Tag Archives: Author Interview

Working for Good

precious individualist

Jeff Klein is the CEO of Working For Good and trustee and executive team member of Conscious Capitalism Inc., an organization cofounded by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods.  He’s written two thoughtful books Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living and It’s Just Good Business: The Emergence of Conscious Capitalism & The Practice of Working For Good.

What is “Working for Good” ?

Working for Good is the name of my book and business. It is a brand. And it is an approach to work, business and life that orients around service, sustainability, learning, growth and development.WFG200

What are the benefits of creating an environment where you can truly “work for good”?

Purpose is among the highest motivations for human beings. If your work is infused with purpose, then you are inspired and energized to bring all that you have and all that you can to the work.

Love and care similarly bring out the best and most in people. If you care about and for the people you work with and if they care about and for you, your connection to them is deep, and you are motivated to serve and support each other.

When people are aligned and alighted in purpose, supporting and serving each other — and others who they come in contact with (including customers and other stakeholders of the business) — the business is alive. It attracts attention and fosters relationships built on trust and loyalty, which leads to resilience and sustainability.

This is very good for business!

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“If your work is infused with purpose, then you are energized to bring all that you have to the work.” -Jeff Klein

How is a business like a garden?

The most essential skill of a gardener is that of attention. “Tending” a garden begins with attention. When you pay attention to the garden, you see what is going on and recognize where care and intervention are required.

Finding the Next Steve Jobs

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Photo courtesy of istockphoto/TABoomer

Nolan Bushnell founded groundbreaking companies such as Atari and Chuck E. Cheese.  In his first book, Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Hire, Retain and Nurture Creative Talent, he outlines a plan for helping companies bring more creativity into their organization and make it their competitive advantage.  (Nolan hired Steve Jobs in 1972, two years after founding Atari.)  The book is a must read for all creatives and especially anyone who aspires to manage creatives.

My good friend, best-selling author and speaker Tim Sanders of Net Minds, is his publisher.  Tim graciously agreed to interview Nolan and talk about creativity, leadership, libraries and even publishing.  Here is the conversation between Tim and Nolan:

FTNSJ_Cover_v31_130#1330ED1I know it’s your strong belief that leaders at companies need to foster a creative culture. If you were going to give leaders one piece of advice on how to think differently about a creative culture, what would that piece of advice be?

I would encourage them to say yes to at least one crazy idea a year.

Give me an example of some of the crazy ideas you heard when you were in Atari.

Among the many that were pitched to me, one that stands out was this notion of making pretty pictures when music happened. It seemed ridiculous at the time. The product ultimately turned into Midi.

Midi, of course, is the standard that still exists to this day for connecting music devices to each other and synchronizing them. 

I think we built 20,000 of them, and I think we sold six at full-price. (Laughs). But it did become a force within the industry, for sure.

Let me ask you about leadership because you’ve led several companies. Do you think of leadership in a military way, a coaching way, or an improv comedy way?

Are You Living or Existing?

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Photo by ’James Wheeler on flickr.

I met Kimanzi Constable somewhere between the blogging and Twitter worlds and heard his story.  He was stuck in a dead-end job, unhappy, and going through life in a way that was existing, but not thriving.  He decided to do something about it and began to change his life.  As he describes it, he decided to “stop settling, stop making excuses.”

As he began to change his life, he self-published two ebooks, which sold over 80,000 copies.  A short time later, a publisher called and he ended up with a book deal.  He quit his job, becoming a speaker and a coach.  His first published book is Are You Living or Existing? 9 Steps to Change Your Life.

9 Steps to Changing Your Life

  1. Identify Your Dreams
  2. Get Fit
  3. Get Rid of the Negative
  4. Fix Your Money
  5. Nail Down Your Plans
  6. Make the First Moves
  7. Tie Up Loose Ends
  8. Make Radical Changes
  9. Pay it Forward

Why did you write this book?

I wrote this book because for twelve years I had settled and made so many excuses to not live the life I truly wanted to lead. After many struggles and victories and tears I realized a lot of truths that I thought could really help people who were and are in the same position I was in. I wanted to show everyone that anyone can live the life of his or her dreams with the proper plan. I’m living proof; this book is my game plan on paper.

What’s the difference between living and existing?

The difference is realization, attitude and action. You start by realizing that time is one resource we’ll never get back, so we can’t afford to waste it doing things that won’t better our life. Then have the right attitude towards everything you do, viewing opportunities as a blessing and not another task on your to do list. Action means not wasting your life away watching the latest prime time shows. It means getting out and creating amazing experiences. At the end of your life you won’t remember all of the stuff you got or shows you watched. You’ll remember incredible experiences and times you impacted the lives of others.

Describe the moment when you had enough and decided to go for your dreams.

4 Cornerstones to Create Distinction

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, how can you make your business stand out?

When you’re competing for the job or the promotion, how do you not only differentiate yourself from others but distinguish yourself as the best candidate?

What do you do when you’ve already taken your business from good to great, but great doesn’t cut it?

Creating Distinction

Scott McKain is a global expert in the art of distinction. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, Scott helps companies rise above mediocrity and sameness to achieve record growth.  His own career is also distinctive.  He’s one of my favorite professional speakers. He is both a member of the Speaker’s Roundtable and the Speakers Hall of Fame.  He’s a bestselling author and also a personal friend.9781608324262

Whether in the boardroom or on the platform, Scott is passionate about helping businesses and individuals create distinction.  His latest award-winning book is called Create Distinction.  I love what the subtitle adds: What to Do When Great Isn’t Good Enough to Grow Your Business.

Do you ever feel that way?  That your business is great, but in the world we are in, great just isn’t good enough?  What do you do?

Scott McKain offers what he calls “The Four Cornerstones of Distinction”:

  1. Clarity
  2. Creativity
  3. Communication
  4. Customer-Experience Focus

 

CLARITY

 

The first cornerstone of distinction is clarity.  This requires you to define who you are, what you’re about, and, just as importantly, who you are not.

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Clarity means you are precise about who you are—and just as exact about who you are not! Scott McKain

The Surprising Predictive Power of Analytics

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You have been predicted.

Companies, government, universities, law enforcement.  All are using computers to predict what you will do.

Will you click on the link in the email?

When will you die?

Will you pay your credit card bill on time?

Are you pregnant?

Dr. Eric Siegel recently released Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie or Die. It’s a fascinating book that has surprisingly broad ramifications for all of us. Eric is a former Columbia University professor, the founder of Predictive Analytics World and Executive Editor of the Predictive Analytics Times.

Let’s start with the definition. What is predictive analytics?

It’s technology that gives organizations the power not only to predict the future, but to influence it. The shortest definition of predictive analytics is my book’s subtitle, the power to predict who will click, buy, lie, or die. Predictive analytics is the technology that learns from data to make predictions about what each individual will do–from thriving and donating to stealing and crashing your car. By doing so, organizations boost the success of marketing, auditing, law-enforcing, medically treating, educating, and even running a political campaign for president.book_med_2

Why should the average person care about predictive analytics?

Prediction is the key to driving improved decisions, guiding millions of per-person actions. For healthcare, this saves lives. For law enforcement, it fights crime. For business, it decreases risk, lowers cost, improves customer service, and decreases unwanted postal mail and spam. It was a contributing factor to the reelection of the U.S. president.

Let’s jump to politics then. How did President Obama’s campaign gain an edge by using persuasion modeling?

The Obama campaign’s analytics team applied persuasion modeling (aka uplift modeling) in the same way it can be applied to marketing: drive per-person (voter/customer) campaign decisions by way of per-person predictions. If an individual is predicted to be persuadable, then make campaign contact (e.g., a knock on the door). By utilizing resources (campaign volunteers) more effectively in this way, the campaign enacted the new science of mass persuasion. They proved this won them more votes, within swing states and elsewhere.

Everyone is talking about “big data” but data on its own isn’t interesting or useful. You explain how data can show incredibly interesting insights including the fact that if you retire early, your life expectancy drops. Tell me more about that and what else we’ve learned from it.

Beyond the great hype around so much data, the real question is what to do with it. Answer: use data to predict human behavior.

The whole point of data is to learn from it to predict. Talking about how much data there is misses this point. What is the value, the function, the purpose? The one thing that makes the biggest difference to improve how organizations operate is to predict.