You Vendor, Me Victim….Zombie Employees….Manning Up….Econ Recon: The Storm Before The Calm

“We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.”

George Washington

“You Vendor, Me Victim”: or How Target’s friends did it in.

The hacking of 40 Million Target Shoppers over the holidays is a still unfolding debacle, and other retailers like Neiman Marcus and others have likewise been affected. It’s bad enough when hackers target your system directly, but it now appears that Target was compromised by the lack of security at its VENDORS; the very people with the largest stake in Target’s success were the unwitting pathway for the criminals who stole so much personal data!

To Target’s dismay, it was announced on Friday that the vendor in question was not a giant merchandise supplier, but a small 125 person mechanical contracting firm in Pittsburgh, PA that had done some work for several Target’s stores. Hackers targeted the vendor’s system and its connection to Target’s vendor management system through which they found the access they were looking for.

If you’re a C-Level decision maker, this buck will find its way to your desk, as the CEO of Target has learned to his sorrow. So take a few minutes for an executive summary by Vistage Speaker Mike Foster who has advised hundreds of Vistage CEOs across the US on how to understand and manage this increasingly risky aspect of their businesses. In a recent blog post, he gives an overview of what happened plus the questions you should be asking your IT Staff before you get a very different set of questions from irate customers and other stakeholders because you failed to protect them. Mike provides two videos (one short, one long) in that blog entry that provide a list of questions to ask your team to determine whether you’re being hurt (unintentionally) by those who are supposed to love you.

Zombie Employees

 Every year the Gallup Organization does an employee engagement survey. The 2013 Engagement Survey produced its usual morbid results. According to the survey, only 30% of employees are “actively engaged” (care about doing a great job every day). (This number has been 29% +/- 1% for over 10 years!) Another 52% are “not engaged.” These employees (zombies) put in their time, and little more. The remaining 12% are “actively disengaged” (saboteurs), purposely trying to work poorly, sabotage, cheat time, etc.).  Read more thoughts on what to do to increase employee engagement on my blog post: Watch Out for Those Zombie Employees.

Manning Up

Many of us were disappointed in the quality of last Sunday’s Super Bowl Game, but undoubtedly none more so than Bronco’s quarterback Peyton Manning. Few of us, if asked, would say it’s fair to judge a career by one event but we seem programmed to only remember the big wins and the big losses. We fail to see the real legacy; namely the often invisible influence and impact one’s action and character had along the way to whatever the end was.

One fan who understands what a legacy is really all about out reached out to Manning through a letter to the Denver Post in which she shared with him, and us, why Manning’s legacy was secure well before Sunday’s game. Click here for a one page letter from a fan, who more importantly is also a parent, that says it all.

Econ Recon: The Storm Before the Calm

Lackluster employment growth and pullbacks in the stock market are leading many to worry about the economy falling off the cliff. Remain calm say economists Alan Beaulieu and Brian Wesbury. Vistage Staff Economist  and ITR Economics Principal Alan Beaulieu reminds us that GDP is up and urges us to Look Beyond the Doom and Gloom Headlines to what ITR sees as some (generally) good sailing ahead.

Brian Wesbury’s latest Wesbury 101 Video takes issue with what many call The Most Important Number in the World and explains why he sees a strong overall economy, and stock market, for the rest of the year.