How To Master Corporate Change - How To Stay @ Prime

One thing that I think is overlooked among many sharp business people today is that it requires an injection of certain vitamins into a stagnant or slow to grow corporation in order for it to thrive in the ever changing business environment today.

And so I introduce the PAEI Methodology by Ichaak Adizes. First of all, one thing about this man. When he was studying business @ Columbia, he came up with this methodology as his thesis. His professor said it was crap and that it would not work in the real world. Through the years, The Adizes Methodolgy has been implemented by many a Fortune 500 and even now, the governments of Brazil, Israel and many other countries. If I'm not mistaken management classes @ Harvard Business School are now taught from out of his books on Corporate Lifecycles and Managing Change.

A close family friend, I once went out to his certification course and was honored to stay at his house in Santa Barbara.

So the jist of it is this:

Every corporation, in order to stay healthy needs these 4 things (among others but most importantly)

Producer:

There always needs to be someone who is continuously producing for whatever strategy is put into place, to prove positive through fruition.

Administrator:

There needs to be a person (preferably a very sharp lawyer) who handles all of the administrative paper work, compliance issues, HR and so on.

Entrepreneur:

Somebody with vision who thinks outside the box. This person would likely be the founder or one of the Co-founders. Continuously seeing opportunity everywhere. Innovating things that weren't before fathomed to be innovatable(?).

Integrator:

This is super important because between some people sometimes there is friction. So the integrator is the one who puts the right ones in the right place to do the right jobs.

Many countries/corporations have come to realize the importance of this and are profiting from it. Now, so can you.

One The Most Useful/Interesting Pieces Of Marketing Information I've Ever Read

Here

Harvard Business School RESEARCH & IDEAS MOST POPULAR ARTICLES 2014

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES 2014

Reflecting on Work Improves Job Performance (How this wasn't already understood by people is beyond me)

New research by Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano, and colleagues shows that taking time to reflect on our work improves job performance in the long run.

Starbucks Reinvented

Nancy Koehn's new case on the rebirth of Starbucks under Howard Schultz "distills 20 years of my thinking about the most important lessons of strategy, leadership, and managing in turbulence."

The Manager in Red Sneakers (Standing out is key, Daniel Son)

Wearing the corporate uniform may not be the best way to dress for success. Research by Silvia Bellezza, Francesca Gino, and Anat Keinanshows there may be prestige advantages when you stand out rather than fit in.

The Role of Emotions in Effective Negotiations

Senior Lecturer Andy Wasynczuk, a former negotiator for the New England Patriots, explores the sometimes intense role that emotions can play in negotiations.

Managing the Family Business: Leadership Roles

Poorly designed leadership roles set up a family business for failure. John A. Davis offers a system that produces the decisiveness and unity needed for long-term performance.

Has Listening Become a Lost Art?

Managers may have ears, but do they use them? Jim Heskett's readers offer opinions on why listening might be a lost art.

The Surprising Link Between Language and Corporate Responsibility

Research by Christopher Marquis shows that a company's degree of social responsibility is affected by a surprising factor-the language it uses to communicate.

Why Do Outlet Stores Exist?

Created in the 1930s, outlet stores allowed retailers to dispose of unpopular items at fire sale prices. Today, outlets seem outmoded and unnecessary—stores have bargain racks, after all. Donald K. Ngwe explains why outlets still exist.

How Grocery Bags Manipulate Your Mind

People who bring personal shopping bags to the grocery store to help the environment are more likely to buy organic items—but also to treat themselves to ice cream and cookies, according to new research by Uma R. Karmarkar and Bryan Bollinger. What's the Quinoa-Häagen-Dazs connection?

Venture Investors Prefer Funding Handsome Men (Look up the Halo Effect)

Studies by Alison Wood Brooks and colleagues reveal that investors prefer pitches from male entrepreneurs over those from female entrepreneurs, even when the content of the pitches is identical. And handsome men fare best of all.

MOST POPULAR FACULTY WORKING PAPERS 2014

Learning By Thinking: How Reflection Improves Performance

Researchers Giada Di Stefano, Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano, and Bradley Staats focus on the reflective dimension of the learning process and propose that learning can be augmented by deliberately focusing on thinking about what one has been doing.

Management Practices, Relational Contracts and the Decline of General Motors

Conventional explanations for General Motors' decline are seriously incomplete, according to Susan Helper and Rebecca Henderson.

Learning from the Kursk Submarine Rescue Failure: the Case for Pluralistic Risk Management

The failure to rescue survivors from the sunk Russian submarine Kursk is explored by Anette Mikes and Amram Migdalpaper.

Better Deals Through Level II Strategies: Advance Your Interests by Helping to Solve Their Internal Problems (Duh)

While most of us focus on our own interests in negotiation, our counterparts are more likely to say "yes" to a proposal if it meets their interests. Research by James Sebenius.

Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces

How can managers create organizations that bring people together to successfully solve problems? Research on the potential downsides of "connectedness" by Jesse Shore, Ethan Bernstein, and David Laze. 

Source: Harvard Business School RESEARCH & IDEAS

A Word About Silence

From my time in Israel.

Xerxes Feat. Aleah - Inhale

Gillys 2014 Recap

Figured I'd toss some words around and write about the events of the past year since I'm bored and there were many significant ones.

So on Jan 2nd a bus fell off a cliff and killed 30 people in India Just imagine the free fall and then the power of inertia involved with taking the lives of 30 people. When thinking about this force being stopped it's 10 x worse than a head on collision because their met with the ground, which is firmer.

 Around 12 people were chillin eating popcorn in a movie theater on Feb 11th in Pakistan when someone tossed a grenade inside, apparantly peeved about the long previews (jk) and killed them all.

This group Boko Haram thinks the progress of stupidity is a good idea and so they went into a school and killed 50 students in Nigeria on Feb 25th.

 On March 1st a group of knife wielding, crazed nutjobs in a railway station in China chopped up and killed 29 people. I mean Jesus, think of a battle scene from out of one of those midevil films and you get an idea what it might have looked like. Compound that with the fact that the victims were NOT armed or even expecting such a thing.

A Malaysian airlines plane stopped blipping on the radar of air traffic commanders screens on March 8th and a long unfruitful search for the plane has been going on since. Later in the year another plane was shot down from the same airline. I think it's a bit of a coincidence that the head of the International Monetary Fund gave a speech a couple months before stressing and repeating the importance of the number 7 (which was in both planes flight numbers) over and over. Whomever might have gained from this act has gotten away with it.

On March 21st Russia decided to flex its muscles and swing its dick around the territory there, officially annexed Crimea, essentially telling Ukraine that they are their bitch. Later Russia, through the use of seperatists (as a front) even invaded and continues to abuse Ukraine.

See the media is awash with crap and so when important messages are delivered, not often are they taken seriously. Don't think that this is a natural phenomena, it is planned, it has been built this way so that when messages like this about what might happen because of climate change in 5-10 years don't cause much of a stir or a panic, as it should. Battles of power for food and water.

So, the worst disaster to ever happen on Mt Everest did this year on April 18th. A wickedly massive avalanche killed 29 climbers including some very well known sherpas/guides. The craziest thing about this event, if you ask me, is the recordings the dead took right before dying.

 On April 23rd inertia reared its ugly head again when it killed 60 people in a train crash in the Congo. The driver was speeding when he was met with a curve and flew off the tracks.

On May 6th this guy, who seems very pleased with himself, released a video that I happen to watch at the time. A sick fuck from Boko Haram

On May 26th Ebola became an issue again. When a little girl in a remote village somewhere probably played with or ate a sick monkey. By now it's better contained than the months immediately after when some doctors who were helping out became ill and were brought back to the US. One really weird story about the whole situation is when a whole ebola team, who went to some remote village to collect blood and inform people about what was happening, were brutally killed with clubs by the village people.

 Gangnam style is the first video to reach 2 billion views on Youtube on May 31st.

On July 7th Israel launched operation protective edge against Hamas in the West Bank. I have a lot to say about this but I will keep tight lipped so as not to bore you with my opinion which is that Palestinians need a real government who will promote education in schools that are not named after suicide bombers.

 Typhoon Rammasun killed around 110 people in the Philipines, China and Vietnam. Musta been a badass storm.

On June 24th 116 people were killed when a plane (with flight number 5017 *cough*) crashed in Mali

On Sept 4th a monsoon killed 400 people in India and Pakistan

Another event not spoken of as much as it should is when 83 MILLION accounts were hacked at Chase bank. I don't know about you, but many people that I know personally have complained about fraud on their cards since. My dad had to replace his twice already in the past 2 months.

On Nov 3rd One World Trade Center finally opened after 13 long years of reconstruction. As a New Yorker, I'd like to say that all I wanted to rest in that place was another new twin towers, not a newly designed building.

In November, kinda like a kids toy, the internet broke a couple times when Kim Kardashian decided to poor champagne on, and show the world her ass and other lady parts.

On Dec 9th the CIA torture report was released. All I can say about that is that it seems the US intelligence community is dumb as wood.

On Dec 13th a Civil rights protest went down in Washington D.C. to say enough is enough over the killings of so many unarmed Americans. What needs to be known about the situation is that in countries like Germany and France the number of people killed by police every year is like 2 or 3. Compare that to hundreds killed here in the US. Reason for this is that when some crazed/angry person comes at them with a knife (not even unarmed like those in US) the police don't freak out, they act cool, put a bullet in the guys leg or arm and two weeks later take him to jail after coming out from the hospital, hmm.

It shouldn't come as a surprise (although a true tragedy) that a couple days ago two cops who were sitting in their car in Brooklyn were murdered by some guy who said hes doing it to avenge Eric Garner and Michael Brown.


Finally, I'd like to add that obviously many other events have gone down this year, many pleasant and many not so much. I'm not mentioning some things/groups because I don't want to stain my page with their names.

All in all, what I can tell ya I learned personally this year, is that the world really is a loud and colorful carnival of madness, and their is a reason for absolutely everything. Also, that often, people interpret clearly spoken words/messages into whatever fits with their unique thinking or beliefs, remaining ignorant to important knowledge being bestowed unto them by someone who is awake.

Love Is God, Pray.

Something That It Seems The US Intelligence Community Is Willfully Ignorant About

When the British captured senior German officers during WW2, they didn't put them in a prison camp. Instead they took them to a beautiful country mansion, and plied them with magnificent meals and drink, and allowed them to listen to German radio and read newspapers to keep up to date on the war. Each had his own room and were treated like senior officers in the British Army.
Of course, the officers had much to talk about to each other, but unknown to them, the Brits had wired the entire mansion and had a team of intelligence officers working in the basement.
The intelligence they got was far more effective than pulling finger nails. They learnt a huge amount about the relationships between senior commanders and with Hitler. They also learnt a lot about German military strategy and tactics ... From the top.
Now that's intelligence.
Source: Mike Chandler

Origin of the term "Think Out Of The Box"

There is a famous puzzle. 9 dots arranged in a square, like this

Your job is to connect all of the dots using only 4 straight lines without lifting your hand off the paper, crossing each dot only once.
Only click if you tried and are giving up. Wave White Flag/Answer/Solution

The Israeli army Hanukkah tweet that creeped the world out - The photo of a drone operator lighting candles on the IDF's Twitter account looked more menacing than heartwarming.

אהוד בנאי - פלורנטין

How To Tell If Someone Doesn't Like The Gift You've Given Them

Frozen Lake

Yael Naim - Too Long

My Recap Of 2011, Still Relevant Today

www.ScarOnYourMind.com

7 Deadly But Unspoken Sins of Unsocial Media Marketing

1. LUST

LET'S PAY FOR UNLOYAL FOLLOWERS TO LIKE OUR BRAND.

It’s pretty cheap to buy followers but what good does it do you in the end? Will people trust and believe in your company more because you have a gazillion followers, or will they trust and believe because you actually have a product or service that has value to them? eeNuf said.

2. SLOTH

WE CAN TREAT ALL SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS THE SAME.

Not a good idea. First off, you probably shouldn't be on ALL social networks because however highly you may think of yourself you can’t possibly be ALL things to ALL people ALL the time. Different demographics/characters/targets spend time on different networks. Whatever channel you decide to tune your message into, it should be the only (or main) channel where your buyers hang out. They can’t hang out EVERYWHERE. Research your best customers, take surveys, find out what their behaviors are on social media then focus your efforts on those channels. If it’s one – then focus on just one. Or, start with the top one to get your feet wet and incrementally add channels. You’ll find that your target customers are not spending time on every single channel so neither should you.

3. GLUTTONY

WE'LL STUFF EVERYONE'S FEEDS WITH PROMOTIONAL SPAM.

Spam-noun: irrelevant or inappropriate message sent to large numbers of recipients

Spam-verb: send the same message indiscriminately to large numbers of recipients

However you look at it – Noun or Verb – it’s not going to produce good results. It’s LAZY marketing pushing the exact same message out to the mass population. This message needs to be the right message, to the right target, at the right time for it to resonate and reflect positively on your brand. Don’t be a lazy marketer. The internet’s chock full of them and it’s not a group you want to be a member of. We, the intelligent/informed consumer, do not appreciate mass produced messages. We think of ourselves as unique, progressive, special and unique and expect to be treated at par with this.

4. PRIDE

WE'RE ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. PLEASE RETWEET.

I don’t know about you but I’ll retweet what I consider important, relevant and retweetable. In fact if you ask me to retweet I probably wont because of your lack of knowledge about cosmic internet standard practice. I mean, if I find it important and more so, if it speaks to my emotions, I will share the heck out of it. But not if you insult my intelligence.  And, while we’re at it don’t ask me to “Like” you. I’ll like you if you're worthy of a like, not because you ask.

5. GREED

WE ARE AWESOME, AS IS THIS SALE.

This doesn't sound well to an intelligent person when coming from the entity spoken of. Not all of us are going to stampede to buy what you’re selling just because YOU SAY it’s awesome. Few will, most won’t. The ones that won’t might just be turned off by how awesome you think yourself to be. Showing a little humility is a good thing.

6. ENVY

LET'S HIJACK WHATEVER IS TRENDING 

If your brand has to resort to emulate/stealing or extreme enticement tactics you probably don’t have a product or service worth buying. If you did it’d stand out distinctively on its own and not need BS smoke and mirrors to get attention from people. Don’t take shortcuts because you’re impatient with slow results to your social media efforts. Patience is an excellent self serving virtue.

7. WRATH

WHY IS NO ONE COMING?!? LET'S SHOUT LOUDER.

If we didn’t hear you, and you did not hear from us the first time its likely because we CHOSE to not listen. Shouting louder is only going to turn us off a lot more. The best way to get our attention is by listening to us first. Don’t just direct dialogue towards your customers – LISTEN to what they're saying. Have a two way meeting of the minds. That’s what social media is all about. Learn about our problems and challenges so as to provide solutions with what you’re creating or selling. I’ll invest in something that helps me solve challenges I face. Identify the value that customers need and expect from your product - and then deliver on it.

CONCLUSION:

Unless you’re a hotshot celebrity you won’t see social media success before the sun sets twice. Fans, followers, likes and retweets happen in time, provided your social media strategy is all about providing value in some shape or form.

FM 34-52 US Intelligence *cough* Interrogation Manual

Read through this if you want to understand how the US intelligence community uses interrogation and to see what strategies they use to attack, degrade and interrupt the operations of an enemy.

Excerpt:

• Hold the initiative
• Operate across the entire width and depth of the battlefield.
• React rapidly to changes in the enemy's intentions.
• Synchronize the operations of their subordinates.

The air-land battle doctrine places an extremely heavy burden on all commanders. However, these burdens must be borne, if commanders expect to win against heavy odds on the battlefield of the future.

MILITARY INTELLIGENCE AND INTELLIGENCE PREPARATION OF THE BATTLEFIELD

Like all other intelligence assets, interrogators serve the commander. Interrogation operations are of no value unless they contribute to the accomplishment of the supported commander's mission. To understand the interrogator's role in mission accomplishment, the overall contribution made by military intelligence must be understood. Military intelligence is responsible for providing commanders with an accurate and timely estimate of the enemy's capabilities and probable courses of action. This estimate must consider the terrain features in the area of operations, the number and type of enemy units in this area, and the prevailing weather conditions. Intelligence assets collect and analyze information to develop this estimate, then, give the estimate to commanders in sufficient time for use in their decision making.

Loreena McKennitt - The Mummers' Dance (HQ)

Perspective As To Why One Might Want To Consider Vegetarianism

All my life, whenever I met a vegetarian I would laugh and say to them that their vegetarianism wont stop animals from being killed. I would go as far as to share with them a stupid joke I once heard. "What were vegetarians called 1000 years ago? Bad hunters."

Only recently a thought occurred to me. Perspective is a very important thing. Without it you wouldn't be able to decipher what is going on in your life from the outside in.

And so, let's take a quick look at the difference between us and animals. There is only one thing that separates us and that is the ability to reflect on things and to actually step out from a situation and come up with reasons why we should/shouldn't do certain things.

In my opinion, when one actually thinks about it, animals which we eat, like cows, sheep, chickens, turkeys etc.. These animals, if they too had the ability to step out of a situation and look at it from the outside in (had a higher level of intelligence) - if they had consciousness like we do, I believe that they would choose to not kill and eat us.

Only recently did a certain image pop into my head. This image is of a farm somewhere with filthy, overly fed, naked and freezing people bunched together in a pen like cattle, whilst a pig with a Levi's jacket, a cowboy hat and a shotgun was standing outside of it, looking on.

Given this context, as ridiculous as it might seem, I simply find it hard to continue to eat meat, even if my lack of contribution to the act does nothing to end the murder of these animals. Same way I would have wanted nothing to do with the holocaust, even fought against it because of how wrong it was, I see little difference here.

Now when I walk around and see people eating meat and smiling and going on like it's ok, I can't help but think how in the future when perspective is more a common thing that this will be looked at as barbaric, brutal and vulgar.

Anyway, to conclude I can say that since I stopped eating meat I feel much lighter and healthier. I am a lot calmer and more serene. I truly hope that in the future I am in a position to make real change regarding this issue.

Rip van winkle

Conformity

How To Break Free From The Oppression Of Creative Thought Caused By The Daily Grind.

Mental Chatter:
What must be understood straight away is that we are stuck with a roommate in our heads from the beginning until the end of our lives. With this person we strategize, we build our realities, we bring to fruition our goals or we suppress them, fear them and others or cease to be creative.

Mental Conditioning:
It should be understood that we can train our thoughts to serve us. If done right, you can catch your thoughts straying from the objective and whip it back into place. It's important to remember that the only thing that differentiates us from animals is this ability to step out from a situation, examine it and come up with ways to tackle situations. So, if you step out from your daily grind and you examine your days activities and interactions with a mind similar to a childs, in that you are seeing things fresh, then you have the benefit of coming up with solutions for problems you were too busy to even realize had solutions beforehand.

Reality:

I think it's very important to realize that we affect reality much more so than reality affects us. If you step outside of your situation, look at the big picture, you may realize that the reality you're living doesn't fit well with the capabilities you possess. Examine things critically and then use your mental chatter to create steps that will lead to an altered reality, a better one.

Menial Tasks:
If your day is filled with tasks that are menial, keep one thing in mind. No matter what you do you can do it best if you love it. Start to love what you do however much you might hate it. Realize that you a contributor to a hierarchical system and if you are seen as doing whatever you're doing, well, it will be noticed. After you master your given task you need to start to brainstorm as to how to make it all better. Not only what you do but other things at whatever organization you're a part of.

Implementation:
All is nice and fine when written down but how do we live things up? Read books that have to with self improvement, sharpen your mind with books that discuss how innovators think. Condition yourself with thoughts of success and realities that you CAN make awesome for yourself. Keep focused (always) on the task at hand and catch and correct yourself when you stray from productive thought.

Conclusion:
It's displeasing to me when I see people with lifeless eyes riding the subway into Manhattan in the morning. Like caged animals. These people need to realize that it's no coincidence that the world is the way it is, these people need to wake up and get a little rowdy over the fact that they are conditioned by society/TV as to how to think, what to do, what class they might be in, all nonsense that is placed there to stop people from thinking and innovating.

Proper answers to questions asked at job interviews to trigger emotional responses.

Q- Why is this role of interest to you?
A- This role will allow me to flex my muscles and prove my prowess to the industry.

Q- What results do you want to achieve?
A- I want to make a splash with innovative and progressive methods with which to penetrate the market in a lasting and notable way.

Q- How will this role help you to achieve what you want?
A- It will give me the tools necessary to get done what I have the experience and ambition to bring to fruition. A mechanic can't work without the proper tools.

Q- What do you consider to be a few of your strengths?
A- People gravitate towards me. I understand the average persons emotional and motivational thinking and use this to discuss with people things that matter to them rather than those that do not.
Also, professionalism starts for me when my eyes first open in the morning.

Q-  Who is responsible for your results?
A- The authors of knowledge bestowed upon me by many a great writers in history, and mentors I've met along the way. Those who have taught me to reign in my creativity and put structure into my way of life.

Q- What makes you laugh?
A- Not much. But those who take themselves too seriously are a start.

Q- When is the last time you were embarrassed?
A- I was on the Q train heading home and in between stops became sick. It wasn't pretty.

Q- What happened? How did you handle the situation?
A- Got off next stop and got on the next train after feeling better.

Q- What activities energize and excite you?
A- Strategizing to come up with formulas as to how to approach situations.
Watching something I birthed grow.

Q- How do you have fun?
A- See question above.

Q- What are two personal habits that have served you well?
A- The ability to walk away from anything that doesn't serve me.
My ability to integrate the correct people for the correct tasks.

Q- How good are you at accepting help from others?
A- As good as others are at giving it.

Q- How good are you at asking for help?
A- It is a natural response that emanates from within a conversation about any one thing. Without the incorporation of others ideas and abilities I would not get close to as much done.

Q- What is one of the internal battles to have each day?
A- Not sure if this is a typo but I'll answer both questions with one answer. The only internal battle is when I notice that maybe my roommate upstairs (Mental Chatter) might not be serving me appropriately, put it in line and move on.

Q- What makes you angry?
A- Not people but things. Things like an archaic political election system that could work light years better with todays technology/thinkers. Things like the lack of perspective when people do certain things like wear fur or eat animals.

Q- What aspect of your work you are passionate about?
A- I've learned to love what I do, so I do it with love.

Q- How could you create more balance in your life?
A- I can't.

Q- Who inspires you?
A- Great authors and thinkers like Krishnamurti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti
And Paulo Freire who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
People who share and exhibit revolutionary thoughts.

Q- On an “average day” would you consider yourself a high or low energy person?
A- Very high energy, abrupt and direct.

Q- On an “average day” is your main focus on results and tasks or people and emotions?
A- Everything everyday is focused on the homeostasis of this carnival of madness that is the world in order to meet noble long term goals.