Worse than” No”….Who You Are is How You’ll Do….Econ Recon: It’s the Forest, Stupid….Warning: Predatory Customers….Sniffing Out The Quitters….

“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.”

Reba McEntire

 Worse than “No”

Vistage Speaker Mikki Williams is fond of saying “If you ask, the answer may be no; if you don’t ask the answer IS “no.” Forbes Contributor Elisa Doucette expands on this wisdom with a short article explaining “Why ‘No’ Is NOT The Scariest Thing You Will Hear” in which she shares how went from misery in one line of work to success and fulfillment in another by being, as she calls it, “a rejection junkie.”

Who You Are is How You’ll Do

Here’s a quick summary of summary interesting research done on children who were learning to play a musical instrument. It turns out that practice and talent were not the final determinants of success in music, but something much more basic. Find out why if you want to learn a new skill that to a great degree Who You Are is How You’ll Do

23 Powerful Tips to Help Women Leaders Succeed

And Men too!  Author Susan Steinbrecher provides a list that is aimed at women, and there is nothing in it that is gender unique. All 23 of her tips will help men succeed, too.

SHAMELESS PLUG! Number ONE on her list is to get input from others – either a coach or a peer advisory group like VISTAGE. If you are ready to be more successful, give me a shout and I will cheerfully help you in your quest to find the right peer group for you and your company – even if the right one for you is not one of my Vistage Groups.

Econ Recon

It’s the Forest Stupid: The 1992 Clinton campaign featured the slogan “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” Maybe when we’re looking at the economy we should be saying “It’s the forest, stupid, (not the trees).” Economist Brian Wesbury picks up on the “forest for the trees” metaphor in addressing concerns about three months of declining retail sales in his most recent Wesbury 101 video. Wesbury says that the decline may be due to a really cold February and a strike at the major port of Los Angeles, and that we should think of the economy as a rain forest and not get confused by a few trees, however large, that may have fallen over. Find out why he thinks There Will Be Growth In the Spring.

Predatory Customers and Art History Majors: You know the employment market is getting tight when your customers start poaching your employees. This may not be going on everywhere in the labor market but it’s definitely a problem in the market for  engineers, machine operators, tool makers, robot programmers and other STEM workers (science, technology engineering and manufacturing)

Vistage Staff Economist and ITR Economics CEO Brian Beaulieu recently addressed the “Manufacturing in America” Symposium about the tightness in the aforementioned labor market. Find out why customers poaching your employees ,and too many art history majors are screwing up the labor markets.

Sniffing Out the Quitters

As mentioned above, the labor market is already tight in manufacturing and will get tighter elsewhere as the economy expands. (The reason that Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon are raising their wages well above minimum wage s not that they feel generous, it is because the cost of turnover is higher than the cost of increased wages, and turnover is increasing as the labor market tightens.) Can you tell who your “flight risks” are? It might be very helpful to know who among your “keepers” no longer wants to be kept. Here’s seven ways to Sniff Out the Quitters!

Large employers are even turning to analytics to try to stay ahead of turnover. Check out what Wal-Mart and others are doing with data to figure out who might quit.

So what are you doing to keep your best employees in the face of predatory customers and competitors?