Jim Thomason's "The Business of People"

As a young man I was a Reagan Republican raised in a family of Goldwater Republicans. My views have moderated significantly during the ensuing years but the one thing that hasn't is my belief that each individual is responsible for their own outcomes in life and should pursue them without outside interference or restriction. With this type of outlook it might then surprise you to know that I favor a national health care plan, either a public "option" or the conversion of the current system into a single payer program similar to the Canadian system. Why in the world would I feel that way? Simple ; for the last 20 years I have had the responsibility over group health plans and have had to deal with insurance carriers. In the last 10 years the health insurance industry has grown more profitable, has consolidated to just a handful of carriers, and makes literally life-and-death decisions about your health care based upon profit-and-loss considerations. In years past we ...

Last week we had a (thankfully) minor security breech that resulted in an a team member's cell phone being stolen off her desk. Someone from outside the company walked past the front desk like she knew where she was going and wandered the building for 12 minutes before leaving the way she came in. She then walked around the property for 8 more minutes trying doors (unsuccessfully) before leaving through the back field. By the time our staffer noticed the theft and reported it to her cell phone provider the thief had made 60 phone calls and sent 72 text messages, all to pre-paid phones. We identified one call recipient through a paid cell phone registry, pulled up her name in the local court website, and discovered a long history of petty theft and drug use. In other words, this was a professional job by professional petty criminals. In reviewing video and talking to our employees we've discovered how this happened, and it represents a breakdown in some fundamental disciplines t...

We're a relatively small company as corporations go. Aside of our core vendors, like printers, we're just large enough to need first-class service but too small to be a priority customer. To get first-class service you want vendors who also service large accounts like Coke and Google. The problem is that, by comparison, our business will almost never be such a vendor's priority. The common result is that you get second or third priority, your account gets served by trainees, and the service you receive suffers. Managing in a company like ours makes it more important than ever to master the skill of pushback. This month I've had issues at ADP, one sub-group at Vanguard, a confidential potential vendor whom we've asked to quote, one internal department, and (through my Homeowners Association) the Metropolitan Police. I'm just back off vacation and still in Margeritaville mode and just wanting to slide happily through the days; instead I'm having to periodical...

Over the next few weeks we'll hear more in the press about this piece of legislation, called by some informally as the "Card Check Act", as it winds its way through Congress. Its a bad bill but it may pass anyway as the AFL-CIO has pumped a reported $500m in campaign contributions to both parties in what may be its last stand as an organized body. I say this bill is bad because it will make union campaigns more prevalent, more intimidating and more prone to employee-on-employee threats and violence. I'm not quoting the Chamber of Commerce line on this; I've seen it with my own eyes working on the company side in three Steelworker campaigns in Kentucky. To understand this bill we first have to visit the process of how a workplace becomes unionized, so I'll digress just briefly. Union elections are governed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal agency whose members are appointed by the President. Republican presidents tend to stack it with...

MORE magazine weighed in this month on the use of web technology in finding your next job. Their thesis was that the game has changed; nice resumes on Crane stationary with good cover letters have been replaced with social media, a personal web page about your professional abilities, and a web marketing strategy. In the last year I've probably gotten an equal number of unsolicited resumes and unsolicited social media contacts (from Facebook friend requests to LinkIn invitations). With a tough job market its an easy sell to say to a job seeker that they aren't getting results because they aren't using the right technology. Unfortunately that's not totally true. Technology is a work tool , much like in an earlier tech era your tools might have included a lathe or a hammer. Updating to more modern tools (let's just say a power lathe and a pneumatic hammer) may increase the speed of a process, but it doesn't change the basic process. You build a house from the ...

For about eight years of my career I worked off-and-on along the Mexican border. My employer at the time had 9 manufacturing plants on a corridor from Juarez through Chihuahua City to Torreon. On the border about half the people with whom I worked spoke English. The further I got into the interior the fewer people spoke any English at all. I spent one whole week in Torreon by myself and encountered no one who spoke a word of English. Imagine for a moment being in meetings for hours at a time where not a word of what was said was understandable to you. Think for a moment about the concentration that it takes to look interested and be polite while not having the slightest idea what's going on...for hours at a time. That, friends and neighbors, is what its like for some of our non-English speaking warehouse staff to attend our all-employee quarterly meetings. In order to bring our 40 or so non-English speakers into the conversations about our business we made sure they were invited to...

Its been two weeks since I deleted my Facebook and Twitter accounts. There have been a couple of times that I've thought, "I'll write a quick tweet on that" but couldn't. Otherwise its been a good move to make my life less virtual and more temporal. Since social media is all the rage and Twitter is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds why is swimming against the tide working for me? Here's my critical learning at this point. 1. Social Media is best suited for promotional communications. As such, promoting yourself, your products, your services, or some political or social agenda is the sweet spot for this media. Communications that are critical or negative are ill suited for social media audiences; the posts don't read as well, the wording has to be more carefully crafted so as to be diplomatic, and you lose the spontaneity of the tweet or FB update. 2. Related to point #1, social media is best suited for sole proprietors, independent professiona...

"Are things ever going to get better?" That's a question I've heard several times this week and here's why I think the answer is, emphatically, "Yes." In the midst of a tough economy, and after an exceptionally hard year I see signs that make me feel like the worst is behind us. Externally there are signs of life in the general economy . First time home buyer activity is higher than expected, and manufacturing activity (while depressed overall) beat analysts expectations this week. These developments helped bolster the stock market and as it improves we should start to gain back some of our depressed 401(k) values. The market analysts with which I've spoken tell me that the stock market typically leads employment gains by about six months coming out of a recession. Remember that six month number because you'll see it again below. Internally we now have a single operational executive running Sales, Marketing, and Publishing . These formerly ...

With the recent shakeup in executive leadership it seems like half the building has a different supervisor this week. With that comes the usual anxiety, plus a little additional angst given that its happening during a time of economic travail. I both have a new boss and picked up two departments that haven't reported to me before. While having a new supervisor can be a challenge at first, here's a few reasons not to jump off the roof. 1. Its not about you! Changes in the executive ranks ripple through an organization. You weren't assigned to a new supervisor to "straighten you out" because you're a screw-up. This has nothing to do with you so just roll with it. 2. There aren't many bad ones . The people to whom you could possibly report are whittled down to a handful of capable managers. If a manager is on our org chart they are seasoned and have a good heart. I can't think of many exceptions so whomever the "luck of the draw" thr...

I've had a couple of questions lately about the future of Work From Home. To be completely transparent, we've fielded questions from Board members and executives alike on what this program is and does. Here's an update that might surprise you. WFH was a response to two pressing issues several months ago. Gas prices had gotten to around $4/gallon in Nashville, and with headcount reductions we were spending about $350k in rented office space charges for room we didn't need. We didn't have enough space in the Corporate Office building to close Lakeview Place. I became concerned that increased commuting cost would lead to a call for a cost of living increase that the company couldn't afford in an economy growing more unstable by the day. The answer, as my grandmother would have said, was as plain as the nose on your face. Develop the systems for remote work, require space sharing as a condition of working remotely, reduce commuting costs to their pre-gas-hike ...

On Friday of this week I will shut down both my Facebook and Twitter accounts. In place of communicating via those outlets I intend to be a more consistent and diligent blogger. There are several reasons for this move which I will explain just briefly. I usually check all these accounts after dinner. That process entails checking Nelson email, personal email, Twitter updates (both reading and writing), looking at who added or dropped me on Twitter, checking Facebook updates from my "friends", and leaving comments. I could set up a link that combines Facebook and Twitter updates into one process, but that only saves a few moments of what takes about 45 - 60 minutes. My other personal interests, be they gardening or guitar or a few home improvement projects slated for the spring, suffer from the time taken up with living in the on-line world. Every so often my wife would like for me to just sit down and watch TV with her and I rarely ever do. After slacking off for the winte...

This week I picked up additional responsibility over Facilities and Travel. I'm glad to take on whatever needs to be done and add value wherever I can. This move will take me somewhat out of my role as "the HR guy" and back into a more general managerial role as in my life before Nelson, and that's gotten me thinking back to how we managed in my prior life. That inevitably takes me back to W. Edwards Deming whose teachings were the basis of the Japanese system in which I last held this type of role. His systems have turned around so many companies, and helped others actualize into outstanding enterprises. I believe we have much to learn from Deming and that adopting several of his teachings, both you as an individual and us as an organization, can accelerate our turnaround. For those of you who aren't familiar with Dr. Deming the link above is very informative. What it doesn't say is that Dr. Deming, who developed his theories while improving industrial outpu...

I'm out of the office for a couple of days, but through the magic of modern communication I've gotten wind of a rumor running through the company. I want to give a big shout-out to our Publishing division, of which I have been critical in the past regarding rumors, as this one doesn't come from and isn't being spread by you. I have six confirmed instances in two days of the rumor that we've had another layoff. Now this is different from all the other, "there's going to be a layoff" rumors over the past year. This one is different and goes something like this: "I hear there's been another big layoff." "Nobody knows how big it was because management's not talking about it." "I hear that the Curriculum staff got fired." "I hear that two people in the warehouse got fired." "I hear that half the warehouse is gone." Friends, the reason the leadership team isn't talking about "the big la...

I've just finished a three-day recruiting swing through D.C., Atlanta, and Ft. Lauderdale. This week reminded me that we don't recruit like a lot of other companies. Both the Regional Manager with whom I was pared and some of the candidates weren't prepared for our focus on fact-checking as a fundamental recruiting discipline. Here's the how and why of our process. Facts are Important Fact checking in recruiting is so fundamental to the process and yet its often not done properly, if at all. HR practitioners often defer to the on-line criminal background check rather than vetting the candidate's resume or application face-to-face. In Christian business hiring managers often think the best of candidate and accept the facts presented by them at face value. I've even had Christian hiring managers and even HR practitioners express concern to me that we were unfairly questioning a candidate's integrity by questioning their resume or application. Depending on whos...

I'm writing this from a Fairfield Inn near Washington, D.C. We are up here on the first of a three-city recruiting trip looking for contract outside sales professionals for our Live Events division. I don't do a lot of this type of recruiting anymore, so this has been a great refresher course to keep my recruiting chops current. We've had a response ratio of about 130 resumes for every opening, and for "my" three cities its told me a lot about what's going on in the economy, whose up, whose down, and whose surviving. It also has reminded me of the dumb things people do that sabotage their own job search. Industries Responding While applicant flow is up overall due to higher unemployment, some segments of the economy are represented more than others. Since sales is a profession that cuts across industries, you can tell which sectors are suffering more by the applicant flow from those industries. I read a disproportionate number of resumes from auto salesmen, R...

Insurance renewal negotiations are on-going and I thought it might be wise to give everyone an update on our activities and likely outcomes. Like everything else in this economic climate, the news isn't pretty. Here's the latest, and the timetable for a final decision and announcement. Claims Experience For the last five years our claims have run 84 - 86% of premiums paid. That leads to a flat or slightly increased renewal, as underwriting typically involves taking the last 12 months and trending those costs 15 months looking forward . This is done because the broker uses claims and census data after 9 months of the current plan year, at which point it is 15 months before the end of next plan year. Medical costs typically increase from 9 -15% per year, and average about 12% annually, or 1% per month. So, when we run around 84 - 86% of claims-to-premiums, we usually end up with a 0 - 2% increase. This year our actual claims have been between 100 - 104% of premiums. We've h...

From television news to the Wall Street Journal we've heard the comparisons of this economy to The Great Depression. This is a historically tough economy, but the Second Great Depression? Seriously? I know Nashville fares better than many communities in good times and bad, but I pass a lot of $40,000 vehicles on the way to restaurants with full parking lots. I don't recall a robust restaurant industry from video footage of the Depression. There's a serious disconnect between news reports of "how bad things are" (which is the big story of the last several news cycles leading up to the election) and the number of people without jobs and incomes. Examples of manipulated or hysterically inaccurate news reporting on this economy would make a great doctoral dissertation. The limits of the blog format and my attention span won't allow for that. Here, however, is just one instance of a "fact" offered as evidence of "how bad things are" drill...

We are moving all Nashville office staff and leadership into the Corporate Office building. There we have five secret weapons that, if unleashed, can shorten iteration loops for almost every process. We can react quicker, bring products to market faster and smarter, and cut the man hours it takes to do almost everything. I learned how to wield these powerful weapons from a Japanese executive for whom I worked in the 90's. I offer those to you, gentle reader, that your career and our company might flourish. The guru of wielding these secret weapons was "Mr. Oba". I don't know that I ever knew his first name, because the emphasis was on the "Mr." He was the second most powerful man on the org chart when I was a pup. He was the top ranking member of management from one of our joint venture partners and we heard that he was the highest ranking manager from that company ever posted in the U.S. Our President didn't cross him. He stood about 4' 11" in ...

The following message was sent last week from Nashville Mayor Karl Dean regarding the Special Election this month on English Only. His message is on-target so I yield this blog post to our Mayor. Many thanks to David Leach for sending it my way. Dear Friends, I hope that you and your family enjoyed the holidays and were able to take some time to reflect and appreciate the year gone by. As I have had the opportunity to say many times over the last year, Nashville is a great city. I enjoy being Mayor and I am grateful to the citizens of Nashville for allowing me the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. It has been an exciting year for the city. We’re making progress on my plans for education reform. We’ve added over 100 new officers to our police force. And plans to build a new downtown convention center are well underway, which when completed will give our city a huge economic boost. We face many challenges, but I truly believe that our best days are yet to come. As ...

Most of you who read this blog by now know that by the end of January we will close our Lakeview offices and move almost all office jobs to the Corporate Office Building. This is a tremendous opportunity for our company in terms of savings, teamwork, and tightening iteration and product development cycles, but that's a subject I'll take up in another blog in a few days. For now I want to address how the move to corporate, which was one of my goals for WFH, changes this program going forward. It was a significant downsizing, not WFH, that made this move possible this quickly but I'll take it however it comes. In my opinion, the move of all office operations into one building leaves us no choice but to accelerate the program into the space sharing phase. It is my understanding that we're getting LVP employees into the Corporate building with about 3 open spaces to spare; that's all. Those spaces will most likely be used for temporary workers and the occasional contra...