Tips vs. Gratuities

While twisting up a storm at Dave & Busters in Westminster the other night I ended up in a conversation that reminded me that we often confuse tips with gratuities. It is a simple enough mistake, both involve giving a subjective amount of money for a performance. However the difference is all in the timing of the thing.

When a grandmother comes up to me and hands me $20, asking me to make something really crazy for her grandchild's birthday, she is giving me a tip. I have not yet done anything to earn her patronage. In fact, I could be the WORST balloon guy in the world, and she's already put money in my hand, in the hopes that it will motivate me to do something spectacular. Tips are a motivational monetary gift.

When I do a balloon for a family and the grinning, giggling girl it hugging and happy with her balloon, the $5 that the parents give me is a gratuity. They are grateful for how I have made their daughter so happy and wish to give me something in thanks for the effort. In both of these cases, it is not a payment.

Personally, I am not a fan of tips. It is a blind assumption of skill and performance that I find rarely fits with reality. If you give me $100 to make balloons for your table, and then only 3 people want balloons, and what they want is teddy bears and flowers, there is little I can do to expand that offering. It is equally challenging when a parent pulls out $1 to give me before knowing what it is I am going to make and hands it to the child before turning away and ignoring the performance. Often that child wants a pirate ship, a mermaid, or perhaps a pod racer.

When calculating a proper gratuity for a server, I look to the effort and energy put into the work done during the meal. When giving a gratuity following a haircut, I look to see if my expectations are in line with the results, how much art was put into the efforts. When I tip my barista, it is a motivation to make a beautiful chocolate chai with maybe a little extra sweetness.

When giving a tip or a gratuity what do you consider?

Knowledge vs Wisdom & what to keep

In a recent HR seminar I entered into a discussion about layoffs and making the decision between the senior employee who gets paid more, and the two interns who get paid little or nothing.

The decision usually comes down to dollars, and that with letting go of one person, the company saves a larger percentage of their labor budget, and keeps several more "flexible" employees.

This is an all too common situation and I understand some of the mentality. It looks good on paper, and the younger employees are also usually more adaptable to schedule changes, overtime, and being told what to do. So they cut the more experienced employee.

And in turn they cut out their knowledge base. Yes, I know that the college graduates have the "new" knowledge. And perhaps they work a bit faster and with less complaint but they also lack the ability to adapt to unknown situation by pulling from years of experience and resources.

I went to the hardware store to figure out how to reattach my daughter's door. It was falling off the hinges and the wood around the screw was so stripped that I could pull out the screws with my fingers. The first person I ran into at the store was no more than 28, maybe. The advice given to me was sound, get some wood filler, a bonding agent that will fill the hole and act like wood one it cures. Very good, so off I go down the aisles looking for wood filler.

In my journey I come across an old man. I am not saying this to be ageist, he was a classic old man with glasses on the end of his nose, a slow saunter to his step and very gray hair. He asked me what i was looking for and I sighed and re-explained my situation. He smiled and said, "Have you tried using a matchstick?"
Me - "Huh?"
"Wood filler might work, but most likely when you try to drive a screw through it, the filler will crack loose and just turn with the screw. Just jam a matchstick or two in the hole and when you put the screw in, the wood will expand and fill the hole."

I went home, jammed a matchstick in each hole and the door is as good as new. Saved me material, sticky mess, and curing time.

So when you are thinking about getting rid of that more senior employee in exchange for your two less expensive kids... Think about the holes you need filled that just need a matchstick.

Read More Here.

Professional Latex Manipulator

At some point, someone decided that they were going to license everything. You used to be able to hang a sign on your door and practice massage. To be a blacksmith, you needed to have the equipment, do the work, and if you did it well, people would come back to you. If you decided to become a tailor yo painted the needle and thread on your window and began making clothes, if you were good at it, you had more clients, if not, you went out of business.

At what point did we decide that in order to have a job in a specific trade, you have to be certified by someone else? Who decided that "Bob" was the one guy who could certify blacksmiths? Who made "Julia" the official designator of who could and could not call themselves "textile professionals."

I see all kinds of business cards with CPLP, CMT. LMP, PRH, PLC, etc. Why is that? Why is it that it is often illegal to practice a profession that is a learned trade that can be learned on your own. I have been making balloon sculptures for over 15 years. I've made 30 foot balloon sculptures, arches, pillars, dresses, wedding decorations and a literal incalculable number of hand-held creations. Yet there is an actual Certified Balloon Artist designation that I need to pay a fee and take a test to qualify for. So after my 10th year of creating balloon creations I added L.M. after my name on my cards. I figured that since I was at the point of being able to make absolutely anything that people asked me to make out of balloons I was a professional Latex Manipulator.

Several years ago a new-age practice of energy work started turning up in the local solstice centers, yoga studios and more adventurous massage practices, Reiki. Then few years later I started seeing people with Certified Reiki Master. Now Reiki is essentially the movement of energy through the body, often without even touching the recipient. Now whether you believe in the effectiveness of this technique or not, how do you establish a set of requirements on something that is guided by intuition and not proven to have any foundation in science?

I'm all for free enterprise. If you want to open a massage studio without paying the $10 THOUSAND dollars to get "Licensed" I think you should be able to. There is a difference between being good at massage and being a therapist. I understand that for medical practices, there needs to be a bit more oversight & education. But people are amazing. They truly are and the demand for certification and licensing for everything from balloon artists to people moving invisible energy is nuts.

If you happen to be good at making clothes you should not need a degree in fashion design, or be a "Master Seamstress" if you already have the experience to do the job, perhaps better than the so called experts. This is not brain surgery, building bridges, or anything else that puts other people in danger. And if people practice professions that they are not qualified or skilled at, people will stop utilizing them. The End. *steps off soap box*

Inclusion is the new Diversity

Time to bring it into focus for our business and for yours. Inclusion is the acceptance that we ARE in fact different. Even in a whole team of white christian men over the age of 40, each team member is different. Companies have been trying for years to say that "we are all the same" but it is simply not true.

It is true that age, race, gender, sexuality, size & ability are not determining factors in one's capacity to do good work. But they are in fact differences. The strength of an organization does not come from hiding these differences by pretending they are not real. They come from harnessing these differences, finding the strength of each person and allowing those individuals to perform as they are best suited to. People behave and perform best when they feel comfortable and feel that they can be their whole self. This is not achieved through tolerance.

Tolerance in the workplace tells me, as a person from a non-majority group, that no one is allowed to treat me unfairly because of my class, gender, etc. It does not tell me that my differences are valued. They are tolerated. Not desired, not chosen, not accepted or welcome, but tolerated. Tolerated because the law dictates that it be so.

We need to move beyond this. It is time for the diversity trainers, companies, HR professionals, ASTD, SHRM, and everyone else who puts their hat in the arena of education and "soft skills" in the workplace, to redesign their curriculum. Diversity education needs to be about encouragement, empowerment, strength, unity and inclusion.

"We can do it." said Rosie the Riveter when the women were asked to come into the workplace and "put down their aprons" to help the country. Women were not men, but they could do the work. During the civil rights era Dr. Martin Luther King said, "Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." Those same people, the creative dedicated minorities are working at your companies being told that, to succeed, they need to blend in and be like everyone else. This is your loss as well as theirs.

Include the differences of your people and watch your business thrive.

Tolerance is Not Enough

I'm not here to discuss politics. I'm here to discuss the issue of tolerance. I am making this clear because the quote below is from a political forum. Last night I found myself enraged as the Vice Presidential Debates hummed in the air and our home was filled with statements like the one below.

From the transcript of the VP debate from the Commission on Presidential Debates:

IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?

PALIN: Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman. And unfortunately that's sometimes where those steps lead.

But I also want to clarify, if there's any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue.

But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.

But I will tell Americans straight up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means.

But I'm being as straight up with Americans as I can in my non- support for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.

Tolerance. To tolerate something is asserting your power over it to exist. The assumption that if you did not tolerate it, it would be eradicated. All the definitions of tolerance are not ways I want people to treat me. They are punitive and reflective of a fear and distaste for people who are different.

Inclusion is what we need to see. The coming together of differences and the harnessing of strength through diversity. Not diversity of color, or sexuality, or religion, but just differences. All of our differences are ok.

Your religion is ok.
Your sexuality is ok.
Your body size is ok.

I want to include the views of your religion.
I want to include the views of your gender.
I want to INCLUDE the views of your race.

I will no longer tolerate tolerance.
Do not attempt to tolerate me. You do not have the right.
I will not accept tolerance, but I will accept inclusion.

Trust is not a 4 letter word, it's 5.

We trust people all the time in odd situations. I just left my bag in a coffee shop, and said to the stranger sitting next to me.

Me - "Will you watch my stuff for a moment?"
Her - "Sure thing."
5 minutes later
Me - "Thanks. And hey all my stuff is still here."
Her - "Yes, and all your stuff is still here."

The tone in her voice said to me that she didn't quite catch the sarcasm in my voice. Of course my stuff was still there. That's because the chances of finding that one stranger who is actually going to grab your bag and run as soon as you enter the restroom is about the same as winning the lottery.

We trust people like this in the airport, because we believe anyone who has gotten through security must there for be trust worthy. Or that no one in OUR coffee shop or neighborhood would do such a thing. But then we go to work and most of us aren't trusted to enter certain buildings, see all the files or have keys to the office.

Why don't we trust our employees more?
If you don't trust them enough, why did you hire them?

How to make even health insurance fun.

Here is the e-mail I got from the smartest health insurance company I've ever seen:

Because doctors don't offer double-coupon Wednesdays.

You can cut coupons for groceries. You can cut coupons for oil changes. But we don't recommend cutting coupons for medical procedures. And to make sure you never have to look for a doctor offering weekly specials, there's Tonik. Tonik is simple, affordable health coverage from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia. You get three plans to choose from, and chances are one's going to be right for you. If you're under 30, we can help cover you for $65 to $196 a month. Prices are subject to change and vary depending on your age, gender, where you live, and your medical history. Know someone who always keeps an envelope of coupons with them? Forward this to them.

They got my business and I am sure a number of other younger individuals who would not have taken the time to get health insurance. With plans like The Thrill Seeker, The Part-time Dare-Devil and The Calculated Risktaker I feel far more connected to their understanding of who I am as a customer. They are having fun with their business and with me. I don't want to sign up for a Differed Medical Plus package with a $500 deductible. That's not me. Oh but a Calculate Ristaker, that's more my style. $130 a month with a $40 co-pay? Sure I can swing that. It doesn't matter that the deductible is $1500. It sounds like ME. It has personality.

What kind of personality does your business have? Would you want to "go out with" your business?

The Opposite of Happiness is...

Boredom. Not sadness. This is taken from "The 4-Hour Workweek" which, while I am thoroughly enjoying the read, had some flaws and some brilliant revelations. More to follow in a complete review for BAHRA.

One of the shining elements of the book is its focus on making your NOW enjoyable instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you, or for some magical chance element (lottery, retirement, inheritance, leprechaun, etc.)

We spend far too much time in our jobs to be so miserable all the time. And should you be unable to reduce the actual time you spend in your office to 4 hours a week, perhaps you should think about transforming your dreaded drive to work, and your cubicle of desolation, to places you actually like to be.

Hypermiling (More ways to give yourself a raise.)

Remember how I talked about reducing your car use to increase your monthly income? Well, people said they NEED their cars and they just couldn't get rid of them. (Yes I know there weren't any comments, but in this day of RSS feeds many people just e-mail the author when they have soemthing to say.) So I was looking for some options and I read about hypermiling.

Now, a lot of these techniques are things I learned to do when I was in college trying to fill up my gas as little as possible. In fact I did some of the more stupid things they list when I believed myself to be invincible, like turning off the engine and coasting down the Grapevine on Interstate 5 going into L.A. What an idiot. But that does not discount the value of some of the safer techniques.

For instance, the whole air conditioner debate. Most cars do not have a thermostat for the internal temperature of the car that connects to the A/C attempting to regulate the air. Most of the time you turn it on and try to make it colder, until someone starts rubbing their arms and then you switch to warm and thus begins the A/C Wars. I like the idea of turning on the A/C for a while and then turning it off, but leaving the fan on, blowing the cool air around internally. Then in a little while turn the A/C back on and give the air a refresher cool.

I, myself, am driving less. We are actually paying rent for an office space that is cheaper than the cost of the regional bus pass so we are making money by paying rent. Cool huh? That said, when we do have to drive, and having 2 kids I know there are sometimes when you just have to drive, you can bet I will be hypermiling as much as I safely can to conserve our gas, our money and our sanity.

Relative Income (or Give Yourself a Raise - part 2)

OK, so you make $40-80K per year and your work 50 hour weeks. You own your business and spend your evenings answering e-mails, and all day planning meetings, going to meetings, and networking to get more clients. Your weekends are often scattered with you meeting with clients and answering e-mail on your PDA when your partner isn't watching.

Want to make more money? Spend less time. If you value your time for yourself as greatly as you charge your clients for it, (Which you should.) then you are wasting your own money by taking your time for granted.

Let's say you are a massage therapist who charges $60+ an hour for your services and you spend 5 hours this month trying to get your books in order... (5 x $60 = $300) How much money would it have cost you for a local bookkeeper to do it for you in half the time? Perhaps $80 per month? So by spending $80 on a bookkeeper for the month, you save $220 this month. And you now have 5 more hours to spend with clients, go on a date, or something else that brings you pleasure instead of causing you headaches.

Your time is so very valuable, and if you trade it simply for income, or even worse perceived income, then you are cutting your real wealth right out from underneath you.

To Know HR, read Know HR

In case you haven't used the nifty little widget on this page to see the blogs I have been reading, you should check out Know HR. His writing is humorous, pertinent, and refreshing. There are plenty of corporate training, HR focused, training & development blogs online. There are frankly, too many to read. Most of them parrot each other regarding the latest trends rolling out of Newsweek and T&D magazine. Frank Roche however, speaks from a different platform. See the smile?

He says, "I’ve been a professional dog handler, a polymer physicist, and a poet, but quickly realized that “being an artiste + $1.75 wouldn’t buy me a cup of coffee at Starbucks.” I write. I read. I pay attention."

I love his diverse background and unique perspective. Take the time, read good stuff, Know HR.

Give Yourself A Raise

It all comes down to perspective, but seriously think about this before you dismiss it as some hair-brained, granola ideal. Ride your bike.

Save over $500 per month.

It happens so fast. First you just start driving less. Using your bike on occasion and you that your monthly gas bill has dropped by let's say $100. That's less than 2 tanks of gas infind today's market. Just ride your bike enough to eliminate 2 tanks for gas. If you are currently driving an SUV, this will be even faster.

OK, So now that you're riding once a week you should notice that you are more awake when you get to work, you have more energy in what you do and you are saving money. All these things feel good. So you ride more often. You save more money.

Give it a few months at this level. If you have a gym membership (that you probably don't use enough to get the value from it) then you've just put yourself in a place to save that money too.

Now you have reduced your gas bill and your maintenance costs. Commute driving is the worst kind of driving for your car, and a reduction of this kind will save your brakes, your clutch, your oil AND your sanity. In a short while you've just given yourself several hundred dollars a month extra to spend. But WAIT, there's more!

If you can go this far, then perhaps you can go a little farther... How many cars do you have in your family? Do you and your partner both have one? If you have kids is there one for them? How much are you paying a month in insurance?
Why not get rid of one of those cars?
You've now saved gas, insurance, maintenance and your gym membership while simultaneously increasing your energy and improving your health.
Well Done!

Of course, bicycling isn't the only way to give yourself a raise. More to follow...

Hawaiian Shirt Day!

You may remember this from the movie Office Space. If not, you must watch it. It is a social commentary on the office culture and the ways in which we eat our young, strangle the potential of our employees, and cut off our nose to spite our face.

It's relevance to today is to illustrate the difference between effort and sincerity. My partner, Aicila, is often found spouting the lack of effort it takes to be fun in your environment. And she is right; it does not have to take much effort. It should, in fact, be easier to have fun than not. The trick is in finding that balance between putting in little or no effort, and not really caring whether people have fun or not.

Hawaiian shirt day can be fun. It can also be insulting, patronizing, and a few other words from the thesaurus that mean the same thing. So have fun. Enjoy your people. Do little things like casual Fridays, joke of the day and monthly birthdays. But MEAN IT. Your people can always tell the difference.

Hope for the future of business, community and humanity...

Prior to watching the film WALL-E with my family the other day we laughed as the pre-movie commercials repeated themselves. "Someone isn't doing their job." my son said as we waited for the film to start. One of the commercials was the piece that Aicila mentioned in her post from The Foundation for a Better Life. It took a minute to realize that they weren't really advertising anything. It wasn't a commercial.

Further inquiry revealed an organization that is faceless, without product. They are the epitome of vision since that is their only product. They have a goal, it is to show models of life lived by a positive set of values. No religious overtone. No product placement to show a company being a responsible corporate citizen. No push to join something or to give anything. They just want people to listen.

You cannot donate to them. You cannot buy their posters or video spots. You can just hear what they say and add the concepts into your daily life. I want that. I want the work I do to be so widely beneficial. I hope that someday it can be. That is my dream.

Marketing in for a Better World.

I can't remember the first time I saw the Foundation for a Better Life materials. I think the first one I remember seeing was in my frequent trips to the Denver airport. I went last Sunday and for the first time it registered that it wasn't just an ad. It was a message of hope. My family and I had gone to see WALL*E on Saturday morning and before the movie we saw this:

which I think finally convinced to go check them out. It was inspiring.

Clarity and Weight (Carat)

Clarity:

Clarity comes from openness, honesty and transparency. Organizations are often so afraid that one employee might steal something that they make all of their employees feel like they are not trusted and they are always being watched. This does not produce a clear and beautiful feeling. It created flaws, inclusions, blind spots and a massive space for disloyalty and apathy. If someone can not be given the trust to know ALL they might need to most effectively do their job, then perhaps they shouldn't be working there.

Carat Weight:

Our society exists on a "bigger is better" mentality most of the time. We grade ourselves year over year on our growth and increased sales margins. At a certain point, bigger is just bigger, and growth becomes cancerous. Size is certainly a factor to consider. Small business assume a lot of responsibility on a few people and should anything happen to one of them, the business impact can be extreme. However large organizations often find a great deal of difficulty in maintaining the quality and clarity factors because there is just too much to manage. Keeping the business large enough to be comfortable but small enough to care for is a challenge but an important one to focus on.


So as you continue to build your business or work within a company keep in mind where you sit in this diamond and how you can help to make your company shine.

Cut your company to the right fit for your customers and in a way that helps the facets shine.

Use all the Colors of your organization as a strength and help everyone feel welcome instead of ignored.

Clarity, honesty and transparency will go a long way to reducing your personal work load and bringing peace of mind to you and your people.

Remember that a large Carat diamond can be easily mistaken for costume jewelry. Keep your size where you can still maintain good cut and clarity. Bigger is not always better.

The cut and color of your organization.

Cut:

The two main variables in your cut are shape and quality. The shape of a diamond is largely about preference and the needs of your consumers. Some people prefer the shape of a Starbucks-like business because if feels reliable and consistent. One caramel mocha will pretty much taste the same from store to store. Others may prefer their corner coffee shop which gives them a more unique feel and the idea that it is the only place to get a particular brand, or taste.

The quality of that particular cut is all about the facets. The top of the diamond. The variety of angles and faces that are seen when one gazes upon a stone, and in your company those facets, are the mail clerks, service technicians, receptionists and all the entry level positions that make up your organization. People don't buy a home theater system, or a new car from the CEO of the company. I bet most people couldn't even name the CEO's for most of the products in their home. But they might be able to name the salesperson who helped them. The quality of a diamond cut is based on the depth of the cut and the facets. The facets need to be well cared for, polished and chosen with care. The stone should not be cut too deep or it looses some of it's ability to shine. And this is true with your company too. The farther away from the front line a leader is, the less in touch the front line can be with that leaders ideas.

Color:

I know everyone is tired of "diversity education" and I think I can pin point why. We went about it all wrong. I'll own up to being part of that problem. So many of the diversity programs I taught in the past decade were more focused on tolerance instead of education. We told people that they were wrong to even notice our differences and we tried to make people color blind.

The strongest color for a diamond is clear, crystal clear. What makes this diamond so beautiful is that when you really look at it you see every color in the rainbow. It fractures the light and the different colors within become the diamond's shining strength. A white diamond looks like quartz, pink is called champagne. Black diamonds are used mainly for industrial work and the so called colorless diamonds just don't sparkle like they should. None of them hold the value that is found in the brilliance of a diamond that uses ALL the colors to hold your attention.

Turning the Office Pyramid on its Head

Ever since I was a kid I've had the vision of businesses as pyramids that needed to be climbed. We see it all the time in the images of climbing the corporate ladder, working our way to the top, and any number of other analogies putting the people who do the front-line work, at the bottom of the organization.

These are the faces that the customers see every day. Those very people who are in the mail room, at the cash registers, that do the service calls and answer the phones are the real faces and image of their organizations. A company is not a pyramid, nearly as much as it is a diamond.

Let's examine the 4 C's of grading a diamond and see how your organization measures up.

The Problem With Perfection

I take issue with the idea that there is a "right" way to to business. There are a LOT of ways to do business, and many of them are successful. Sure, I dislike some of those methods, but that doesn't mean they are ineffective. I was recently reading a book which created a Utopian office as its setting. This office was perfect, it was fun, and profitable, and everyone loved working there, and everyone was paid well, and everyone got a long and they created new ways to handle conflict, and everything was perfect. And really, that's just not helpful.

I like the idea of innovative thought. I relish the chance to meet business owners who want to do things differently, because I myself am a creature of change. But I do not hold with the idea that you can make anything perfect. I do not believe that the training I provide to companies will make them free of conflict or issue. Utopia cannot exist, and this is from the mouth of an optimist. Trying to achieve such a standard creates a false horizon. We're expecting people to achieve something that is outside reality.

There will be work required to get our work done. Or it wouldn't be work. Some of that work may be distasteful, or unfulfilling in certain aspects. The challenge to me is not to try to eliminate that work, because in some instances, that is not feasible. The challenge is to make the most of it each time. The challenge is to understand that our environment is not perfect, and there are a number of things out of our control, but those that are within our control can be whatever we want them to be.

We can control our own choices, and we feel better when we make a choice to do something rather than have it thrust upon us. It is not an easy thing to do, but when my boss tells me that I HAVE TO do a specific project, I try to remind myself that I am making the decision to do this. I could tell my boss "No". I could refuse to to the project, that might in turn lead to me losing my job, but the choice is still mine. And when the jobs I am being asked to do become more distasteful than the prospect of finding a new job, then I will make that choice too. As I have done in the past.

Utopia may just be a fantasy, but I can make the place I live and work, a place of MY choosing.

Change is the only constant...

He speaks yet I do not hear.
What I hear he does not speak.
The message is wrong.
He's insincere.
He sounds just like her.

She rambles on my voice mail.
She sends empty essays to my inbox.
The message is wrong.
She's insincere.
Her words, to me, are stale.

Everyday I hear these cheers.
Everyday I am disappointed.
The message is wrong.
They're insincere.
They've been saying the same for years.

Someday I will believe again.
Someday I will have faith.
A message that's true.
A message, sincere.
Someone with visions of change.

-Timuri

I wrote this piece back in February of 2003 while I was sitting in a "very important" meeting at Xerox. The words being spoken just were not penetrating my head, mainly because they were the same words I had heard at every other "important" meeting for years.

What happened to the people who wanted to make a difference? When I was hired with the company we watched videos about the visionaries that started it all off. The desire to create new and useful technology that would alter the business world. I spent the next few years being told not to rock the boat. Quit trying to change the business. Why? Isn't that what made us a great company in the beginning?

I worked at it for close to a decade and realized that I was fighting a war from the wrong side. The change I wanted to see happen was possible, but I needed to be in a different position to accomplish it. There is a great line from Utah Phillips, in his piece "Korea" he says, "I realized right then, that it was all wrong. That it all had to change. And that change had to start with me." So here I am, now armed with ideas and concepts that can and will change the businesses and people they touch.

Revolution destroys what is. I am not interested in this. But I am a fan of evolution, of embracing the changes that are happening around us. The challenge before me now, is finding those visionaries that want to see their businesses and people change in this way.