How To Measure Success

By Simon Sinek

This journey I’m on is a deeply personal one. When I put words to this thing called the Why, it completely changed the direction of my life. Not a single thing I’m doing these days -- not the speaking, not the book, not even this column -- was a part of any plan. How could they be on a plan? I couldn’t even imagine them. With all that has happened in the past few years, someone asked me a question recently that really made me think: “How will you know when you’re successful?”

I know there’s a difference between being successful and feeling successful. And if you ask me if I feel successful, the honest answer is “not yet.” By most standard measurements, I am enjoying more success now than at any other time in my life, but I still don’t feel successful. This is what makes the question so fantastic. If the goal is to feel successful, what is the measurement we should use to achieve that feeling?

The most common standard measurement is money -- our bank accounts. That’s how so many people measure their success today, so perhaps it works?

I went to an event for high-performing entrepreneurs and the question was asked of the room, How many of you have achieved your financial goals?  Amazingly, 80% of the room raised their hand. Then the question was asked, “how many of you feel successful?” and 80% of the hands went down. This example alone shows that there is little to no connection between the standard measurement of success and the feeling of success.

I for one have never been motivated by the money.  Most years, if you were to ask me how much I make, the genuine answer is that I have no clue. I usually find out the answer to that question once a year, at tax time, when my accountant tells me. And if money were the only measurement, we’d all have a number in our minds that, if we reached it, we’d stop working. And most of us don’t. No matter how much I make, I don’t want to stop working. Money doesn’t help me answer that question.

Some would argue that you’re as successful as the company you keep. Certainly there is a connection between our friends and who we are. James Fowler talked about it a couple of years ago in a piece called “Do Your Friends Make You Fat?” But can we really measure our success based simply on the company we keep? For example, are Vincent Chase’s buddies in the HBO series Entourage successful because they hang out with someone rich and famous? Most of us would say no. Sometimes the opposite happens. Sometimes spending time with someone who is perceived as “successful” can make us feel less successful. The irony is that regardless of how successful we think someone is, we don’t actually know if they feel successful.

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with people I never imagined even meeting. At two events this week, for example, I shared the stage with The Tipping Point author, Malcolm Gladwell, and David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire, respectively. It was so exciting to spend time with them and it was fantastic to get to soak up some of their genius. I cannot dispute that having the opportunity to work with them certainly is an indicator that things are moving in the right direction, but it didn’t make me feel successful. For me, the best thing about spending time with people I admire is the opportunity to ask them questions and learn from them. Though spending time with them doesn’t make me feel successful, their ideas and their thinking absolutely contribute to making my own work better, which, of course, helps me advance. But it doesn’t yet answer the question.

My friend Georgia Hurd is not famous. She’s not rich. And she’s not yet attained the success she desires. She moved to Los Angeles to become an actress and has been working really hard to achieve her dream. She has been through some hard times. Money has been tight. Her work schedule often hurts her social life. But she perseveres. Her work ethic and her drive are amazing. She is so focused on where she wants to go. It is inspiring. After a couple of years of pushing and lots of wondering if it would ever happen, she’s starting to get some momentum. This week alone, she was called in to do a modeling job for American Apparel, she had some fantastic auditions and people are starting to take notice of her. What Georgia has found is momentum. It is that momentum that makes her feel good. It is the momentum that makes her feel successful.

This is my measurement: momentum. That’s what I want to track and measure. Money and the people I meet are stepping stones, indicators that momentum is building -- but it is the momentum that makes me feel good.

Studies show that over 90% of Americans don’t feel fulfilled by their work. Think about that. The vast majority of Americans go home at the end of the day without the feeling of success. I imagine a world in which that statistic is reversed. That most people go to work every day to a job they love and go home at the end of the day feeling fulfilled. That’s the world I’m working to build. My contribution is to share a message that can help make that dream a reality. But only when others join me in this cause; to help spread the message; to build the companies that people love to work for; and to choose jobs based on how the job makes them feel, not simply how much it pays, will this dream become a reality.

I know momentum is building. That, more than any other measurement, makes me feel successful. So what of the original question, “How will you know when you’re successful?” The answer:  When I reach a level of momentum when the movement can advance without me -- then I will feel successful.

Where Do Ideas Come From?

I thought today's Seth Godin blog was worth re-posting.  If you're not currently subscribing to his feed or following him on Twitter, you're missing out.  Catch him at @thisissethsblog and/or at http://sethgodin.typepad.com.

Just a reminder, to follow and learn from blogs, my recommendation is set up your Google Reader and subscribe to as many as you can handle.  Then set up iGoogle as your desktop where you can plug in the Reader, your blog, and other things like ESPN.com.  You choose.  What I like about the reader is I can research hundreds of articles at a glance, yet read only what applies to my interests - all without cluttering my inbox.

Where do ideas come from?

1. Ideas don't come from watching television

2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture

3. Ideas often come while reading a book

4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them

5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom

6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide

7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do

8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner's mind. A little awareness is a good thing

9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week

10. Ideas come from trouble

11. Ideas come from our ego, and they do their best when they're generous and selfless

12. Ideas come from nature

13. Sometimes ideas come from fear (usually in movies) but often they come from confidence

14. Useful ideas come from being awake, alert enough to actually notice


15. Though sometimes ideas sneak in when we're asleep and too numb to be afraid

16. Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we're not trying

17. Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute

18. Bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones

19. Ideas don't need a passport, and often cross borders (of all kinds) with impunity

20. An idea must come from somewhere, because if it merely stays where it is and doesn't join us here, it's hidden. And hidden ideas don't ship, have no influence, no intersection with the market. They die, alone.

A Thought

Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving safely in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming ... WOW! What a ride!

Serving the Customer in Every Patient

By Gregory VandenBosch, President & Co-founder, MedDirect

There is a fundamental change occurring within the healthcare industry that is rapidly shifting more of the financial responsibility for medical services to patients. In fact, patients’ payment responsibility has grown by 300 percent in the last five years and most providers are only just beginning to experience the impact that this shift has on their finances and operations. As consumer-driven products (HSAs, HRAs and other plans with high deductibles and high levels of co-insurance) and other retail health initiatives continue to gain traction, some experts project patient payments as a percent of a provider’s total revenue will increase to approximately 40 percent by 2012.

This change presents a major challenge to providers because compared with health plan payments that generally arrive quickly and reliably, payments from patients require more work and often necessitate specialized software and staff.  Unfortunately, most healthcare organizations to date haven’t developed the adequate business-to-consumer tools and processes required to manage a large number of highly diverse patient payers and have failed to address the fundamental reasons why patients don’t pay – poor communication and education, confusing invoices/data and limited payment options.

It may sound a bit odd to talk about managing your patient’s “experience” when you're attempting to collect a debt, but in fact, that’s just what one must do. A lot of companies have said that it can cost five times more to acquire new customers than the cost of retaining current customers. In fact, many healthcare organizations now consider the lifetime value of their patient base as a primary financial lever in capital transactions and debt ratings. So, even when collecting a debt, it’s important to make every effort to avoid losing a good patient.

This makes loyalty a key focus, particularly in a mature industry such as healthcare. In healthcare, a zero sum game is in effect. It’s not just that you lose a patient – it’s that your competitor gains one of your former patients. In this case, patient loyalty becomes an even more critical component of your long-term profitability picture.

The right solution must bridge the gap between the need for patient payments and delivering a good patient experience. This raises the question: What communication and contact strategies can you employ to consistently deliver a positive experience without compromising your collections performance? In fact, these two elements are not mutually exclusive.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE

Traditional methods of communication, such as contact center agents and direct mail, play an important role in customer communication, but they are not capable of shouldering all your communications. With more than 90 percent of the U.S. population communicating via mobile phones and text messaging, healthcare providers need to adopt a communications strategy that makes use of all technology channels.

For example, automated communication through voice, email and text not only compliments your existing resources, making them more efficient and profitable, but also provides you with a more cost effective way to engage your patients and solve several business problems, many of which you may not realize exist. Such solutions also enable you to tailor each message to a particular demographic segment, even down to the level of an individual patients’ preferences.

                 

WHY USE AUTOMATED PATIENT COMMUNICATIONS?

When we discuss using automated outbound calling solutions, one of the most frequently asked questions we hear sounds something like this: “C’mon, people don’t really listen to those automated calls, they just hang up, right? Why would my patients want to listen to a robot voice– it’s tough enough getting them to listen to our agents?” Of course, if the answer to that question were “Yep. They hang up,” then we wouldn’t have the success we’ve been having.

Using this approach, companies can routinely achieve results far above the numbers achievable when using agents to manually call patients. Why? In our deployments, we have uncovered three main factors:

• First, when dealing with a live agent, patients will sometimes make promises to pay just to be done with an awkward conversation.

• Second, an agent could be aggressive in getting a promise over ending the call without a commitment from the patient. Automated communications does not ‘push’ promises to pay, but offers patients the option professionally and courteously at exactly the right time, as defined by best practices and business rules.

• Third, patients are less likely to lie to an automated call.

        

We have even heard that patients might prefer automated communications, for many of the reasons above. According to a study commissioned by Varolii, Inc. last year, 77 percent of consumers would welcome a personalized call in the form of an automated phone call or message. 

Interactive communications are always consistent, professional, easy to listen to and never have a “bad day”.  They perform exactly as designed, each and every time. The benefit is clear. Each time the system communicates with your patient, it is as though they were speaking with one of your best patient representatives.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Working effectively with patients who owe you money is a tricky proposition. But, it’s more important than ever to enhance your communications efforts to retain your patients.  It’s critical to success that healthcare providers deliver the right message, in the right tone of voice, saying the right things, at the right time, to the right patient. Using automated communications in your contact center will allow you to reach more customers and, in an affordable way.

What Design Can't Do

by Christopher Simmons

September 01, 2010

Years ago, inspired by something I heard Terry Irwin describe, I created a diagram to explain to clients just where design fits into their business plan. It was as much about managing expectations as it was about selling the value of design. This is how it works:

At the center of any organization is its leadership—an individual or small group of partners on whose vision the organization is founded. The leader is the heart. The core.

Next are the people—the managers, directors, employees, members, volunteers, etc., who believe in the leader’s vision. They contribute their own qualifications, expertise and perspectives to the organization, but most importantly they participate in a shared purpose.

After that is the product. The product is the thing that the people make. They make it well when they share a common purpose. They share a common purpose when the leadership unites them around a compelling vision.

The product (which can also be a service) must be supported by a strategy. The strategy is the plan that will help deliver the product to the right people in the right way.

Finally, there is design. Design is the language that supports the strategy that promotes the product, which is imagined by people that believe in the vision.

If you want to be a brand, I tell clients, you must work from the inside out. A great logo isn’t going to make a shitty product any less shitty, any more than a hard worker is going to make a bad boss a compelling leader. In this model, the inner layers affect the outer ones, not the other way around (with the possible exception that a well-articulated brand can help employees feel pride in their organization which can, for a time, boost morale).

Critics will say that this is an outmoded view of design—one that relegates the designer to the role of a stylist who merely dresses up an idea after all the hard decisions have been made. They will argue that design—particularly “design thinking”—should permeate all levels of an organization, that designers should have a seat at the table. That’s true. And it’s false.

It’s true because a design methodology can be useful in identifying need, discovering opportunity, developing insight and driving innovation. It’s false because the elements that drive the success of an organization are two layers deeper than most designers are equipped to go. Generally speaking, we don’t have the skills to train bosses to be leaders. Generally speaking, we don’t have the skills to truly, fundamentally inspire a workforce or volunteer base. That’s the leader’s job. To make it ours is both presumptuous and undermining. The designer who wants a seat at the table must first acknowledge who put the table there in the first place. And who built the room it’s in.

This doesn’t mean that designers are simply form-givers, and it doesn’t preclude us from developing deeper engagements with our clients. Companies and organizations routinely and necessarily rely on design to capture and attract people to the truth of who they are. Graphic designers do this visually. Interaction designers do this by creating experiences. Architects do it with spaces. And so on. The accomplished designer, then, is expert at utilizing their skills to enroll others in a vision that radiates from the inside out. That inside out part is key. It’s a conclusion I came to based on observation and intuition, but which, it turns out, is supported by science. Simon Sinek’s recent TED talk is probably the clearest and most compelling explanation of the biology of why this is true, and Debbie Millman’s well-researched presentation “Why We Buy, Why We Brand,” also dovetails tightly with this concept. I recommend seeing them both.

What design can do:

The designer occupies a powerful space, mediating the interface between brands and the context in which they live.

Where this model is deceiving is that it suggests that design comes in at the end of the process. In fact, there is another ring beyond design where the consumer lives. There is a ring beyond that that represents the affiliations of that consumer, then a ring for society, then a ring for culture and so on. Design, then, is at the center of another process—that of mediator between consumer and product, between message and audience. It is a position of such profound influence and such limitless potential that I’ve never understood why so many designers seem so reluctant to fill it.

This article was originally published on Christopher Simmons’ blog for his class at the California College of the Arts.

Culture, Risk-Taking Key to Innovation

by Pamela Babcock


Many organizations are hardwired to reduce risks and quarantine failures, but culture, timing and the ability to stretch boundaries and take risks are key to innovation, experts said recently.

In an organization where the number-one priority is not to make a mistake, you’ll never have innovation, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide Board Chair Shelly Lazarus told attendees June 23, 2010, at The New York Forum, a summit of business leaders and industry experts, held here.  “You have to create that environment where it’s safe to fail and where it’s okay to fail,” Lazarus said, adding that behind all great ideas, there’s an unreasonable person—someone to whom everyone says “sit down, we don’t need that.”  Innovation can bring everything from new services to new technology to new foodstuffs and new forms of social organization. During the session, panel members with a range of innovation experience shared insights into key characteristics of innovative organizations.  

Culture, Timing Are Key

When it comes to innovation, culture matters at all organizations, from startups to large companies. But changing culture is difficult and “really does require leadership,” noted Jonathan Miller, chairman and CEO of the digital media group and chief digital officer for News Corp. in New York.  Timing surrounding innovation is key, Miller said. “When you think about innovation, even if you have a sense of where to go, the timing and nuance is really important. You really have to be able to boil it down to specific products.”  Panel moderator Quentin Hardy, national editor for Forbes, noted that at a recent conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs mentioned how it carefully timed the iPad launch. “They tested the learning with the iPhone, and the iPhone became an environment in which to test the iPad,” Hardy said.
Taking the “or” Path Social entrepreneur Daniel Lubetzky, CEO of Kind Snacks in New York, said the essence of innovation “is people who are introspective and question themselves and question their environment for assumptions that maybe should be challenged.”  Lubetzky likes to challenge the idea that you have to either pursue this path or that path, rather than both.  He said historically, companies assumed that you either pursued profit or good, but noted how his company’s PeaceWorks program “brings flavors together in conflict regions and uses this as a force for social change.” It offers a line of spreads produced in Israel with cooperation between Israelis, Arabs and other neighbors with hopes that personal contact between the groups will help shatter cultural stereotypes and help people live together peacefully.

Dispelling False Stereotypes
 
Tech entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate with the Labor and Work/Life Program at Harvard Law School, said a common misperception is that “innovation is a young college dropout developing the next Google or a scientist sitting in a lab.”  Wadhwa, also an executive in residence and adjunct professor at Duke University, said attendees were “more typical of the entrepreneur than is Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or some college dropout” since most entrepreneurs come from the workforce. The average tech entrepreneur isn’t 19, but 30 years old; the average entrepreneurs in health foods and other high-growth industries are 40, Wadhwa added.  “Almost everybody in this room can innovate,” Wadhwa said. “There are plenty more innovators here in this room than you’ll find in any block of Silicon Valley.”
 

Power of Unreasonable People

 
Innovation requires not only unreasonable people, but also a culture of experimentation, Lazarus said.
“You’ve got to be brave enough to go out there with an idea and try it because you’re not going to know until you go out there into the marketplace,” Lazarus added.  When her company launched The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty that features size 12 women in their underwear, Lazarus said the Unilever marketing head in charge of the campaign received an e-mail from the head of Unilever in Japan that said, “I don’t think you understand. In Japan, we don’t like fat women.”  The marketing head stood up to the criticism, noting that the campaign was exciting, interesting and “the right thing to do,” Lazarus said.

Pairs, Wild Ideas and More
 
At ad agencies, people tend to work in pairs since the product typically involves art and words. And that’s a good thing, Lazarus said, since two people can stand up for each other’s ideas.  When you have two people working together, “one makes the other great … and I’ve found out a way to always keep them in pairs and to celebrate people who have wild ideas, even if they don’t go anywhere,” Lazarus said.  Lubetzky said when it comes to ideas, he likes to separate the brainstorming phase from the analysis phase since it’s really important “to not be saying why this will not work. Unless you’re getting these really crazy ideas, you’re actually not tapping the potential.”

Safety Net and Pulling the Plug
 
If you institutionalize innovation at your company, do you also have to institutionalize the hedge or your safety net when innovating?  Miller said it’s important to know that at any point in time, there are a couple of big mistakes “that if you make them you’re done, you’re out, and you have to know what those are.” But, he added, “You also have to know where your degrees of freedom are.”  Lazarus said it’s critical to be willing and quick to admit when you’re wrong and pull out. “The ability to pull the plug creates a much more innovative organization because it gives you courage. But most people are very reluctant to pull the plug on an idea they’ve fallen in love with,” she said.
 
Pamela Babcock is a freelance writer based in the New York City area.

Why Innovation Thrives at the Mayo Clinic

by Uri Neren

Start listening for guidance on innovation and you tend to hear a lot about Apple, Google, and other high-tech pioneers in Silicon Valley, Boston, or Seattle. You rarely hear about hospitals, especially those that operate closer to farm fields than oceans.

Yet in the extensive research my team has done to uncover the mystery of successful innovation, we've found few track records to rival that of The Mayo Clinic, in decidedly non-urban Rochester, Minnesota. The World Database of Innovation we are compiling, as a collaborative effort between my firm, Generate Companies, and several universities, represents over 20,000 hours of work to date. As well as over 200 in-depth case studies, it compiles the ideas of 4,500 or so innovation experts and consultancies.
Innovation is a multi-dimensional challenge; we have identified more than 105 areas in which it would be valuable to arrive at a definition of best practice. But one of the most fruitful areas has been "Conditions Needed for Innovation to Occur." As is the practice in each area of the database, we first pored over accounts of innovative environments (corporate, nonprofit, and public sector), many of them provided by our partners at some of the top innovation consultancies. Scanning for every mention of a workplace condition, we found 128 conditions we could put a distinct name to — and when we boiled the list down to common conditions, there were no less than 17. Our conclusion is not that all 17 are "must-haves", but that all should be considered by any large organization hoping to create a setting where innovation will flourish.

In the case of The Mayo Clinic, the right conditions were in place at the very beginning. While the word "innovation" has not always been attached to its work, the habit of developing better ways of treating patients and running its operations has been a signature trait since its founding in 1889 by brothers William and Charles Mayo. Three conditions in particular formed the climate that endures today:

Limited Resources. The hospital was born of tragedy, a result of a devastating tornado in 1883 that left much of Rochester in ruins. The town was only an outpost when Mayo began and today, as a world-renowned provider, it is still situated in the midst of cornfields in this town of 30,000. Interestingly, scarcity of resources shows up in our database as the single strongest driver of innovation in organizations in general.


Connectedness. The brothers established a place where teamwork was paramount yet where "cooperative individualism" would thrive. Early on they created an atmosphere open to new ideas and engaged in world travel to observe other physicians and spread the Mayo name. Mayo created the Surgeons Club in 1906 to allow doctors to watch surgical procedures in Rochester, anticipating by a hundred years the "open innovation" approach that has captured imaginations in the past decade. Today, Mayo's graduate school maintains the open door tradition.

Internally, Mayo has achieved a high level of connectedness among employees with systems and processes that enable — and oblige — everyone across the organization to find and connect with the expertise they need at any moment. Such systems are often associated with excellence in service and outcomes. Our research underscores that they also enhance innovation, by focusing attention, from multiple perspectives, on new problems and ideas.

Diversity. The brothers established and promoted the country's first real "group practice" concept where physicians in different disciplines would collaborate on the care of patients. The combined wisdom of practitioners, they believed, would result in better, more integrated care and better results. Their approach is sometimes called cross-functional teaming, and is now common in health care and corporate innovation practices. 

Just as important as these initial conditions was the Mayo brother's resolve to constantly re-invent their enterprise. They were dedicated to being the best in their field and, more importantly, to moving the entire field of medicine forward. Perhaps the best example was their decision to place doctors on salary, which would allow them to focus on health outcomes rather than volumes of health-related transactions, and give them the space for creativity, education, and research. This was a decision so controversial it nearly shattered the Mayo family, but one that helped to create one of the world's greatest medical centers.

More than a century old now, the Mayo Clinic enjoys brand recognition at nearly the level of The Coca-Cola Company. Its culture is known for collaboration, knowledge sharing, communication, and teamwork, and it takes pride in a legacy of important innovation. Many, many people have shared responsibility for building its practices and processes, but all had the advantage of the fertile conditions the Mayo brothers worked with at the start.