Monthly Archives: May 2013

Does your company have a refined mission statement?

May 31, 2013 by 123outsource
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Many companies publish a mission statement on their website. But, that is only a token of a mission. A real mission is like a shared purpose. If all the workers are trained regularly to be familiar with what the long term goals of the company are, then they will be more on the same team as you.

Workers are concerned with their personal lives, families, pay checks, free time, quality of life, etc. But, are they concerned at all with the goals of the company? Your company will lack cohesiveness if not. Workers tend to do better work if they see a bigger picture. If they see how their work affects society in a bigger way, they will do the same boring work, but with a much better attitude. So, having them tuned into your company’s mission regularly, can help with seeing the bigger picture.

Imagine a call center whose goal is to enrich the lives of people by providing pleasant phone calls.

If your goal is to make others happy by being pleasant, you will think less of how unpleasant your job is, and more about the goal. If you keep thinking about that goal, then the lives of the people you call will be better and you will be nicer to them.

On the other hand, your mission could be to be great at giving information rather than being nice. You might be socially awkward on the phone. But, if you are always trying to be the best at giving information, people will remember your company as the one who gave them the best information. They might dump the “pleasant” people at the other company to get more great information from people at your company.

Another goal for a call center might be to be the fastest call center around. You could train workers to get callers off the phone fast. The problem is that you might cut people off before they were done having their problem fixed, or they might think you were rude.

Ideally, a company mission should be a combination of factors. Be as fast as you can be without upsetting anyone. Or give great information while being polite. Be pleasant while also giving effective answers to questions.

The main point of this article is that if you keep your company’s mission in your worker’s ears at regular intervals, they will be more in tune with what your company is all about — and so will you.

There is one company whose company mission is the best one in the world. They are:

Mission Tortilla
I’m not sure what their mission is, but I think it is to make the most great tortilla chips in the world — and they succeed at this too. Maybe it is because the word mission is embedded in their name. What do you think?

Social media & promoting your products with humor & information

May 28, 2013 by 123outsource
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Many companies are using social media these days. It is the “in thing” and for a reason. If hundreds of millions of people use it to make friends, find new business contacts, and compare products, it must be the place to be. But, do you use it correctly? Social media is hard. Even if you have a good staff member to run your Facebook and Twitter campaigns, the content needs to come from somewhere and that involves you in some way. I have personally been using various channels of social media since 2010, and it is hard to create an endless stream of great content. You have to figure out what people in your network like to read about, and write endlessly about it in a way that makes them want to interact.

THE GOLDEN RULE here is to tweet only 5% about promoting your products and the rest should be about stuff that the people on your network like to read about!

What I learned is that none of the books about social media that I have browsed through, or the magazine articles that I have read have helped me to become a better social media writer. But, there are things that I have done which helped.

(1) I read OTHER PEOPLE’S twitter profiles to see what they are doing. 99% of the content is rubbish, but there are a few accounts which have amazingly good content. I learn from what they are doing.

(2) Humor and wit makes your Twitter do better. Remember, put some Wit in your T-Wit-Ter. People are looking through hundreds or thousands of tweets and accounts when they visit their Twitter. If your tweets don’t stand out, then you will be overlooked.

(3) Juicy stories, gut wrenching tragedies, and drama will get people’s attention. Remember, most people are EMOTIONAL and not analytical. Just because I like to analyze, I should not assume that others do too, because only 1% of humans are the analytical type, but at least 70% are emotional. You get a bigger crowd by spending more time focusing on emotionally rousing topics. This works especially well on Facebook and blogs as you can get great responses.

(4) Quick Tips: Information is king on the web. But, do you tweet the type of information people want? The most popular type of information across the board — irrespective of what industry you are in would be QUICK TIPS that get big results. Hire someone who is an ace on the phone and watch your sales double. Spending an hour a day on analyisis can save you 40% of total costs in your business. The gas station at such and such a location sells gas at 40 cents below the average cost in your metro — save a mint. These are very vague samples I am giving, but this QUICK FIX information is popular. It is something people can understand, use, and benefit from quickly. People have little patience for having to actually learn something — quick and dirty is the key to popularity in information these days, especially in the A.D.D. generation.

(5) Rewrite the title of your blog in your tweets. You can tweet the same blog entry once every two days, each time with a different title. Since you have 140 characters to play with –that is much longer than a typical blog title length. You have a lot to work with. Take some of the juiciest content from the body of the blog, and make a twitter title out of it. Then, find some other content and do it again.

(6) Specifics sell. Although most people don’t like analytics, they like numbers that pop out at them. If I tell people we got 78% more clicks this month — nobody cares. But, when I tell them we got a MILLION clicks in the last 42 days on a particular site of mine — their eyes almost pop out. And this is true information. Understanding the emotional impact of information stated in different ways is paramount. Say the same thing three different ways and see which way more people react. Percentages require aptitude to comprehend, and most people don’t have aptitudes, but large numbers like a million is something even kids understand — and it presses on an emotional trigger point as well.

(7) The WOW factor. Anything that can make people say wow works. I’ll leave that up to you.

(8) Write 200 tweets and then look at them in perspective. If you just tweet whatever comes to mind, you are missing the birdhouse here. Twitter is not about tweeting anything. It is about gaining attention and losing it. A single bad tweet can lose followers and sour people who will still follow you. Go through your proposed list of tweets and peck at them a bit. See which ones to cut from your list because they won’t fly up to speed. Find others that will ruffle people’s feathers the wrong way and cut those. Organize your tweets in order of how effective they will be for gaining (or losing) followers and test them out. When I look at my last month’s tweets, I see a bunch that make me say wow, and a few others that make me ask, “Why did I publish that?”.

(9) Promoting your products. People use social media to promote their brand. But, most companies miss the point. They tweet self-promoting boring stuff that nobody will want to follow. Nobody will want to retweet their stuff either. Not rubbish, but boring. You need a ratio of stuff that your followers want to here compared to self-promotion. I suggest 20 tweets about quick tips, infromation, stories, etc., for every 1 tweet about what you are selling. That way you keep people interested. I am quickly turned off by self-promoting Twitter acounts. Boring and uninspiring.

Weeding out employees with a bad attitude

May 26, 2013 by 123outsource
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I was sitting next to an elderly man at a bar in a casino in Reno one fine evening. I didn’t know that this seasoned gentleman had been the manager of the bar for decades. He had wisdom beneath those gray hairs, and lots of it. I told him about my business issues, and he sat me down and started to spout out common sense wisdom that changed my life.

He said that you can take someone who doesn’t have skills and train them.

But, if someone has a bad attitude, it is generally not possible to fix — so, just get rid of them as fast as you can.

You’ll be glad you did!

In my business, it is hard to just fire people who are working on complicated projects. Bar tenders are dime a dozen. You can have 100 prospects waiting in line if you have to fire someone. But, programmers are harder to find. The majority don’t even answer phone calls — ever!

In any case, in a company environment, one person with a bad attitude can infect the other workers with a bad attitude. They can also singlehandedly change the entire work environment or vibration. It is not worth it. If they are that bad — get rid of them. On the other hand, nobody is perfect. So, don’t be too unreasonable; otherwise you will have to fire everyone, including yourself, and then divorse your wife, and disown your parents — and your cat!

What I learned is that a group of people attracts more people of similar nature. If you have a spiritual group where everyone is mean, then the new people joining the group will tend to be mean — or at least you will alienate the nice people, so the ones you are left with are mean. If you have an outsourcing company, you can not afford this reality. Have nice people, so that when you hire new people, you will be able to attract good ones, and keep them. Think ahead!

Making them feel the pressure subconsciously

May 20, 2013 by 123outsource
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People are more in touch with their subconscious than you might think. They will undoubtedly deny this because they are not consciously consciuos of their subconscious — or at least they don’t think they are! Sometimes I have to work with people or BPO companies who just won’t cooperate. It is difficult to just fire them and move on to another company who is relatively “unknown” to me in terms of their reliability. So sometimes, I decide that it is better to crack the whip a bit, and give a mixture of incentives and penalties for good or bad behavior.

The most common problem is that someone refuses to follow directions or get something done in a reasonable amount of time. They are busy with other commitments, or just plain stubborn. I have learned to be patient, but “overpatience” is a liability, not a virtue. Irresponsible people systematically take advantage of you if you are too lenient in a business relationship.

The irony or the secret is, that when I search for replacements, and really put time into my search — my current service providers seem to tune into that and feel it. They can sense that they will be replaced soon if they don’t shape up. There is no better way to instill this feeling than shopping around.

If you are from India or the Philippines, there is this great American song from the 60’s that was many people’s favorites. It was a motown hit called, “Shop Around”. It is about a mother who told her son that he had better shop around for a good bride, and not to marry the first pretty girl who he found. She warned him that if he didn’t find a girl who really loved him, that he would be very sad in the long run. You can watch this Smokey Robinson song on youtube.com.

“Mama always said you better show around” — Smokey Robinson

How often do you contact old prospects?

May 19, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | 1 Comment

I once wrote an entry called the 2 minute contact rule

It was fun to write and helpful too. I use this in real life. But, how often do you call an old prospect? Don’t call too often or you will be bugging them. But, try to see things from their perspective. They chose someone else rather than you in their initial purchase of outsourced and offshore services for their call center, data entry, software, or other needs. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t like you. They could have been comparing hundreds of companies, and just chose the one who made most sense to choose at that moment in time.

Now, it is six months later. They are in bed with that company, or maybe they have moved on. They know all of the company’s attributes and characteristics. The salesperson probably told them lots of nonsense. The project manager probably slacked off. And the workers probably botched something. I can not stress the power of positive thinking enough — BE POSITIVE! Their incompetency is your golden opportunity. Think positively!

They will appreciate the fact that you touched base with them without badgering them. You spent two minutes chatting about how their project was going. They remembered you and took the time to talk. How touching! Now that they are upset with their service provider, and you have made contact with them back then, and again now, your chances are higher for making a score. You didn’t have to pay extra for that lead either, because you already had it in your files.

Let’s say that they don’t hire you. But, in ANOTHER six months, you do exactly the same thing. You have 200 old prospects collecting e-dust in your online database of prospects. You spend two minutes per call on all of them. 400 well spent minutes. 7 hours of actual labor that is one day’s hard work. You might score a big contract. Now, they have heard from you over a longer period of time at specific intervals. You have become like their FAMILY. They have gotten used to talking to you. You are practically in the door.

The key here is that old prospects have value. Don’t stop chasing the new prospects, but getting to know people over time has a special value that can turn into sales. Don’t overlook eggs in your basket that just need a little more time to hatch.

Big programming companies — which one is right for you?

May 14, 2013 by 123outsource
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I have been interviewing large programming houses. Some are here in the good old U.S. of A. But, others are in Canada, Belarus, Vietnam, and India. Which one is the best and why?

What I learned is that big companies have many individuals working for them, but seem to have a narrow type of thinking when it comes to their business model.

The low end..
I have seen big outsourcers specialize in hiring cheap labor. Everyone at such companies would be inexpensive and not that well skilled.

The medium level
Others specialize in hiring medium (end) workers. You will never get anyone that bad, or anyone that good at such a company. If most of the work on a particular side required average workers, but sometimes you need a specialist, you will be sorry if you hire an inflexable middle of the road company.

The High end..
There are a few high-end programming companies too. Some of them charge high end prices without delivering high end service. But, some really do hire the best and finest programmers in town. If your project consists of partly grunt work and some specialty work as well, you will get the job accomplished with this type of company — and for a very handsome price tag.

Mixed Level
Mixed level companies. There are companies that charge a fixed hourly rate for work, but mix up the levels of the programmers and project managers. You might get a handful of medium level workers, and once in a while they might pull in a specialist, while having the whole operation managed by a very seasoned project manager.

All Level
Some companies, large and small, offer a choice of programmers. The hourly price changes depending on who you hire. To me this makes sense. You pay exactly for what you get. In real life, programmers can range in price from $10 per hour until $200 per hour. I bet that you can imagine the difference in efficiency, capability, and quality between the workers at all of those price breaks!

Can small Indian companies compete against bigger sharks?

May 13, 2013 by 123outsource
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Small Indian companies sometimes will have a charismatic boss and a highly skilled workforce. But, more times than not, there is a lack of communiation skills, and a lack of internal management. Big companies in India and MNCs that do business in India have the advantage of having professional management systems, expert communicators, genious marketing managers, and much more. If you are a small company in India, how an you possibly compete with these sharks?

One of the problems is that the owner will have to wear many hats himself. He will have to do public relations, hiring, firing, training, management, and more. This is a lot for one person to do. My message to smaller companies has always been to learn to communicate well, particularly on the phone. Stress communication. If your clients feel awkward communicating with you, they will dump you soon. The next thing is to be in touch with how your clients like their work done. If you don’t communicate, you will not be good at learning what they want. Listening is a big part of the battle here.

Bosses in little Indian companies tend to have very good English skills, but their workers can not function in English (or in any language) most of the time. This is a problem. It is hard to teach work skills, but how can you teach a language to someone who doesn’t know it, and who can’t even communicate in their own language?

If you are specializing in outsourcing to English speaking countries, or countries where their only means of communicating with you would be in English, then your language skills need to be good to survive. Americans can understand Indian English. But, what about French people who struggle just to understand “regular” sounding English. How will they be able to understand Indian English spoken by people who mumble, and are not really interested in communicating? You will lose a lot of clients due to this.

The solution is easy. If you cater to the West, then cater to communicating with the West. Communication is 30% of the job criteria if you ask me. The rest of the work doesn’t consist of communiation but RELIES on communication otherwise you won’t know what to do or when. HIRE people who can communicate gracefully with overseas clients. Listen to what people’s needs are and make a big effort to fulfill whatever they said their needs were. Most companies just do whatever they feel like. If you want to be profitable, do what your client feels like, and not what you feel like. If you are experts at communication and pleasing your clients you can compete easily with the big fish and eat them too.

Big fish eat little fish. But, if you are a piranha, then you can be a little fish who eats big fish and other big animals.

Bait and switch practices at outsourcing companies

May 11, 2013 by 123outsource
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It is common for companies to tell prospective clients pleasant things to get their to sign a contract. However, once you read the actual contract it might be a lot less pleasant than what the salesperson talked about.

I had one company tell me that I could purchase as many hours of programming as I liked in a month providing I prepayed. I thought this was reasonable. When I received the contract, they were asking for a 40 hour per month contract which turned out to be their minimum order. The hourly price was right, but the minimum was crazy. My project is a small one that needs about 5-12 hours per month on an ongoing basis.

I told the provider that if they did a good job on the “test” project, that I had other projects in the pipeline that I would give them. However, they wanted to do the test only if I would upgrade to 40 hours per month soon after that.

I wish they would have told me about the minimum up front so I could have spent my time talking to the other companies on my list.

In any case, the process of choosing an outsourcing service provider is hard. The deeper you dig, and more people at the company you talk to — you will find that the story keeps changing. You need to know what you are getting at an outsourcing company BEFORE you sign anything. Additionally, for smaller projects, I am not sure that signing a contract is in your favor. It binds you to a legal relationship with a company that you might not even like.

Following directions and consequences for not

May 7, 2013 by 123outsource
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Outsource: Following directions: When and where

When I test out software companies, I always take analytics on their performance. Testing people is easy. Getting analytics on what they SAY and how they PERFORM is easy. But, what about the interpretation of the analytics? That is not so easy.

Understanding how to interpret analytics is like seeing how a relationship will go based on the first date. The first date gives you some information about a person, or at least who they are pretending to be. But, it doesn’t prove how a person will behave in a long term relationship. What I learned, is that if a person doesn’t follow directions, that affects their performance in a variety of ways.

If you hand over an established website to a company, there are several considerations to think about. Are they secure for handling your site in the long run? Can they build new modules on your site? Can they update the technology over time as necessary? And can they quickly fix things that break? What I learned is that if you don’t follow directions, then you will not fix what you have been asked to fix — but, instead will be working on something else for me, or for another client. The order of critical and time sensitive steps is something that is greatly affected by the following directions analytic. Additionally, if something critical is broken, and you don’t fix it to specifications, then you create a delay in fixing code that is time sensitive. All 20,000 of your users will be delayed indefinately while a sluggish and uncooperative programmer screws around not following directions. Can you afford that?

Not following directions comes at a cost. Sometimes the cost is:

(1) Merely the cost of therapy bills for dealing with the frustration of dealing with someone who refuses to obey orders.

(2) Sometimes there is a financial cost for every hour something critical is left broken.

(3) Also, don’t neglect the fact that the programmer might fail to follow directions by working on the wrong project at the wrong time which screws up your ability to schedule projects.

Test your programmers by giving them an assignment with 10 documented steps. See how many of the steps they follow. The typical programmer will follow 6 out of 10 steps, and will only do several of those correctly, which means you have to harrass them to get everything up to specifications. What a nightmare!

How does culture determine what is private or public information?

May 5, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: India | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Private or Public: What an Indian Manager Will and Won’t Tell You
To any question that did not involve facts and figures, one Indian software company manager recently replied, “That, of course, is personal.” Had I asked him about what size pants he wore, or his address, or his wife’s birth date? No; I was simply asking for a story about his company and the people who are part of its team.

Guarded managers won’t tell you much
Whether you are dealing with a very successful software company in India or an Indian software company that is still small, most managers or CEO’s have a very guarded approach to talking about their company. They will tell you in very general terms how they help U.S. companies succeed, or will give you lots of numbers about how much they helped raise profits (very good!), but even when you explain that you are not asking for specific names of U.S. companies they have done work for, they are still suspicious about being asked for details. In India, it is just not natural to say much about your company’s employees or interactions. That is considered highly personal.

In America, personal & company details are more public
In the U.S., every rising star, political figure, business person, and software engineer may be found on google at some point in time. The U.S. is a country that is obsessed with the personal lives of almost everyone, and this curiosity has been fanned and inflated by the Internet with the ability to publish and find information so easily. However, looking at the positives, we are open to a wide variety of people and we try to find those who think as we do when we want to do business. This is the main reason we are asking for stories about companies in the first place. The thousands of people who read our blog want to find a like-minded company to do business with. Maybe they are wondering about all the things they read on the Web, and they want to reassure themselves that people in India have lives just like theirs…or in some ways like theirs.

However, intimate details should be private
The intimate details of employees’ lives are, and should be, private. We are not in favor of talking about marriages, children, or any of the silly gossip that movie stars are involved in on the Web. However, if you really have a great team, your Indian software company should be able to tell us, for example, that they all went to the mountains together, or play volleyball together, or eat out together while planning new work strategies. We wonder: do the software companies in India not really know about their employees? Are their employees so uninteresting that they have no salient characteristics? If you have a great team, isn’t it made up of interesting individuals with individual talents beyond what they do at your company?

Snip-its about each employee make us want to call
Maybe Americans are too used to the idea of a software engineer who is also a classical pianist, or a manager who also has a PhD in Philosophy or Comparative Religions, or knows several languages and is a world traveler. We are used to this. Yes, we are spoiled. We are also used to company websites that show pictures of team members and give little biographies about these individuals’ personal interests–besides work. Why? It makes them well-rounded and intriguing, and makes us want to help them earn their salaries. It convinces us to give the company a call.

Despite cultural differences, there are great people overseas
But it is also part of our love of democracy that we believe that at Indian software companies there are also programmers and engineers who do amazing things and have amazing personal stories to tell. We would not have this website if we didn’t believe these kind of people exist in other countries. We believe that there must be some very special Indian programmers or software engineers helping companies in India grow. We are not asking for their names, but we are interested in stories about software companies in India and the outstanding teams that make them work.

India is more focused on work and less on frills
Or maybe in India, people just work. Many of these individuals just work and take care of their families. If they are lucky, they also have some time for spiritual or religious practice as well. Maybe they do not have the luxury of reading a lot, or taking extra courses or degrees, or playing sports or music. Maybe they just work, and they don’t feel at ease to have any personal time or interests. And maybe our wide variety of interests has dissipated our focus on work. Perhaps they, in India, are the lucky ones.

Feeling safe discussing more details
I guess, in the end, many software companies in India feel that giving out any information on interesting employees or teams might tempt some employees to seek more money or other jobs, and it is best to leave things as they are. We still are hoping to hear from a growing Indian software company that values its employees and feels safe enough to discuss some of their valuable skills and attitudes that make them who they are.

You might also like:

If you hire happy people to interact with your staff
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/05/29/if-you-hire-happy-people-to-interact-with-your-staff/

Motivating workers with competition
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/08/14/motivating-workers-with-competition/

Being sensible, realistic and safe is bad for business
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/07/11/being-sensible-realistic-and-safe-is-bad-for-business/

Penalizing people for following the rules
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/02/26/penalizing-people-for-following-the-rules/

Outsource: e-Karma definition. How does online karma affect you?

May 4, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Many people are unaware that there is a force of nature called e-Karma. It affects your past, present and future. But, few understand this mystical attribute of the universe.

e-Karma
A specific type of karma that results from doing good or bad deeds online. At the time of death of the individual, all karmic debts recorded on the e-Karma server are migrated to a new server where the corresponding individual is reincarnated.

Etymology

Sanskrit: Karma — a deed or action

Greek: The word electronic (shortened to “e” as an abbreviation) derives from the Greek word Elektron, which means an electron.

Q&A

Q. Is e-Karma different from “regular” karma?
A. Yes. Regular karma is accumulated during an incarnation of a living being, and then discharged periodically according to the lords of karma who decide when and where a karmic debt will be “repaid”. Online e-Karma is accumulated on servers, and the repayment of these debts is decided from the custodian of these online karmic databases.

Q. What types of actions lead to bad e-Karma?
A. Spamming is a typical one. Sending useless emails to targetted individuals promoting your service in a way that is not customized to the person’s actual needs. Creating online viruses is a much more serious offense. Creating online articles that misinform the public about non-existant terms is another offense whose punishment is still unknown.

Q. What happens to the worst offenders?
A. There is no definite information available now, but many have theorized that the worst offenders will end up in e-Hell. Those who simply bug others by sending unwanted emails, will in-turn receive unwanted emails themselves. While those who write articles about fake terms — hence misleading gullable members of the public will have to spend time in an ethereal realm where they are entertained with nonsense for a period of time.

Q. What do outsourcing companies do to gain this bad karma?
A. They send emails to people without stating the recipient’s actual name, and without bothering to understand the nature of the recipient’s actual business. It is very unpersonal, untargetted, gets poor results, fails to catch someone’s attention, and creates waste in the e-Universe. It is better that companies promoting SEO, Web Design, and other outsourced services try to get to know the needs of the company they are promoting their products to, and then they will get a much more favorable result when attempting to market to companies — as well as creating much fewer useless emails!

How to create a new corporate culture in 3 easy steps!

May 3, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest, Popular on Google+, Popular on Twitter, Semi-Popular | Tagged | 1 Comment

Creating a new corporate culture is easy with our new powder. Mix with water, get a new corporate culture. It is actually, not that much harder than that, but you need good analytics and cooperation from higher level people at your company to pull this off.

Sometimes, to succeed in a particular market niche, or to be efficient in your company, you need a particular type of corporate culture. If you have a few anti-social types, lazy people, or uncooperative people, that can throw the entire corporate culture off. It is much worse than the fact that those individuals are not producing the types of results you want, they INFLUENCE others in a negative way — and you can’t have that!

Or, maybe the corporate culture you have is uncultural. Let’s say that you can not talk to your employees about Mozart or the finer points of Hungarian literature. Maybe those attributes are important to attracting better future staff members, or perhaps attracting more cultured clients. Remember, high class people are impressed by people who are cultured. On the other hand, most rich people in the United States are culturally illiterate, so maybe culture doesn’t matter.

Putting aside what types of attributes you want in your new culture, you should have good reasons for whatever attributes you want, and a sensible way of gaining them.

If you have a corporation with 300 employees, you might find that people fit your new cultural model to a greater or lesser extent. If you have clearly defined attributes written down, you might find that 100 of your employees fit the model well enough to keep. Perhaps another 100 have a few of the attributes you like and would be worth it to TRAIN to meet some of your other attributes. The remaining 100 employees should ideally be let go — but, not all at once.

Step 1: Start firing the worst 33% of your workforce that doesn’t match your new model

If you have to get rid of 33% of your workforce, you need a timetable for doing so. You need a plan of which types of workers to get rid of first as well. You create an algorithm which takes many factors into consideration. How well someone fits your corporate cultural ideal would account for several of the factors, how well they do their job and contribute in general would account for the other factors.

If you fire roughly 1.5% of your least favorable employees per month, over a period of two years, and rehire people who fit your new corporate cultural ideas to a tee while doing great work as well, you have accomplished much of creating a new corporate culture.

Step 2: Hire new people who meet your cultural and work model to a tee.

Step 3: Culturally mold the employees that you didn’t fire, as well as your new hirees to see if they can match your new model perfectly

Training is the second and potentially more difficult part of the cultural change. You need to INSTILL new corporate values into the workers who you are not going to can. If your new values include being knowledgeable about Mozart as you plan your takeovers, then play Mozart all the time. Give lectures about Mozart to your people. You can write lyrics to Mozart string quartets too.

“We’re going to seize your assets…. I’d like to see you try… Your corporate debt…. It makes me cry… We’ll take you over….. You will see… and in the end…. you’ll understand our decree.”

“Oh no you won’t… we’ll call in the calvary… we know investors… that can turn this around… never mind that our lyrics do not rhyme… you will see that we will save our corporation in thyme!!”

You can play Mozart piano concertos in the morning, sonatas during lunch, string quartets in the early afternoon, and then test employees on their knowledge. Those who can’t deal with the new corporate culture would need to be weeded out slowly over time.

Step 4 (of 3): Continue the process for around three years with any necessary refinements.

The end result after about three years, is that you would have successfully converted your uptight and stuffy corporation into a bunch of music loving nuts who do corporate takeovers and sing silly lyrics to Mozart string quartets. All you need is a vision, a very capable HR department who understands algorithms & counter-harmony, plus a really good corporate training division which hires Russian dissidents who know how to teach music (and chess) really well. A good sound system wouldn’t hurt either.

Good luck!

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