Georgia Tech MBA

Ducks Quack - Eagles Soar

I'm passing along a wise word from Dan Miller's (highly recommended) e-newsletter. It's inspiring and encouraging! Thanks Dan!

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This is a popular story that you may have seen before. Even if you have, it’s a great reminder that just doing little common sense things can make us stand out in a crowd. When times are tough we need to take advantage of the many ways we can prosper and thrive – and bring more joy to ourselves and the people we meet.

Ducks Quack - Eagles Soar
No one can make you serve customers well....that's because great service is a choice. Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.

He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey.

He handed Harvey a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.'

Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment....

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean! As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.' Harvey said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.' Wally smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.' Almost stuttering, Harvey said, 'I'll take a Diet Coke.'

Handing him his drink, Wally said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today..'

As they were pulling away, Wally handed Harvey another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'

And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts... '

Tell me, Wally,' Mr McKay asked the driver, 'have you always served customers like this?' Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.

He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'

'That hit me right between the eyes,' said Wally. 'Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers.. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'

'I take it that has paid off for you,' Harvey said.

'It sure has,' Wally replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.'

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. Harvey says he's probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever he goes to their cities, he gives them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told him all the reasons they couldn't do any of what he was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans.

Be Inspired.

Open space, natural light, a chalkboard wall and a wall for pushpins. Crayons, a slinky, and a bean bag chair. Oh, and a projector, prototypes and large monitors featuring existing patents. That's not what you were thinking at first, was it? It's my latest idea to foster an innovative culture around me...a sort of "inspiration room".

Take a place that has a thousands of patents on record, say a research university or big technology company. I believe it is safe to say that many of these patents were never commercialized. Sure, a lot of the technology is old and no longer applicable, but what about the concept or the challenge that was being solved. Or is there a new way to apply that technology to solve a different challenge? Has a market grown for an older idea that was too advanced for its time? So much potential just sitting there. Potential needing new minds to take a fresh look. 

Is is possible to create a database with a user-friendly interface where people can search through the organizations patents and look for new ideas? And then unlock the potential of this database through the use of an "inspiration room". The space should have prototypes and large monitors to search the database. Sessions held in the space can focus on a type of technology of challenge being addresses and people connected in that field can go through a facilitated brainstorming session. People needing a dose of creativity can use the space to imagine and feed off of others' ideas. Inventors can present their previous creations and ideas to panels tasked with finding a new use or solution.

Is this being done somewhere already? What else should be included? What won't work?

Credits: University of Southern Indiana's Innovation Discovery Process and a white paper by innovation strategy firm, Strategos.

Hard Work and Remarkability

I'm a big fan of Dan Miller at 48days.com. His life-coaching stories are inspiring and the lessons are transferable. I think he does a good job at utilizing a freemium model by giving away things like his weekly podcast and e-newsletter (as well as PDF copies of his books) as a way for people to buy his print books, audio books, coaching and seminars. Dan believes that everyone can find the work they love and they can act on it right now. In the new economy, the skill to figure out what you want and how to make it profitable will be extremely valuable.

In this week's newsletter, Dan has a few blurbs of wisdom and he recycles a great tool from Seth Godin. A few things that I like:

• A now famous Yale University study reported that 15% of the reason for a person’s success is due to technical skill and knowledge, and 85% of the reason originates from that person’s personal skill; attitude, enthusiasm, self-discipline, smile, tone of voice, desire, and ambition. - This ties in well with a word of wisdom from Larry Huang (a founder of Ciena and the donor of the executive education wing in the GT College of Management).  Larry told me that his success is certainly a result of luck, but it is more a result of hard work and dedication. He recommended "Talent Is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin.
• Dan also sent out Seth Godin's "99 Cows" - a collection of 99 "remarkable" ideas to spark creativity and enthusiasm. I found Cow #63 to be particularly insightful (maybe because it has to do with recruiting MBA's). The moral of Cow #63 is to make your resume and first-impression clearly communicate rock-star status. It's not the generic, well-rounded people who get the job. It's the remarkable (and memorable) individual. (my paraphrase)

So today and this week and the rest of this soggy month will be dedicated to hard work and remarkability. (I realize, of course, that this will need to be an ongoing dedication.) :)

Thoughts on my Social Entrepreneurship Idea

The Feel-Good Part
How many different professions did you want to be when you were a kid? I went through the requisite phases of wanting to be a doctor and a teacher and a ballerina. I feel like our imagination as children runs wild and the possibilities are endless. It doesn’t seem so far-fetched to dream of inventing something new or building something great or running our own business. How many of us end up doing those type of things when we grow up? Do we lose our imagination or is it just that reality sets in and we fear the unknown? Or is it that we can’t see the path to our dream? I love the stories of people who don’t lose their imagination, strive to forge their own path and ignore what reality seems to be telling them. It’s inspiring. And it’s also not too late to change direction. But see, there’s a big part of me that says it doesn’t have to be about changing direction later in life. If I was inspired, if someone helped me find the path in high school, I could have been an expert by now! What can I do to give someone that opportunity?

The Economics Part
No one doubts that the economy is changing. People are spending less money. Less money flowing through the economy has a significant impact on the number and types of jobs that are available. High growth is going to come from totally new ways of doing business and new products and services. Is the next generation of workers prepared for this? Will there be enough people pushing the value creation curve forward through innovation?

There are a lot of really fascinating developments occurring in the science, technology and engineering space. We need that to continue and increase. We need to ensure that the next generation is passionate about pursuing innovation. We can’t leave it up to someone else.