Monthly Archives: April 2009

Failure Tax Emerges

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Just about the time I think I’ve seen it all … I quickly learn how wrong I am! I was recently shocked by a headline in our local newspaper serving a community of 150,000. It read: “Going out of Business? That’ll be $50.”

Yes, it’s pretty much what you guessed it to be. It was the story of two local businesses located in a dying downtown area which simply couldn’t keep their doors open any longer. Both stores are well-known national franchises operated by hard-working local residents. They did everything they could to succeed and finally had to throw in the towel. Both were in the middle of a going-out-of-business liquidation sale when they received a letter from the City Clerk informing them they needed to pay a fee of $50 for a license to go out of business … the final nail in the coffin of their businesses. As one owner put it: “$50 to close—can you believe it!”

Adding insult to injury, the application for the going out of business license also required an itemized list of goods to be sold, described with make and brand name … plus a separate list of goods purchased 60 days or less immediately prior to the date of application including the cost of each item, name and address of the source, date of purchase and delivery date, and the total value of the inventory. Apparently, this fee is standard all over the country. What were they thinking?

The City Clerk claims the $50 license fee is a consumer-protection measure to prevent businesses from duping the public with false “going-out-of-business” sales. Here’s a much cheaper way of doing the same thing: When a business advertises “going-out-of-business” and then doesn’t do so—fine them $50!

The way the license fee is set up at the moment, it’s nothing less than the city kicking the merchants while they’re down. May as well rub their nose in it one last time to remind them of their failure.

Here’s another thought: Just don’t pay the fee—you’re going out of business anyway. Well, the geniuses running the city have considered that course of action as well. They have another law that says if you don’t purchase the “going-out-of-business” license and adhere to all of the requirements, you will be charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by up to $500 in fines and six months in jail.

Remember when those in government were elected or hired to serve the taxpayers? Apparently, those days are long gone. I wonder if any of these civil servants are aware of why we left England to come to these shores.

I wonder if they’re aware that April 15, there will be well over 300 well-organized Tax Day Tea Party Protests taking place from coast to coast—each predicting a minimum of 5,000 people attending each. That number is expected to grow between now and the 15th.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Leadership Messages Seldom Change

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I recently had an opportunity to visit the library of a major university and must admit I was a bit overwhelmed by the resources available to our students today. This library was so large they had to paint lines of various colors on the floor to guide you to your destination.

Upon arrival, I immediately beelined to the leadership/management stacks to see what they had to offer. This particular librarian must find it difficult to part with older titles because I discovered hundreds, yes hundreds, of titles in this particular category.

What I found amusing, as well as intriguing, was the fact that so many authors utilized a “hook” in form of celebrity names to get the attention of potential buyers. Be it a business leader, politician, military leader, TV program, religious leader, or cartoon character, they’ve all been associated with leadership or management in hopes of increasing sales. For instance, within a few shelves I found the following titles:

  • Churchill on Leadership
  • Leadership Lessons from Star Trek
  • Moses on Management
  • Shakespeare on Management
  • Leadership Lessons of Robert E. Lee
  • Patton on Leadership
  • The Leadership Genius of Sitting Bull
  • Business Leadership the Marine Corps Way
  • Bart Starr: When Leadership Mattered
  • Vince Lombardi on Leadership
  • Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun
  • The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan
  • Toy Box Leadership
  • Leading People the Black Belt Way
  • Swordless Samurai Leadership
  • Lee Iacocca’s Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
  • And there were many, many more … especially in the Presidential arena.

These titles don’t even begin to include the hundreds of standard leadership and management books which constantly line the shelves.

However, returning to the above list … do you really think each of those so-called “celebrity experts” are offering something new and unusual in this crucial area? If you had the time to sit down and actually compare content, you might be surprised at the amount of repetition you’d discover. There are, of course, many different approaches to leadership. However, there aren’t so many that hundreds of books are required to describe them all. There is a great deal of duplication in theory.

Even though theories may differ, the majority of what’s offered today has been proven to be successful to various degrees. Why then do we see so many businesses fall by the wayside every year? In fact, while there were more than 671,000 new businesses opened last year, 544,800 closed down!

The problem does NOT lie in a lack of theories, strategies, tips, tools, or programs. Most all business leaders are well aware of what it takes to flourish in today’s chaotic business environment. They also know how other organizations have reached a level of achievement in the past. The problem lies in a lack of execution.

We address this issue in many of our seminars, keynotes and leadership boot camps. We’ve discussed it at great length on our website and blog. We call it the “knowing-doing gap.” While the closure of this gap is crucial to your future success, few organizations seem to address it.

In research for his recent book, Execution Revolution, author Gary Harpst discovered:

  • An astounding 90% of well-formulated strategies fail due to poor execution!
  • Only 5% of employees understand their corporate strategy! Unbelievable!
  • Only 3% of executives think their company is very successful at executing strategies, while 62% think they’re only moderately successful, or worse.

In short, read all you want on the subject of programs such as Baldrige, Lean and TQM. You’ll find the subject matter interesting, and you’ll enjoy learning about the many successes of those who have successfully executed such programs.

Read about knowledge management, data mining tools and scorecards for performance measurement and management. You’ll learn a great deal.

Investigate new models of training and employee development as well as personal and executive coaching. In the end, you will have read, researched, investigated and probably learned much. Now you KNOW what to do. However, you have invested a great deal of time, energy and effort to no avail at this point. True success and ROI emerges only when you successfully execute what you’ve learned. The “knowing-doing gap” must be closed at every level of the organization in order to enjoy true success.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

What the Mind Can Conceive …

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I must assume that the majority of our readers are familiar with anagrams. In the rare event that you’ve never heard the official definition, here it is: “A word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase.” For example, Elvis to Lives.

Anagrams have been around forever and, while I find them entertaining, I’m fascinated with the thought of their origin. According to some historians, anagrams originated in the 3rd century B.C. (285-247 B.C.) with the Greek poet Lycophron who lived in Alexandria.

Think about the culture at that time. Consider this Greek poet and the millions of creative minds to follow that actually considered the challenge of dissecting a word or phrase to reconstruct still another word or phrase that actually related to the original thought. The success of those attempts represents the capabilities of the human mind.

I find it sad, indeed, that we can’t seem to channel that tremendous mental potential to solve so many of the horrendous challenges facing our country today: current National Debt, mortgage crisis, healthcare costs, education trade balance, pork barrel spending, jobs, social security, and so many others.

What we can do is strive to channel that potential to confront the many challenges in our own workplace and communities. In the meantime, enjoy the results of those who focused on anagrams.

  • Listen = Silent
  • The Eyes = They See
  • The Hilton = Hint: Hotel
  • Dormitory = Dirty Room
  • Postmaster = Stamp Store
  • Astronomer = Moon Starer
  • Schoolmaster = The Classroom
  • Protectionism = Nice to Imports
  • Slot Machines = Cash Lost in ’em
  • Western Union = No Wire Unsent
  • Clint Eastwood = Old West Action
  • Eleven Plus Two = Twelve Plus One
  • Christmas Tree = Search, Set, Trim
  • The Morse Code = Here Come Dots
  • Snooze Alarms = Alas! No More Zs
  • Statue of Liberty = Built to Stay Free
  • The Country Side = No City Dust Here
  • David Letterman = Nerd Amid Late TV
  • A Domesticated Animal = Docile, as a Man Tamed It
  • The Public Art Galleries = Large Picture Halls, I Bet

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Gone – And Almost Forgotten

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I recently heard a political genius on one of the news shows discussing the new $3 Trillion Stimulus Plan. In his wise rhetoric he actually pointed out that we’re no longer in the “five-and-dime” era. What an observation!

I couldn’t help but wonder if this well-known politician had any clue of the make up of his current constituency. I would have to guess that at least 80% of those he represents have no idea what “five-and-dime” refers to. It’s frightening to consider that our future lies in the hands of people who think like this. What was he thinking?

For those who have read this far and may fall into that large group who are not familiar with the term “five-and-dime,” allow me to enlighten you. The term “five-and-dime” refers to a variety store where everything costs either five cents (a nickel) or ten cents (a dime). Kind of hard to believe, isn’t it?

The originator of the concept may be F.W. Woolworths (later Woolco), which began in 1878 in Utica, New York. Other well-known “five-and-dimes” that existed across the country included S.S. Kresge (later K-Mart), W.T. Grant, McCrory’s, and Ben Franklin Stores.

Chat with your grandparents, and they’ll explain the joy of a pilgrimage to their favorite “five-and-dime.” You’ll hear detailed explanations of uneven, squeaking wooden floors, background music, the smell of fresh popcorn and peanuts, candy counters that stretched on for what seemed forever and lunch counters where you could choose a booth or bright-red revolving stool to enjoy a hamburg, fries and a large Coke for 85 cents! In fact, the popular lunch counter made Woolworth’s the largest seller of restaurant food in the world! There’s much more to this fantasy world, but I’ll let you learn that from your grandparents.

The early 1970s saw the demise of the “five-and-dime” … a victim of cultural changes. The growth of malls and discount stores and the demise of downtown shopping centers took away the foot traffic that dime stores needed to survive. Inflation took away the five-and-ten-cent prices. Today, we’ve grown accustomed to the many variations of the Dollar Store concept, but the atmosphere and joy of the “five-and-dime” can never be replaced.

Apparently we’ll always have a friendly politician to remind us that the “five-and-dime” era has passed … even though his audience has no idea what he’s talking about. What was he thinking?

Other well-know “five-and-dimes” included:

  • Butler Brothers
  • Kress Stores
  • J.J. Newberry
  • TG&Y
  • McLellan’s
  • G.C. Murphy
  • Neisner Brothers (later Big N)
  • H.L. Green
  • Walton’s Five-and-Dime

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.