Mission, Vision, Goals, and Milton Friedman
Bob Mason
Recently, economist Milton Friedman has been receiving a lot of bad press. Recent economic events have led some to opine that his free market philosophy is wrong. In one of the many ezines I receive, an author said that Friedman's comments in a 1970 New York Times article titled "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits" was being disproved. His "proof" was a single survey of people born between 1979 and 2001, so-called "millennials" who like to give their business to companies they feel are socially responsible. If that age group is your market niche, fine, but it's hardly an accurate world, or even national, sample. It does; however, illustrate a danger of mixing up the mission and values. If that ezine author had read all the way to the end of Mr. Friedman's article, he would have found this in the final sentence: "there is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
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Understanding and Calculating the Cost of Turnover
By John Beane
Employee turnover is a costly disease that goes undetected in many firms. Most CEOs just accept it as part of the cost of doing business. But, successful CEOs recognize the cost of, understand the reasons for, and find ways to lower turnover as much as possible. Let's consider the cost of just losing one person. Imagine that this person is a good employee, not great, just good. They get their job done with a minimal amount of fuss and bother. They make around $30,000 a year and receive another 25% in benefits. So, their total cost to the firm is $37,500 per year.
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THIS MONTH'S REVIEW: "The Carrot Principle" by Arian Gostick and Chester Elton
I've always made it a point to recognize people who do good things. I think I got better results that way, though I've never been able to effectively quantify my beliefs. The Carrot Principle by Adrain Gostick and Chester Elton did two things for me. First, the authors confirmed, with empirical data, my belief in recognition as an effective management technique. Second they showed me that I hadn't been doing it right, or at least not as well as I could have been. For instance, have you ever thought of recognizing new people at the 90 day point? I hadn't. Read the entire review.
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