3 Ways to keep your Team Happy at Work

by Mark C. Crowley

New York’s Conference Board, a century-old research firm, began studying employee satisfaction and engagement 25 years ago. Their work shows that worker happiness has fallen every year since--in good economic times and bad. Today, over half of American workers effectively hate their jobs.

But it’s the past four years that have brought employee discontent to new and highly charged levels.

"People were already unhappy, but the recession years have made things much worse," says John Gibbons, formerly of the Conference Board and now Vice President of Research and Development at the Institute For Corporate Productivity. "Whether we realize it or not, workers have been under constant duress. Because of scarce resources, few opportunities for development and promotions--not to mention the fact that people often have been required to do the work of more than one person--a lot of our workforce is burnt out. Employees across the country feel overworked, under-rewarded and greatly unappreciated."

The recession has been hard on managers too, no doubt. Delivering great customer service, and achieving KPIs and revenue goals all have been a tremendous challenge during this extended period of limited means.

But it’s clear that many leaders have lost sight of what matters most to people at work. Appreciation. Support. Recognition. Respect. And when people feel disillusioned and virtually convinced things have to be better somewhere else, they do what my friend did. They quit.

According to the U.S. Labor Department, 2.1 million people resigned their jobs in February, the most in any month since the start of the Great Recession.

Dating back to mid-2011, numerous studies have reported that at least one-third of the American workforce planned to jump ship in 2012. Since very little action has yet to be taken on that threat, however, those predictions have come to be seen only as “Chicken Little exaggerations.” Business leaders, therefore, have grown less concerned.

But the government’s new “Job Opening And Labor Turnover Survey,” (JOLTS), holds the reminder why more employees haven’t (yet) departed. Jobs have remained scarce; 12.7 million people remain unemployed in the U.S. today, while only 3.5 million job openings exist. That translates into nearly four people chasing every one job--not including already employed workers seeking greener, and more respectful, pastures.

Simply because 2.1 million people were able to find new jobs, February’s mass exodus may prove to be the watershed moment when turnover becomes the problem it was predicted to be.

However, there still may be time for managers to re-recruit their employees before they leave. This won’t be easy and it will most definitely require a significant change in leadership practices. Here are three things leaders should learn quickly and never forget:

1. What makes people happiest in their jobs is all profoundly personal. “Do I work for an organization whose mission and methods I respect?” “Does my boss authentically advocate for me?” “Is the work I do meaningful?” “Am I afforded sufficient variety in my day?” “Do I feel valued and appreciated for all the work that I do?” We know that all these matter more to people than their compensation--and workers generally don’t quit jobs when these basic needs are met. According to a worldwide Towers Watson study, the single highest driver of employee engagement is whether or not workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their well-being. Today, only 40% of workers believe that.
2. People only thrive when they feel recognized and appreciated. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, "Why Appreciation Matters So Much," Tony Schwartz reminds us that all employees need to be praised, honored, and routinely acknowledged for their efforts and achievements. Consequently, leaders must allow themselves to manage more from their hearts. Our brains are great at building strategies, managing capital, and analyzing data. But it’s the heart that connects us as human beings, and its what’s greatly lacking in American leadership today. This is what now must change.
3. Your employees will stay if you tell them directly you need them, care about them, and sincerely plan to support them. Any time someone quits a job for a reason other than money, they’re leaving in hope that things will be better somewhere else. So, everyone who works for you must be made to feel that they matter. Plan one-on-one meetings and re-discover the dreams each person has at work. Tell people directly how valuable they are to you. To be successful, all your future behavior must demonstrate to your employees that their best career move is to remain working for you.

Being human and treating one another with dignity and respect is something the heart already knows to do. Leaders would all do well to follow it.

Fuente: FAST COMPANY

Top 10 Fastest-Growing Industries for Entrepreneurs 

by Courtney Rubin

Can't decide what type of business to start? Marketing research firm IBIS World has seen the future, and it is hot and spicy

The firm recently released its list of the top 10 fastest-growing industries in the U.S., based partly on their contributions to the economy as a whole (measured as industry value added), absolute revenue growth over the past 10 years and forecast revenue through 2017. U.S. gross domestic product is forecast to grow 3.3 percent per year over the next five years—compared with the 0.6 percent per year for the past five years.

There are some fairly intuitive segments on the list (social network game development, which is supposed to more than triple its revenues in the next five years), and some surprises (hot sauce production).

Here's the list of the top 10 fastest-growing industries:

1. Generic pharmaceutical manufacturing
2. Solar panel manufacturing
3. For-profit universities
4. Pilates and yoga studios
5. Self-tanning product manufacturing
6. 3D printer manufacturing
7. Social network game development
8. Hot sauce production
9. Green and sustainable building construction
10. Online eyeglasses and contact lens sales

The David and Goliath of Growth

Though generic pharmaceutical marketing is a $52-billion-a-year industry (and one that's ballooned as health care costs do), the company is careful to note this is not a list of the biggest industries. (Online eyeglass sales, for example, had just $348 million in revenue in 2012, making it tiny compared to pharmaceuticals.) This list represents which industries have the most potential for growth.

It's probably not a surprise that environmentally friendly industries, such as solar manufacturing and "green building," are booming. They're the recipient of subsidies in recent energy and stimulus bills, but they'll grow even when the subsidies shrivel, says IBISWorld. The $4.6 billion solar manufacturing industry will grow 8 percent in the next five years, the company predicts. Revenue in the green building industry will more than double, from $103 billion in 2012 to $288 billion in 2017. (The average annual growth rate for the industry will be 22 percent, says the report.)

No Brainers and Eyebrow Raisers

Another as-expected choice: Pilates and yoga studios, forecasted to grow from $6.9 billion in revenue in 2012 to $8.6 billion in 2017. Unlike all the other industries, there are no major players with whom to compete in this category. This industry has been recession-resistant, too: revenue slowed in 2008 and 2009 but growth was not negative. Revenue is predicted to grow an average of 4.8 percent annually.

Now for the "upstarts," as the report refers to them. Self-tanning has grown 22.7 percent per year since 2002, thanks to consumer awareness about the dangers of tanning beds and UV rays. That's created huge growth potential for self-tanning creams, mousses and sprays—specifically, an average annual growth of 10.7 percent over the next five years.

As for hot sauce, the report notes that it has "earned its tenure at the dinner table" because of a combination of demographic changes, immigration and the rising popularity of spicier ethnic food in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The industry has grown at a rate of 9.3 percent per year over the past decade, and is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of 4.1 percent over the next five years. That will make it a $1.3 billion industry by 2017, led by the McIlhenny Co.'s iconic Tabasco sauce.

For-profit universities are estimated to grow 3.6 percent per year until 2017–growth fueled by the increasing expense and exclusivity of public and private universities. (They've grown 13.6 percent per year since 2002.)

Another "upstart" is the online glasses industry, which has benefited from more broadband in homes, plus new technologies that allow consumers to "try on" glass virtually. The latter has made customers more confident about buying online, and over the next five years, industry revenue is predicted to grow 8.8 percent per year on average. Contact lenses are also included in the total industry revenues, which should reach $530 billion by 2017.

Fuente: OPEN Forum, American Express

7 Tips to Sell Your Ideas Like a Motivational Speaker

by Stephen Shapiro

Photo credit: Thinkstock

All of us have likely heard these words spat at us in frustration at some point in our lives. And guess what, it’s true! The fact is that no one listens.

In a previous OPEN Forum article, I wrote on how to more effectively hear what others are really trying to say. By recognizing how you listen (or more accurately, don’t), you can then better understand the way others listen. This in turn arms you with the ability to speak in a way that will have you be heard.

Effective innovators and business leaders need to “sell” their ideas to others. But too often we fall into unproductive behaviors that prevent our message from coming across.

What are these barriers and how can you conquer them? Having given hundreds of speeches in 43 countries, I have learned a few tricks on how to be heard more effectively, whether you're speaking to a big audience or just one client or employee.

1. To be heard, first hear. While speaking on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., I became painfully aware that everyone was more interested in being heard than hearing the perspectives of others. How can you be heard in this environment? Listen. Appreciate their point of view, even if you don’t agree with it. People can sense when you are not open to what they are saying and will thus be less inclined to hear you. Acknowledge differences in opinion and appreciate others' perspectives.
2. Build an emotional connection. When starting a speech, you want to connect with the audience emotionally. Why should the audience care about what I am going to say? What’s in it for them? What benefit will come from listening? Buy-in is rarely done on an intellectual level. People are more likely to listen if they can relate to you and your message on an emotion level. Does what you offer—your product, service or idea—solve a problem? Can you speak to a pain they have?
3. Know your audience’s style. I’ve found that although American audiences typically like my speaking style, people in other countries are sometimes put off by it. For example, if I use my high-energy style in England, I can be viewed as overly enthusiastic and not taken as seriously. I find that a more professorial approach works there. Equally, when speaking to scientists, I use a different style than when speaking to advertising agencies. In order to be heard, match your style to that of the audience.
4. Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. Everyone makes decisions in different ways. Even though I may be interested in the novelty/coolness factor, others want to know the scientific evidence and facts. Some are more interested in the practicality of your solution while others are more concerned with the impact on others and are driven by emotions. When speaking to larger groups, you need to address all of these styles. But when talking to someone one-on-one, speak to the style of the individual.
5. Don’t preach. Coach. It is fine to be passionate about your topic, but being dogmatic and closed-minded prevents others from being interested in your point of view. Therefore, instead of dictating solutions, be a coach. Have others “try on your perspective for size.” Let them know that if it doesn’t fit, they don’t have to wear it. This gives them the freedom to listen without obligation. If they come to your conclusion on their own, there will be greater buy-in.
6. Be yourself. Though it is good to tailor your style to that of your audience, do not lose your individuality. Mikki Williams is a successful motivational speaker.  Her first major presentation was to a large corporate audience. The other speakers were CEOs while her background was aerobics. Although many tried to convince her to dress for the audience, she chose to wear something that felt right for her; something very non-corporate. She was such a smash that she landed on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal in an article on how to stand out. People are often more interested in your being genuine than your fitting in. 
7. Establish credibility. Have you ever noticed that professional speakers get well-respected executives to introduce them? The reason is credibility building.  Before people will listen to you, they have to know that you are a credible resource. During my speeches, I subtly weave in stories of my work with recognizable companies in order to reinforce that credibility. Social proof is a great way of establishing yourself as an authority.

Regardless of which tips you apply, it is important to never use these (or other) concepts as manipulative techniques. If an approach is not natural for you, people will see through it and trust you even less. Authenticity is key.

Professional speakers have honed their craft to be heard by the audience.  And you and your business can use these same tips in any communication. By identifying these common barriers to communication, you can skillfully work around them to more effectively deliver your message.

Fuente: OPEN Forum, American Express

How a CHANGE IN COMPANY CULTURE helped Challenge Huge Competitors like FedEx and U.P.S.?

by MP MUELLER

Recently, while wrapping up a meeting with a new client, Lone Star Overnight, the company’s chief executive talked about what he’s doing to shift his company’s culture. I’ve always been fascinated by company culture, but it’s especially interesting when someone is trying to transform a 20-year-old company with revenue of more than $50 million.

Rick Jones joined Lone Star Overnight as chief operating officer in 2007 and took over as president and chief executive officer in June 2010. At that time, the struggles of the carrier and transportation industries reflected the struggles of the overall economy. Mr. Jones’s assignment was to restore his company to profitability and make sure his people stayed around for the long haul. His first task was to figure out what his customers wanted that his competitors — United Parcel Service and FedEx — weren’t providing. Given their size, Mr. Jones knew he wasn’t going to be able to compete with them on price.

Mr. Jones, who spent his formative years in management at U.P.S., looked closely at customer feedback and had an aha moment when he noticed a pattern in the compliments his company received. Lone Star’s small-to-medium-sized business customers appreciated responsiveness, a willingness to accept responsibility for actions and fix problems quickly. Customers also liked the flexibility of drivers who were willing to wait for packages or pick up lab samples at 3 a.m. They also said they liked that Lone Star drivers and staff were friendly. “We get compliments all the time from customers saying they had a bad day, and our driver made it a good one,” Mr. Jones said. “Yes, we have to execute delivery services to standards. And what we do above that is what differentiates us.”

The challenge was how to replicate the behavior of those employees and scale it across the company. And that’s where company culture became an issue. “We had a loyalty-based culture that placed a lot of value on longevity rather than contribution,” he said. “The problem was we had a lot of compliments on newer employees but few on those who had been here longer.”

That was his cue to move from a loyalty-based system to a merit-based system. He started the shift by spending some time crafting a leadership manifesto. Inspired in part by a Vistage session he attended (led by corporate culture specialists, Logistyle), the one-page manifesto reinforced the behavior he wanted from himself and those who work with him. For example: Mr. Jones stressed that praise is due to those who are willing to try even if they fail, that kindness should never be confused with weakness, and that people should be encouraged to take risks and shake up the status quo.

He put it all down on paper and shared it with his employees. Of course, changing behavior at any company can be a challenge and is often met with resistance. “I heard, ‘I’ve been here a long time, and I’ve never had to do that before,’” he said. But he stuck to his vision of rewarding people not for their length of service but for furthering the brand by doing the things customers wanted and needed.

Lone Star now gives raises based on how much employees contribute. It has started a company-wide sales lead program that should be particularly attractive to drivers. Those who bring in warm leads that convert to shipments get 10 percent of the resulting revenue for a year. “A driver who is astute and engaged can literally double, triple, quadruple their pay,” said Mr. Jones. “We want the link to be very direct. We are not giving employees some points to save up. I tell my sales people I will shed tears of joy when they are the highest paid people in the company.” Jones noted the company has seen double-digit growth since the inception of this program.

Is the culture taking hold? Mr. Jones thinks so. I heard him dig through a stack of papers at the other end of the phone in search of a customer quote from a recent survey. There was mirth in his voice when he found it: “I would rather strap a letter on a turtle and send it on its way, hoping it would get there, rather than use U.P.S.”

Fuente: The Wall Street Journal

El Impacto de la Motivación en los Equipos de Alto Rendimiento: el Rugby, Formador de Ejecutivos? por la Lic. Julia Alvarez Iguña, Psicología aplicada al Alto Rendimiento La misión de un entrenador es integrar sus objetivos con las metas del grupo. Para ello debe trabajar desde distintos lugares. Hoy me centraré en la motivación. Para motivar son varios los tópicos que el entrenador debe tener en cuenta. Por empezar, distinguir qué clase de motivación los lidera, la motivación externa centrada en resutados, o la motivación interna centrada en la constante superación. Partamos que esa misma pregunta es la que también debe hacerse el entrenador: ¿Por qué entreno? ¿Qué quiero lograr?  ¿Cómo soy? ¿Qué busco? ¿Liderar, enseñar, figurar, mandar, nadie sabe como yo? ¿Por qué hacemos cosas en la vida? Por ejemplo: ¿Por qué entrenamos el deporte que nos apasiona? ¿Para cansarnos, para transpirar, para perder tiempo, por decir solamente fui a entrenar, por cumplir, por alcanzar metas, por romper records, cumplir una obligación, por figurar, para divertirme? La motivación va unida a la voluntad y, junto con los instintos y los impulsos nos movilizan a la acción. Implica necesidades, deseos, expectativas, un motivo por el cual ponerse en marcha hacia la obtención de un deseo, es ponerse la camiseta y hacerla piel. Muchas veces los entrenadores han sido jugadores, y el cambio de jerarquía y de rol los lleva a pensar desde su misma subjetividad. Si bien implica ricas experiencias de juego por las que han vivido, eso no genera un paralelismo en pensar que sus jugadores tendrán su misma motivación y amor por el deporte. Cada jugador posee una historia distinta que lo identifica en su singularidad, no todos vienen de jugar en equipos ni poseen la misma experiencia de juego. No se puede esperar que piensen actúen, o tengan la misma motivación, actitud o estilo de juego del entrenador. Son cosas que a veces no se piensan, pero se le exige al equipo, se baja línea y se dan como sobre entendidas. No conciben como un jugador no puede aprender una técnica, o es un poco torpe, o no llega a las expectativas necesaria. Pensemos que no existen las destrezas innatas, son habilidades a trabajar que implican paciencia y dedicación de su maestro. Uno no nace, se hace. El concepto de saber motivar o activar a un equipo no siempre es bien comprendido. La motivación está relacionada a la emoción. La motivación es la fuerza que activa y dirige elcomportamiento. La activación está relacionada a la acción. Es la cantidad de energía en más o en menos ante una acción. En la motivación hallamos emociones evaluativas, relacionadas al resultado, como ser: decepción, tristeza, alegría, ira, o, emociones relacionadas a la superación del sí mismo: coraje, pasión, orgullo, valía, etc. las segundas son las que realmente importan y están relacionadas al crecimiento como personas, como jugadores para alcanzar un objetivo. La motivación externa está relacionada a la vergüenza, la motivación interna a la esperanza. La activación es lo que los entrenadores y deportistas relacionan con la pérdida de concentración ya que se relaciona al aprovechamiento de la energía del cuerpo para realizar actividades. La activación está relacionada a la arenga, a exaltar al jugador. Muchos entrenadores la confunden con la motivación, pero no están motivando, están activando al equipo. Por eso creen que antes de competir se deben utilizar técnicas de vestuario como gritos, fuertes discursos para enardecer el ánimo. No negamos la importancia de esta técnica grupal antes de una competencia, pero también se le debe dar espacio a “esa palabra” que emociona, enaltece,  que les toque esa fibra íntima y los haga pensar por qué están acá, a qué han venido, qué vienen a buscar. Detrás de una arenga escuchamos: “hay que darlo todo, a morir en la cancha”. Estas palabras sólo consiguen presionar al jugador y sobre activarlo: se desconcentra, hay tendencia a la lesión, mayor agresividad. Todo es rápido, torpe, quiere tomar todas las pelotas, no piensa, tacklea a todo el mundo, pierde el control y, lo peor de todo, gasta su energía de golpe, queda sin resto. El decir: “vamos a salir a ganar”, no sirve. Ya estamos hablando de una determinación a cumplir y, cuando no se obtiene, genera frustración. El “vamos a dar lo mejor de nosotros”, marca un objetivo más real donde el miedo no hace referencia a un cumplimiento. Sabemos que el miedo paraliza, bloquea mental y físicamente. Algunas veces es tan grande esa emoción que embarga al jugador en su totalidad, interfiriendo con el aprendizaje y la ejecución. El entrenador puede indagar. ¿A qué le tenemos miedo? ¿A ganar, a perder, al entrenador, a lo qué dirán, al rival, al descenso, a ser sacado? Cuando los jugadores le pueden poner un nombre a sus temores, se dan cuenta de que el miedo no existe, que es formado solo por ellos, se enfrenta el partido de manera diferente. ¿Cómo enfrenta el miedo, qué herramientas utiliza? ¿Puede el entrenador hablar con los jugadores después de una derrota? ¿Posee algún refuerzo positivo para sacarlos inmediatamente de ese espíritu perdedor? ¿Puede posicionarlos en la esperanza de un futuro?  El miedo y la derrota hay que afrontarlos, atravesarlos, nunca evitarlos ni posponer el problema por miedo a hablar. Si el entrenador lo puede tolerar, los jugadores también lo harán. Hay que hablar constantemente del miedo, de las presiones  ¿qué emociones o pensamientos ocultan? Los jugadores que están motivados intrínsecamente, no necesitan que los motiven. Saben porqué juegan, cumplen con sus objetivos, aceptan las derrotas, pero como aprendizaje para volver a salir al ruedo a jugar “con todo lo que tenemos” y no desde ”todo lo que nos falta” para lograr el objetivo por el que tanto se ha trabajado. Fuente: San Isidro Club

FedEx CEO Fred Smith sounds off on China, the U.S. economy, and much, much more...
by Brian Dumaine, senior editor-at-large at FORTUNE

Fred Smith sees fast growth ahead in the developing world.

When Fred Smith founded FedEx in 1971, he had just returned from the Vietnam War, where he had served as a Marine platoon leader and then a pilot, and he was casting around for something to do. As legend has it, a paper he had written at Yale -- he doesn't remember the grade but is pretty sure it wasn't a good one -- laid out the idea for a hub-and-spoke system for delivering time-sensitive items like computer parts. He borrowed money from his sisters, leased some jets, and started his service. Today FedEx (No. 70 on the Fortune 500), with headquarters in Memphis, has 255,000 employees, 688 planes, and more than 90,000 vehicles that operate in some 220 countries and regions. Here's the world according to Fred Smith. Edited excerpts:

In 2000 you started morphing from your traditional air express delivery business into ground and into freight. What was the thinking behind that strategy shift?

A: Well, in 2000 we were probably competing in a $50 billion annual [sales] market space. Today we're directly competing in about a $350 billion to $400 billion marketplace. Going into ground and freight opened up a market for us with the greatest growth potential over a sustained period of time: the developing world. Middle classes are emerging in various countries, including the BRIC nations [Brazil, Russia, India, and China]. And these middle-class populations are all knit together today for the first time in human history with a low-cost, standardized communication system that can intermediate language differences and show every product on the planet in visual format. And that of course is the Internet. Today if you want a component for an automobile -- Volkswagen or Chrysler or whatever -- you can look worldwide. And so that's the biggest opportunity. The growth of world trade and the growth of those emerging economies dwarfs the growth of GDP in the industrial countries.

What's one of your fastest-growing markets?

We are now the biggest international transporter of goods by air in and out of China. We also have established a FedEx-branded domestic parcel service there. We use this business to move our international traffic to and from the major gateways.

In China, do they get the FedEx concept?

Oh, yeah. You bet. One time Jiang Zemin [the former President of China] had our board of directors to his office, and he probably knew more about the company than a lot of them did, to tell you the truth.

I was surprised to learn about another new area of growth for you: a new service called FedEx TechConnect, where you will repair electronic items like the iPad and the Nook. It doesn't sound as if it's a core business to FedEx.

First of all, we're probably one of the biggest repair shops for devices like that in the world for the very simple reason that FedEx (FDX) basically invented the handheld, package-tracking device. Because a lot of that equipment is built into our DNA, we became very good at repairing it. And it was just a natural progression to tell a lot of our big customers that if you want us to also repair these devices, we can do it for you.

FedEx technicians in Memphis now will repair your smartphone or tablet -- for a price.

How big an opportunity is it?

It's a $15 billion market, and it's also a very sticky application. In other words, nobody has the assets that we do. We have the retail network. We have thousands of people that stop in millions of locations every day, so if you want to send your electronic device to us to be repaired, we've got the transportation networks to get it to a centralized repair shop. We don't have to have 500 of these less efficient repair shops. So it's a niche market, but it's an important niche -- although I don't think we're going to be here in five years talking about that business overwhelming the transportation business.

I'd like to turn to leadership. You wrote a piece recently about reputational intelligence. Can you explain what that means?

Well, what we call reputational intelligence is particularly important in our organization because at the end of the day we're essentially selling trust. People give us some of the most important things that they own. There's medical equipment that's going to a surgery this morning or a part that's going to determine whether the new 787 flies. So reputation is an integral part of the brand, but it's separate and distinct from the brand.

So how do you manage that?

You have to put your money where your mouth is. There isn't a year that's gone by where we haven't invested an enormous amount into trying to make the service better. There have been some years when we could have taken the approach: "You know what? We're not going to try to make the service better. Let's just dial it back by 2%. Most people won't notice that, and we can put another 2% to the bottom line." We've never done that. But it's also directly related to the culture we've tried to create. Ask any FedEx team member anyplace what the Purple Promise is, and they'll tell you, "I will make every FedEx experience outstanding."

So I noticed in a recent letter to your employees that you talked about a video of a FedEx delivery man tossing a computer screen over a fence at someone's home. It got caught on a security camera, posted on YouTube, and it went crazy viral. Not exactly the Purple Promise.

You know, what got into the mind of that young man I will never know. We went back, and the station he operated in was run by a great manager who communicated constantly about the importance of great service. And there's one thing pretty simple in our business: You don't throw or drop a package. That's pretty basic, right?

And of course what he did just made all of the other 255,000 of us just mad as hell because we work like hell and then there it was. We immediately had the head of our express delivery operations record his own YouTube video in which he said, "Look, this is not what we stand for. We apologize." That went viral too. Our quality-driven management says at its heart that you've got to use failures as an opportunity to improve. So that's why I mentioned it in my letter. It's not to hide it, but to make sure everybody looked at it and learned from it.

You're in a great position to see what's going on in the economy. Do you see U.S. growth slowing?

Yeah, we took our projection down a little bit. Our forecast for calendar 2012 is now 2.1% GDP growth, compared with 1.7% for 2011. I think there are some good things, and I think there are some troubling things. We have the European crisis, and hopefully the financial contagion from that won't spill over into the real economy in the U.S. Europe has definitely slowed down, but it's not the disaster a lot of people think that it is yet. Its economy is just not as robust as those in China and the United States.

Isn't part of the problem with the U.S. economy that it doesn't have the supply chains to compete with Asia?

Over the next decade, we will benefit from a lot of manufacturing activities coming back to North America. It may not be all in the U.S. A lot of it may be in Mexico and Central America, but overall we will see stronger U.S. manufacturing aided by the rapidity with which supply chains can be replenished and orders can be fulfilled. And the reason for that is that the high price of oil is making it substantially more expensive to move things from China to the U.S., whether it's by air or ocean.

If you could wave your magic wand, what would you do to make the U.S. more competitive?

The single biggest thing that the U.S. can do is to change the corporate tax system, because as it exists today, the system favors leveraged finance and financial services over industrial activities.

Such as interest payments being deductible?

Absolutely. And in a capital-intensive business, you add leverage at your peril because when the inevitable downturn comes, we've seen what happens. So how do we get more competitive? First the corporate tax rate should be lowered to make it globally competitive. Just set the maximum rate at 20% or 25% across the board and eliminate all the other foolishness. Next, we should go to a territorial tax system so you don't get penalized for bringing money back into the United States. Put a different way, money that is made in China making baby food for Chinese babies should not be taxed if it's brought back into the United States. We want that money to come back in the United States so we can create jobs here.

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And then the third thing, depending on how the numbers come out, is to provide tax incentives for investment. Because the only thing that's correlated 100% with job creation -- and particularly good job creation -- is business investment. We strongly promote a 100% expensing of capital. Now, I don't think you could both lower the corporate tax rate and expense 100% of capital investment, because you'd add too much to the federal deficit. But being able to write off investment is preferable to a lower tax rate and the territorial thing.

But isn't it also a demand problem? U.S. corporations are sitting on a couple trillion dollars in cash, but they're not investing it because there's no demand.

Based on my 40 years in business, I think the economy is driven mostly by entrepreneurs and the development of new products and services, which start to create demand that then creates a virtuous circle. When Steve Jobs invented the iPod and iPhone, that helped drive cloud computing and telecommunications systems, and so all of a sudden how many jobs have been created? The point is that if you talk to the people who are demand-side-oriented, they discount Steve Jobs or other entrepreneurs who create their own demand. The most important thing you can do is to incentivize private investment. And I don't think that Lord Keynes ever advocated taking money from one group of citizens and transferring it to another group of citizens. What he advocated was in periods of low demand that government invest -- build roads, build dams, build ports, and so on.

FedEx is expanding its ground service in Beijing as well as other cities in China.

You're a big advocate of rebuilding. Obama's budget includes billions for infrastructure. What do you think?

The only way to produce well-paying blue-collar jobs is with public investment in infrastructure and education, and private investment in equipment. After going to China -- oh, my God, it's embarrassing to fly into J.F.K. We need to pay to improve our infrastructure. One of the biggest opponents to this are the far right-wing Republicans -- the Tea Party fiscal hawks who are against spending on anything. But infrastructure has a multiplier effect, as long as it's good infrastructure. I mean, not the bridge to nowhere.

You've started to buy electric vehicles. Do you think the government's going to put in the incentives to help electrify the transportation system?

We're not seeing a positive return yet on our electric vehicles, so what we've been trying to do is to advocate policies that push down the cost of batteries by getting them built at scale. We advocated, for example, the reimposition of fuel-efficiency standards. Look, this is a national security and economic security matter, and you've got to look at these batteries as if they're an F-35 or a machine gun. Because what we've got to do is to get out of importing as much petroleum as we do from unstable and unfriendly parts of the world. Part of the problem is a political thing. I've watched this issue be pilloried by the right-wing media as an Obama thing. That's not true at all.

You mentioned earlier that investing in education is another key to creating more American jobs.

I personally think that the federal government -- and you're talking to a liberal arts major here -- should restrict its funding of higher-education grants and loans to science, math, and engineering because that's where most of the value added comes. We put so much emphasis on "college degrees." Well, in Germany students at some point come to a fork in the road, and they either go on to university or they go on to a trade school. Say you're a FedEx airplane mechanic working on one of our Boeing Triple Sevens. That's a $100,000-plus job. You don't have to have a college degree to get that job. You don't have to know Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales. You can go right to West Memphis, Ark., where we have a relationship with the community college, and be trained to be a licensed mechanic. Then you can come to work at FedEx.

So, long term, you're bullish on America.

Sure. But look, the U.S. political system is completely broken, and as a wise man once said, "What can't continue, won't." So we're either going to be stopped by the bond market at some point in time, or we're going to fix Washington. And I think we will be able to do it.

This story is from the May 21, 2012 issue of Fortune

3 Tips to Becoming More Strategic

by ChiefExecutive.net

Involving more senior leaders in a dialogue about strategic direction allows leaders to get their organization to be ready to face emerging opportunities and to respond quickly to unexpected threats, say McKinsey colleagues Chris Bradley, Lowell Bryan, and Sven Smit, in their McKinsey contribution, “Managing the strategy journey.” For far too long the writers say that strategy has been the domain of a small group including the CEO and the chief strategist who is more often than not protective of their domain.

Companies they say are well advised to exercise their strategy muscles by broadening the approach by including business unit heads and others responsible for execution. They offer three tips that any executive can act on to become more strategic. They The suggestions may appear deceptively simple, but based on interviews with company leaders and their client experience, these ideas represent foundational skills for any strategist provided leaders put them into practice. In summary these are:

1. Understand what strategy really means in your industry.

General ideas can be misleading, and as strategy becomes the domain of a broader group of executives, more will also need to learn to think strategically in their particular industry context. It is not enough to do so at the time of a major strategy review. Because strategy is a journey, executives need to study, understand, and internalize the economics, psychology, and laws of their industries, so that context can guide them continually.

For example, being able to think strategically in the high-tech industry involves a nuanced understanding of strategy topics such as network effects, platforms, and standards. In the utilities sector, it involves mastery of the economic implications of (and room for strategic maneuvers afforded by) the regulatory regime. In mining, leaders must understand the strategic implications of cost curves, game theory, and real-options valuation; further, they must know and be sensitive to the stakeholders in their regulatory and societal environment, many of whom can directly influence their opportunities to create value.

2. Tailored executive education courses can also be beneficial.

We know organizations that have taken management teams off-site to focus not on setting strategy but on deepening their understanding of how to be a strategist in their industries. For example, one raw-materials player headquartered in Europe took its full leadership team to Asia for a week, in hopes of shaking up the team’s thinking. Executives explored in depth 20 trends that would shape the industry over the next decade, discussing both the trends themselves and their implications for the supply of and demand for the organization’s products. They also looked across their industry’s full value chain to understand who was making money and why—and how the trends would change that. A number of the executives in the discussion were surprised by how much value certain specialized intermediaries were capturing and others by how the organization was losing out to competitors that were financing retailers to hold their inventory. The executive team emerged with a clearer appreciation of where the opportunities were in its industry and with ideas to capture them.

Building this kind of industry understanding should be an ongoing process not just because we live in an era of more dynamic management but also because of the psychology of the individual. Experience-based instincts about “the way things work” heavily influence all of us, making it hard, without systematic effort, to take advantage of emerging strategic insights or the real lessons of an industry’s history. War games or other experiential exercises are one way executives can help themselves to look at their industry landscape from a new vantage point.

2. Become expert at identifying potential disrupters.

Expanding the group of executives engaged in strategic dialogue should boost the odds of identifying company or industry-disrupting changes that are just over the horizon—the sorts of changes that make or break companies.

But those insights don’t emerge magically. Consider, for example, technological disruption. For many executives, the rise up the corporate ladder requires a deep understanding of industry-specific technologies—those embedded in a company’s products, for example, or in manufacturing techniques—but much less knowledge of cross-cutting technology trends, such as the impact of sensors and the burgeoning “Internet of Things.” Moreover, many senior executives are happy to delegate thinking about such technology issues to their company’s chief information officer or chief technology officer. Yet it’s exactly such cross-cutting trends that are most likely to upend value chains, transform industries, and dramatically shift profit pools and competitive advantage.

So what to do? Some executives choose to spend a week or two visiting a technology hub, such as Silicon Valley, to meet companies, investors, and academics. Others ask a more technophile member of the team to keep abreast of the issues and brief them periodically.

Picking up weak competitive signals is more often than not a result of careful practice: a systematic updating of competitive insights as an ongoing part of existing strategic processes. Executives with diverse backgrounds can boost the quality of dialogue by contributing to—and insisting on—issue-based competitive analyses. Who is well-positioned to play in emerging business areas? If new technologies are involved, what are they, and who else might master them? Who seems poorly positioned, and what does that mean for competitive balance in the industry or for acquisition opportunities? Focusing competitive reviews on questions like these often yields insights of significantly greater value than would be possible through the more common practice of periodically examining competitors’ financial and operating results. It also helps push the senior team away from linear, deterministic thinking and toward a more contingent, scenario-based mind-set that’s better suited to today’s fast-moving strategy environment.

3. Develop communications that can break through.

A more adaptive strategy-development process places a premium on effective communications from all the executives participating. The strategy journey model described by our colleagues, for example, involves meeting for two to four hours every week or two to discuss strategy topics and requires each executive taking part to flag issues and lead the discussion about them.

In such an environment, time spent looking for better, more innovative ways to communicate strategy—to make strategic insights cut through the day-to-day morass of information that any executive receives—is rarely wasted. This requires discipline, as it is always tempting to invest in further analysis so that the executive has a deeper grasp of the issues rather than in communications design to ensure that everybody has a good grasp of them. It also may require building new skills; indeed, developing messages that can break through the clutter is becoming a required skill for the modern strategist.

Experiential exercises are one way of boosting the effectiveness of strategic communications within a top team. A strategist we know at a shoe manufacturer wanted to illustrate the point that many of his company’s products were both unattractive and expensive. He started with a two-by-two matrix. So far, so predictable. But his matrix was built using masking tape on the floor of the executive suite, and the shoes were real ones from the company and its competitors. His colleagues had to classify the shoes right there and then—and he made his point. Similarly, we know another strategist who spent an afternoon cutting the labels off samples of men’s boxer shorts. She wanted the board members to put them in order of price so they could see how their perceptions of quality were driven by brands and not manufacturing standards.”