn

Love Life no matter how small.

Catholic Pro-Life Committee

CNA -- Oklahoma legislature would allow pregnant mother to use deadly force to protect unborn

Posted at 1:33 PM | Permalink
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You are in control of your own career. Start now.

Learn how to earn that promotion. Learn how to get that job.

On April 29, 2009 from 11am to 12:15 a career management seminar will be conducted at The NOVA Theater at the Alexandria Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College.

Save the date. The seminar is at no-charge and is open to the public. Space is limited and registration is required. Email me to hold your seat.

We will cover:

The five rules to getting promoted:

1) Don't make the boss nervous.
2) Deliver Completed Staff Work.
3) Adopt the US Army's definition of discipline (and it's not what you think).
4) Find a friend.
5) Get your boss promoted.

Your next big job. It will be:

A) From someone you know (slightly).
B) A created position.
C) In high technology.

The thoughtful professional knows that he is constantly selling his knowledge, skills and abilities to his boss and to his peers.

The professional knows also that each position on the company organization chart can be an opportunity to be groomed with a track record of success -- to move easily to a higher level...or another company.

The professional in a job search has the choice of pro-actively conducting a sales and marketing campaign to move to his next assignment by selling the intangible of his talent.

If the seminar attendee is on the job market, his choice is networking or not working.

The seminar reviews the steps needed to secure more responsibility within an organization or even another position inside his company -- or outside his current employer.

The purpose of this career management seminar is to increase your value to your current employer and to your future company.

And to prepare the attendee to move and to be ready to change jobs in a fast changing, uncertain world.

Who: Professionals interested in earning a promotion or seeking increased responsibilities or in conducting a job search.

What: The career management seminar will equip the attendee with strategies and tactics on how to increase the attendees' value in the marketplace of talent and to command greater compensation in another position.

When: Wednesday, April 29, 2009, 11:00am to 12:15pm

Where: Northern Virginia Community College,
Alexandria Campus, campus map
The NOVA Theater; the new Bisdorf Auditorium, room 196
3001 North Beauregard Street, Alexandria, VA 22311 street map

Why: To enable the attendee to gain the greatest return on the attendees' time and talent in his income-producing career.

Cost: No Charge. Register here at JYoest@NVCC.edu. Space is limited.

He conducts career management training for professionals in industries from law to government, from for-profit businesses to non-for-profit organizations, from military to media.

He has participated in hundreds of personal interviews of job candidates and has been instrumental in the hiring of thousands of employees.

Jack also served in the Governor's Office of the Commonwealth Virginia as Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Resources where he acted as the Chief Technology Officer for the secretariat. He was responsible for the successful Year 2000 (Y2K) conversion for the 16,000-employee unit.

He was also a sales account manager with a medical device start-up and helped move sales from zero to over $12 million, opening over 300 accounts, resulting in a buy-out by Johnson & Johnson.

Jack has consulted across industries and in China and India.

Questions? www.Yoest.com, JYoest@NVCC.edu or call Jack at 202.215.2434.

Come to this class.

Parking info at the jump.

Thank you (foot)notes and suggested class reading:

Four steps to getting a job.

Helping sentences for employee evaluations.

Tattoos on your job search.

The secret on how to get a letter of recommendation.

Save the Date: April 29, 2007

Please pass this link on to a friend who might be interested.

Event registration is also available to Friends on Facebook.

Details also at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 4:02 PM | Permalink
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Learn how to earn that promotion. Learn how to get that job.

On April 29 from 11am to 12:15 a career management seminar will be conducted at The NOVA Theater at the Alexandria Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College.

Save the date. Seminar is at no-charge and open to the public. Registration is required.

There are five rules to getting promoted:

1) Don't make the boss nervous.
2) Completed Staff Work.
3) Adopt the US Army's definition of discipline (and it's not what you think).
4) Find a friend.
5) Get your boss promoted.

Your next big job will be:

A) From someone you know (slightly).
B) A created position.
C) In high technology.

The purpose of the seminar is to increase your value to your current company so that additional responsibility will, like a magic cape, float down from on high and rest lightly on your shoulders.

And to prepare the attendee to move and to be ready to change jobs in a fast changing, bailed-out world.

Please pass this link on to a friend who might be interested.

Details will follow here and to Friends on Facebook.

Details also at Management Training of DC, LLC.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Four steps to getting a job.

Helping sentences for employee evaluations.

Tattoos on your job search.

The secret on how to get a letter of recommendation.

Posted at 9:24 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

AUL has made a terrific new hire,

Jessica J. Sage joined Americans United for Life (AUL) as as staff counsel in March 2009. Her responsibilities include assisting the Vice President of Legal Affairs with all aspects of AUL's legal program including legislative drafting and consulting and the development of new life-affirming legislation related to abortion and end-of-life issues.

Jessica J. Sage, Esq

Jessica drafts amicus curiae briefs on behalf of AUL and its clients to educate federal and state courts across the nation on pro-life issues. Jessica also contributes to AUL's annual publication Defending Life: Proven Strategies for a Pro-Life America.

"We are extremely gratified that an attorney of Jessica's caliber and commitment is joining our already exceptional legal team," said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, AUL President & CEO.

Americans United for Life is the country's oldest pro-life organization.

Posted at 8:19 PM | Permalink
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Helen:
GARDENING WITH CONFIDENCE™Every business should have a mission statement to help focus staff, benchmarks, resources, results.

Every business could benefit. Every silo, in the business; on the farm.

Even your garden.

A business going to seed, so to say...

My favorite 'plant manager' is Helen of Raleigh who runs the premier gardening business in central North Carolina. She writes for Better Homes and Gardens and blogs at Gardening With Confidence™.

Helen is also a Garden Scout and Stylist. In her work as a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and their Special Interest Publications such as Country Gardens and Nature's Garden, she scouts great gardens for their publications.

When a garden is chosen for publication, Helen works with photographers to style the photo shoot.

Just as every manager needs a business coach, every gardener needs a gardening coach.

Who knew?

Helen helped create this market niche. She is in great demand as a Garden Coach.

In her former career as a Vice President of an environmental company she learned how to shovel manure.

Good management training.

Carrying a rifle in Pakistan didn't hurt either. (Working for an environmental client. Really.)

Here is Helen's gardening mission statement,

If you have a garden statement, send it along to Helen. She will be posting the collection.

Thank you (foot)notes:

For the backstory see, Women, Work and Family: One VP's Solution,

"How do you it all?" Accomplished women with kids constantly get this question.

Helen Philbrook, married and mother of three, from Raleigh, NC, has the answer.

Your Business Blogger(R) recently sat down with Helen and her husband David to learn the secret.

She's a former Vice President of an environmental testing firm, and perhaps the world's first female "Smoke Stack Sniffer."

Full Disclosure: Helen is the sister of Your Business Blogger(R)

Posted at 10:50 AM | Permalink
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An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest said Ben Franklin. And sometimes learning a skill will pay off in ways unintended and unanticipated.

My favorite interview question is to ask candidates,

An expert interviewer, like Your (humble) Business Blogger(R), can discern the contentment and the fire in the belly of the job candidate, by analyzing any gap between high school plans and the current stage in life -- I find that the larger this gap, the more unhappy the candidate.

Unhappy candidates make for unhappy employees.

Critics of this crazy question accurately say that technology, markets, the world have changed since we were in high school, back in the day.

And they are right: the material world changes. Less so people. And what people love to do, and how each individual candidate would like to make a difference -- remains constant thru life.

Here is my favorite example.

She was a competitive swimmer in her youth. And wanted to be a Life Guard. Her dream job that would make a difference. She trained, studied and was certified.

She found her calling; her vocation but she never found that job.

A disappointed teenager, she took a position as an Assistant Cashier in the athletic center at Camp of the Woods in Adirondack Park of upstate New York in June of 1982. She didn't get what she wanted, but at least she was near the water.

One afternoon while ringing up a sale, the young girl heard a commotion from the pool behind her across the hall.

A woman was just pulled from the pool. Limp, on her back turning blue. Not breathing.

Stunned on-looking bystanders frozen.

Inaction.

The teenage girl darted to the woman. Started mouth-to-mouth. The woman moved, struggled, gagged, puked and breathed.

And Lived.

Our teenager never got exactly the job she wanted; that job she trained for.

But her education did pay off. Especially for one swimmer visiting Adirondack Park.

Today that teenage girl, now a mature woman, lives out her high school dream making a difference in her dream vocation.

She wanted to make a difference in a unique way.

For Life.

And does so today.

Thank you (foot)notes:

The management at the resort was concerned that the near death by drowning would cause adverse publicity, I suppose. The life-saving event was never reported. Bad for business, you see. Our young heroine was never thanked.

And she doesn't want to be thanked now. And really doesn't want this blogged.

(But that's what husbands do.)

Posted at 10:54 PM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Managers & Staff, Career Advancement:
How to Promote & Be Promoted. FREE

Managers, How do you train your team members to take more responsibility?
To Award a Promotion.

Staffers, How do you work to earn more responsibility?
To Earn a Promotion.

If your career management skills need to be sharpened, join us at the Northern Virginia Community College, Arlington, Virginia.

Who: Managers & Individual Contributors; Owners & Direct Reports

What: Learn the benchmarks to promotion.

When: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 4:00 to 5:30pm

Where: NVCC, Room 304, 4600 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA, 22203 Behind Holiday Inn. See Map.

Why: Increase the student's value to the organization

Cost: No Charge. Registration is required. Parking is limited.

Since 1960, over one million people have been trained in our practice of management. The MMT class teaches the manager, to leverage management time, and the time of your team, to get more done.

We teach Solutions to Your Management Problems.

Harvard Business Review published Managing Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? in 1974, by Bill Oncken, Jr.. The article, an edited excerpt of the MMT seminar, has gone on to become one of the two most requested reprints in the history of the Review. The training summarized in the article is sometimes called the "Monkey Management" seminar.

Jack Yoest, Adjunct Professor of Management and President of Management Training of DC, is a former Armored Cavalry Officer in Combat Arms. His military leadership training and experience guides his management philosophy at the core of Managing Management Time™. He has managed software, health care and international human resource management companies.

Jack also served in the Governor's Office of the Commonwealth Virginia as Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Resources where he acted as the Chief Technology Officer for the secretariat. He was responsible for the successful Year 2000 (Y2K) conversion for the 16,000-employee unit. He was also a manager with a medical device start-up and helped move sales from zero to over $12 million, resulting in a buy-out by Johnson & Johnson. Jack has consulted in China and India.
Questions? www.Yoest.com, Jack@Yoest.org, or call Jack at 202.215.2434 to save your spot.

Here's the script for the YouTube clip,

Manage Your Career: Learn How To Get Promoted, Managers & Staff, Career Advancement: How to Promote & Be Promoted. #9

This is Jack Yoest Your Business Blogger® with Solutions to Your Management Problems.

Managers: How do you train your team members in the right way to take more responsibility?

So that You can Award them with a Promotion?
Staffers: How do you work the right way to earn more responsibility?
So that You can Earn that Promotion...Or to keep from getting fired.
If your career advancement management skills need to be sharpened, join us in the seminar named
Manage your career: Learn how to get promoted & be promotable.
This course is designed for both Managers & Individual Contributors; Owners & Direct Reports
To Learn the benchmarks to promotion...or termination
The purpose is to increase the attendees' value to their organizations.
To successfully navigate the office politics of promotion and earn more money.
To learn more about getting promoted visit YOEST dot com
That's Y O E S T dot com

Posted at 8:03 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Your Business Blogger(R) was interviewed on a series of articles on Bad Managers, Maybe (Gulp) The Problem Is You and in Think Your Boss Is Bad? Some Managers Can't Manage. What to Do If You've Got a Boss Who Only Makes Things Worse. By Tara Swords, Special to The Washington Post, Sunday, September 28, 2008

Jack Yoest says many people haven't learned how to be good workers.

In my conversation with Tara, my concern was not so much with mis-managers as it was with subordinates,

"Jack Yoest, president of Management Training of DC, takes a harder line on the boss-employee relationship and says it's the employee's job to relieve the boss's anxieties, not the other way around.

"If you have a nervous, micromanaging boss who's always in your hair, he probably doesn't trust you," Yoest says. "The employee hasn't sold the boss on his ability to get anything done, and I'd say, most of the time, it's the employee's fault." "

We talk about leadership but not follower-ship. And we teach neither,

Yoest says most people haven't been taught the mechanics of being a good employee. Rather than insisting that managers empower employees, Yoest urges employees to convince the boss that they are dependable and can act as the boss would.

The goal should be to go from an employee who does nothing unless told, or who is always asking the boss what to do, to an employee who recommends a course of action and, after gaining the boss's trust, acts on the boss's behalf.

And the end result of being a good subordinate who can anticipate, adapt and learn is to give the employee more control over the timing and content of his workload,

"When you've reached that level, you're at a whole new level of job security" because you're behaving like a leader, Yoest says. And that puts you one step closer to being the leader .

Not everyone aspires to management. But everyone wants independence and respect at work.

Read the entire story here. And check out the comments.

Thank you (foot)notes,

Caution! Sales Pitch Follows: Check your calendar for Wednesday, October 8th at 4pm in Northern Virginia. I'm giving an open seminar on Solutions to Your Management Problems. No Charge, but registration is required. Email me for info.

Your Business Blogger(R) is an Adjunct Professor of Management at the Northern Virginia Community College.

YouTube syllabus Here,

Posted at 7:40 AM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R) once worked in medical device start-ups teaching new surgical procedures to clinicians.

My physicians were constantly demanding the latest data on patient care and what would work best to improve patient care.

They taught me that they were held to higher standards because the clinical community was the steward of the public's trust.

When a person is hurting, trust is the currency of the care giver.

The patient must believe that the doctor or nurse sincerely believes that the care given is the best -- and that the care giver would not violate the trust of the patient or the care givers' own conscience.
The public well understands that if a doctor will not violate his own conscience, he will not violate the patient.

This conscience clause of the medical community is being attacked by the homosexual activists. Homosexuals are demanding elective procedures -- non-life saving interventions -- medical attention that would violate the conscience of some clinicians.

And this is bad for business. Homosexuals are attempting to equate race with sexual preferences: attempting to make homosexuality a civil right.

The homosexual marketing campaign might be gaining traction in the courts -- but not with voters, not with legislators not with common sense.

An African-American will always be black; he has no choice and cannot stop being black.
A homosexual may return to hertosexuality; he has a choice and can stop being homosexual.

African-Americans are of a particular race from conception. Homosexuals make a decision well after birth. They are not born in that state. There is no homosexual gene in the human DNA. Race is not equal to homosexuality.

Look for more cases like this one in California where the homosexual activists are looking for businesses to take to court. Your business might be next.

Fox Business posted information from Americans United for Life,

California Supreme Court Ruling Threatens Medical Care and Religious FreedomBy Matthew Eppinette | August 18, 2008

Chicago, Illinois -- The California Supreme Court today ruled that patient demand for nonessential, elective care trumps the freedom of conscience of physicians and their ability to practice medicine in accordance with their religious or moral beliefs.

Denise Burke, Vice President & Legal Director of Americans United for Life (AUL), said, "This ruling will deny physicians and other professionals the ability to freely exercise their religious convictions."

Added Burke, "By forcing healthcare professionals to choose between conscience and career, we will lose doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who are already in short supply."

Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., President and CEO of AUL added, "Medical experts already project that existing shortages of nurses, physicians, and pharmacists will soon worsen, failing to meet future healthcare needs. Legal action to compel healthcare providers to participate in procedures to which they conscientiously object threatens to make the already dangerous situation disastrous."

Mailee Smith, AUL Staff Counsel, said, "It defies common sense that a patient would want a doctor to violate his or her conscience in practicing medicine. A diminished physician population is not good for medical care."

The case -- North Coast Women's Care Medical Group v. Superior Court of San Diego County (Benitez) - involves a situation where artificial insemination was not provided due to the marital status of the patient (Ms. Benitez).

Ms. Benitez filed suit arguing that she was not provided the procedure because she is a lesbian. However, the physicians testified that the real issue was her marital status, and that they would not have provided artificial insemination to any single woman.

Ultimately, Ms. Benitez received the procedure from another physician after receiving a referral from the objecting physicians (who paid the additional costs she incurred).

AUL filed an amicus brief in the California Supreme Court on behalf of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Physicians for Life, arguing that federal and state law as well as the ethics standards of major medical organizations support the physicians' right to conscientiously object to performing certain nonessential, elective medical procedures that conflict with physicians' religious and moral beliefs.

Media Contact
Matthew Eppinette
202-289-1479Matthew.Eppinette@AUL.org

MEDIA ALERT: Charmaine Soundbite CNN: Homosexual Marriage, The Problem.

Posted at 9:43 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Friday was Charmaine's last day at FRC. They gave her a nice send off. It was less like a funeral and more like a celebration -- a celebration like many funerals should be: She's going to a better place, but we wish she were here.

Later, Your Business Blogger(R) returned with the Penta-Posse to her office to gather up the pictures and files and stuff and stuffed all into the monster-SUV. We left no action, email, paper, or child behind.

It took 'til 9pm to clear out. This is how job changing is different from death:

Crossing over to eternity: Your inbox will be full.
Crossing over to another job: Your inbox will be empty.

The only thing she took with her were the memories and the comfort that she would be seeing all of her old friends again somewhere, sometime again.

Some things don't die...

Friendships endure: Relationships in the Body are eternal.

Then again, maybe job-changing and death are exactly alike.

From the Family Research Council,

Our Loss is AUL's Gain

It is with mixed emotions that we announce that Dr. Charmaine Yoest, VP for Communications, has accepted the presidency of Americans United for Life.

While this is great news for Charmaine and even better news for AUL, it is a deep loss for us.

During Charmaine's time at FRC, we have gained a whole new level of visibility in the national media, developed an excellent new web site, built out the first video studio in FRC history, overhauled our media center to make it state-of-the-art, obtained record op ed placements, and maintained quality radio programs heard on hundreds of stations nationwide.

Charmaine and her entire team can be justly proud of these accomplishments. It's good to know that her gifts will now be deployed at the helm of one of best-known and most successful pro-life groups in the country.

We wish her and her family well in the weeks and years to come, and we're confident our paths will cross many times as we work to protect innocent human life.

Posted at 8:26 AM | Permalink
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PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Matthew Eppinette
Matthew.Eppinette@AUL.org
312.568.4701

Chicago, Illinois -- Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D., a well-known pro-family leader, author, and media commentator, takes the helm of Americans United for Life (AUL) as president and chief executive officer on August 11, 2008.

Robert Harvey, Chairman of the AUL Board of Directors said, "Dr. Yoest's experience in pro-life issues, in political strategy, and in organizational communications make her the ideal person to lead the team at AUL in taking on challenges and capitalizing on opportunities in the present legal and political climate."

The U.S. Supreme Court's 2007 Gonzales decision upholding the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act marked the beginning of a new era in the battle over life issues. In short, the decision dramatically opened up new doors for protecting life through the law.

In striking contrast, the U.S. Congress and five states this year considered Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) legislation, which would wipe away virtually every law on abortion nationwide, allowing abortion-on-demand in all nine months of pregnancy for any reason, without any restrictions.

"It is a great honor to join AUL, an organization with a remarkable reputation for excellence and achievement," said Yoest. "AUL has been involved in every pro-life case before the U.S. Supreme Court since Roe v. Wade, and AUL-authored legislation is in place all around the country, saving lives every day."

Yoest added, "I look forward to exciting days ahead, building on this rich legacy and working to increase the legal protection of human lives."

Most recently, Yoest served as vice-president of communications at the Family Research Council, one of the largest pro-family public policy organizations in the country.

Her political experience spans working in the Reagan White House to serving as a Senior Advisor to the 2008 Huckabee for President Campaign.

A regular political commentator, Dr. Yoest has appeared on all of the major networks and cable outlets. In print, she is quoted regularly and has been published widely. She is also the author of Mother in the Middle (HarperCollins), an examination of work/family and childcare policy.

Yoest holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. She lives with her husband, Jack, and their five children in the Washington, D.C. area.

Dr. Yoest succeeds Clarke D. Forsythe, Esq., a 22-year AUL veteran who served as interim president and who will continue in senior leadership of the organization.

About Americans United for Life

Americans United for Life (AUL) is a nonprofit, public-interest law and policy organization whose vision is a nation in which every human being is welcomed in life and protected in law. The first national pro-life organization in America, AUL has been committed to defending human life through vigorous judicial, legislative, and educational efforts at both the federal and state levels since 1971. The Wall Street Journal has profiled AUL, and PBS's Frontline program chronicled AUL's successful efforts in Mississippi.

Website: http://www.AUL.org

Blog: http://Blog.AUL.org

Media Contact:

Matthew Eppinette

Matthew.Eppinette@AUL.org

312.568.4701

Posted at 12:44 PM | Permalink
Comments (14)

Following is from a Naval Aviator. The Dude, pictured on left with Baby Boo a few years ago at the Air Force Academy, loves jets and jet noise and wants to fly.

Charmaine is not so sure.

The Air Force crashes about 75 jets in routine training accidents apart from the war zones. The Navy budgets two jet losses per carrier per deployment.

Producing a number of widows, orphans and grieving families.

Even training is dangerous.

Our cousin Will was an F-18 pilot after graduating from Harvard.

He assures us that Naval Aviation is safe.

Except when it isn't.

Subject: Oyster Here . . I Think We Need To Rig The Barricade [ To Catch This Thing ] !

Here's a personal story of an F-18 pilot's . . at o'dark thirty . . with the carrier's barrier in place. The barricade's an impressive 20 foot high stiff net, that can be stretched across the deck to ' capture ' birds during extreme emergencies.

" Oyster, here. This note is to share with you the exciting night I had the other month. So There I was .

. . manned up with pins pulled on the hot seat for a 2030 night launch on the Hornet about 500 miles north of Hawaii. I taxied off toward the carrier's island where I did a 180 and got spotted on Cat number 1. They lowered my launch bar into position and the take-off routine began. On the run-up, all systems appeared to be ' in the green.'

After waiting the requisite 5 seconds to make sure all my flight controls were OK, I turned on the exterior lights, then shifted my eyes to the catwalk to watch the deck edge dude move his head while clearing me, left and right.

With the back of my helmet, I touched the head rest for...what was coming.

The Hornet cat shot is pretty impressive. Particularly at night. As the cat fired, I clicked in both afterburners...and I am along for the ride. But just prior to the end of the stroke there's a huge flash with a simultaneous B-O-O-M ! ...

continue reading at the jump.

This article has been circulating on the web. Credit to John Howland's USNA-At-Large.

Be sure to read Your Business Blogger(R) getting bested by his pre-teen Diva. And no, this is not a case study for women in combat. Read The FireDrill: Practice Success to Avoid Failure,

Your (Army) Business Blogger[R] had no business in the cockpit. My instructor was a Vietnam vet with MigKlr license plates on his truck.

He said the F-14 was a "Man's Plane." He sounded sexist. He explained that the old-generation hydraulics required real strength -- after a couple of hours, even the manliest studs needed two hands on the stick.

No place for girls.

Or so I thought.

But I was wrong, again.

I bring the Five-kid Penta-Posse to Oceana Naval Air Station to show them how macho military men (like their father) defeated Communism.

We get invited to some F-14 training. I climb in the simulator. No photography is permitted. And a good thing, too...

Alert Readers know that the F-14 is now retired.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 3:49 PM | Permalink
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Jack and Charmaine This is wedding anniversary week in our household: We celebrate for 7 days.

Men's Health magazine reminds us why marriage works. The April issue has six compelling reasons to marry, by Anna Maltby.

Anna is a woman.

But the advice is still good,

If you are susceptible to vice, find a wife. She'll save you from yourself -- and improve your life -- in a variety of ways...

1. Increase your pay A Virginia Commonwealth University study found that married men earn 22 percent more than their similarly experienced but single colleagues.

[VCU is a terrific school located in Richmond, Virginia. Conservative. Good.]

2. Speed up your next promotion
Married men receive higher performance ratings and faster promotions than bachelors, a 2005 study of U.S. Navy officers reported.

[If the Army wanted you to have a wife, it would have issued you one, goes the old joke -- it looks like the military is a-changing its perception of the value of a helpmeet.]

3. Keep you out of trouble
According to a recent U.S. Department of Justice report, male victims of violent crime are nearly four times more likely more likely to be single than married.

[Your Business Blogger(R) has not been in a bar fight since getting married. But every few years I got to get the caps replaced on those cracked up front teeth from an altercation back in single days. And I wish that ringing in my ears would stop...]

4. Satisfy you in bed
In 2006, British researchers reviewed the sexual habits of men in 38 countries and found that in every country, married men have more sex.

[...]

5. Help you beat cancer
In a Norwegian study, divorced and never-married male cancer patients had 11 and 16 percent higher mortality rates, respectively, than married men.

[Charmaine is forever pestering me to get a(nother!) physical. Goodness, I had one back in the 90's. And the colonoscopy was her idea too. Such a pain in the ...]

6. Help you live longer
A UCLA study found that people in generally excellent health were 88 percent more likely to die over the 8-year study period if they were single.

The accountability and friendship of marriage works.

Excuse me now, I've got some yard work to do.

As one academic studying the men-marriage-maturity transformation wrote, "A rake, now out raking leaves,"

Posted at 9:03 AM | Permalink
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Writing an employee evaluation? Try these 101 helping sentences.

Academia and the Army have one thing in common.

Yes, there is something. Your Business Blogger(R) is a former Armor Cavalry Officer and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Management, so I was surprised to learn of some overlap.

The results of an employee evaluation
should never be a surprise
Courtesy: Toothpaste for DinnerPerhaps the only intersection is the willingness to share with fellow servicemen or teachers various helps needed for the efficient and effective transference of knowledge.

It is all, well, collegial. For the life of the (military) mind.

A college has two goals — the business of teaching and preparing the student for life.

An Army has two goals — the business of teaching and preparing the soldier for war.

It follows that there are the only two missions that the military should have:

1) Learning to fight and kill and break things, or

2) Fighting and killing and breaking things.

(Sounds like either a firefight or a faculty meeting…)

I recently had a client who was struggling to come up with just the right verbiage for an employee evaluation. I reminded him that this did not have to be an original work of art.

It simply had to be sincere, even if the words were lifted elsewhere. Authentic, even if borrowed.

(This all makes sense when coming from a high priced consultant.)

Your Business Blogger(R) suggested using an old Army briefing book. Remember, it worked for Mitt Romney’s father, George W. Romney who once remarked about being “brainwashed” after a military presentation during Vietnam. It worked for him. It can work for you, too.

For your employees, I mean.

An efficiency report will comment on the employee’s commitment, attention to detail and follow-up.

The best evaluations will outline a sample example of an achievement with a department problem, a solution and the measurable result of the staffer.

One Hundred and One Helping Sentences.

USA Support Command, Saigon Regulation 672-1 Headquarters, USASUPCOM, Sgn 9 Sept 1970, G. White, Armor

[Language has been updated somewhat for our modern times.]

1. Through his untiring efforts, devotion to duty and professional knowledge, NAME has accomplished TASK which increased the effectiveness of DEPARTMENT.

2. The timely guidance he gave to all personnel ensured the maintenance of a high standard of SALES/NOUN of DEPARTMENT.

3. The outstanding record of performance by NAME is due to his attention to detail in all aspects of his duty assignments and to his desire for zero defects.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 11:54 PM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R): and
Your Circle of Friends When Your Business Blogger(R) served a tour of duty in government, I learned the harsh reality of what academics called "Multiple Points of Accountability."

I thought that my boss was my only constituent.

Nope. I learned that I had better pay attention to the press, to other department silos, to numerous associations (aka lobbyists), other political appointees, elected officials -- and finally: The Voters.

There is no difference between management in government and business. The basics are constant.

The first thing every manager learns is that he has multiple points of accountability. Points outside his silo.

The manager must nurture multiple points of accountability to turn these to multiple points of support.

He’s got to turn his silo into a circle -- of friends.

Watch the one minute clip and let me know what you think.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Script at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:35 AM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger(R) reviewing
The Manager's Formula For Success Knowledge+ Network= Success

Managers looking for a formula for success do not need complicated, expensive, pronouncements from academia* or beyond.

As Occam's Razor suggests, the simplest solution is usually correct.

See E=MC squared. Einstein simple.

Email me if you would like an expansion on the formula and the key constant, support.

Professional managers know well that Knowledge can be nil in the formula and the manager can still be successful.

The Pros know that, if given a choice between Knowing and Getting -- for example, the hiring manager evaluating a candidate for a management slot -- chooses the ability to garner support.

Even more than knowledge.

A manager can know nothing -- but as long as the net in his network is well constructed, he will not be let down.

The transcript is at the jump.

Knowledge plus Network equals Success

The Penta-Posse (-) and Einstein
at Princeton University

Monkey Business
Management

Thank you (foot)notes:

*Your Business Blogger(R) is an Adjunct Professor of Management in Business Technologies at the Northern Virginia Community College.

See: The William Oncken Corporation Announces Licensed Marketing Agreement With Management Training of DC, LLC,

Press Release: The William Oncken Corporation Announces Licensed Marketing Agreement With Management Training of DC, LLC

Dallas, Texas, July 4, 2007 – The William Oncken Corporation (WOC) is pleased to announce it has signed on Management Training of DC, LLC, (MTDC) to launch an initiative to broaden the world-wide reach of WOC’s leadership training products.

Since 1961, The William Oncken Corporation, (WOC) a management consulting company, has trained more than one million managers and leaders. WOC’s flagship seminar, Managing Management Time™, was specifically designed for those individuals in an organization who are valued as much, if not more, for their judgment and influence than for their time and personal effort.

For more on William "Bill" Oncken see bio at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 6:30 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Your Business Blogger at the
Stern School of Business, NYU Solutions To Your Management Problems,
Invitation to The Harbour League Seminar-fund raiser for 26 March 2008.

You Are Invited!

60 second script.

This is Jack Yoest Your Business Blogger with Solutions to your Management Problems.

I want to invite you to a short seminar – that you won’t want to miss.

In this short two hour meeting I will talk about what management is – and what it is not.

Here are corrections to common management myths:

Management is not barking out orders.

Management by walking around -- is not management.

Management does not empower subordinates.

A Hands – on Manager is not a manager.

In our class I want to emphasis three tactics that will help change your practice of management

1 -- Discipline – As a former Armored Cavalry officer I like the Army’s definition – and it’s not what you think.

2 -- Selling – If you’ve ever carried a bag like I did as a sales guy – you know that in every transaction – especially in office politics -- someone is selling, someone is buying – and managers always get this wrong.

And finally 3rd – Stop it – Every client I’ve ever worked with – every project I’ve ever managed – we’re working too hard because we’re working on the wrong things.

Don’t make these mistakes.

Go to www.yoest.com for details and registration

Posted at 10:51 AM | Permalink
Comments (0)

Your Business Blogger gives a five minute presentation for Managing Management Time (TM)

Are you controlling events?
Or are events controlling you?

Posted at 10:04 PM | Permalink
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Alert Readers know that the best indicator of future performance is...past performance.

Is it possible to change at the age of 60? Your Business Blogger would hope that we all would embrace continuous learning and update our skills. And to embrace truth. At whatever age.

But.

How many convictions can one man change -- all at once -- all at a mature age?

Change on Reagan?
Change on abortion?
Change on guns?
Change on homosexuals in the boyscouts?

And each of the changes of heart happens to coincide with position of the Republican conservative base?

This does not seem, as we say in academia, to be authentic.

Watch the clip: Huckabee suggests that Romney found conservative puberty at 60.

Voters should be slow to completely trust any teenager...

Thank you (foot)notes:

Full Disclosure: The wife of Your Business Blogger, Charmaine, has been a paid senior adviser to the Huckabee presidential campaign.

Correction: It is not known if Romney has changed his position on allowing homosexual Boy Scout Masters.

Posted at 10:31 AM | Permalink
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Personnel is Policy Ronald Reagan.

Bare Knuckles and
Back Rooms
by Ed RollinsMike Huckabee is announcing today in New Hampshire that Ed Rollins will be joining Huckabee campaign. Nobody knows politics like Rollins. He is The Strategist in America who can advise on how to work with and unite social and economic conservatives.

Charmaine Yoest debates Giuliani's
Presidential positions
Credit: Peter Shinn MIke Huckabee is putting together a terrific team. (The unbiased opinion of Your Business Blogger...)

Alert Readers will remember Ed Rollins debating Charmaine on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 in November -- of 2006. This is a long campaign season.

Watch the short segment here and let me know what you think.

Ed Rollins Ed Rollins was the political advisor for Ronald Reagan in 1984. Ed Rollins is a genius who knows how to win and win big.

Our friend Rich Lowry, from National Review has endorsed another presidential candidate. Lowry tells us on Laura Ingram's talk show that Huckabee has the challenge of bringing the economic and social conservatives together. And that,

"Huckabee has been running his campaign out of his back pocket, and has done it extremely well. There's a reason, though, that serious candidates surround themselves with policy experts...."

Ed Rollins is another of the experts Huckabee has hired. This hire renders moot each of Lowery's concerns.

There was only one Ronald Reagan. We cannot bring back the Gipper, but we can bring back his winning team.

Personnel is policy.

Thank you (foot)notes: Charmaine and Ed never met during the Reagan years. Alert Readers will remember that Charmaine had the honor of working for President Reagan (in a more modest position).

The press release,

Presidential Candidate, Governor Mike Huckabee Names Ed Rollins as National Campaign Chairman

Little Rock, AR -- Former Arkansas Governor and Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee has named Republican political strategist Ed Rollins as his National Campaign Chairman.

"I am proud to announce the addition of Ed Rollins as my National Campaign Chairman," said Governor Huckabee. "Ed is an unparalleled strategist and is well-known as the man who directed the most successful Presidential campaign in the history of the United States. Ed’s experience and track record building winning coalitions within our party bringing together social, economic and foreign-policy conservatives, and even reaching across party lines, makes him a good fit for our campaign."

Rollins served as the National Campaign Director to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election in which Reagan won 49 states.

"I am honored to be joining Governor Huckabee’s remarkable campaign,” added Rollins. “I have always said that I want to work for candidates with convictions who can communicate those convictions. And Governor Huckabee is that candidate. He has the ability to change the political conversation in this country. Among the presidential contenders, he is also the one with the most executive experience. I look forward to working with the Governor over the coming year on the road to the White House."

Mr. Rollins served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, joining the Reagan administration as one of the President's top advisors in the role of Assistant to the President for Political and Governmental Affairs. He is currently the Chairman of the Rollins Strategy Group, a communications and crisis management firm with offices in New York and Washington, D.C.

Pro-choice Eliza, who blogs at Anderson Cooper 360 Review says,

Charmaine just flat out says Giuliani has no chance and then proceeds to twist the knife around a bit by proclaiming that with his views he should run against Hillary as a democrat.

Ronald Reagan and Charmaine

Your Business Blogger has an on-line subscription to National Review. And has been published by NRO.

I hope they will publish me again...someday.

Posted at 8:35 AM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Charmaine at the
New America Foundation Charmaine recently spoke at the New America Foundation on The Politics of Parental Leave. Her talk was based on her research at The University of Virginia. Her work was funded with a quarter million dollar grant from the Sloan Foundation.

Your Business Blogger found her findings most interesting. In particular, Charmaine discovered that when female academics take parental leave, women use the time off for parenting: to change diapers. Men took the time off to write a book; their wives still changed the diapers.

Who knew male academics were so...traditional?

Charmaine's topic title was, The Politics of Parental Leave: Is Paid Parental Leave an Effective Means of Promoting Gender Equity in the Workplace? From the New America Foundation website by Paul Testa, Research Associate to the Health Policy Program,

"U.S. political candidates are beginning to produce work and family policy positions in response to what most Americans feel -- that work and family balance is a major issue facing American families. Women in particular struggle with such balance and with achieving equality in the workplace. From the floors of Congress to the campaign trails Mandating paid parental leave has often been suggested as a possible solution to such struggles. But is this approach best for women as a whole?

To further this debate, Rev. David Gray, director of the Work Force and Family Program at New America Foundation welcomed Dr. Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council for a timely discussion of the politics of parental leave.

Dr. Yoest presented research from her time as the Project Director of the Family, Gender, and Tenure research project at the University of Virginia, which focused on the effectiveness of paid parental leave in academia.

...academia was “crucial case,” to assess whether paid parental leave could really level the playing field for women. “If there’s going to be any place in America where you’d expect paid leave to work, it would be in academia,” she said.

Dr. Yoest’s research centered on a survey of assistant professors with children under the age of two in tenure track positions at universities that offered paid leave policies. Her results questioned several of the traditional assumptions about paid parental leave.

Universities with paid parental leave policies did not have higher levels of female faculty and that paid parental leave policies were not associated with higher rates of promotion for women to more senior faculty positions.

In fact, Dr. Yoest argued paid leave policies may have been detrimental to leveling the playing field. The majority of leave-taking women felt they had less-time for research and writing when they returned and were more likely than their non-leave taking peers to consider dropping off the tenure track. The majority of leave-takers felt such policies made almost no difference in their efforts to receive tenure and some suggested there was a stigma associated with taking a paid leave.

Based on these findings, Dr. Yoest concluded that, “Paid leave may operate as a political fig leaf. The institutional results indicate that the policy by itself does not result in higher levels of achievement for women, making the use of political capital to establish the policy, a poor investment.”

[Her] provocative presentation was followed by lively round of question and answers."

The New America Foundation has professionally included a video of her 60 minute talk and an audio and her Powerpoint on their site.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Also see You Are Invited: The Politics of Parental Leave at the New America Foundation

And Charmaine's next talk, MEDIA ALERT: Charmaine at the New America Foundation debating America’s Changing Social Contract

The Effect of Parental Leave Policies

Maternity leave creates workplace debate

What Are the Benefits of Longer Maternity Leave?

House leaders seek to expand staff's parental leave, By Karissa Marcum, Chris Good contributed to this article.

Posted at 11:35 AM | Permalink
Comments (1)

Charmaine will be giving a presentation on The Politics of Parental Leave: Is Paid Parental Leave an Effective Means of Promoting Gender Equity in the Workplace? at the New America Foundation.

Start: 11/15/2007 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm
at New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Ave, NW 7th Floor
Washington, 20009


New America Foundation
From the New America Foundation web site,

U.S. political candidates are beginning to produce work and family policy positions in response to what most Americans feel - that work and family balance is a major issue facing American families. Women in particular struggle with such balance and with achieving equality in the workplace. Several bills have been introduced in Congress to mandate paid parental leave to help women achieve better balance and more equality. But is this approach best for women as a whole?

Dr. Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council served as the Project Director of the Family, Gender and Tenure research project at the University of Virginia. The research is the only study of its kind to examine the effectiveness of paid parental leave in the United States.

The University of Virginia

Dr. Yoest's experience as a researcher, policy advocate and mother of five give her an important perspective on this current debate. Join the New America Foundation's Workforce and Family Program for a provocative discussion on paid parental leave.

Be sure to visit and let us know what you think.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Charmaine did her dissertation on the Family Medical Leave Act, titled: Empowering Shakespeare's Sister: Parental Leave and the Level Playing Field.

More on the New America Foundation at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:21 PM | Permalink
Comments (0)

<

Monkey Business ManagementHold the date -- Friday, November 9th, 2007.

[Caution: Sales Pitch Follows...]

The William Oncken Corporation will be conducting The Managing Management Time ™ One-Day Seminar, in Arlington, Virginia.

Bill Oncken will explore the question, Can Managers Control Events?

Are you running out of time…while your staff runs out of work?

How can the leader get more discretionary management time?

If your management skills need to be sharpened -- join us for the day.

WHO Managers who need to get in control of events or to better influence results


WHY Improve managerial effectiveness


WHAT Managing Management Time™.


WHEN Friday, November 9, 2007, 8am to 5pm


WHERE 901 N. Glebe Rd, Suite 900, Arlington, VA 22203


FEE $595. Please make check payable to “The William Oncken Corporation”

The seminar is often called "The Monkey Management Class"

Thank you (foot)notes:

For more propaganda, please see Managment Training of DC, LLC.

“Life in the business world’s fast lane, for me, would be inconceivable without knowing and applying the business philosophy expressed in Monkey Business,” Richard Viguerie

"Most recommendations you get about handling management are either useless or counter-productive. But in Monkey Business you get the best advice in the universe today," Paul Weyrich

Morton Blackwell, President of The Leadership Institute, writes about Monkey Business and the seminar,

There are three types of laws.

Man-made laws, the result of human legislation, vary from place to place and time to time. Some are wise. Some are foolish. Some are destructive. Some are unworkable and can't ever be enforced. Some only apply to specific categories of people...

We can build and fly an airplane, but we'd get into big trouble if we ignored or forgot the physical laws about how gravity affects all objects.

Similarly, there's a wealth of hard-won, trial-and-error knowledge about the world of human endeavor. Some actions produce better results than others. Those who would lead others in any activity, from politics to business, should seek out and study the best sources of wisdom about what makes someone a successful leader...

Think deeply about the principles presented. Everything you hope to achieve in your current job and all future jobs may depend on your understanding and application of this wisdom.

Posted at 10:40 PM | Permalink
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When a person of note is covered by the media in Your Nation's Capital, three questions are asked by the victim:

1) Is there a picture?

2) Is it above the fold?

3) Is the story running on the weekend?

Lurita Alexis Doan If the newspaper publishes a picture of the person above the fold, then the media outlet is creating the "legs" that the story will take. The media outlet is helping to make the story, the story. And bleeding will follow. Because...

If it bleeds, it leads.

Lurita Alexis Doan, the top executive of the General Services Administration came to DC to make a difference after making a buck. In her old position running a for-profit technology company, she was most familiar with selling to the government and creating wealth and generating jobs.

She knows how to create wealth with efficient and effective management. But there was one skill set her new job in Government required that few for-profit businesses cover in management training:

Multiple points of accountability.

It was not enough for Doan to lead the billion dollar agency, manage her staff, boss and peers, and customers. She also had to manage the press, the public perception, and now, as we have all read, she must deal with the initiative-killing-congress in the person of Henry Waxman.

Representative Waxman is accusing Lurita Doan of a laundry list of offenses, but the most interesting is violating the Hatch Act.

Alert Reader Tom Commented,

Please accurately present facts, in particular the provisions of the Hatch Act. You clearly omit the prohibitions relevant to Ms. Doan's violation: that no employee may engage in political activity while on duty or in a government office. The Hatch Act prohibits far more than the 3 actions you list...

Lurita Doan's Hatch Act "violation" is no worse than driving down Constitution Avenue with a Bush bumper sticker.

Your Business Blogger knows a bit about the line that separates public service as a govenment appointee receiving a government paycheck, and electioneering.

Lurita Doan has been coloring well within the lines of The Hatch Act. At least much better than Your Business Blogger.

Because, unlike Lurita Doan, I inadvertently fudged the line. At least according to the Richmond Times Dispatch.

A number of years ago I sent out an invitation to friends to attend a fund raiser, from my spacious government office. Your Business Blogger,

Used a government computer

Fund raised for a particular candidate

In an election

I goofed. As RTD's Tyler Whitley quickly wrote. But it was not above the fold, there was no picture, and the article was mid-week, but, thankfully, small. I was a dummy and got off light.

Doan is innocent and being condemned under The Hatch Act.

The Hatch Act of 1939 is arcane; difficult to understand and frightfully easy to misinterpret. Think IRS regulations.

But, there was no attempt on her part of using the agency or anything else to compel employees to do any partisan activities.

She made a statement that 6 people apparently heard and 30 people did not.

It was not her meeting, it was set up by her White House liaison and she was not aware of its contents beforehand. She readily admits she should have asked more questions. Of course, these are political appointees and they are allowed leeway in meetings at government buildings. She should have understood the nature the meeting before attending or making any statements. She has since taken steps to make sure all meetings are vetted through counsel and through her ethics staff.

No, Doan is not in violation. This is simply a witch hunt on the part of Democrats to get to the White House. And Democrats imply that only the GOP is being political. Lurita Doan has been caught in the middle of participating in this meeting and possibly making the statement on helping candidates -- remember: Doan does business, not politics. But, she certainly has not advocated or pushed the GSA employees to do anything in an election.

An election that is still a year and half away.

The issue is more than any confusion over The Hatch Act. The Democrat attack machine sees Lurita Alexis Doan as a two-fer:

1) A George Bush appointee, and

2) A business person.

The liberal media and liberal Democrats don't care for either.

Dan Gainor
Director Business and Media Institute I had lunch the other day with Dan Gainor, pictured at left, below the fold, who is the The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow and Director of the Business and Media Institute -- a part of Brent Bozell's Media Research Center. I ask him about the liberal bias -- the media bias against businessmen. "Nearly every businessman is shown by Hollywood to be a crook, or worse," says Gainor. Portraited as monsters. Or hypocrites, like, say, a church-going thief. As he writes in Bad Company: For the American Businessman, Primetime is Crimetime,

One enduring American cultural image is the man in the gray flannel suit. A businessman, with briefcase in tow and tie crisply knotted, who left the family for an honest day's work and eventually returned home worn and weary. But TV long ago abandoned that icon and replaced it with the stereotype of corporate evil.

And Democrats believing this script -- and all that flickers for truth in Hollywood -- hate Bush, hate capitalism, hate businessmen.

Lurita Alexis Doan knows how to make money in the Free Market and is on the Bush management team. Making Doan the (immediate) target.

Capitalism bested communism. But Capitalism and Business will have a bigger challenge with liberal Democrats like Henry Waxman in Congress.

Thank you (foot)notes:

See Christopher J. Dorobek's take at the jump.

See Lurita Alexis Doan: Good Management Meets Bad Politics

And How To Cut The Federal Budget at a Government Agency by Lurita Alexis Doan

Did Doan understand The Manager’s Mission? Bob Novak indicates that Doan clearly does not enjoy the support of her management molecule: Boss, Peers, Staff, Customers. See Hatch Act Hatchet Job.

Testimonial Two-Step has more on DC tactics.

Also see NewsBusters for exposing and combating liberal media bias.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 2:47 PM | Permalink
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Homosexuals at sea The Other Side of the Story

by Allan Slaff

On 13 June, the Wall Street Journal printed an op-ed piece by former congressman Bob Barr entitled “Don’t Ask, Who Cares” in which he argued that barring homosexuals from openly serving in the military was unfair, un-American and counterproductive. Mr. Barr writes that he has become deeply impressed with the growing weight of credible military opinion which concludes that allowing gays to serve openly in the military does not pose insurmountable problems for the good order and discipline of the services. With all due respect to the two authorities that he refers to, ex Senator Simpson and General Skalikeshveli, both of whom I greatly admire and respect, neither of them have any first hand idea of the sociological problems of going to sea in a man of war.

I strenuously disagree with Mr. Barr and his military authorities, and I would like very much to offer “The other side of the story”. Since I am a retired naval officer, I shall write to what I know well and that is going to sea in a man of war. I served in eleven ships of the Navy and had the unique honor of commanding four combatants including the heavy guided missile cruiser Albany all of which, by the way, were at the time considered among the finest combatants in the Fleet.

In a combatant ship our bluejackets are literally packed into berthing compartments, typically holding about 40 men. They are afforded minimum privacy even under the most enlightened habitability standards. As a nod for the need for some human privacy the modern enlisted bunks are fitted with a privacy curtain which they may close. Public nakedness is the reality of enlisted life in Navy ships and that pertains to the heads, and wash and shower rooms as well.

Our ships get underway for months at a time. The typical deployment when I was in the Fleet was for nine months and I understand that that is still typical. Thus, those compartments become the bluejackets’ home for very long periods of time. There is no such thing as going home ashore after your watch or if you are in a liberty section so that you may enjoy the company of your homosexual partner. There are of course occasional liberty ports but liberty for enlisted personnel usually expires in the late evening. The Fleet doesn’t even enter port for replenishment. All of that is done underway.

Now assign a few homosexuals into that living compartment when all of them including the homosexual are very young and when their hormones are at their most powerful and you have an invitation to disaster. It would be akin to inserting a few heterosexual males into an all female compartment where nakedness is a way of life and sending them off for months at a time. Impossible! And thus it would be exactly the same for the homosexual in a heterosexual male compartment.

As Mr. Barr correctly points out, the homosexual has as fine an intellect as the heterosexual. They thus eventually and inevitably they will be advanced in rating. As petty officers they will be in a position of powerful authority over men of lesser rating and thus in a position to exert exquisite sexual pressure on their subordinates.

For these very apparent sociological reasons it would be a disaster to change the present policy. It would reap havoc on the fighting efficiency of the Fleet and good order and discipline so necessary in a man of war. It just cannot happen.

Allan Slaff

Thank you (foot)notes:

Allan Slaff submitted this letter to the editors of The Wall Street Journal.

Credit to John Howland at USNA At Large.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:19 AM | Permalink
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Tomorrow, Tuesday 22 May, Charmaine will be on MSNBC to debate parental leave. Alert Readers will remember that this was the subject of her doctoral dissertation. Hit times will be 9:30 and 10:00 in the morning. Please tune in and let us know what you think.

Barry Lynn
Americans United for the
Separation of Church and State Charmaine Yoest, appeared on MSNBC on May 17th, 2007 to discuss a move in Texas to encourage marriage counseling for couples seeking a marriage license. She was up against Rev. Barry Lynn. Forgive the click thru on the Family Research Council site.

Being a good spouse.

And again here Should the Government Interfere with Marriage?

The third segment pits Charmaine up against our libertarian friends at the CATO Institute, David Boaz, Executive Vice President.

Posted at 7:31 PM | Permalink
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Start Up Spark has the Carnival of the Entrepreneurs #22.

See the 3rd edition of the Carnival of Wealth Building

Birth of Your Home Office, Blog Carnival #4 is at Home Office Women.

Verve Coaching, Revolutionary Thinking, Cutting-Edge Training, and Expert Advice for people and organizations, has the Carnival of Powerful Living - May 21st, 2007

Get some history at the 2nd Carnival of Principled Government, Axioms of a Free Society.

Posted at 8:02 AM | Permalink
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Evil HR Lady has answers for human resource management,

Mistakes can lead to success...
Really.

"Why am I evil? Well, I'm not, but that's the perception of all of us in HR. Need to fire someone? Come to HR. Need to explain to someone why, even after working their rear end off all year, that their annual increase is 2.7%? Come to HR. Need to come up with new mountains of paperwork? Come to HR. So, come join me on the Evil Side. Oh, and send me your HR questions."

See her edits and editorials at Carnival of Human Resources #5, and be sure to read Delegation as a Leadership Style, From Susan M. Heathfield, and her Tips for Effective Delegation. With good advice. If every manager delegated properly and treated his desk like a pyramid, Your Business Blogger would have fewer clients.

Or maybe all managers should be sociopaths.

See The Carnival of Australia and learn what ANZAC Day is. Aussies are allies.

And bookmark The Integrative Stream, who is hosting the Carnival of the Capitalists. (I will 'roll 'em, as soon as the Panzer Commander unlocks by blogroll...) William Crawford has,

been a software developer, a manager, a Chief Technology Officer and an author of books about enterprise computing. In 2006-2007, I spent a year working on Healthcare Information Technology policy issues at the United States Department of Health and Human Services, in the Office of Policy at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the largest healthcare payor in the world.

Right now I’m focused on industry liaision activities for the Harvard Medical School Center for Biomedical Informatiocs, and am an MBA candidate at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. I’m also an SM candidate in the MIT Biomedical Enterprise Program, which focuses on bringing together management and scientific professionals to create innovative biomedical businesses. You can never have too many graduate degrees.

And while at the Carnival visit Wayne Hurlbert, who reminds us in Preventing mistakes: Creativity to the rescue

"All business owners and managers make mistakes. In fact, if no mistakes are made, nothing is being done in the business at all. Literally.

Fear that one's mistakes leads to immediate dismissal simply locks down the company. No one will suggest any new ideas, and will revert to covering the backs and keeping their heads down. Entrepreneurs should welcome innovation and fresh, creative ideas. Forward thinkers and innovators should be rewarded and encouraged to seek new solutions to the organization's problems. Mistakes will be made. The key is to keep the errors small, and to learn from the experience."

Wayne gets it right, as usual. Benefit from his wisdom, which is interesting, since he makes few mistakes. Read him.

I usually recognize a mistake... the second time I make it.

Posted at 11:03 AM | Permalink
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FOX News Charmaine recently appeared on FOX News Sunday to discuss the data and wisdom and public policy of day care.

She is debating a professional who loves day care.

Charmaine reviews the data that confirms the mother's intuition that the more time a mother spends with her child, the better the child will be. The better the world will be.

Moms know best. Who knew?

Child care liberal feminist activists take the other side. So that women can make money. Because money, to feminists, is the most important thing in the world...besides sex. And power.

(Money, Sex, Power. Liberal feminists would do well to remember a Democratic President who warned against this trifecta: Harry Truman.

Three things ruin a man

power, money, and women.

I never wanted power.

I never had any money,

and the only woman in my life is up at the house right now.

He also dropped the Atomic Bomb...my kind of guy.)

Anyway. Charmaine's short clip is available here. Please forgive the extra click thru on the Family Research Council site.

Thank you (foot)notes:

See: Emptying the Nest: Does Day Care Work?

Lauren Bacall and Harry Truman
As a child, Truman would wake at 5am to practice Chopin.
The piano player can get the girl, as I tell my sons,
Practice chop-sticks and get the chicks. Also see: Women's Work: A journalist warns women that once they leave the career track, they may never get back on, in The Washington Post.

Posted at 7:36 AM | Permalink
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Your Business Blogger once partnered with a former McKinsey Consultant, a brilliant mind with a Ph.D. in Math from Columbia. I once wondered aloud why McKinsey, indeed all big business seemed to be confused conservatives.

If you are in business, doing business, creating wealth -- you must be a Calvin Coolidge conservative GOP'er. Right?

"Silly knave," says my elder, better business partner. "Businesses always start out conservative -- but turn liberal as they get bigger." Then he launches into correlations and matrixes and standard deviations, proof theorems for the evolution from small government business conservative to big government business liberal elite.

Someone should write a book, I thought. And warn us.

Someone has.

Tim Carey has written the Big Ripoff.

Tim Carney

Tim's thesis is that Big Business actually embraces and welcomes Big Government regulation to install barriers to entry to hinder smaller competitors.

Big Government has become the enabler of, and provided of a competitive advantage for Big Business.

Liberal elites in business are more interested in protecting a current position than in encouraging innovation, especially if the new ideas come from outside the company. (Goodness, Big Business doesn't care for innovation inside their companies.)

And like true progressives these days, the author, the topic, the debate is blasting at the Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC 2007 in Your Nation's Capital.

CPAC 2007

Big Ripoff
by Tim Carney
Published by Wiley

Tim was a panelist at CPAC debating America's Business Elites -- Do They Really Believe in Free Enterprise.

After Tim's compelling presentation, it is clear that Big Business Elites are not good for business.

Posted at 4:47 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Your Business Blogger
at Stern Business School, NYUYour Business Blogger teaches management training. But there is no need to sit in my class, just visit An Interview with an Honest Manager.

To be a great manager, you must be a sociopath. Yes, The Devil Wears Prada. And ask Hugh MacLeod.

Let me know if you have ever had such an Honest Boss.

(Please, no hate mail...especially if you worked for me.)

Thank you (foot)notes:

From Hanan Levin at growabrain. Bookmark him -- He is everyone's favorite liberal.

Posted at 9:08 PM | Permalink
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Mitt Romney Charmaine will be on NBC News Tonight to discuss the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.

Hit time is 7pm for Washington, DC. Check local listings.

The true measure of a leader is what he says, of course. But also what he does and who he hires.

As Ronald Reagan said, Personnel is Policy.

Who would Romney hire?

Ronald Reagan and Charmaine

Thank you (foot)notes:

Full Disclosure: Charmaine served as a political appointee in the Reagan administration.

Posted at 2:57 PM | Permalink
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The late Les Aspin
Father of
Don't Ask; Don't Tell Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue, often shortened to Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) is one of the most confusing and contentious regulations defining the ban on homosexuals in the military.

Today's underlying basis for the ban on homosexuals was outlined in 1982. Later, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin in 1993, during the Clinton administration, confirmed and repeated earlier findings that,

homosexuality is incompatible with military service.

The Department of Defense Directive, 1332.14, 28 January 1982, said,

The presence of such [homosexual] members adversely affects the ability of the Military Services to maintain discipline, good order, and morale; to foster mutual trust and confidence among service members; to ensure the integrity of the system of rank and command; to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of service members who frequently must live and work under close conditions affording minimal privacy; to recruit and retain members of the Military Services; to maintain the public acceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security.

The difference between the homosexual ban cited in 1982 and in 1993 is that the current policy restricts asking recruits or active duty service members about their sexual preferences.

The DADT regulations are enforceable, but they are not Federal law.

Clinton’s DADT policy is a set of campaign-promised regulations that confuse the meaning of the exclusion law. And it causes more problems that it attempts to solve.

Hilary Rodham Clinton, then-President Al Gore and President Clinton have admitted that DADT was a failure.

The DADT regulations should be repealed.

The homosexual exclusion law should remain.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Your Business Blogger is a former Army Captain in combat arms and is proud to serve as the Vice President for the Center for Military Readiness.

Stanford has links.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 7:10 PM | Permalink
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Work hard, nose to the grindstone, work long hours -- and you will succeed.

This is a lie.

Further,

Mae West Everyone does it. And no one seems to want to stop.

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful, said Mae West.

Or is it?

An unusual trend among working people, is that people love to work and spend a lot of hours at the work they love. Every small business owner I have ever advised worked non-stop. And perhaps complained. And then would ask me about that work-family balance nonsense. But soon would excuse herself to answer an important cell call. (There are no unimportant cell phone calls.)

Non-stop work is bad for your health and bad for your productivity.

Studies show that working 21 continuous hours has the same effect as being drunk. Yes -- working too much is a real high.

Among industrialized nations, none work more hours than the US of A. The two-martini lunch has been replaced with jolts of caffeine; to stay awake. Americans don't drink to escape from work and sleep; we remain at work awake and become drunk. Intoxicated with labor. Starbucks has replaced Archie's Bar.

And no one works harder or more hours than the boss. And you, the small business owner, will openly admit to working harder and more hours than any one.

Martyr.

(No one likes martyrs, that's why they killed so many of them.)

Your Business Blogger would suggest that business productivity and employee health can be improved by working fewer hours.

Heresy.

I know. I wouldn't want to stop either. But I have a trick. An answer to those 60-hour work weeks.

Put those hours into 6 days; not 7. Take a day off. Yes, yes, one whole day.

Stay with me now. Businesses actually have this as policy.

Chick-fil-A, with 1,250 restaurants and sales of almost $2 billion, takes a day off: closing up on Sundays.

Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, made the decision to close on Sunday in 1946 when he opened his original restaurant...in Hapeville, Georgia. He has often shared that his decision was as much practical as spiritual. Operating a 24-hour a day business left him exhausted. Being closed on Sunday allowed him time to recover physically, emotionally and spiritually...

It doesn't have to be a Saturday or a Sunday. When I was working restaurants I took Tuesdays off. It matters not the day.

But pick a day. Then don't work it.

Many business owners have pestered Your Business Blogger for a set of rules on what is work or not. Because work and play are the same for all North Americans. My only suggestion for your weekly day off:

Be Unproductive.

Chick-Fil-A
Family Friendly Leave productivity and production and whatever work is to the other six days. On that one special day: give it a rest.

Oddly, I would suggest no prohibition on exercise. We should sweat on our day of relaxation. (This is America.) Sweating and exercise are acceptable unless your day job is in the NBA or the Golf Pro Tour.

And to make sure it works, find a friend who will hold you accountable. Which you should be doing for business, anyway.

Be accountable to your private board of directors or mentor. Or better: spend the day with kith and kin. You will be more productive -- in work and perhaps, in your marriage.

So. To be more productive. Do nothing, one day a week.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Chick-fil-A was just recognized by the Family Research Council for a family friendly; marriage friendly workplace. More at the jump.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 10:54 PM | Permalink
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Truth
Sculpture by
Gianlorenzo Bernini
1652 An ancient Jewish Proverb goes He that covers his sins shall not prosper. There seems to be a disturbing trend that hiring managers are facing: job candidates who lie.

Director Mitch, The Window Manager, one of the best business blogs in the business, had a reader in a job interview with a dilemma:

How should a job candidate handle embarrassing, possibly unethical questions from a hiring authority?

He gives three interesting options. "I see the hiring process as a battle with HR and will use any means, fair or unfair, to trip them up," says Mitch. That's because he views questions about why any employee who left a previous job as "unethical" to begin with. So Mitch asserts that an unethical question does not deserve an ethical answer.

Your Business Blogger is not so sure.

I once asked my favorite management guru, Bill Oncken, about the challenge of dealing with supervisors who cross ethical lines from right to wrong. His wise advice was to separate, or fire, or not hire, or run away from any hint of a lack of character.

Only deal with people with integrity, says Oncken; who is filthy rich and never married with no hungry kids who need shoes and private schools. (His hobby is skydiving -- out of boredom, I believe.)

But as the Window Manager outlines, sometimes you really, really need the job.

We've all been there. Sometimes we rationalize that ". . .the HR kumquat is a jerk who didn't ask a fair question, or a legal question, . . . and no one will ever find out if there's fudging on the job application. Evil deserves contempt. (Anti) Personnel departments don't actually add value to a company, anyway." Or so the thought goes.

When faced with an unethical boss or an unethical hiring manager, Bill Oncken, author of Managing Management Time, suggests leaving immediately. Even when the hit hurts your wallet.

"Sometimes," Oncken says, "You have to finance your integrity."

And this requires monetary as well as emotional maturity that not all of us possess.

I would not recommend lying as a response to any question, no matter how awful or illegal the interrogation. But Mitch does suggest humor or a superlative as a possible way out of troubling questions. As in "I took time off to train for my ascent of Everest." Or something like that.

Humor is a dodge that Your Business Blogger used to use. My heartfelt response to questions about my misspent youth is, I'm not responsible for anything that happened during the Nixon Administration.

If humor or deflection does not work -- that last sentence never worked for me -- brutal truth might be necessary.

Years ago, I was once fired by a company - twice - in the same month, both times by fax, the insulting medium of the day. I would always reveal this firing whenever asked. I would explain that it was the dangerous downside of working for thinly capitalized companies in trouble. And my explanation had the added benefit of being true.

I would always get the hard stuff out of the way soonest. I would put it all on the table. Just as sales pro's know: Whoever raises the objection, owns the objection. And get the "no's" out early.

On my hiring travels as interviewer and --ee, I've learned that there are two kinds of problems: big and small.

Many small problems perhaps can be side-stepped - without being untruthful, like my little incident deep in North Carolina. (Hint: Never throw drink bottles from a '57 Chevy at high speed.)

Early in my career, whenever that "Were you ever arrested?" silly question would come up, I would always write in NA. Drag racing on the interstate highway system was truly "Not Applicable" to the entry level sales job I was hunting. And if any explanation was required, I wanted to do it in person, rather than be eliminated by rote in HR. A face-to-face sales presentation has the highest close rate.

Fortunately, I don't have big problems, like a felony conviction, but the terminations come close. I have been fired more times than any single reader of this reputable blog. Goodness, I'll bet I've been fired more than ALL you readers combined, including Rush Limbaugh.

But there is hope for big problems on this side of eternity: Find a Friend. Any real position or client these days will be 1) A created position, 2) In high technology and 3) With someone you know.

Clients and projects and employment come these days through a network of friends and contacts. Who love you.

Like I do.

And that's no lie.

To thine own self be true,
and it must follow,
as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man. Shakespeare.

So. When to lie? Let slip a little fib?

Never.

Don't bear false witness -- even about yourself.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

It is not known if Rush Limbaugh actually reads this blog.

Posted at 3:09 PM | Permalink
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An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest said Ben Franklin. And sometimes learning a skill will pay off in ways unintended and unanticipated.

My favorite interview question is to ask candidates what their high school dream was. What did they want to do, what did they want to be. The best candidates -- by that I mean the most contented candidates, have a thread in their lives of what they wanted to do back then and what they are doing today.

An expert interviewer, like Your humble Business Blogger, can discern the contentment and the fire in the belly of the job candidate, by analyzing any gap between high school plans and the current stage in life -- I find that the larger this gap, the more unhappy the candidate. Unhappy candidates make for unhappy employees.

Critics of this crazy question accurately say that technology, markets, the world have changed since we were in high school, back in the day. And they are right: the material world changes. Less so people. And what people love to do, and how each individual candidate would like to make a difference.

Here is my favorite example.

She was a competitive swimmer in her youth. And wanted to be a life guard. Her dream job that would make a difference. She trained, studied and was certified.

She found her calling; her vocation but she never found that job.

A disappointed teenager, she took a position as an Assistant Cashier in the athletic center at Camp of the Woods in Adirondack Park of upstate New York in June of 1982. She didn't get what she wanted, but at least she was near the water.

One afternoon while ringing up a sale, the young girl heard a commotion from the pool behind her across the hall.

A woman was just pulled from the pool. Limp, on her back turning blue. Not breathing. Stunned on-looking bystanders frozen. Inaction.

The teenage girl darted to the woman. Started mouth-to-mouth. The woman moved, struggled, gagged, puked and breathed.

Our teenager never got exactly the job she wanted; that job she trained for.

But her education did pay off. Expecially for one swimmer visiting Adirondack Park.

Training is never wasted.

Today that teenage girl, now a mature woman, lives out her high school dream making a difference in a big, dramatic vocation before an on-looking crowd of millions. She wanted to make a difference in a unique way. And does so today.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

The management at the resort was concerned that the near death by drowning would cause adverse publicity, I suppose. The life-saving event was never reported. Bad for business, you see. Our young heroine was never thanked.

And she doesn't want to be thanked now. And really doesn't want this blogged. (But that's what husbands do.)

Posted at 7:10 AM | Permalink
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NOW Chapter President
Desiree Nall
Admitted Rape Hoaxer It is a lie, that women never lie.

And when it comes to rape, women tell the truth about half the time.

Which creates a problem for law enforcement. When a woman cries, "Rape," a crime has been committed. The challenge for cops is, who is the criminal -- the man or the woman? Either a rape has occured. Or a slander has occured. The police officer could flip a coin to determine truth with equal statistical probability.

Or could he. Are there other indicators that law enforcement could use to determine the likelyhood of the crime of rape?

Elaine Donnelly, to whom I report to at the Center for Military Readiness has Sex, Lies, and Rape: How to Distinguish Truthful Allegations form False Ones.

She cites Eugene J. Kanin, Ph.D. and Charles P. McDowell, Ph.D. who have made a number of studies involving women who claimed rape, then recanted the charge -- even under the criminal penalty of filing a false report.

Bottom line: Some women lie. Here's how the legal eagles spot the liars:

1) Revenge -- Is the girl out to get even with a man or boyfriend?
2) Alibi -- Does the girl need an explanation for having sex?
3) Emotional Instability -- Does the girl have problems or a desire for attention?
4) Timeliness -- How long did she wait to report the crime? -- Some women take a year to file a police report.
5) Physical Evidence -- There may not be any.
6) Self Inflicted Wounds -- But never sensitive areas: no lips, eyes, gentialia, nipples.
7) Incapacitated -- Drunk or drugged remembering few details.

These clues are merely clues, but can help alert investigators on the credibility of a complainant.

Donnelly quotes Warren Farrell, a former board member of the National Organization for Women who matured from a male feminist to an advocate of truth and equality that does not discriminate against men,

False accusations are not a rarity, they are themselves a form of rape...

But not all NOW-ists have so matured. Wendy McElroy writes about one Desiree Nall, that,

On April 8, [2005] the president of the Brevard, Fla., chapter of the National Organization for Women was charged by the Florida state attorney's office with filing a false rape report and making a false official statement.

She could be imprisoned for one year on each count and forced to pay for the police investigation she incurred. The case has far-reaching implications for gender politics and for women who report sexual assault in the future.

And the NOW chapter president recanted; the rape was a hoax, McElroy continues,

According to police, on Nov. 19, Nall phoned and asked to have the case dropped. When Detective Jon Askins questioned her original report, Nall reportedly confessed that she was "not a victim of a sexual batter." The police speculate that Nall, a vocal feminist, may have been trying to "make a statement" about violence against women. The alleged rape occurred during Sexual Assault Awareness Week, which was intended to highlight the issue of sexual violence against women.

As feminist Cathy Young correctly says,

We need a serious, honest, open discussion on false accusations of rape. Being able to accuse someone of rape is a form of power (of course that's true of any accusation, but a charge of rape packs a unique emotional and legal punch); and it would be naive to expect women never to abuse the power they have, just as it would be naive to expect it of men.

Our feminist friends should join us conservatives to focus scarce law enforcement resources on the actual crimes of criminals. And not waste time with liars, hoax-ers and false accusers.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Your Business Blogger is proud to serve as the Vice President of the Center for Military Readiness.

Elaine Donnelly is quoted in Martha Mendoza's AP Probe Looks at Recruiting Misconduct.

Wendy McElroy writes False Rape Accusations May be more Common Than Thought in Fox

Alec Rawls has clear thinking on the science.

Glenn Sacks is re-running an interesting column on Research Shows False Accusations of Rape Common.

Army veteran Billoblog has insight at False Rape Accusations Are Not Rare.

Cathy Young has Who says women never lie about Rape? in Salon. Cathy Young blogs and has a post on Rape, lies, and videotape.

Columbian Journalism Review has analysis.

Alas (a blog) has False Rape Reports.

Update 19 Sept 2006 -- Also see another 'Victim" in the Washington Post.

Posted at 8:17 PM | Permalink
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Microsoft has one real point measurement for hiring.

IQ

Your Business Blogger has hired (computer) coders, sales reps...and government bureaucrats.

When given the option of head count and budget flexibility, I always recommended to my managers to hire the most expensive talent possible -- the Super Stars.

Even when hiring government workers.

Into Good and Evil reminds us that when talent really counts, when talent determines life and death, who would get hired? He points us to Professor Kingsley Browne in The Ace and the Turkeys,

"Given the cognitive and temperamental patterns required, it is not surprising to find that the ability to fly aircraft successfully in combat is an ability that not many have. Indeed, it is not an ability that even all combat pilots have. Aviation analysts recognize that the majority of combat kills are scored by a small minority of pilots. Mike Spick has observed: "The gulf between the average fighter pilot and the successful one is very wide. In fact it is arguable that there are almost no average fighter pilots; just aces and turkeys; killers and victims."

Fighter pilots, like sales guys in a role playing exercise, can practice and give a passable presentation, but,

As one Air Force pilot stated, "Most guys can master the mechanics of the systems, but it's instinctive to be able to assimilate all the data, get a big picture, and react offensively. Not a lot of guys can do that."

But the Air Force has a challenge most sales managers don't: Separating the Aces from the Turkeys,

Ideally, one would have only "aces" or "killers," leaving the "turkeys" and "victims" to another career path. The difficulty lies, however, in the fact that there is no known way to separate the aces and the turkeys prior to combat. Unfortunately, many of those who will end up being turkeys often do not know what they are getting into. These pilots may have the ability, intelligence, and know-how to fly the plane well, but they ultimately lack the "fighting spirit" that they will need in combat. " (Buffalo Law Review,Winter, 2001, 49 Buffalo L. Rev. 51,Women at War: An Evolutionary Perspective By Kingsley R. Browne)

But the hiring manager does have an advantage over an Air Force Wing Commander, the civilian Ace has a track record of Kills.

The best indication of future performance is past performance. Our armed forces are hampered by looking only to recent combat or aerial engagements -- and there aren't that many of those dogfights. The hiring manager has different metrics of combat measures for top business talent. Eat what you kill. Who had produced the best numbers?

In this human resource practice and strategy, there are down-sides as Anita Campbell, my editrix at Small Business Trends citing the Trizoko Biz Journal mentions. She and others make the valid point that Super Star and Aces are nearly impossible to manage. And, indeed, can only be managed by Super Star managers.

But if these crazy iconoclasts can be harnessed, a big 'if' to be sure, big numbers are sure to follow. For example, when I had a modest software company, I learned the hard way that a one genius coder was worth a half dozen coders. And not because he (and he was usually a 'he') was faster, but that his work was nearly bug-free. Which saved me from hiring three coders just to patch.

With my sales teams, Pareto's 80/20 Principle always played out. But the top guy, usually a deviant was always a standard deviation above the norm. My #1 sales guy was sometimes double the sales of #2, the rest of the sales team on the long tail. That #1 guy drove me nuts. But I loved his numbers.

And government bureaucrats? Goodness. I once had an agency head 'lose' a $100 million department. It was necessary to find it for obvious political reasons, but we only became aware of the lost unit because I was working the Y2K rollover and really needed to find all the laptops. We finally found it. Hidden away, quietly working away. And there were lots of good excuses why it was floating alone off on its own org chart, in its own universe. How they got paid is outside the scope of this post. I was assured that it was not illegal.

So Anita and Trizoko Biz are right, Super Stars are a pain.

But I wonder how many $100 million business units are lost. And could be found with a few dozen more IQ points.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Your Business Blogger's columns appear in Small Business Trends on Tuesdays and Small Business Trends Radio on Fridays. Please tune in.

Posted at 10:38 AM | Permalink
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Business on the ball,
outside the Ritz, Tyson's Mall,
Northern Virginia This weekend Charmaine was managing logistics for a presentation at the Council for National Policy near Your Nation's Capital. Her goal was to make her boss look good.

One of her concerns was the dependability of the hardware supporting a Powerpoint presentation.

We've all been there. Something always goes wrong. New surroundings. Strange equipment. In front of 1,000 critical sets of eyes.

But I told Charmaine not to worry. She's at the Ritz.

Years ago, I sat at the feet of the General Manager of the Ritz-Carlton for at TQM presentation. (Total Quality Management -- the management fads do come and go, no?)

The GM interviewed every hire in the hotel. In the hospitality business where turnover is a mess -- he beat the problem by hiring the best staff. And motivating them with,

"We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen."

When the Ritz pledges,

...to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests...

I believe them.

And it's not because the Ritz group are nice guys. They are in it to make a buck. Each employee has a $2,000 authority limit, no-questions-asked refund policy for guests.

Why? Is the Ritz giving away the store?

The upscale chain has determined that the life time value of a customer is $300,000. Solving a 1,000 dollar complaint instantly, is small change for a $300K customer.

The presentation went off without a hitch.

So the boss did a flawless presentation. He was, however, interrupted twice. Not with equipment malfunctions.

With applause.

Exceeding expectations at the Ritz.

The Penta Posse Posing ###

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Thank you (foot)notes:

This was an unpaid puff piece.

Man on a Mission reports that the Ritz has the best mission statement he's ever seen.

Posted at 10:27 AM | Permalink
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What were your
high school dreams? If you want to do well in job interviewing, get Smart.

No, not the secret agent. Get Brad. Brad Smart, Ph.D..

A friend from an Ivy League university group eMailed asking about interview questions a while back.

She wanted to be prepared. She knew better than to waste time asking job seekers stupid questions, So tell me about yourself...

There's a better way. Unless you really, really trust your HR department.

The best question, as Brad suggests is,

What were your career plans in high school?

For the interviewer, the easiest way to gauge compatibility is to determine the 'happiness' of the job candidate. If he's not happy were he is, he won't be happy were he's going.

I recommend these candidate contentment questions; a legal line of questioning:

Career Dreams...
behaving before shaving

Tell me about your high school days.

What did you want to be then?

What was your dream?

Yes. High School. All of life is high school. [sigh]

The rationale is that the closer the current position of the candidate to his High School dream, the more content the candidate is. You should only hire contentment. With fire-in-the-belly.

For example, take my favorite example, Your Business Blogger. I proclaimed in high school the desire to be a 'merchant.' A salesman. A peddler and presenter. Of intangible Big Ideas.

Today, for me: Nirvana. A consultant with a blog.

A review. Here's a quick three point landing for evaluating a job candidate:

1) Symmetry and chemistry
2) High school dreams
3) Track record

1) Don't fill the slot with a slut. In the job search, as in a search for the mother of your future children, symmetry and chemistry is fertile ground. And like getting married, this is the first hurtle in seeking and/or filling a position. It is a courtship dance of both parties on both sides of the interviewing table.

This was the one thing Jack Welsh didn't bother to quantify. (Except, maybe the slut part.) (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Although he could certainly justify his decisions. But the big decisions involved more than numbers. It was, well, a feeling. Welsh named his book after it: Straight from the Gut . It also can be called wisdom and judgment.

For example, anyone who retains Your Business Blogger would probably like this article: Dads, Death and Debt of Honor.

If you don't care for the article or the writing or my world view, you won't like me. And I won't care for you much either. Symmetry and chemistry.

2) Too cool for school. I was Co-Captain of our high school basketball team, a lifetime achievement once dismissed by a recruiter. His client didn't have a basketball team, he snorted.

Jerk.

He obviously did appreciate my leadership skills...so I didn't get the girls, the NBA didn't call, I didn't get the job. Ask about high school. Get ready for angst.

3) A reasonable rearview mirror. The final point is the easiest. The track record. Where the best indication of future performance is past performance. The easiest to measure. And verify through reference checks.

Even with candidates competing for entry level jobs, there should be few surprises on how the new hire will turn out. Hire character and integrity first. Job competence can be trained. Goodness, even gruff personalities can be coached. But counseled only on a firm foundation of Boy Scout qualities. Beyond knowledge, skills and abilities.

And there will be a test. At every open job position to be filled.

And you thought you were done with high school.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

The high school question comes from Jack Welsh's HR consultant, Brad Smart, Ph.D.. Yep, that's his real name.

And sometimes I suggest the opposite of symmetry and chemistry. See Hire the Homosexual.

More references and checklists at the jump.

Mediations has advice on blog skills helping student job seekers.

Mudville Gazette has Open Post.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 3:01 AM | Permalink
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Hire the Best People,
but don't get sued

The law is an *ss -- an idiot...
Charles Dickens

And don't get sued. It was like playing defense. You can't win it, but you can lose it.

Anyway, when interviewing job candidates, a series of trick questions are necessary to:

1) Get answers and
2) Stay within the Law

Sometimes mutually exclusive, because the law is, well, an *ss.

So. During the interview, I would say, not ask, to the job candidate,

"That is a beautiful ring [on the third finger on the left hand]..."

"I have the five best kids on the planet..."

"I love California! I was born in San Diego..."

"I've been married to Charmaine for 16 years this May..."

This work is best left to your anti-personnel, personnel department. The HR professionals have become as vital as lawyers. And can kill a contact or contract even faster.

Here's more from our friends at Military.com,

Illegal: Are you a U.S. citizen? Where were you or your parents born?

Legal: Are you authorized to work in the United States? What other languages do you speak? This question is okay as long as it relates to the job you are interviewing for.

Illegal: How old are you? When is your birthday?

Legal: Are you over 18 years of age? Again, this question is considered legal if it relates to the job.

Illegal: What's your marital status? Who do you live with? Do you plan to have a family? How many kids do you have? Do you have childcare arrangements?

Legal: Travel is an important part of the job, would you be willing to travel as needed?

Illegal: Do you belong to any clubs? What are your affiliations?

Legal: Do you belong to any professional trade organizations that you consider relevant to your ability to perform this job?

Illegal: How tall are you? How much do you weigh?

Legal: Are you able to lift a 50 lb weight and carry it more than 100 yards for this job?

Illegal: Do you have any disabilities? Have you had any recent or past illnesses or operations? If so, please list the dates of these operations.

Legal: Are you able to perform the essential functions of this job with or without reasonable accommodations?

Illegal: Have you ever been arrested?

Legal: Have you ever been convicted of a crime? The crime in question should be related to the performance of the job in question.

Illegal: If you've been in the military, were you honorably discharged?

Legal: What type of training or education did you receive in the military?

And this is why you will never hear back from a company about why you didn't didn't get that job. It is rude. But it's not personal. It's personnel, and

It's the Law. It has made us all *sses.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Photo credit US Navy.

And this is why managers are socio-paths.

Basil's Blog has a picnic.

Mudville has Open Post.

Posted at 7:50 AM | Permalink
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The West's Last Chance
by Tony Blankley Your Business Blogger and Charmaine had dinner with Tony Blankley, and a few other couples. I ask him about his days as press secretary for Newt Gingrich.

How Newt did his speeches. Did Tony write them?

"No." said Blankley, now the editorial page editor of The Washington Times. "Newt would sketch out ideas on a yellow pad in the back of the car on the drive to the event," said Tony. "He would modify his remarks to fit the [tone of the] audience -- but he always knew where he stood and what he would say." And so did Tony.

Tony warmed to the topic,

My job was easy. I could go immediately to the mics on Capital Hill after session and review what Newt doing and thinking. [President] Clinton's press people could never do that as fast, because they never knew where Clinton stood on any issue at any time. They didn't know what Clinton would think or [how to] react to any of Newt's proposals. [Clinton] was forever triangulating -- whatever the [heck] that is -- so his press people always had to wait for me to finish, then wait for Clinton to make up his mind on how he felt about an issue at any point in time....because his positions changed all the time.

Nobody on Clinton's team, including Clinton, had an internal compass; standards; core beliefs.

Blankley was reviewing the Ronald Reagan dictum that Personnel is Policy.

The dinner was arranged courtesy of the Harbour League based in Baltimore. Past guests have included Michelle Malkin and Grover Norquist.

If you are in the Mid-Atlantic area, do get on their good-guy list for upcoming events.

Here's the next gig.

The Harbour League Presents
From the Gulag to the Killing Fields
Featuring Dr. Paul Hollander, author of From the Gulag to the Killing Fields, -- holds degrees from the London School of Economics and Princeton University and is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is also an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. A widely published author, his books include Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society; Anti-Americanism: Critiques at Home and Abroad, 1965 -- 1990; and Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism.

Thursday, April 6th
7:00pm -- 8:00pm (Reception to follow)
Doors open at 6:30pm
Hilton Pikesville
1726 Reisterstown Road
Pikesville, Maryland

There is no charge for this event; however, RSVP is a must. Seating is limited and Harbour League members have priority seating. To RSVP please visit www.TheHarbourLeague.org or call 410-206-3445.

The lecture is free. And well worth your time.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

John MacStansbury says that Your Business Blogger is an inveterate name dropper. I don't know where he gets that. (He must have heard about my meeting Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell -- while they were dating! -- in the Presidential Box in the Kennedy Center years ago.) John is a good-guy, anyway, even if prone to exaggeration. He has interesting observations on Democrats. May not be workplace safe.

More on Blankley and the Harbour League at the jump

Continue Reading »

Posted at 6:05 AM | Permalink
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GoogleIn Chinese there is no word for "privacy."

Google's business practices in China are under question. In having a different product for different counties. I am not so sure Google is departing from a sound business theory. I think Google's strategy deserves a case study. On doing business in different cultures.

Yoest, Faisal Alam in
New Delhi, IndiaYour Business Blogger was in India working with North American and Indian managers. Having thrown off our British rulers, we still shared a common English language.

But cultural communication was another matter.

American managers were frustrated that Indian executives and staff were not always truthful.

Or so it seemed.

If a supervisor (of any nationality) would ask an Indian subordinate a closed question such as "Does the report include the budget from Bangalore?" The Indian subordinate reply always would be 'yes.' Even if the answer was 'no.' Accompanied by a side-to-side movement of the head -- which corresponds to the up and down affirmative head nod in America.

Was the Indian employee lying to his superior?

It depends on cultural perspective.

(Yes, yes I know -- Alert Readers know well that Your Business Blogger subscribes to Timeless Truth: Truth is not relative.)

But the Indian culture is one of deference and respect for authority. It is not within the languages or culture to say "no" to the boss. Immediate compliance -- obedience -- is something every boss, in every culture really wants -- but American's seldom openly admit.

The culture is different. Where change to USA standards should not be forced.

Supervisors working with Indian subordinates should only ask open ended questions. A question allowing something other than 'yes' or 'no.' "Show me the line item for employee taxi expenses for Bangalore."

The USA manager should understand also that the Indian manager will seldom say 'please' or 'thank you' to a subordinate.

Additional questions are time consuming. But necessary to do business across cultures. And to respect differences in culture and tradition.

I think we should ask more questions. And take the first step.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." says China's Confucius.

A single step from a single person. Countries don't do business. People do business.

President Nixon meets with
China's Community Party Leader,
Mao Tse-Tung on
February 29, 1972

Nixon went to China. Google went to China.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

In Chinese, in The Common Language (Mandarin) there are no words for "private" or "privacy" as we understand in English.

Mark at Mark My Words has commentary.

Continue Reading »

Posted at 7:31 AM | Permalink
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Fire Someone
TodayMy post on firing caused a firestorm. Let's review.

Getting Fired should never be a surprise.

The stock market and Bosses don't like uncertainty. Neither do Employees.

courtesy toothpastefordinnerExpectations, like people, must be handled carefully.

Your Business Blogger once worked with a Fortune 500 size organization. A particular termination stands out.

A senior manager committed a firing offense. He was counseled. Talked to. But then nothing happened. The employee thought the event was placed behind us all.

He was wrong.

The Boss made the decision, but didn't drop the axe. "He's gone, but doesn't know it."

Alert Reader Louis B writes:

I think the hard but right thing to do is fire people when the decision is made and manage the fallout or timing with the rest of the staff. And certainly fire people before they spend a lot of money at a time like Christmas.

The axed employee in our case study was not terminated for months. A dead man walking. Who didn't know it. Who could have been looking for a job. Saving his money. And unfortunately continuing his lifestyle, as in Louis B's example, in buying a new car.

The firing was a surprise only to him. His expectations were not managed.

And this is the lesson, the effect of The First Two Things a Female Manager Must Do -- fire someone; cut someone's budget -- To not surprise, not shock the organization, or the employee, but to be effective.

Nancy LaJoice, a manager at the Baltimore/Washington Corridor Chamber of Commerce, gets it right:

Wow! I am definitely...faint at heart stock. I find Kay's suggestions [fire someone on day one] as civilized as a dog marking his territory. At times it may be necessary, but as standard procedure, I can't even begin to agree.

In the Army, standard procedure taught that a sub-par efficiency report should never catch the soldier off-guard. Bad news does not get better with age. Constant counseling was demanded.

Firing a soldier is not an option for most military leaders. Summary execution, maybe, but not termination. Face a firing squad, not a firing.

So. This is the real challenge of female managers. Establishing dominance, as in Nancy's example; a dog marking her territory -- without becoming a b*tch.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

If you do business in and between Your Nation's Capital and Balitmore join the Baltimore/Washington Corridor Chamber of Commerce. I did.

Are Managers Sociopaths?

Posted at 6:43 AM | Permalink
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Kay Coles James
Former Director
of OPMMen and women are different, inspite of what feminists preach. And women must manage differently. Here's how to start.

Years ago I talked with Kay Coles James, who would eventually head the Office of Personnel Management for the Feds. I asked her about the challenges for new female managers.

I though she would recite the usual drivel of soft skills, empathy, sharing and caring. The girly stuff.

I was wrong. She hit me hard saying:

1) Fire Someone. And,

2) Cut Someone's Budget.

This is not for the faint of heart. And only a small, self-selecting group of women can handle such brutality.

But it is the best way for most women to be effective.

And not as bad as Your Business Blogger, or Kay makes it out to be.

Really.

On assuming any new position of responsibility, there will be necessary changes in personnel and budget allocation. Make those changes immediately on your arrival.

That will be the easy part.

The challenge is to negotiate up-front with the new boss as a condition on taking the new job. The new female manager should tell her superior that 1) she will be making changes, and 2) she must have her bosses' backing.

I always advise my clients that their new bosses know where the deadwood is and want improvements made. By the new guy -- girl. Odds are that the new female manager will be doing what needed to be done -- long before she was hired.

Kay is the woman's best example on breaking the glass ceiling. By breaking some china.

But don't do the firing at Christmas.

And call me to keep from becoming a sociopath.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Husband of Kay, Charles, swore me in as member of the Denis Thatcher Society. Contact me if you'd like to join. Or, rather, have your wife call.

Bob Pritchett has more advice. And check out his blog.

Full Disclosure: Charmaine used to work for Kay.

Visit Basil's Blog for good reads.

Posted at 10:06 PM | Permalink
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No, not parties with anticipated harassment and potential litigation.

No, December could always be counted on to be a quiet month for the head-counters. Two reasons.

1) No employee quits at Christmas -- all wait to collect the quarterly and year-end bonuses, then fly in January. And,

2) No employer fires at Christmas -- no heartless boss, no corporate Scrooge would put even the deadwood window managers out in the snow.

Until now.

Your Business Blogger, who has been accused of being a Window Manager, is learning that the Holiday Season has not been a reason for corporate courtesy.

Excellent people are getting canned at Christmas.

It was with great sadness that we learned that Mike Wallster's company was sold. The head-count became a body-count. At Christmas.

Mike writes at Penguin Poletariate and Ipso Facto.

These un-seasonal terminations keep the anti-capitalists in business. A Christmas Season's severing gives corporations and managers a bad name. Bad.

So let's attempt some holiday cheer, if possible. Visit Ipso Facto and leave Mike a comment of encouragement. And any job lead you might have. Or contract work.

Merry Christmas. Please.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Ipso Facto Archives

If you are on the job market, see my (free!) advice for finding your next assignment.

Thank you to the Coyote Blog for hosting The Carnival of the Capitalists.

Posted at 9:46 AM | Permalink
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Helen, second from left
with rifle "consulting" in Pakistan "How do you it all?" Accomplished women with kids constantly get this question.

Helen Philbrook, married and mother of three, from Raleigh, NC, has the answer.

Your Business Blogger recently sat down with Helen and her husband David to learn the secret.

She's a former Vice President of an environmental testing firm, and perhaps the world's first female "Smoke Stack Sniffer." She's run a number of start-ups.

But Helen says she's now "followed her passion to gardening." Her company Tiger Lily's is an award-winning firm that gives her what she needs most:

Flexibility.

She was well-prepared. Helen has an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Science, studied Garden Design in London, and completed a series of international consulting assignments. In a male-dominated business. Where she learned:

Negotiation.

The greatest challenge women face in business is learning to negotiate.

"I first learned to negotiate with myself," she says. "I made a decision to balance and to do what was really important for me: marriage and children."

But she also negotiates with her clients. Hard. She establishes upfront contracts with the explicit understanding that her family will come first.

Family.

The tipping point was an 11-day business trip. She left her then-only child with David, who arranged his schedule to be home. Everything went well. (David is that kind of guy -- with his own story.) Nothing went wrong. . . she just missed her daughter too much.

She was attempting the conventional time balance that she describes as, "Thirds, 1/3 husband, 1/3 children, 1/3 work. But something [had] to give." There weren't enough hours.

And Helen felt that, "Anything can happen with kids."

She now has a new view of the family dynamic. As a total household enterprise.

Helen, Vice PresidentShe says, "A family cannot have two corporate climbing spouses [with children]." So she re-calculated the 'Thirds Formula' to following Pareto's Principle of 80/20.

"One spouse has to give 80% to supporting spouse and children, leaving 20%, if that, for work," she says. Kids take time.

Children.

She is an advocate of "sequencing" for women -- marriage, children, work. Helen says a woman can always have an "ambitious career." After the kids are in school. She knows she will anger feminists.

Helen says about husband and wife as an economic unit that, "Somebody has to take the [minimum wage] bank-teller job," because kids change everything.

Looking for flexibility for her family, she used her negotiation skills and started another business to fit her own needs. It happens to generate a bit more than minimum wage, but money was not the goal.

She put her family first and income followed.

Helen's path to workplace independence with flexibility, was not smooth. Twenty-something women could learn from her.

She has advice to young women starting out. Where the fear is that they will get behind the power curve. "Not so."

Helen says, "Your career is still waiting for you."

After your children.

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Thank you (foot)notes:

Full Disclosure: Helen is my sister.

No Speed Bumps has Women in Engineering.

Alas, a blog has Homeward Bound.

Basil's Blog has Breakfast.

Posted at 7:38 AM | Permalink
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Carnival of the Capitalists is up and hosted this week by The Entrepreneurial Mind, Jeff Cornwall. Blogroll him.

Posted at 8:03 AM | Permalink
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Jack & Charmaine with
Dr. Dobson & Mrs. Dobson
On his radio program this morning, Dr. James Dobson said that he feels confident about Miers' future performance on the Supreme Court and that she should be hired confirmed.

His outspoken confidence in her competence has reassured some of those concerned about installing Miers.

This is in stark contrast to hiring an employee where Your Business Blogger learned a painful lesson.

I had given approval to an international sales manager to interview candidates with a particular language skill. We evaluated a woman who claimed to have competency in speaking Mandarin Chinese.

The hiring manager spoke Cantonese and knew enough Mandarin to be dangerous. He tested her. She passed. She was selected.

But the manager was not as enthusiastic at the end of the selection process as I would have thought. There is usually some relief about getting a hiring decision completed. But not this time. The hiring manager's body language was odd; he avoided eye contact. His lack of satisfaction in a job well done should have been a red flag, but we were under other pressures -- the urgent pushing out the important as always.

Nevertheless, she was hired and brought on my payroll.

Mistake.

We quickly noticed her skills were sub par and I released her before too much damage was done. But considerable discretionary management time was consumed because we assumed, to my great embarrassment.

(This is a mistake which You, Gentle Reader would never make -- I merely provide the chance for mature readers of this column to gloat.)

This is the contrast between Dr. Dobson and my sales manager.

Dr. Dobson is providing the vocal and unequivocal endorsement of Miers that all new hires should have. New team members should be enthusiastically backed, and promoted, and celebrated.

My sales manager did not have Dr. Dobson's vocal enthusiasm for his candidate.

If my sales manager had wholeheartedly endorsed his recommendation with the same gusto as Dr. Dobson's support for Miers -- and likewise placed his reputation on the line -- I would have felt much better.

The business lesson is that any new addition to the team must have a champion willing to support and defend the new guy without hesitation. Press Release! Huzzahs! Round of applause for the FNG! (F-in' New Guy)

If not, stop and ask why.

No happiness at hire? Maybe I have the wrong hire, or the wrong manager.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Mudville Gazette has Open Posts. And visit My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy with more on the Miers conflict. Thank you to Soldiers' Angels.

See Basil's Blog with dessert.

Michelle Malkin has the best updates as always.

The Moderate Voice details the vetting process.

Charmaine has the political angle.

QandO has given up on Bush.

Posted at 1:35 PM | Permalink
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Napoleon was looking to fill a vacant general officer slot. His adjutant reviewed the candidate pool and reported on their knowledge, skills and abilities. Napoleon was not interested in curriculum vitas. He was interested in something immeasurable. He said:

"Give me lucky generals."

Your Business Blogger wrote recently on character and how character is identified in the hiring process. The decision maker needs to know about future performance based on more than past accomplishments.

Let us examine a case study of the 35th Chief of Staff, United States Army: General Peter J. Schoomaker.

Is this a man we would hire?

Following is a review of some of General Schoomaker's career highlights.

Desert One, Schoomaker

Schoomaker was a Major in Desert One in Iran under President Carter. He commanded a Squadron in the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment in the botched rescue attempt of embassy hostages in Iran, 1980.

Special Forces has a rather unforgiving policy for failure: one strike and you're out. This was not enforced for Schoomaker.

Waco, Schoomaker

Next stop, Waco, Texas. Working with General Wesley Clark as his Assistant Division Commander, Schoomaker met with Janet Reno, allowing the FBI use of Fort Hood. The tracked vehicles and military personnel present at the conflagration were Schoomaker's. Posse Comitatus? Promoted by Bill Clinton.

Women in Combat, Schoomaker

Schoomaker has implemented an unusual interpretation of President Bush's directive, and Congressional prohibitions, that women will not be placed in combat. Schoomaker circumvents the Commander in Chief and Congress by placing women in combat support positions in Forward Support Companies. Female truck drivers and Military Police are now in harm's way.

9.11, Able Danger, Schoomaker

And now, the latest chapter. Able Danger, and more burning buildings. Able Danger is the code name for a covert military intelligence operation. It succeeded. The 9/11 hijackers were identified before 9/11. Schoomaker was briefed. He knew. He said nothing. Schoomaker adhered to the the strictest interpretation of Executive directives and may not have informed the FBI of Jihadist threats.

Ed Morrissey, from Captain's Quarter's reports:

...the Pentagon has the most to lose if speculation that it deliberately withheld cooperation from the FBI when it could have stopped 9/11 is true, and that it has to answer for the destruction of the materials if the witnesses testify as expected.

Those decisions could involve high-ranking brass, such as Hugh Shelton (ret.) and Pete Schoomaker, and perhaps even Donald Rumsfeld.

Or perhaps they just involve second-tier leadership - which is why the Pentagon decided to reverse itself after seeing the public reaction to the aborted hearing Wednesday.

October 5th should be pretty interesting.

It matters little what Schoomaker's resume says. It contains much commendable, as his awards and citations prove:

General Schoomaker's awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, two Army Distinguished Service Medals, four Defense Superior Service Medals, three Legions of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals, two Defense Meritorious Service Medals, three Meritorious Service Medals, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, Master Parachutist Badge and HALO Wings, the Special Forces Tab, and the Ranger Tab.

In the end, it is his track record that matters. Would you follow that man out of a burning building?

Schoomaker, Peter J. is not a lucky general.

The Schoomaker career advance would be a case study on continued promotion in spite of these unusual setbacks. His life's work is an inspiration on success following continued failure and missteps.

General Schoomaker is a vignette on making a hiring decision -- evaluating what cannot be seen, and what can be seen all too clearly.

Every manager wants passion. Every manager looks to hire fire in the belly. Not buildings on fire.

Do not ignore red flags. No matter what the rank.

Managers, in the next interview you conduct, ask yourself this question with the candidate before you:

"Is this man lucky?"

TopDog08 has details of Able Danger.

Discerning Texan has conclusions.

The Strata Sphere has round-up.

Captain Ed has a detailed analysis at Captain's Quarters at Able Danger Foxtrot.

LawHawk has Able Danger: We deserve better.

TapScott's Copy Desk has What's Going On?

QT Monster's Place has videos.

Hack N Flack wrote on Able Danger -- including Human Events On Line.

Baldilocks has a number of postings.

MacsMind says the Matrix applies.

Washington Post has more.

California Conservative has Open Trackbacks.

Stop the ACLU has Open Trackbacks.

Cafe Oregano has open trackbacks.

bRight and Early has open trackbacks.

Jo's Cafe has open tracks.

Open Post at Mudville Gazette.

Posted at 7:39 AM | Permalink
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See how "Sarah" is getting it right. To get your next job, assignment or project PASS this test! See how the mythical composite Sarah learned new behaviors to find new opportunities.

As first appeared in The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, Virginia, January 20, 2002

To get a job, first get a plan and then get busy

by Jack Yoest

Two years ago Sarah, a technology worker asked, "How do I get a life?" Now she asks, "How do I get a job?" With unemployment the highest in six years, uncertainty has arrived this holiday season like the proverbial lump of coal: How would she find work?

Sudden unemployment, or looming job uncertainty, is one of life's great challenges. It's a stress test, but it's one you can learn to pass.

Here's how: use this coming New Year as an impending event to trigger the start of new behaviors. This is the time to be jolly, reduce uncertainty and increase paycheck security. Here's how Sarah, and you, will PASS this test!

Get a Plan. New Year's Resolutions notoriously never make it past the Super Bowl. So get a plan. Don't confuse the ultimate goal -- new job or new assignment -- with the individual steps you will take each day. Write down the actions you will do every day, every week.

PASSing involves managing behaviors, not goals. One of Sarah's action items was to shake ten hands at every event she attended.

Your Plan should be concrete and specific; your behaviors should be discrete and measurable: include numbers of phone calls, numbers of people you meet, number of letters you send. Numbers, Numbers, Numbers. This is important. What you count, counts.

Get Accountable. Find a friend and let them know your plan. Regularly update the friend who might be your spouse, relative, or bartender. This is the most difficult part of the process: ask for help and manage your mentor, someone who cares about you. If you can't find a mentor, email your plan to me. (I don't care about you either, but what works is telling someone what you will do and then reporting that you did it.) Asking for input is key -- people may not have a job for you, but they will always have advice.

Get Seen. The cliche is wrong: it's not

Continue Reading »

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The NCWIT
Brad Feld has about the best blog published for early stage companies. But I have a (rare) disagreement with him. The National Center for Women in Information Technology, NCWIT, appointed a male as the board chair. The gentleman, Brad reports, was the most qualified. And this may very well have been true.

But is competence the only criterion in hiring?

Equal Employment
Opportunity

Over the years, I have been confronted with this question. In two different companies, I hired a homosexual and a woman with serious health problems. In each hiring decision I had a short list of candidates who were nearly equal in knowledge, skills and abilities.

In these two instances I hired the second best resume.

I hired not the best resume, but the best person.

Another smart Brad, Brad Reynolds was Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under President Reagan. We once had a conversation about hiring practices. He gave me some sound advice:

When two identical candidates are being interviewed, choose the one who had to come over the roughest road to get to you.

So how hard was it for the job seeker to get in my office? What hurdles? What hassles?

Campaign for
Human Rights:
Group Rights vs.
Individual Effort

We hear a lot of blather about equal treatment for racial groups, equity for equity feminists, anyone in plaid pants. But there are individuals who have had unusual life challenges and have had to negotiate a more difficult trail.

I would suggest that a woman should have been selected to chair the women's organization, "to ensure that women are fully represented," as claimed in their mission statement. A woman rather a man because, I would submit, she had a tougher row to hoe to get to the candidate pool then to the board. A woman would have been the best person.

The characteristics that drove her to get herself in front of the selection committee, would be the very qualities needed to make the organization a success.

The NCWIC should have appointed a woman as chair.

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Integrity is still important

Every manager will one day soon need to give direction to his staff on the Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling of ... Web Logs. Every supervisor in any business from pipefitter to preacher needs Blog Management.

The self-policing of "a virtuous people" is necessary to avoid government oversight and intrusion. Or a visit by a camera crew from 60 Minutes.

Milton Friedman

Your Humble Blogger wrote on this virtue for The Scripps Howard News Service some years ago:

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman has said that a cultural prerequisite of capitalism is the holding of truthfulness as a common virtue. When you can trust a merchant's word, says Friedman, "it cut[s] down transaction costs." Without adherence to common moral principles we must substitute external controls to govern business behavior; efficiency demands a framework of standards and accountability.

Substitute "blogger" for "merchant."

Informal policy guidelines have already been published as many alert readers already know. Guidelines should be added to a manager's skill set.

Charlene Li at Forrester Research (a consulting firm with a blog) wrote on this last year.

Sample Corporate Blogging policy

1. Make it clear that the views expressed in the blog are yours alone and do not necessarily represent the views of your employer.
2. Respect the company's confidentiality and proprietary information.
3. Ask your manager if you have any questions about what is appropriate to include in your blog.
4. Be respectful to the company, employees, customers, partners, and competitors.
5. Understand when the company asks that topics not be discussed for confidentiality or legal compliance reasons.
6. Ensure that your blogging activity does not interfere with your work commitments.

She also outlines personal blog standards.

Sample Blogger Code Of Ethics

1. I will tell the truth.
2. I will write deliberately and with accuracy.
3. I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.
4. I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.
5. I will never delete a post.
6. I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.
7. I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.
8. I will strive for high quality with every post -- including basic spellchecking.
9. I will stay on topic.
10. I will disagree with other opinions respectfully.
11. I will link to online references and original source materials directly.
12. I will disclose conflicts of interest.
13. I will keep private issues and topics private, since discussing private issues would jeopardize my personal and work relationships.

A thank you note to Le Pen through Christian Connett at ReciprocityBlog.

The more we bloggers can maintain our own ethical standards, the less the public will need the heavy hand of the law, except, maybe for spell checking.

WizBang was studying blogging ethics a year ago.

CyberJournalist wrote in 2003 on Blogger's Code of Ethics.

USC Annenberg has Influence peddling, "Just don't call yourself a journalist when you're cashing that check." And points us to WOMMA.

BL Ochman has whatsnextblog writing on full disclosure.

See Blog Ethics who links to Rebecca Pocket posting weblog ethics.

daniweb has firing offense.

Tim Worstall has Blog Ethics from the NYT.

Cynthia Webb writes for Washington Post, The Great Blogging Ethics Debate.

The Jewish Ethicist posts, Is the blogger responsible for defamatory posts?

From Web Log Ethics Survey Results,

...the limited support from bloggers for a blogging code of ethics poses a serious problem for advocates of on-line social responsibility. If any inroads are to be made in terms of bloggers regulating themselves, consensus in the community must be developed.

Imprint has be honest and fair.

Martin Kuhn from UNC presented a paper at Harvard on blog ethics,

...it is shown that many bloggers have ranked "factual truth" and "free expression" as the two highest duties of the "good" blogger.

BuzzMachine has a review.

Analysis by Christine Hurt at Conglomerate. Thanks to Instapundit. And more. And links to Bill Hobbs.

Update 23 Sept 05: BuzzMarketingWithBlogs has powerpoints. Short and compelling.

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