Broken Windows / Broken Business by Michael Levine

Broken People

• The worst broken windows are sometimes people. That means an employee who is not on board with the needs and expectations of the company's consumers can do immesurable damage and is a broken window of the most urgent variety.
• Bad service is inexcuseable. Bad service, no matter how good the rest of the factors may be, will always sink your business.
• An employee who can't do the job properly should be fired. Not warned, not shifted to another position, not admonished. Fired. Fast. Before another customer can be spoiled.

That my friends, is straight shooting. This is just a tidbit of the common sense approach Michael applies to real examples. Good readin'

Koinonia ~ from Wikipedia

The idea of community denotes a “common unity” of purpose and interests. By engaging in this united relationship a new level of consciousness and conscience emerges that spurs the group to higher order thinking and action, thus empowering and encouraging its members to exist in a mutually beneficial relationship. Thus community and family become closely intertwined, because aiming at a common unity strives to overcome brokenness, divisiveness, and, ultimately gaining wholeness with each of the members, with their environment, and with their God. By giving mutual support, friendship and family merge. Both fellowship and community imply an inner and outer unity. No where in the framework of community is their implied a hierarchy of command and control. While there is leadership, the leader’s task is to focus energy, and align interests, not impose control.
Koinonia creates a brethren bond which builds trust and, especially when combined with the values of Wisdom, Virtue and Honor, overcomes two of humanity’s deepest fears and insecurities: being betrayed and being demeaned.

Managing by focusing energy and aligning interests and not by imposing control...this sounds like a novel idea that is not getting nearly enough attention in the workplace today.

Hand Me Another Brick

By Charles R. Swindoll

Excellent read, a level-5 leader in Nehemiah.

From Romans, by Philip C. Gehlahar

Often the weak are perceived as strong. They may speak louder and longer. They try to control other people because they cannot allow them to be different. They judge other people because they cannot tolerate those they cannot control. Paul does not address the message to the weak in faith. They probably would not receive it, because they are weak and could not handle criticism. Niether are they able to change their weakness and start being strong.

The Curse of Knowledge exerpt from The Harvard Business Review

by Chip Heath and Dan Heath


Many sensible strategies fail to drive action because executives formulate them in sweeping, general language. “Achieving customer delight!” “Becoming the most efficient manufacturer!” “Unlocking shareholder value!” One explanation for executives’ love affair with vague strategy statements relates to a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge. Top executives have had years of immersion in the logic and conventions of business, so when they speak abstractly, they are simply summarizing the wealth of concrete data in their heads. But frontline employees, who aren’t privy to the underlying meaning, hear only opaque phrases. As a result, the strategies being touted don’t stick.In 1990, a Stanford University graduate student in psychology named Elizabeth Newton illustrated the curse of knowledge by studying a simple game in which she assigned people to one of two roles: “tapper” or “listener.” Each tapper was asked to pick a well-known song, such as “Happy Birthday,” and tap out the rhythm on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song.Over the course of Newton’s experiment, 120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only three of the songs correctly: a success ratio of 2.5%. But before they guessed, Newton asked the tappers to predict the probability that listeners would guess correctly. They predicted 50%. The tappers got their message across one time in 40, but they thought they would get it across one time in two. Why?When a tapper taps, it is impossible for her to avoid hearing the tune playing along to her taps. Meanwhile, all the listener can hear is a kind of bizarre Morse code. Yet the tappers were flabbergasted by how hard the listeners had to work to pick up the tune.The problem is that once we know something—say, the melody of a song—we find it hard to imagine not knowing it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. We have difficulty sharing it with others, because we can’t readily re-create their state of mind.In the business world, managers and employees, marketers and customers, corporate headquarters and the front line, all rely on ongoing communication but suffer from enormous information imbalances, just like the tappers and listeners.Leaders can thwart the curse of knowledge by “translating” their strategies into concrete language. Consider Trader Joe’s, a specialty food chain whose mission is “to bring our customers the best food and beverage values and the information to make informed buying decisions.” That’s the company’s abstract umbrella statement, and it hardly serves to distinguish Trader Joe’s from other retailers. But shopping at Trader Joe’s is nothing like shopping at Wal-Mart, and its aisles are full of inexpensive but exotic foodstuffs like Moroccan simmer sauce and red-pepper soup. ~ read the rest on HBR online