An 8-person Chicago law firm is seeking an Interim CFO. Looking for someone to develop and implement a "financial accountability process" to determine the revenue/cost/profitability of each client, matter and attorney. 

If you are interested please e-mail agreene@johnstongreene.com.

Adapting your success:

Have you made your summer plans?  Not yet?  That’s good, because as John Lennon sang, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

Indeed, life has a way of not unfolding according to your plans.  Especially at work.

On top of that, as you change (which you will) your definition of success changes as well.  All this makes ongoing success tricky, unless you are happy to change, unless you are prepared to adjust, unless you are willing to improve.

Actually, the tricky bit is not your willingness to improve.  The trick is to understand what it means to improve.  Many of us have been taught that ‘learning to improve’ means getting better at what we are already doing.

But in an ever-changing world, that is not enough.  You should get better at clarifying what you mean by success and then learn how to adapt your plans as life happens to you.

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

Listen to the radio version of Adapting your success (10 most recent radio files)

© 2010 James Henry McIntosh - nonsenseatwork.com

In business one of the most important decisions is the decision about how to invest your hard earned money. Knowing that higher risks will need to be compensated by higher yields, and little risk means little return is the starting point, but how does a “good investment” really look like?

Warren Buffet, perhaps the most successful investor and one of the world’s richest people seem to be a great mentor. Let’s see how his investment strategy looks like.

Asked “what makes a good investment” at the Annual general Shareholder Meeting on May 1^st 2010, he said:

Efficiently blacking out again:

Do you remember August the 14th 2003?  That’s when about 50 million people in the US and Canada had no electricity.  The official task force blamed the blackout on overgrown trees.

But was that the cause or a symptom?

Managers are taught to think in terms of productivity and efficiency.  The more you produce with less, the higher your productivity and your efficiency.  However, no electricity does not show zero productivity.  Rather, it highlights the huge contribution energy utilities make to our quality of life. 
I wonder what the linesmen would have done about the trees if they were taught to think in terms of contribution instead of productivity and efficiency.
BP is blaming its black out – excuse the bad pun – on the blow-out protector.  I think that, in its quest for efficiency, BP ignored its contribution to society.

Remember, organizations struggle and fail when they focus on productivity and efficiency at the expense of the contribution they make.

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

Listen to the radio version of Efficiently blacking out again (10 most recent radio files)


© 2010 James Henry McIntosh - nonsenseatwork.com

Randomly successful being luckier:

Let’s talk rolling stones and golf balls.  Did you know that you can copy exactly what a successful person did, you can follow their recipe for success to the letter, you can do everything ‘right’ and you might still fail?

That is because you can never duplicate the exact environment in which the previous success materialized.  Furthermore, our planet is blessed with a dollop of randomness, which we call ‘accidents’ or ‘luck’, depending on what happened to us.

Wise and successful people know this and will, like Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, explain their success as largely due to luck.  Which is why they are not seduced into selling recipes for success.

If success is random, should you give up trying to succeed?  No.  But you should stop trying so hard.  Relax and enjoy yourself ‘trying to succeed’.  Be like the famous golfer Gary Player.  He said, ‘the more I practice, the luckier I get.’

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

Listen to the radio version of Randomly successful being luckier (10 most recent radio files)

© 2010 James Henry McIntosh - nonsenseatwork.com

When is your error a mistake?

Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake?  Let’s pick on BP to find out.

Dr Wally was fond of saying that every system has an error rate.  This is not the same as Murphy’s Law, which states that if anything can go wrong, it will.  What Dr Wally meant is that systems are inherently unstable, mainly because nothing is perfect and because things change.  This instability can result in random errors, making it almost impossible to trace the cause – and also making any attempt to do so a waste of time and effort.

What should you do when a random error strikes?  Don’t become frustrated.  Be willing to adapt and to make adjustments.  Be resilient and carry on.
You may never find the cause of a random error.  But if you do, then fix it!  Because, as Orlando Battista pointed out, “An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

Listen to the radio version of When is your error a mistake? (10 most recent radio files)

© 2010 James Henry McIntosh - nonsenseatwork.com

Reverse sexual harassment at work:

With Summer here, it’s time for a sunny story.  Have you heard the one about the bus driver who asked his female passenger to move or get off his bus?  She had on a very low cut blouse and was sitting right in the sight-line of his rear-view mirror.  He complained that she was distracting him from doing his job safely.

A form of sexual harassment, no doubt, but who was harassing whom?

I have witnessed many examples of ‘reverse’ sexual harassment at work.  Don’t get me wrong.  Sexual harassment deservedly gets a lot of space in personnel policy booklets.  But, equally, we should not ignore sexual harassment in the form of inappropriate dress for the work environment.  Boy or girl.

Many companies have a casual dress code.  But, please, casual dress does not mean dress-down or half-dressed.  Dress appropriately and you will be treated appropriately by your superiors, by your colleagues and even by your customers.

I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

Listen to the radio version of Reverse sexual harassment at work (10 most recent radio files)

© 2010 James Henry McIntosh - nonsenseatwork.com

At Yale University Psychology Department,  they researched the 12 most powerful words in the English language that sell, and in this headline I used them all. The study was first undertaken in 1961 and is repeated every couple of years to ensure up-to-dateness with the development of the English language.

So, if you make presentations or write marketing copy, use these powerful words to dramatically increase your win rates:

1.       Discovery

In turnaround, the sheer survival of an organisation depends on the success of the turnaround manager. That's why turnaround managers take a highly scientific approach - they don't take any risk of failing - and that's why they get paid a great deal of money.

One of their scientific sales secrets is to pitch on a Tuesday. It is indeed scientifically proven that your chances of winning a pitch are greatest on a Tuesday.

Let me explain:

For 18 months we've been struggling to expand our residential real estate portfolio while properties are available at deeply discounted prices. The hurdle continues to be the lack of bank financing. Despite the rhetoric, banks do NOT have money to lend due to their weak balance sheets. The primary culprits - non-performing loans and bank owned (REO) properties. I will admit bank lending has improved since late 2008 - but it's gone from zero to very little !

I'd like to hear your views on bank lending ... is the lending faucet starting to drip?

As the old adage says, necessity is the mother of invention. Our team has been forced to test and implement virtually every form of creative financing ever invented (plus 2 more). In the process, we realized we developed THE solution to the banking & lending crisis !