When Bailouts Don't Make Sense

If you're looking the latest rhetorical wisdom about Wall Street and Congressional votes and financial bailouts... keep looking.

Yesterday, I was able to witness another type of failed bailout, but this was indisputably a good one.  I had taken my dog, Zorro, to our local PetSmart store to be groomed.  When I dropped him off, the groomer told me 4:00.  When I returned at 4:00, the groomer got testy with me and informed me that she had said "I SAID between 4:00 and 4:30."  OK, so much for customer service.  I went to pick up my children from daycare and school and returned at 4:40.  "I need 15 more minutes" was the curt response from the groomer.  When I pointed out that this was my second return and the second missed deadline, the groomer proceeded to scream at me from across the salon.  Thankfully, the other two groomers stepped in and quickly asked if I'd like to speak to a manager.  When he arrived, I explained the situation (having your own children around to watch you in these events is a good balance-check to make sure you don't get too irate).  When he heard that one of his employees actually screamed at a customer, he promptly refunded my money, and he informed me in no uncertain terms he would talk to the groomer about her behavior.  He was apologetic and polite.  Who knows?  I may actually give them another shot.

The problem with these situations occurs when a manager chooses to bail out a non-performing employee.  They'll make excuses for them.  They will defend their behaviors.  They'll do everything but make it right.  The PetSmart manager could give lessons on service recovery to some of the cubicle dwellers I've seen.  I've observed everything from non-performing project resources to ill-tempered CIO's to badly behaving company presidents get away with their antics for years.  Those who can make a decision turn a blind eye.

Here is how I choose to deal with the situation:

1. Look for patterns of behavior.  It's easy to dismiss one or two isolated occurrances, but when the behavior is consistently rearing its ugly head, those in a decision-making capacity cannot ignore the situation.
2. Document!  Save emails and minutes and performance appraisals... anything that puts the behavior in writing.
3. Bottom line analysis.  Robert Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule, recommends calculating the TCA (or Total Cost of Assholes).  Show financially how much their bad behavior contributes to the bottom line through missed deadlines or the turnover of others.
4. Confront... strategically.  Allow higher-ups to see the behavior first-hand.  Create situations where the offending party's worst behaviors could demonstrate themselves for others.
5. Proceed with caution.  The poor performer is being protected for a reason.  You can't always get rid of them, but you don't want to destroy your own career in the process.  If you're really lucky, you may eventually eliminate both the poor performer and the boss protecting him or her.

Now I wonder if any of the above could be reasons why the Wall Street Bailout failed.

To Heck With Hecklers

Remember the Muppets?

Two of the most entertaining characters to watch were Statler and Waldorf, the two old guys who sat in the balcony and heckled the other... uh... performers.  Week after week, their comments and barbs continued, yet rarely was there any retribution.

When you are in a meeting at work, do you ever have to deal with Statler and/or Waldorf?  I thought you might.  Most of our meeting places, however, do not have balconies.  The hecklers are right there in the room at the table with you... or are they?

I've noticed that meeting hecklers, while physically present, tend to set up an emotional space between themselves and those whom they are targeting.  They may represent this distance physically as well by sitting in a corner, pushing their chair back, or huddling with another heckler for a side-bar conversation.  When you try to get things done, they interrupt with insults or diversions.

How can you deal with this?  Well, outside of creating a documentary showing hecklers in their natural habitat, you really have two courses of action:

1. Pull the hecklers into the conversation and turn them into participants
2. Expel them completely from the conversation

In the cubicle-dwelling organiztion, the second one I recommend only as a last resort after every avenue has been attempted, which leads us back to the first alternative.  Hecklers, at their heart, have a need for attention and a need to be heard.  Those are needs we can address rather easily.  At an escalated level, they have a need to be right and a need to win.  Those are more difficult needs to handle.  First and foremost, give the heckler a brief forum to share his or her thoughts.  "Randy, I perceive that you have something you really want to share with the group.  Can you briefly tell us what you are thinking so we can address it?"  This at least gives the heckler a chance to share.  Of course, you will always have the passive-aggressive type who will decline your invitation and continue with the verbal sniping.  In those cases, I will either call a break or end the meeting and deal with the behavior out in the hallway.

Either way, leaving the heckler in the balcony is not a good thing.  Either invite them down to the stage or have security show them the door.

Studying Executives In Their Native Habitat

Teaching a course in Executive Leadership at Drake this semester has been an interesting change of gears from the leadership class I taught last year.  I've served in various executive roles and I've been exposed to the good, bad, and ugly of executives in my employee and consulting careers.  Still, to many, the executive is that elusive "man behind the curtain" whom nobody really understands.  Is he "great and powerful" or just a "humbug"?

The first guest speaker I brought into class was Sue, an executive assistant with a locally large employer in town.  She entertaininly provided my students with many insights about the life and times of an executive's life, but since many of my students are far from being an executive yet, her most valuable advice was how to approach and interact with executives.

In her own words:

Be Bright

Be Quick

Be Gone

This person did not get to where he is by needing you to read him every page of 100 page deck; in fact, do not show up with a 100 page deck! Schedule your meeting for 30-minutes (or as requested by the exec or his assistant); be organized so you can cover the information, answer any questions, note any take aways and leave before your allotted time is spent.  Be pleasant and smile-- remember he’s a human being and usually very approachable.  Leave the brown nosing at your former employer’s---everyone knows when you’re baffling with bull because you aren’t able to dazzle with brilliance.  Also, read the body language; know the clues as when to move on, whether to the next topic or out the door

Sage advice.  My dad used to say that the perfect 3-point sermon was to stand up, speak up, and shut up.  It looks as though the same principles apply in dealing with executives.

Home, Home on the Change

It's kind of interesting when God decides he's going to get my attention.  I always giggle about the cute devotionals that compare this event with a cool breeze or a gentle touch or a soft whisper.  After all, are we talking about the Almighty Creator of the Universe or an air freshening fabric softener?  Nope, with me, God pretty much goes full-court press, knock upside the head, "Yeah I'm talkin' to you, what of it?" sort of attitude.

It seems like every article and message that has come across my desk has dealt with the topic of change recently.  While my life has been in a state of flux and transition, it hasn't really been stressing me out too terribly.  (Maybe it has and I'm just too dense to figure it out... hence the "subtle hints" from above.)

In the midst of it all, I found this article in an old Harvard Business Review by Harold Sirkin, Perry Keenan, and Alan Jackson about "The Hard Side of Change Management."  Any change can be scored according to a roll of the DICE.  OK, their version of DICE is an acronym:

• Duration of time until the change program is completed
• Integrity of the project team's performance, or their ability to complete stuff on time
• Commitment to the change from both top management and employees
• Effort above and beyond the normal workload that the change initiative demands of employees

The combined score of these four elements can quantifiably predict how successful the project will be.  Simple enough, but it gave me pause to think about some of my upcoming changes and what it will take to sell them to the relevant stakeholders to make the project successful.

After getting the hard side of change pounded into my head this week, at our church yesterday we had a guest speaker.  Dean Trune is the Executive Director of Impact Ministries International, and he is one of the most powerful prayer warriors I've ever met or heard speak.  We bring in a speaker to fill the pulpit for one Sunday and what's his topic?  Change.  He approached change from a character point of view, using the life of Joseph to demonstrate how change is initiated and how we can harness it.

So that leads me to a few questions... how do you go about predicting the future success or failure of your organizational (and personal) changes?  How have you seen change playing out in your character and in the character of those around you?  Do we take accountability for the changes in our life which we actually initiate ourselves (perhaps unintentionally)?

Purpose-Driven Fun

The other night, I had the honor of photographing the annual Red Vs. Blue Bowl.  Simply put, the Urbandale Police Department challenges the Urbandale Fire Department every year at a rousing game of flag football.  This year, they raised over $13,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  (And for those who care about these fiercely fought contests, Police beat Fire 18-14 to win back the trophy after last year's defeat.)

While everybody had a great time, and a very deserving charity received a boost to their budget, I found myself thinking about the concepts of "doing good" and "having fun" while photographing the game.  At our jobs, do we think about serving the customers AND making it a blast for ourselves (and for them)?  Helping the community is an obligation we all have as citizens.  Having fun is a choice each of us must make internally.  I always think about the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market, who capitalized on the idea of infusing fun into otherwise hard and somewhat disgusting work.

I've found one fundamental truth as I've developed my speaking career:  people love to laugh.  Allow them to laugh at themselves, at their jobs, at their bosses and coworkers, at (with) their customers, at the absurdity of the world around them.  If you can harness the laughter into making someone else's life a little better and their load a little lighter, then you have achieved one of the biggest win-win accomplishments ever.

rhe-DOH-ric

In my last post, I talked about how our nation is at odds, and we weren't even holding the same arguments, then I related that back to work.  Rather than just leave you hanging, there's a book I've been reading which has been nothing short of phenomenal.

Thank You For Arguing - What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson can teach us about the art of persuasion has been the find of the year for my book-shelf (with special nod to Mike Wagner for the recommendation).  If you've ever felt like you constantly get the short end of the rhetorical stick during conversations, this book is for you.

Jay Heinrichs does an outstandingly entertaining job of laying out the need for better argument skills.  He shares how we often argue in the wrong tense (forensic, or past) when we should be pushing our arguments into the deliberative (or future) tense, where we can actually change things moving forward.  He shares numerous little tricks about reading your audience and relating to them.  Quite frankly, this should be nationally required reading in an election year.  As I listen to the candidates speak about themselves and each other, I've been better equipped to dissect their logic (or lack thereof) and the little ploys.  Heinrichs gives many examples and tips to use with coworkers, bosses, friends, family, and strangers.

Are We Even Having The Same Argument?

There were a couple of great editorials in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend (actually, there were a lot of them, but a couple I wanted to hit on specificially).  One was an article by Lee Siegel on the current political landscape.  No, I'm not going to spout any anti-Obama rhetoric here, nor will I make any comments on The Bridge to Nowhere.  For once, there was somebody who actually captured the essence of the election.  One of the excepts, which WSJ used to tagline the article, summarized the issue rather eloquently:

Liberals always think there's something broken in politics.  Conservatives always think there's something wrong with the culture.

That's the problem!  Our two sides aren't even having the same argument.  What we have is a national version of the husband's irritation about a scratch in the car merged with a wife's annoyance about a constantly vertical toilet seat.  They're arguing about the purchase of a new sofa, but he's bringing up issues about how she never takes care of things, and she is countering with arguments about how he can't bring things to closure.  Their words and emotions really have nothing to do with sofa fabrics or price ranges.  Meanwhile, the kids (nationally, a growing base of disenfranchised voters) see exactly what's going on and want nothing to do with either party because of it.

The other editorial was by Phil Gramm and Mike Solon.  It made some great economic comparisons between Michigan's current economy and what an Obama Whitehouse would look like.  Looking beyond the obvious slant against Democrats' economic policies, we see another underlying argument flaw in this election.  Neither side can even see the positive the other one brings to the table.  Each party's platform contains positive elements, but the other side would never consider acknowledging them.  We're clouding the issue with rhetoric and smoke and mirrors and character smears.  Yes, it is both sides who are accomplishing this.  What I liked about the Gramm-Solon editorial was its use of statistics to point out positives and negatives of economic policies.  It didn't play to heartstrings about unemployment; it stated numbers and facts.  Yes, it was meant to persuade, but to do so factually rather than emotionally.

We do it in our workplaces and professional relationships, also.  In office politics, we attempt to villify the other party and not acknowledge anything positive they may bring to the project or the department.  We cloud the issues with our own brand of innuendo and rhetoric.  The owners of a firm I used to subcontract through were masters of this technique.  I've joked with people that the Midwest uses passive-aggression as a food group.  I've watched many a meeting, project, and career be derailed by emotion.

Hmmm... sounds like we could all use a big ol' collective time-out to think about how we're running this campaign... and our offices.

I Knew I Shoulda Taken That Left Turn At Albuquerque

I always enjoyed how Bugs Bunny got into his messes.  Of course, being the "male of the species" we don't tend to stop and ask directions.  It always seemed as though Albuquerque was the black-hole that sent him into all sorts of zany situations.

Where is YOUR Albuquerque?  (And no, it's probably not in New Mexico.)

Where is the point where a course correction is necessary?

Simply put, here are some pointers to determine when a course correction may be necessary:

1. Listen to your gut - are you hearing more excuses and blame than results?  Are things "not quite right"?  Are you tossing and turning at night? These are indicators you may have missed your left turn.
2. Check the data - find out what measures can support your instincts.  It's hard to argue against cold, hard facts.
3. Admit you are going in the wrong direction - this is a big one.  If you can't admit your project or department (or even your own career) missed the big carrot festival, then it's going to be hard to fix the problem.
4. Backtrack - don't spend a lot of time on this one (i.e., playing the blame game).  If you can figure out where you went wrong, though, you can avoid it in the future.  In other words, find Albuquerque.
5. Apologize to the wronged - swallow your ego and admit you made a mistake (even if it's just to yourself).  Asking forgiveness will help you build support for the next direction you take.  It's a big credibility booster.
6. Determine the end game - where do you REALLY want to go?  What does the future state look like?  How soon do you need to be there?
7. Identify your resources - who can help you get to the big carrot festival with no bull?  Use your subject matter experts.  People like to be asked.
8. Start - too often we stay mired in mistakes... either out of shame or inertia.  If you know you're in the wrong place, do something about it.  Don't let it get worse.

As somebody who almost was gored at a bullfight in Mexico, I can honestly say that you really don't want to miss that left turn at Albuquerque.

Do You Like Green Eggs and Bear?

It seems a Japanese Zoo is having a hard time keeping the algae out of the polar bears' water, so even the bears have "gone green."  It's not the first time this has happened.  A Singapore zoo experienced a similar event which hit the news about four years ago.

Do you like green eggs and bear?
For those things, I do not care.
I do not like green eggs and bear
I do not like them anywhere!

Do you like the in a zoo?
With green water full of goo?
Do you like green in the water
Coloring seals and an otter?

I do not like them in a zoo
I do not like them smeared with goo
I do not like green eggs and bear
I do not like them anywhere.

But what about your company?  What's covering your department or team right now and discoloring it?  Is it a bad manager?  Is it antiquated procedures?  Is it bureaucracy?  Is it unfit equipment or software?  Is it dysfunctional competition?  Any of these things can be toxic if left unchecked.

Unless you look at what is causing things to turn green (i.e., getting at the root cause), you're probably going to deal with a lot of algae-covered bears.

Open Mic Night Revisited: Fables and Stories

Just an FYI:  I'll be co-hosting "Open Mic Night" over at Liz Strauss' Successful Blog this evening.  This is the second time Liz has turned over the keys to her blog to me, and who knows what could happen?  Last time, we were stampeded by a blogospheric cow.

The topic tonight is "stories and fables."  After all, we all have stories to tell, stories that have impacted us, stories we share to make a point, and stories we like to hear.  And most of us have read at least one business fable, from Who Moved My Cheese to Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  As one who is writing his third, I love to talk about and hear about the topics of stories and story-telling.

So come and join us tonight at 7:00 (CDT).  It's always lively conversation.

Are You Phoning It In?

With our geographically distributed workforces, we're seeing more and more meetings occurring via conference call and webchat.  Certainly, the collaboration software industry has exploded over the past 10 years.  I'm all for using technology as it is not only more efficient but better from a green/sustainability perspective as well.

However, there's a time and a place to "phone it in" and then there are situations where person-to-person contact is necessary.  A few years ago, I served on a project which had dozens upon dozens of individuals spread from coast to coast.  While it was very expensive for them to do so, the executives paid for the team to meet once a quarter (usually in an airline hub city like Denver or Chicago or Minneapolis).  We presented our findings and results and progress to each other, but mostly we were able to build real face-to-face relationships.  People would go out for dinner or drinks following the presentations, and tensions during conference calls and email exchanges were generally minimal during the life cycle of this project.

If you think of communication as a task rather than as an investment, the channel through which it is delivered won't matter much.  Ironically enough, the most dysfunctional communication behavior I ever experienced was from the CEO and founder of a collaboration software company.  Sometimes, you have to get up out of your chair and have a real live conversation.

How can you arrange a face-to-face meeting with the important people in your professional life?

Office Politics For Sale... CHEAP

I was doing some house-cleaning today and ran across numerous copies of GUST from a first-run printing.  The printer had mistakenly left the color off of the cover (black and white and shades of gray, rather than the nice blue cover) and printed the pages on gloss paper instead of regular.  Other than that, the content of the books is exactly the same as what you could buy on Amazon or in the book store.  We had sent most of the print run back, but had kept a few boxes for me to send out as promotional copies.  Since I still have three full boxes of these lying around, I would like to offload the "color-less" copies quickly, so here is your chance to educate all of your friends and family on office politics at a steal of a price.

I'm going to offer a special rate of three (3) copies of GUST for $20 (which includes shipping at media rates).  This is an ideal opportunity for a book club or a departmental or divisional team building/discussion.  At the risk of sounding like one of those cheesy infomercials, if you purchase nine books ($60), I'll throw in the 10th for free.  That's $6 a book for one that normal retails for $14.95.

So if you want to help the people in your life manage their office politics more proactively, here is a great opportunity.

(Note - please be prepared to purchase three copies at a time... I really just want to deplete the inventory quickly, so I ask there be no negotiating for orders not divisible by three).

Here is the paypal link.  Make payments to transact (AT) carpefactum (DOT) com and include your name and mailing address in the comment box.

While supplies last...

Oh yeah, tell your friends about it, too.  Thanks!

Are You a Good Consultant Or a Bad Consultant?

In my profession as a consultant, I've found that the mere term conjures up some very powerful images.  There's the do-nothing-cut-and-run consultant who promised one thing but couldn't (or wouldn't) deliver.  There's the parasite consultant who burrows in and makes himself (or herself) into a can't-live-without-commodity.  There's the Eddie Haskell consultant who ingratiates himself to the higher-ups but treats the rest of the staff with disdain.

Then there is the consultant who adds value, makes himself obsolete and gets the heck out of the way so the organization can accomplish what it must.

I've always liked the line from the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy first arrives in Munchkinland and Glinda's first question to her is, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"  Even Munchkins are curious about new outsiders.

All consultants have to bear the weight of the reputation of our profession.  I've also been in the hiring position of consultants, and here are some of the things I look for:

• What have been the length of the contracts at prior companies?  If the length don't match the types of projects, it sends up a red flag.  If a consultant jumps from client to client after a few weeks, they may be damaged goods.  If they have overstayed their welcome and lasted for years at a given client, I know that getting rid of them may require an exterminator.
• What is the consultants frame of reference when talking?  Do they ask more questions about you and your needs as a potential client?  Or do they talk about themselves and their capabilities and how great they are.
• What are their accomplishments vs. their contributions?  It's subtle, but did the consultant play a lead role at getting things done or were they a contributor who held a much smaller piece of the puzzle.
• Are they good story-tellers?  Being able to provide tangible examples from their past about handling past client challenges is a big plus for me.  If they are talking in generalities, I get nervous about what they can provide.  Their ability to tell stories also tells me if they can be a good presenter in front of an audience.
• While it's not fair to judge a consultant based on a salesperson, I do look at the sales staff.  What appears to be the relationship between the consultant and the salesperson?  Are they partners or do they appear to be adversarial?  Body language and word choice are two good indicators here.  Also, is the salesperson looking to make a buck to fund his or her next sports car, or are they really looking to build a long-term relationship with you as a client?

Just like witches, not all consultants are wicked.  In this soft economy of selecting the best person who can provide you the most value for your consulting dollar, it's important to get what you pay for.

What are your consultant-hiring best practices?

It's a Dogma-Eat-Dogma World Out There

One more night left and then we are DONE with national political conventions for another four years.  Still, it has been fun to discuss and debate the candidates and the issues with friends and family.  With most people, I find I'm able to have wonderful talks.  We don't agree on everything, but we remain logical and respectful of each others' views.  Those whom I tend to avoid are the myopically dogmatic types who think that any diagreement is a personal attack on them, their party, their beliefs, their gender, their race, their age, their entire family, and anybody they may have looked at or talked with in the past 20 years.

To them I say, "CRIKEYS!  Get over yourself already.  LIfe is too short."

This kind of behavior is at the core of many office politics battles.  We assume since there is a conflict brewing, the other person has some personal vendetta against us personally since they don't agree with our views.  We also err in thinking if somebody agrees with us, they must be our friend.  Actually, there's a 2-axis grid which must be assessed when looking at office politics and conflict

Your strategy will depend on which square the other person falls.  The biggest mistake most people make is spending too much time and energy in the upper right hand corner (they already are on your side, you don't have to win them over any more) and the lower left hand corner (nothing short of a nuclear holocaust is going to bring them over to your side, so let it go).

The real trick to being good at influencing people and winning them over in an office politics conflict is paying moderate attention to the lower right (just don't do anything so stupid that they vote against you out of spite) and a little more attention to the upper left (they already like you, so have a logical, rational discussion about your differences to attempt to find a win-win solution or a compromise).  But the area where more effort should be spent is in the neutral camp.  At a minimum, we do not want them siding with the Against camp.  We may be able to win them over to our side, but that takes relationship building and a whole lot of persuasion and influence (for which you may or may not have time).  So build your strategy accordingly with the people who are in this middle ground.  You may have to create multiple strategies, depending on the people populating this center region and their demographics/beliefs/hot buttons.  Don't assume one size fits all.

So... where does your office politics battle fall in this grid?  What are YOU going to do about it?

You Can't Get There From Here

We've all seen the signs from stores.  The ones that intuitively and implicitly say, "Go away, kid.  You bother me."  Often, companies, departments, and individuals do not even realize they are communicating to their customers their desire to keep them away.  Let's face it... taking out the driveway and putting in road-closed signs to force customers to find a different entrance is a little obvious.

• What about creating policies which force customers (internal or external) to jump through nearly impossible hoops?
• What about rewarding your call center staff for getting customers off the phone quickly rather than happily?
• What about offering rebates instead of just putting the item on sale?
• What about hiring a sloppy Gen-Y slacker or a prim-and-proper ice queen as your receptionist?
• What about holding up potential job candidates in mountains of red tape instead of making a decision one way or the other so they can get on with their lives?

The first step to fixing these roadblocks is identifying them.  Ask a friend or trusted colleague to "play pretend" customer for you and give you their impressions.  Ask a head hunter to pretend to be a job seeker with your organization.  Seek out objective counsel who can tell you what is wrong when customers enter YOUR system.  How easy is it for them?

Trust me on this one:  you can't seize your accomplishments if you are preventing your customers from seizing theirs.

Speaking of Which...

It was very enjoyable this morning to talk to Trellis Usher-Mays of the T.R. Ellis Group about office politics on Blog-Talk Radio.  She told me the podcast is available for download on iTunes.  Trellis and I found each other when I answered a question she had posted on LinkedIn.

In addition to the excitement from the interview, it's a great honor to unveil the new promotional video for a sampling of my speaking engagements.  Chris Punke of Focal Point Multimedia worked very hard on creating a great end product:

Sarah... Palin Tall

I think we've heard this story before:  Lonely western man seeks partner for his next great adventure and chooses for his mate a woman who must adjust to a new life.  Can she do it?  OK, so John McCain chose a woman.  And it's been a fight of the media to see which hurricane deserves more attention this holiday weekend:  Gustav or Sarah Palin.

Let's put political ideologies aside for a second.  After all, elections really are more about marketing, advertising, and sales than political beliefs.  (Those of you dogmatically clinging to your party lines may quit reading now... you won't like what's coming next.)  As I mentioned last fall when I thought Hillary was the heir apparent, this election is about purple cows.  Everyone has endured decades of "two old white guys" running the country.  On both sides, we're all craving something a little different... just to see how it might work.

Now we've watched the Democrats cry foul whenever somebody made comments about Barack's inexperience.  We've listened to accusations about "playing the race card."  We heard the jokes about his "safe" selection of Joe Biden as his running mate.  We've just come off of a week of the convention "rah rah" as the Democrats heralded their new "operating system":  Obama '08.  Now along come the Republicans, with their release of McCain 2.0 with Palin add-on, stealing Barack's thunder from his speech the night before.

Yeah, but she's inexperienced.  Do we want somebody that inexperienced being a heartbeat away from the presidency?  (I'd rather have inexperience a heart-beat away from the presidency than IN the presidency.)  A couple of years ago, she was just a small-town mayor and a housewife.  What could somebody with five kids, an affinity for mooseburgers, and an appreciation for automatic weaponry possibly bring to the ticket?  (I've been around working mothers my whole life.  Anybody who can negotiate among five children could easily handle international accords.)  Her family values are compromised by taking such a high position.  (Besides the obvious hypocrisy of never asking men these questions, most women I know can multi-task better than we males can.)

Again, elections are more about perception than fact.  It's a marketing feeding frenzy at best.

Watching organizations for the past 20 years, I see staffing decisions handled with a devil-may-care approach.  Getting the wrong person into a role can be costly.  Criticizing the decision-makers who put the person there can be politically lethal.  Sarah Palin has a tall order to fill in the VP slot.  To be honest, this election is one change in Washington I'm curious about.  Will it be four more years of Bushisms?  I doubt it.  Neither party can afford to make the same blunders of the last eight years.  But no matter who wins, it's going to be an interesting nine weeks until election day.  Let the games begin!