Gender Gap in Pay, Recognition and Rewards

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Personally, I’m growing a bit tired of hearing about women making less money than men. While channel surfing among cable news stations last night, I came across a feature on the “Gender Pay Gap.” While acknowledging the fact that there is definitely a pay gap in today’s business world, I was surprised how much it differed from one area to another. They shared examples that were all over the map in comparing occupations such as professional athletes, medical personnel, engineers, law, science, etc. The percentage of difference ranged from as little as 29% to as high as 54%!

I’m aware of the fact that I’m not as highly educated as I’d like to be. However, I take great pride in the fact that I’m always trying to learn something new. In fact, I make it a point to learn at least one new thing every single day of my life. In that vein, I’d like to learn the thinking behind the majority of decisions that are made in this area. I realize that there are exceptions to every rule. Setting those few exceptions aside, I’d like to know the answer to the following dilemma:

Two professionals walk into my office.
Similar age. Similar education.
Comparable personality. Comparable attitude.
Similar goals. Similar desire.
Both have very similar leadership experience.
Both are very creative and innovative.
Both have a great track record.
Parallel family situations.
Equivalent potential.
Both appear to be an excellent fit with our culture.

Considering the fact that both candidates would make an equally excellent addition to our team, why would I pay one of them anywhere from 20% to 40% more than the other?

A male candidate does have some very obvious strengths and advantages over women. However, a female candidate has obvious strengths and advantages over men. We’re back to square one and none of those advantages equate to the percentage of difference noted above. I’ve never understood this discrepancy, and I doubt very much that I ever will.

This country has advanced in far too many areas over the decades to allow this travesty to continue. It shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion in this day and age. Instead, maybe we should focus on exposing the growing number of women who are currently successfully leading key organizations across industries. Based on the number of CEOs currently residing behind bars for a variety of reasons, there are obviously some great opportunities available today. The following women have undeniably set fine examples of leadership in today’s very competitive marketplace and are paving the way to what we definitely hope will someday be total equity in pay, recognition, and rewards … as it should have been long ago.

Angela Braly

Title: President and CEO
Company: WellPoint
Age: 45
Compensation: N/A

For the past two years, Angela Braly has been the executive vice president and general counsel at WellPoint. As of last month (June), she is now the President and CEO. In her previous position she took charge of the country’s largest Medicare claims processing business and was pivotal in the integration of WellChoice, which the company acquired in 2005. Note this: she’s now running the nation’s largest health insurance outfit, but she’s the only woman heading a Fortune 50 company!

Patricia Woertz

Title: Chairman, President and CEO
Company: Archer Daniels Midland
Age: 54
Compensation: $8.18 million

Patricia Woertz left Chevron after three decades in a very competitive industry. Some may have been surprised that she would turn to farming. However, since taking over ADM—the $37-billion food-processing giant—almost a year ago, her life is all about turning corn and soy crops into everything from syrup to ethanol. It appears that the move from oilfield to cornfield was no accident: Woertz aims to transform ADM into a leader in renewable fuels.

Indra Nooyi

Title: Chairman Elect and CEO
Company: PepsiCo
Age: 51
Compensation: $9.38 million

Indra Nooyi joined PepsiCo nearly 13 years ago, and the Indian-born CEO is running a much different company today. She wouldn’t have it any other way. She was instrumental in selling off restaurant businesses including KFC and Pizza Hut, and replacing them with brands like Tropicana and Quaker. After five years playing number-cruncher and dealmaker, she became CEO last October.

Brenda C. Barnes

Title: Chairman and CEO
Company: Sara Lee
Age: 53
Compensation: $4.94 million

Since 2005, Brenda Barnes has dealt with a number of challenges as she has added and deleted a number of products to the ever-popular Sara Lee brand. Before she took over as the company’s personal trainer, Barnes famously left her job at PepsiCo after 22 years of service and she took a six-year leave to raise her three children.

Carol Meyrowitz

Title: President and CEO
Company: T.J. Maxx and Marshalls
Age: 53
Compensation: $8.50 million

TJX stores like T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s are surefire destinations for bargain hunters. As the newly appointed CEO, this 24-year retail veteran has her hands full with a number of challenges. Carol Meyrowitz inherits a messy roster of lawsuits resulting from the millions of credit card numbers and other personal information stolen from the company’s computers.

Mary F. Sammons

Title: President and CEO
Company: Rite Aid
Age: 60
Compensation: $1.89 million

Sammons joined Rite Aid in 1999 as president in the middle of the accounting scandal. The organization is in much better shape today. Four years later when she took over as CEO, the company was still losing money, but it had survived bankruptcy. Today, she’s concentrating on assimilating the recent $3.4 billion purchase of Brooks and Eckerd.

Anne Mulcahy

Title: Chairman and CEO
Company: Xerox
Age: 53
Compensation: $10.69 million

Ann Mulcahy spent nearly 20 years at Xerox before taking over in 2001. She faced an overwhelming challenge stepping into the leadership role as the company was buried in $15 billion of debt and an SEC scandal. Observers were certain that Xerox was destined for Chapter 11. However, Mulcahy managed to dig out by drastically cutting the workforce and steadily increasing innovations; they’ve launched 100 new products in the last three years.

Patricia F. Russo

Title: CEO
Company: Lucent
Age: 53
Compensation: $4.75 million (2005)

Some believe Patricia Russo’s specialty might just be corporate recovery. In the late nineties she helped AT&T turn around its failing business-systems division, which eventually became part of Lucent. And after a quick stop at troubled Kodak in 2001, she returned the following year to revive Lucent. After two years of first aid, which included slashing jobs and streamlining costs, Lucent returned to profitability in 2004. Now she faces new challenges with the newly merged Alcatel-Lucent. She seems to thrive on challenges and has handled them well.

Andrea Jung

Title: Chairman and CEO
Company: Avon Products
Age: 48
Compensation: $13.32 million

Acting as Avon’s resident master artist since 1999, CEO Andrea Jung has faced many challenges, including slipping profits and increasing the number of salespeople. Makeovers—financial or physical, large or small—are always difficult. The fix, like any beauty regimen, is not cheap. It’s costing Avon some $500 million, and includes plumping the ad budget and spending more on research and development.

Susan M. Ivey

Title: Chairman, President and CEO
Company: Reynolds American
Age: 48
Compensation: $8.17 million

Susan Ivey is a 25-year veteran of the tobacco business. At Reynolds American, she oversees some of the most iconic cigarette brands, such as Camel and Kool. However, while she’s working on increasing the company’s 30-percent market share, she’s also dealing with states adopting smoking restrictions and increasing cigarette taxes.

Paula Rosput Reynolds

Title: President and CEO
Company: Safeco
Age: 50
Compensation: $6.14 million

After working in the energy industry for 27 years (five of those as CEO of Atlanta-based AGL Resources), Paula Rosput Reynolds made a career change to running insurance company Safeco. Despite making the switch last year, she’s already made some major decisions like moving the company’s headquarters to downtown Seattle and reducing expenses.

Margaret C. Whitman

Title: President and CEO
Company: eBay
Age: 50
Compensation: $3.10 million (2005)

For the last nine years, eBay has been Meg Whitman’s playground. Her background reads like a “Who’s Who” of Business Success as she served major leadership roles at Procter & Gamble, the Walt Disney Co., Stride Rite, FTD, and Hasbro, Inc. Meg Whitman took over the San Jose-based tech company and made it an industry darling. She continues to hold on as one of the longest serving CEOs in the tech world.

Christina A. Gold

Title: President, CEO and Director
Company: Western Union
Age: 59
Compensation: $4.90 million

Gold’s career trajectory has been unconventional. She spent 25 years at cosmetics company Avon and ran a Dallas-based telecom business before she landed at Western Union in 2002 as its president. Today, the money transfer empire is nearly double the size of its nearest competitor and boasts an 18-percent market share. And earlier this year, as CEO of the $4.5 billion company, Gold oversaw its transition from a subsidiary into a publicly listed company.

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.

Partnering: You’re Only as Strong as Your Weakest Link

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web marketing and communications consultant Melanie L. DrakeRecently, I bought a new appliance at Lowe’s, primarily because it was featuring a number of rebates that drastically reduced the price compared to its competitors. The customer service was also excellent. After receiving my gift card in the mail, I was dismayed to discover that I had been shorted $25. I spent a few days upset about this shortage, thinking that I had been duped.

A week later, I e-mailed the Lowe’s rebate center through the Lowe’s web site. The return e-mail was not from Lowe’s but from Young America, which provides promotion fulfillment for companies on the web, including rebates, premiums and sweepstakes.

The e-mail from Young America said I had already received my rebate. Unfortunately, Young America was referring to a second rebate that I had indeed received. I responded with another e-mail, explaining once again which rebate I was referring to. (Don’t you hate it when they don’t really read your e-mail that does have all the details?)

Nothing …

I waited a few more weeks and then decided to contact Lowe’s customer service directly. I received an immediate response that my message was being sent to the manager of the rebate center. A few days later, I finally received another e-mail saying that my $25 gift card was on its way.

Despite the excellent customer service at the Lowe’s store itself, I ended up feeling cheated by Lowe’s until I realized the glitch was with the partnership with Young America. If I hadn’t pursued the missing $25 gift card amount, I might have stopped shopping at Lowe’s. It’s the little things that make a difference. (Home Depot, by the way, is closer.)

The Young America web site says that “Customer fulfillment is what happens when marketing programs are executed so well and so consistently, with so much value added at every opportunity, that the entire customer experience is elevated and the relationship with your brand is deepened.” Considering that Young America did not respond to my second e-mail, my experience was dismissed not “elevated,” and Lowe’s brand was diminished not “deepened.”

If you partner with other vendors or outsource your services, are your partners living up to your customers’ expectations? I’ve reviewed our past experiences with vendors we use, and I have to admit there is at least one that I sincerely question our using in the future because the product was not up to our standard for our customers and cost us time to fix. Is it time to review your vendors or outsourced services before your customers make negative assumptions about your business? 

About Melanie L. Drake

Melanie L. Drake focuses on the publishing and marketing sides of the AchieveMax® company. AchieveMax® professional, motivational speakers provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services on change management, creativity, customer service, leadership, project management, time management, teamwork, and more. For more information on AchieveMax® custom-designed seminars and keynote presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

Little-known Facts about Well-known Businesses – United Technologies Corporation

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UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION

United Technologies Corporation (UTC) is one of those many organizations in the U.S. that impacts our lives every single day in a variety of ways while the majority of us who benefit from their products and services have never heard of them.

It’s certainly not that they’re in hiding. Not by a long shot. They have a beautiful corporate headquarters located in historic Hartford, Connecticut. They conduct business virtually everywhere in the world, boasting 4,000-plus locations doing business in approximately 180 countries in 30 different languages. They employ approximately 215,000 employees and are recognized as the 47th largest employer in the world on the 2006 Global 500 list, in Fortune.)

Boasting revenues of $47.8 billion last year, UTC is a diversified, American, multinational conglomerate generating more than 50% of their revenues outside the United States with 60% of their employees working abroad.

While you may not recognize the corporate name, you may very well be familiar with many of their products and services. Their business units include:

Carrier heating and air conditioning systems
Hamilton Sundstrand aerospace and industrial systems
Otis elevators and escalators
Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines
Sikorsky helicopters
UTC Fire & Security protection services
UTC Power
United Technologies Research Center

RANKING
20th largest U.S. manufacturer (2006 list, Industry Week)
43rd largest U.S. corporation (2006 list, Fortune)
55th largest publicly held manufacturer in the world (2006 list, Industry Week)
126th largest corporation in the world (2006 Global 500 list, Fortune)
Named “Most Admired” aerospace and defense company (2001-2006 lists, Fortune)

The core group of United Technologies companies was founded in 1929 as United Aircraft & Transport Corp. by the merger of Boeing, Chance Vought, Hamilton Standard, Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft. As a result of the Air Mail Act of 1934, United Aircraft and Transport broke up into three independent companies: Boeing, United Aircraft, and United Airlines. United Aircraft changed its name to United Technologies in 1975. Otis Elevator was acquired in 1976, Carrier Refrigeration in 1979, and Sundstrand in 1999. UTC entered the fire and security business in 2001 by purchasing Chubb Security. In 2005, United Technologies acquired Boeing’s Rocketdyne division, which was merged into the Pratt & Whitney business unit.

The next time you’re riding an escalator, relaxing in air conditioning, or enjoying your airplane flight, you’ll know just who was responsible for your comfort and safety.

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.

Little-known Facts about Well-known Leaders – Meg Whitman

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Everyone knows the most recent headlines about our country’s greatest leaders. In this feature, we’d like to shed some light on the lesser-known facts about these folks in hopes of giving you a little greater insight as to what makes them tick.

Meg Whitman

I’ve been following the career of this charismatic leader for quite some time now. If you’re looking for a role model for your children or grandchildren, look no further. Share the details of her past and simply focus your attention to your newspaper, magazine, television or the internet to see what she’s mastering at the moment. Her bio reads like a fairy tale, and just when you think her career has peaked, she takes it to another level. Today’s average business leader, if there is such a thing, would be pleased as punch to boast of just one of her previous accomplishments. Wait until you see the entire list and you’ll see what I mean.

Why all the success? What drives this woman to unparalleled success at a time when your daily newscast reveals another leader thrown to the curb or even on his/her way to prison? Listen to her employees, associates, and competitors, and it quickly becomes blatantly obvious. Education, experience, worth ethic, focus, integrity, unlimited passion, creativity, keen judgment, listening skills, the ability to earn respect, a pioneer mindset, a respect and belief in customer feedback and the expertise to create, encourage and support community. The list goes on, but I’m sure you see why she continues to excel in everything she undertakes.

Margaret C. “Meg” Whitman has been the President and CEO of the online marketplace we know as eBay since 1998. Whitman joined eBay when the company had 29 employees and operated solely in the United States; eBay is now a global organization with over 11,600 employees.

She led the company from a few customers to nearly 50 million … revenue jumped from a few dollars to nearly $6 billion.

In addition to managing eBay, she currently serves on the Board of Directors of Procter & Gamble and Dream Works Animation. According to Forbes magazine, Whitman is currently worth an estimated $1.3 billion. She is one of only seven women to have been repeatedly ranked among the world’s most influential people by Time Magazine.

Now let’s take a look at her incomparable track record. Buckle your seatbelt … here we go.

She attended Princeton University as an undergraduate with every intention of securing a career in medicine. However, she became an economics major after a summer job selling advertising for a campus publication … obviously a major turning point. She went on to receive an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Whitman began her working career at Procter & Gamble from 1979 to 1981. It was at Procter & Gamble that she built her experience in brand management. She then spent eight years working for Bain & Company, a leading global business and strategy consulting firm, eventually becoming a vice president.

From 1989 to 1992, Whitman worked at the Walt Disney Company, where she served as the Senior Vice President of Marketing for the Disney Consumer Products Division.

From 1992 to 1995, she served as President of the Stride Rite Corporation’s Children’s Division where she was responsible for the launch of the highly successful Munchkin baby shoe line and the repositioning of the Stride Rite brand and retail stores. She has also held the positions of executive vice president for the Keds Division and corporate vice president of strategic planning.

From 1995 to 1997, Whitman was President and CEO of FTD (Florists Transworld Delivery), the world’s largest floral products company. While at FTD, she oversaw its transition from a florist-owned association to a for-profit, privately owned company.

She then left to become the general manager of Hasbro Inc.’s Preschool Division, responsible for global management and marketing of two of the world’s best-known children’s brands, Playskool and Mr. Potato Head. During her tenure, Meg oversaw the reorganization of the Preschool Division and its resulting return to profitability.

As you can plainly see, as the corporate prodigy made her way through a series of posts at blue-chip companies, she certainly left her mark in a most positive way.

In 2005, she was interviewed by Disney’s board of directors to succeed Michael Eisner as CEO, but dropped out a week later, prompting the board to give the job to Robert Iger.

She then joined eBay and has been growing the organization at a fever pitch. I have a strange feeling she is far from slowing down.

Whitman is a multi-billionaire and one of the richest female CEOs in the world.

Whitman donated a significant sum of money to her alma mater, Princeton University, said to have totaled more than $30 million, which has allowed the construction of the university’s sixth residential college, Whitman College, opening this year.

She is married to Griffith R. Harsh IV, a neurosurgeon.

It might be interesting to keep your eye on this dynamic leader in the future. I’m certain her career and continuous success is far from finished.

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.

Microsoft Digs Itself a Hole

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Microsoft, the software giant, is excavating a giant pit for an underground parking garage with the capacity for some 5,000 vehicles. When finished, it will be one of the largest underground parking structures in the United States.

It will cover the equivalent of six downtown city blocks and go four stories deep. The underground garage is scheduled to be completed by mid-2008. Microsoft now has nearly 29,000 parking spaces spread across its corporate campus in Redmond.

In 2006, the company announced a three-year plan to expand the campus by about one-third, or 3.1 million square feet, at a cost of roughly $1.3 billion. Parking at Microsoft has become such a hassle that the company began offering valet service for employees working in some buildings, as a temporary measure during construction.

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.

Little-known Facts about Well-known Businesses – Procter and Gamble

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Day after day we see, hear, and use the names of leading businesses in many industries as though they were family members. In a way, I guess they really are. We use their products and services daily and have done so most of our lives … so much so that we often take them for granted and don’t realize how little we really know about them. We drive their cars, eat their food, wear their clothes, fly their airlines, stay in their hotels, rent their cars, watch their movies, and the list goes on and on. What would we do without them? Yet we know so little about them. We hope to change that with this particular feature. We’ll delve into those unknown but interesting facts about many well-known companies.

PROCTER & GAMBLE

  • Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Procter & Gamble community consists of over 135,000 employees working in more than 80 countries worldwide.
  • What began as a small, family-operated soap and candle company now provides products and services of superior quality and value to consumers in over 180 countries.
  • William Procter, a candlemaker, and James Gamble, a soapmaker, immigrants from England and Ireland respectively, might never have even met one another if they hadn’t married sisters, Olivia and Elizabeth Norris.
  • Since both their industries used similar resources, the “Panic of 1837” caused intense competition between the two and, as a result, it led to discord within the family. Alexander Norris, their father-in-law, decided to call a meeting where he convinced his new sons-in-law to become business partners. As a result of the suggestion, a new enterprise was born in October of 1837: Procter & Gamble.
  • The company prospered during the nineteenth century. In 1859, their head count reached 80 and their sales reached one million dollars.
  • In the 1880s Procter & Gamble began to market a new product, an inexpensive soap that floated in water. The company called the soap IVORY. It seemed to be an instant favorite for consumers and seemed to kick off an aggressive development and marketing program that placed P & G in a leadership role for decades to come.
  • In April 2006 the company’s operations were categorized into three “Business Units” with each unit divided into “Business Segments”:
    • P & G Beauty & Health Unit (Beauty Care segment — Health Care segment)
    • P & G Household Care Unit (Pet health, snacks, and coffee segment — Baby Care and Family Care segment — Fabric Care and Home Care segment)
    • Gillette Unit (Duracell & Braun segment — Blades & Razors segment)
  • While hundreds of millions of consumers world-wide are very familiar with the many P & G brands, those same patrons may not be aware that their favorite brand belongs to the P & G family of growing products.
  • The following 21 brands have reached the level of MORE than a billion dollars in sales annually!
    (Always – Bounty – Braun – Charmin – Crest – Dawn – Downy – Duracell – Folgers – Gillette – Gillette Mach 3 – Head & Shoulders – IAMS – Olay – Oral-B – Pampers – Pantene – Pringles – Tide – Wella – Fab)
  • Procter & Gamble produces close to one hundred other very well-known products you see on your grocery shelves every day. That list would include popular staples such as Bold – Bonus – Bounce – Camay – Cascade – Charmin – Cheer – Clairol – Comet – Cover Girl – Dash – Dreft – Dryel – Febreze – Fixodent – Gaub – Gleem – Ivory – Joy – Loving Care – Luvs – Max Factor – Metamucil – Mirage – Miss Clairol – Mr. Clean – New Wave – Nice’n Easy – Noxema – NyQuil – DayQuil – Old Spice – Pepto-Bismol – Prilosec OC – Puffs – Safeguard – Scope – Secret – Sure – Swiffer – Tampex – Tempo – Thermacare – Vicks – Vidal Sassoon – Wash & Go – Whisper and Yes to name a few.

Their ability to meet the needs of today’s consumer world wide seems to be as strong as ever. God Bless Fathers-in-Law.

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.

Little-known Facts about Well-known Leaders – Bill Gates

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Everyone knows the most recent headlines about our country’s greatest leaders. In this feature, we’d like to shed some light on the lesser-known facts about these folks in hopes of giving you a little greater insight as to what makes them tick.

Bill Gates

  • William Henry Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, USA.
  • His father William was a corporate lawyer, and his mother Mary was a schoolteacher.
  • By the age of 17, Gates had sold his first computer program, a time-tabling system for his high school, for $4,200.
  • Gates scored 1590 on his SAT standardized test. The top score for the test is 1600.
  • Gates told his university teachers he would be a millionaire by age 30. He became a billionaire at age 31.
  • While at Harvard, Gates co-wrote Altair BASIC, which became Microsoft’s (then called Micro-Soft) first product.
  • He met his wife, Melinda French, in 1987 at a Microsoft press event in Manhattan while she was a worker for the company. They would go on to get married on New Years Day in 1994.
  • In 2002, Bill Gates was considered more idolized than Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung in a poll of teenagers in Hong Kong and China. The survey was conducted by the City University of Hong Kong.
  • In 2005, Gates was honored with the title Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II of England.
  • As of the March 2007 issue of Forbes magazine, Bill Gates has been listed as Number 1 on “Forbes’ Richest People” list for 13 years in a row. His current net worth is about $56 billion.
  • Gates has recently announced that he will be reducing his involvement at Microsoft and will be devoting more time to his charity work.
  • He is currently having a building named after him at Carnegie Mellon University, called the Gates Building of Computer Science.
  • Gates is the current owner of the Codex Leicester — a 72-page collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific writings. The writings are a mixture of observations on water properties, astronomy, and rocks and fossils. Gates puts the Codex on public display once a year in a different city around the world.
  • Bill Gates earns $250 every SECOND; that’s about $20 million a DAY and $7.8 billion a YEAR!
  • If he drops a thousand-dollar bill, he needn’t even bother to pick it up because in the four seconds it would take him to pick it up, he would’ve already earned it back.

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.

A Team with a Head Start

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Every now and then I’m blessed with a rare “psychic tap on the shoulder” to remind me why I do what I do. I got another one of those reminders this past week.

I was invited to spend a half day with 200 staff members of the Saginaw Intermediate School District – Head Start Program in Michigan. It was their last day of the school year and, rather than requesting a more celebratory fare to wind down and relax after a long, challenging year, they chose to focus on enhancing teamwork! Under the circumstances, I originally found this content choice unusual. However, I was more than happy to facilitate their very business-like request.

Head Start is a term that most of us have heard over the years but most would struggle to actually define properly. Head Start is a national child development program for children from birth to age 5. Ambitious goals include (1) enhancing children’s physical, social, emotional and cognitive development; (2) enabling parents to be better caregivers and teachers to their children; and (3) helping parents meet their own goals, including economic independence.

Head Start was established in 1965 to help low-income families provide their children with developmentally appropriate education, health, and social services to better prepare them to achieve in school and society. Initially, Head Start served preschool children ages 3 to 5. Early Head Start (EHS) was created in 1994 to target the needs of pregnant women, infants and toddlers, thereby fostering positive development at even earlier stages. This fantastic program has served more than 18 million children and their families. Currently, there are more than 1,500 Head Start programs and 16,000 sites nationwide. Talk about a extraordinary calling, a massive responsibility and a gratifying undertaking!

It takes a very special person to successfully pursue such lofty goals, and I feel very fortunate to have met close to 200 very devoted people who certainly meet that description.

Upon the completion of my presentation, I was delighted to witness a very obvious IRONY surface throughout the auditorium. This entire audience spent the morning interacting, laughing, taking notes, asking questions, and obviously enjoying themselves and each other as they took more notes than I can remember a group taking in a very long time. This was indeed a very strong, proud, and productive team long before I arrived. They were already practicing the majority of the tools and strategies we discussed while openly accepting new approaches to existing challenges. They were so refreshing compared to the many groups we’ve worked with that truly needed a greater focus on teamwork but denied or ignored that obvious need. These folks were already very obviously operating as a dedicated “TEAM” and yet they hungered for more information and even greater opportunities to enhance their performance together. Very exhilarating!

I finished my portion of the program shortly before lunch. Two agenda items remained, and I must admit that both left me mesmerized as I watched from the back of the auditorium. Since their annual get-together last year, they’ve added close to 50 new staff members and wanted to introduce each by name and location. The first intro caught many off guard as they made the transition from program participants to aggressively vocal and supportive team members. However, they were very soon yelling, applauding, and cheering after each new introduction. At the conclusion of almost 50 introductions, one of the audience members raised her hand to make a request that brought a smile and an air of anticipation to everyone in the room. She simply pointed out that the very first introduction caught the majority of the room off guard, which resulted in that first new team member receiving less of a welcome than everyone else. She suggested the first intro be repeated. It was, and the room burst into applause and a standing ovation, which obviously thrilled the new team member. I’ve never seen anything like that. Most similar routines quickly fade into polite and redundant scattered applause after the first five or six introductions. Not so with this TEAM. Every new employee was made to feel very welcome, appreciated and supported.

After new employee recognition, each and every team member in the room was invited to the front of the room to receive a certificate of appreciation and a decorative key chain bearing the organization’s logo and motto. Here again is another ceremony that usually reaches obvious levels of boredom within minutes. This group stood up at the first offering and cheered, applauded, sang, whistled, yelled, and stomped their feet in support until every single presentation was completed. This demonstration of sincere support for everyone involved spoke volumes about the unique culture these fine folks have created and maintained. Their future success will grow as they continue to grow as a TEAM. The families they serve daily should be very grateful to have received their HEAD START from such a talented, dedicated, experienced TEAM of very special people.

I wish I could have filmed those closing moments to share with other clients. On the other hand, film would not have done them justice. Film couldn’t have captured the essence of this culture. You had to see it. You had to hear it. You had to feel it. This group truly has a HEAD START on most other teams. They are certainly to be commended, appreciated and applauded. They certainly made my day!

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.

The Wizard of Odds

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Odds are great that you’ve seen the movie or read the book. However, if you’ve never seen or heard of The Wizard of Oz, you may want to save some time here and simply bypass this particular article. However, you may want to pick up a copy of this classic at your local video store or just view your local TV listing as you can pretty much find it on television on some channel on any given night.

This time-honored masterpiece has been a favorite of mine since I first saw it as a very young child in 1955. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen it with friends, later with children, and even later with my grandchildren. I discovered something new every time I saw it, and it’s never grown old for me and the millions of others who have seen it.

There are so many lessons to be learned from this paragon of cinema excellence, and we can easily apply them to our families, our personal lives and/or our careers. On the other hand, I’ve lost count of those I’ve spoken to who never really never “got it” even though they loved the storyline, the characters, and the music.

I know of clients who have discussed the lessons of “Oz” as they relate to the workplace, and I’ve read about therapists who have guided families through major challenges using the many valuable messages lurking in the storyline. I even have a long-time friend and associate who built a thriving consulting business on this popular theme. For those of you with children and/or grandchildren, “Oz” affords you a fantastic opportunity to not only enjoy a very entertaining movie but to share some very precious “life lessons.”

If you think “Oz” hasn’t impacted us as a society, simply consider the number of words and phrases you hear regularly that immediately produces images of that mystical land “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”…. Kansas, tornado, Dorothy, Auntie Em, Toto, Munchkins, Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard, ruby slippers, Glinda The Good Witch, yellow brick road, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Brain–Heart–Courage, Emerald City, Angry Apple Trees, Deadly Poppy Fields, Flying Monkeys, “DingDong The Witch Is Dead” and the list goes on and on.

This American musical fantasy film, based on the 1900 children’s fable by L. Frank Baum, was first released in 1939. It’s hard to believe it’s still so relevant today. Although the many captivating characters are loved by everyone who sees them, the actual “stars” are known by very few. Judy Garland was, of course, a superstar who brought Dorothy to life as no other actress could have done. Ray Bolger, famed dancer, was perfect for the part of the ever-nimble Scarecrow, Jack Haley replaced Buddy Ebson as the Tin Man after the future Beverly Hillbilly almost died from a poor reaction to the silver paint, which transformed him into the loveable metal woodsman, and Bert Lahr, comedian extraordinaire, made you love rather than fear the Cowardly Lion. Frank Morgan, although relatively unknown to viewers, made you believe he was the Wizard. What few “Oz” fans ever realized was the fact that Frank also played the roles of Professor Marvel, a carnival sharkster, the doorman to Emerald City, the cabby driving “the horse of a different color,” and the guard at the gate to the Wizard’s sanctuary, for a total of five different roles in the film. This group of very talented actors joined forces with a couple of unique witches and a community of Munchkins to dance and sing their way into our hearts forever.

Decades after the movie premier, the English band America attempted to explain one of the many morals of the story in their rendition of a song called “Tin Man.” They summarized the entire movie with the line: “Oz didn’t give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have.” That line was one of two that should be shared with our children while they’re still young. The other is summarized by Dorothy’s cherished observation that “There’s no place like home!”

These messages have touched the hearts and souls of millions over the decades as demonstrated by the longevity of the music and the messages. “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” was recently featured as a final performance by an American Idol for millions of devoted fans. In 2003, New York City welcomed the debut of the box office smash “WICKED.” This Broadway favorite is the story of two girls who meet in the Land of Oz long before Dorothy dropped in. These two unlikely friends end up as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. This spellbinding new musical was nominated for nine Tony Awards … winning three of those. There are currently five productions running — on Broadway, on a U.S. National tour, in Chicago, in L.A. and in London’s West End.

While this entertaining epic will live on forever and entertain legions of both old and new fans, it will also be a very valuable learning tool for anyone who truly examines the many treasures offered throughout the cherished storyline. Discuss them with your children and encourage them to apply them regularly as they face the challenges of growth and success. Apply them consistently within your work culture to realize the true value they offer to everyone involved.

For instance:
“Oz didn’t give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have.”
Seek, discover, and utilize the tremendous potential we possess within our current staff members. Close the “Knowing-Doing Gap” to increase productivity without adding a single dollar to your payroll.

“There’s no place like home!”
Spotlight and share the many assets within our organization that we so often take for granted. Create an appreciation for resources and benefits we often overlook.

Like the loveable Lion, muster the courage to see and acknowledge the reality we must deal with in today’s competitive and challenging environment.
You’ll have to do it sooner or later. The sooner the better.

Emulate the tireless Tin Man by finding the heart to own your circumstances, no matter how difficult that may prove to be.
It’s not what happens to you in life … it’s how you react to it that makes the difference.

Mimic the Scarecrow, obtain the wisdom to solve any problem or overcome any obstacle that stands in your way.
Never stop learning. When you’re green, you’re growing. When you’re ripe, you’re rotting. Examples of each appear daily in news headlines. The choice is yours.

And, finally, imitate Dorothy and exercise the means to make things happen, allowing you to get the results you want.
Take action. Become a mono-maniac with a mission.

Do these things regularly and you’ll find the happiness and contentment you’re searching for!

And, every now and then, take the time to take in a good movie with a friend or loved one. In fact, consider The Wizard of Oz. With any luck, maybe we’ll meet someday, and we can talk about our thoughts on “Oz” … “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

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.

The Last Ride

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CHANGE can be difficult. We usually discuss the mechanics of change within a business context. However, when you think about it, we have to cope with change as much, if not more, within our personal lives as we do at work. In fact, we’re often challenged with a greater variety of personal changes compared to what we’re asked to deal with in the workplace.

For instance, it’s very difficult to lose an old friend. The first time it happens you’re caught totally off guard and uncertain of what to expect. As you grow older, you suddenly witness the loss of even more old friends, and you begin to question the wisdom of change. Of course, by now you realize that I’m not necessarily discussing the loss of a fellow human being. Over the years, you accumulate a variety of friends … a special song, an extraordinary vacation spot, a unique hobby, a favorite food, a distinctive odor, a body of water, or a great view. The older you get, the more you realize how special these friends are.

I was recently shocked to read of the demise of one of my very old friends … Brooklyn’s Coney Island. Yes, an amusement park. By no stretch of the imagination does this piece of real estate even resemble anything like Disney World, Cedar Point, or your favorite Six Flags location. However, it’s a refreshing alternative to today’s corporate-owned, ever-growing, high-tech, line-stretching, global enticement.

Coney Island was one of the most celebrated beach resorts in the nation at one time, and it’s still a Mecca for summer fun even today — at least for a short while. I first arrived at this poor-man’s paradise on a hot summer weekend during my first visit to New York City decades ago. After an hour subway ride from downtown Manhattan, I exited the train to discover an abundance of sun, sand and surf. The beautiful beach was free, wide, and well-groomed at that time. You could practically taste the salty Atlantic ocean lingering in the air. My first glance at that horizon filled with rides, attractions, concessions and midway games left me speechless. The world-renowned Thunderbolt roller coaster, now abandoned, towered above everything in sight.

The smell of cotton candy, Nathan’s hot dogs, giant pretzels, peanuts and popcorn … you could gain weight by simply inhaling those aromas. Fantastic. The combination of sounds included Carny barkers, children laughing, the rides themselves, and very often the live music of top entertainers from the world of Pop and Rock. The list reads like a Who’s Who of musicians; Fabian, Chubby Checker, The Shirelles, The Chiffons, Leslie Gore, The Jackson Five, Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, The Four Seasons, Bill Haley & The Comets, Bobby Rydell, Dion, Jackie Wilson, Neil Sedaka, Tony Orlando, Frankie Avalon, Little Anthony, Freddy Cannon, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Young Rascals, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Fifth Dimension and many, many more. Believe it or not, for a very small admission price, you could thrill to the live performance of six to eight top head-liners in one evening. Those were the days. The charm of Coney Island will live on in the hearts of millions.

I was stationed nearby at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and was blessed to be able to visit Coney Island on a regular basis. Later, I actually lived in Greenwich Village, which was much closer to this utopian escape. It was very special to me because it reminded me so much of home as I grew up on a lake just a stone’s throw away from a local amusement park. Of course, it was nowhere near the size of Coney Island, but it captured my heart at a very young age. Coney Island was, for a long time, my connection to home.

Today, many of the original rides have vanished and others are indeed antiquated. The area is battling back from urban blight, and investors are talking of future plans for a huge redevelopment project featuring an indoor water park, a hotel, and even a rooftop landing pad for blimps. All this would be financed by beachfront condos and several casinos. Time marches on. Change happens. It looks as though Coney Island’s last ride may very well be a bulldozer. However, regardless of what they do to that precious piece of real estate, I’ll always have the memory of so many times leaving my footprints, along with millions of others, in the glistening sands of Coney Island. Good-bye, my friend. Thanks for the memories.

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.