Dan Erwin

Jobless Claims Continue Downward

In a post last week, I commented that Mark Zandi is one of the most astute economists in the nation, especially when it comes to predictive ability.  In that post, Zandi pointed out that one of the most useful statistics available to all of us is the weekly employment level. 

In the post I supplied my readers with Zandi's interpretation of the statistics, making it possible for everyone to understand what's going on in the job market.  Once again, here's his explanation:  Only when claims head down to 400,000 will the economy be creating enough jobs to maintain stable unemployment.  Closer to 350,000 will lower the unemployment rate and mean that the recovery is evolving into an expansion.  When we get to initial weekly unemployment claims of 300,000, boom times are back.

Last Thursday, the jobless claim figure was at 450,000.  Today's report looked even better for claims:  432,000. 

Be aware that the jobless trends are more difficult to read during the holidays, because of seasonally adjusted employment.  Still, the figures point to better days ahead, though a quite slow recovery.

How to Raise Kids to Achieve

The holidays are book times in our home.  I've promised to review two new books, Alexandra Levit's intriguing book, New Job, New You, and a different take on change by Jean Latting and Jean Ramsey, entitled Reframing Change.  I also picked up Atul Gwande's just published, Checklist Manifest: How to Get Things Right, an exploration of the nature of complexity in our lives.

My eldest sent me Ted Kennedy's autobiography, True Compass, a revelation of the Kennedy family.  I've  read 75 of the 500 pages thus far, but what's most fascinating is a major subtext: how the parents, Joseph and Rose, set out and succeeded in raising kids to achieve.

Whatever your perspective on the Kennedy family, and they have plenty of detractors, there are a few timeless lessons for all of us.  Boston, these Irish Catholics decided, with its old Yankee stock would never completely accept the Kennedys.   The family move to Hyannis Port was an attempt to circumvent some of those prejudices.  Geographical change can become a necessity. 

But it's the family values that Ted Kennedy surfaces that drive the kids' achievement.  Since there's no question that we've identified with some of the same values, I want to do a personal sidebar of disclosure on our own values first.  On a few occasions I've commented that I was a Christian minister for elven years in the college towns of Boulder, Colorado (a glorious experience), and Flagstaff, Arizona (not nearly as interesting).  After those experiences, and with graduate degrees in tow, I taught in a theological seminary of the Scandinavian piety, here in Minnesota.  Many of you know that parts of the Twin Cities are heavily Lutheran and that St. Paul area has been heavily infused with the Catholic piety.  There isn't a Scandinavian bone in my body.  So that culture with its strong piety was,initially, a strange bird to us.  We love the emphasis on education, the arts, cleanliness and order.  But, the central place of conflict between the Scandinavian piety and myself is the hierarchy of values that determine a person's spiritual worth. 

Growing up in a family from the Mid-South, with English and Scotch-Irish in background, the Scandinavian emphasis on humility was utterly foreign to us.  We imbibed truth-telling from our ethnicity, and humility was far down the ladder.  In all my years of Detroit schooling and regular church attendance, I remember absolutely nothing about humility.  When we first moved here, it took me just a few months to learn that an open mouth is not to be rewarded.  Better to be quiet, put on no intellectual airs, and be humble.  People who speak up will not be rewarded.  A few weeks ago, I had a brief conversation with a former colleague who told me that in old age he had a developed a strong sense of humility about life.  I could see that he was visibly shaken by my response:  "That's a category that never crosses my mind." 

Of course, my cultural response to all the piety of humility was, "nonsense."  There is such a thing as genuine humility, but personal humility in my mind doesn't look like you Scandinavians want it to look.  Crassly, our style is much more like that of Penelope Trunk, the well known blogger.  She, of course, would have been tarred and feathered and run out of the church and society in this culture. 

So, as you can imagine, I ran up against plenty of barriers, especially with certain faculty and church-goers, in the early years of our Twin Cities experience.  But after awhile, I was able to look on the good side, celebrate the education and the arts, and go on about my business.  I've learned how to navigate the humble shibboleths, enjoy myself, build a good business and raise our three daughters.  I've also developed a few Scandinavian friends who can laugh with me about their piety and about mine as well.

From the birth of our first daughter, my wife and I both strategized about their lives.  We intended for them to achieve in school and in a profession, have a few significant friends, tell the truth most of the time, and develop a quality of street smarts that will enable them to achieve and have a meaningful existence in most any geographical setting.  Thus, in spite of the fact that I was a nationally known Christian minister, raising good kids who were "religious" was simply not an agenda of significance.  I believe that the Judeo-Christian ethos is the best support system for achievement in the modern world.  But in my ministry, I found that too many "good kids" were really boring nonachievers.

Now comes Ted Kennedy and his reminiscences about his father.  Kennedy writes that his father was never abusive, never wounding toward any of his children, but he let them know his expectations.  When he was 13 or 14, his father brought him in for a chat although the behavior that precipated the conversation was not recalled.  Here's what Joe Kennedy said: You can have a serious life or a nonserious life, Teddy.  I'll still love you whichever choice you make.  But if you decide to have a nonserious life, I won't have much time for you.  You make up your mind.  There are too many children here who are doing things that are interesting for me to do much with you.   

Obviously, it took Ted little time to make up his mind.

Two other values from Joe Kennedy take the form of simple proverbs:  There is to be no crying in this house.   It's very similar to a comment that one of my Scotch-Irish colleagues, Bill Bellinger, used to make occasionally to students who were complaining or dithering:  Just get on with it.  The "it" could be a paper, a project, or most anything else that needed completion.    

The other value is one that I made religiously acceptable by labeling it, "sanctified nonchalance."  Joe Kennedy would say, After you have done your best, then the hell with it. 

These few values go a long way toward raising achieving kids.  As the father of three successful professional daughters, I'm all for them. 

What Really Motivates Workers?

Teresa Amabile continues in her quest to challenge conventional wisdom around creativity and motivation.  Although I'm certain that's not her ambition, her research often rejects the shibboleths of creativity and motivation, so much that if her fingerprint is on the research, I'll quickly pick it up. 

For example, most execs believe that people come up with their best work when time is tight.  Push them and they'll perform better.  Amabile found that that's not at all the case.  Indeed, when you're under the gun time-wise, you'll think far less creatively.

In yesterday's post on ten breakthrough ideas, I noted that for my business in development and performance improvement, this was the most intriguing. 

As the Harvard Business Review summary indicates, Amabile and colleagues completed research over several years and with more than 600 managers.  The study tracked the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivational levels of workers in different settings.  Amazingly, the research showed that the top motivator of performance is what the execs considered to be least significant. 

Executives thought that recognition for good work was the number one motivating factor.  The research showed that the real issue of motivation is progress.   In other words, when knowledge workers have the sense that they're making headway in their job, or that they're getting the support necessary for overcoming obstacles, then their drive to succeed is at is most meaningful.

But, when employees feel that they are spinning their wheels or having to deal with roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motives are at the lowest.

The Breakthrough

The good news about this research finding is that the key to motivation turns out to be under the control of the manager.  It doesn't depend on elaborate incentive systems.  You don't have to spend time trying to figure out what's really inside your employee's black box of a brain. 

Here are Amabile's recommendations:

• Take care to clarify goals.
• Ensure that people's efforts are properly supported.
• Keep from exerting time pressure so intense that minor glitches become crises.

The research does reveal that recognition motivates.  So celebrate progress, even incremental progresss.

Ten Breakthrough Ideas for 2010

The January-February 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review has a list of ten breakthrough ideas.  I wouldn't have paid much attention except that the first and seventh ideas were out of synch.  Managers and execs were all dead wrong about motivation.  Changing a culture is about breaking rules.  Initially that's scary, but I've found that it really works.  Both ideas really grabbed my attention.  I'll discuss them in detail in a coming post, but for now, here are the ten breakthrough ideas according to the editors of Harvard Business Review.

1. What really motivates workers.  Understanding the power of company progress.
2. The technology that can revolutionize health care.  It's not high cost or high tech.
3. What the financial sector should borrow.  A military approach to keeping the economy safe.
4. Getting the drugs we need.  Simple standards would spur innovation.
5. A market solution for achieving "green."  Financing that encourages retrofits.
6. A faster path from lab to market.  Removing the technology licensing obstacle.
7. Hacking work.  Learn to love the rule breakers.
8. Spotting bubbles on the rise.  We have the tools to sound the alarm early.
9. Creating more Hong Kongs.  How charter cities can change the rules for struggling economies.
10. Independent diplomacy.  Why pretend that only nation-states shape international affairs?

One of the real pluses of the business community is that when it supports an idea, change can happen fast.  I'll be curious this coming year to see which they'll get behind. 

How One Massachusetts Town Made History

Cities make history in a lot of different ways.  Florence, Italy, was the city-state made influential by the Medici's and their gifts to the arts.  Washington and London are famous for their politics.  New York and London are famous for their financial acumen.  St. Petersburg, Russia is famous for the monuments left by Peter the Great.  Jerusalem is famous (or infamous) as the center of three great religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Now comes the delightful suburban Boston community of Newton.  A professional ghetto filled with psychiatrists, other physicians, Harvard, MIT and BU professors, is, as the Times puts it, a "brainy and self-assured city of 83,000.

Newton, Massachusetts is the first city to elect a black president, a black governor and a black mayor.  The population is less than 3% black.  People were willing to look beyond race in making their decision, and that's a tribute to Newton and its progressive nature.  Ummmm, yeah.  The mayor's wife is a project manager in the child development program at Harvard.

Listening Skills: Road to the Executive Suite

I'm intrigued by how often executives admit to poor listening skills, but add listening to their toolkit as they go up the leader.  Case in point is an interview in today's Times of Teresa Taylor, COO of Qwest.  She says, "over the years, something I really had to learn was hot to truly listen.  Sometimes people act like they're listening, but they're really formulating their own thoughts in their head."

Indeed, Taylor goes on to say that she ignored listening for the early part of her career, but realized that as responsibilities grew, she had to get things done through influencing individuals.  Listening is key to influencing.

But becoming an effective listener is not a matter of trying harder.  At bottom, listening is all about asking questions.  What's that person saying?  What does he/she mean by that? How does that connect with what's been said thus far?  What are the implications of that?  As you're listening with such questions in mind, inevitably you will want to clarify with the other person by defining, paraphrasing, summarizing or even asking important implications.  "So what you've said is blah, blah, blah.  Based on that, what do you see as the next two or three steps?"

Effective listening is a distinct package of learnable skills.  Check out my weblog on listening to build a better repertoire of listening skills.  Ahd should you have questions on listening that I haven't covered in previous posts, don't hesitate to send me an email.   

How Will the Health-Care Bill Affect Your Doctor's Waiting Room?

Whatever adjustment the Senate and the House make on the health-care bill, one thing will really change.  Your doctors' waiting room will always be full.  Both versions of the bill add probably 30 million currently uninsured people.  Thirty million currently without medical insurance will find themselves with access to doctors.  But, as BusinessWeek points out, there may not be enough doctors to serve them.

Why is this?  Physician training takes time: a minimum of four years past college, then at least three years of residence.  Furthermore, the demographics of aging have already put the U.S. into the grip of a nationawide doctor shortage for people demanding access. 

Medical schools have announced that they'll add 3,000 new slots for first-time students by 2018, but here's the real kicker.  Congress has capped residency programs--and medicare pays for those programs.  The bill has an amendment to cover another 15,000 residencies, but that'll cost another $1.5 billion.  But because congress wants to keep costs down, that cost may very well take a hit.

If you don't have a primary care physician now, you'd better get one.  My friends at the University of Minnesota Medical School tell me that physicians often stop adding to their patient load.  They can't manage the traffic.

These massive adjustments will go through different pilot programs and they'll take time.  I refer to a brilliant article by Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and policy guru here.  Gawande writes very intelligently about how pilot programs work, and he compares them to the changing of agriculture programs at the turn of the 19th century.  In a previous post this past week, I wrote that David Brooks says that Gawande was the most influential essayist of 2009.  So educate yourself.  His first book, Complications, is a spell-binder.  His latest, The Checklist Manifesto, is just out.

Let's see, former White House appointee, Harvard surgeon, policy guru, MacArthur genius, and his writing out Gladwells Gladwell.   

The facts and statistics are summarized in Physician, Clone Thyself.  (BusinessWeek, December 28, 2009.)

What's Going to Happen to Jobs in 2010?

Mark Zandi, who, aside from Larry Summers, is the most astute and trustworthy economist today, understands that jobs are the biggest issue to most people.

Zandi says that the most accurate and timely barometer of jobs is initial claims for unemployment insurance, a figure that's released every Thursday morning by the Labor Department.  You can get the information from the labor department here.   This indicator measures the number of people who go to unemployment offices and announce that they are out of work.

More than 600,000 claims were filed per week in the first half of 2009.  Zandi says that since July, the numbers have fallent to about 450,000.

Here's how to make sense of the numbers.  Only when claims head down to 400,000 will the economy be creating enough jobs to maintain stable unemployment.  Closer to 350,000 will lower the unemployment rate and mean that the recovery is evolving into an expansion.  When we get to initial weekly unemployment claims of 300,000, boom times are back.

From BusinessWeek, December 28, 2009.

The Most Influential Essay of 2009

Each year David Brooks gives out Sidney's for the best magazine articles of the year.  And this year Atul Gawande's insightful article on health care costs, The Cost Conundrum was viewed by Brooks as the most influential.  With all the input on health care, Brooks's decision was not a surprise. 

In a previous post, I pointed out that Gawande, with his medical and policy backgrounds, had some terrific ideas--beyond even the cost conundrum.  If the health care policy is important to you, you'll want to see this post also.

Abraham Lincoln. Peg Noonan, Michelle Obama and the "Lincoln Bedroom"

Two old Reagan hands were taken on a tour of the private rooms of the White House by Michelle Obama.  Here's Peg Noonan's story from tomorrow's Wall Street Journal.

I end with a story told to me by an old Reagan hand who, with another former Reagan administration official, was being given a private tour of the White House by Michelle Obama. This was last summer. Mrs. Obama led the two through the halls, and then they stopped by the Lincoln bedroom. They stood in the doorway, and then took a step inside, but went no deeper. Everything looked the same, but something was different. "We don't allow guests to stay in this room anymore," Mrs. Obama explained. She spoke of it as a place of reverence. They keep it apart, it's not for overnights.

Unspoken, but clearly understood by the Reagan hands, was: This is where he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. A true copy of it is here, on the desk. He signed it: "Abraham Lincoln." The Reagan hands were impressed and moved. It is fitting and right that the Lincoln bedroom be held apart. It always should have been. Good, they thought. Good.