Business Exchange: Carbon Markets
Managing Older Workers

Featured Guest: Peter Cappelli, Wharton School professor and coauthor of Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order.

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Make Weight Loss Your Business
There is a formula business people use for setting goals that can help almost anyone be more effective in achieving success. When defining your own goals, make sure they are SMART, as exemplified below: In the Crystal Ball: More Regulation for Psychics
More communities are trying to crack down on fraudulent practices of seers, fortune tellers and other spiritualists Pseudo Competition

Not every critic loved the 2009 film Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. The British newspaper The Telegraph complained of a lack of "any sexual charge" between the stars, and a plot whose complexity is "sometimes overdone." Slate called it muddled, and quibbled that a film should make "actual narrative sense."

But seemingly everyone who has seen Duplicity loves its opening sequence. The scene is a rain-slicked tarmac, with two corporate jets facing each other at showdown distance. The two chief executives in command of them, Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti), emerge from their retinues and stride toward each other. Then, as the opening credits roll, they engage in a ridiculous, flailing, ineffectual shoving match, ending up panting on the ground. By presenting all this in silent slow-motion, under ominously dusky lighting, the director Tony Gilroy mocks the whole idea that their struggle could be epic.

Even The Telegraph called it virtuoso.

Why does that sequence speak to people? Is it because the spectacle of head-to-head corporate competition has in reality become so ridiculous? We suspect that's it. (Though old guys in bespoke suits whaling on each other is always good fun). The fact is that much of today's competitive energy is exerted in this kind of titanic and ultimately low-return battle.

In more and more cases, we see markets that used to feature many sellers now dominated by just a few. And we observe a dynamic between those few behemoths that puts up a great show of competitive fury but ends up signifying next to nothing in terms of valuable innovation. At the same time, we see lavish allocation of resources, not just on large retinues and private aircraft, but on superficial product differentiation, relentless advertising, and expensive selling activities to manufacture demand that does not naturally exist. In other words, what we do not see is what Adam Smith told us to expect from competition in free markets: important innovation and efficient allocation of resources to fulfill society's needs.

What we're see instead is, to coin a term, pseudo-competition. It's the kind of competition oligopolists engage in: enough to keep antitrust regulators at bay, but not enough to yield the fruits of true competition. Some of the activities generally regarded as competitive — Comcast and FIOS dissing each other on TV — actually are anti-competitive, raising barriers to entry for those who can't make huge expenditures on advertising.

These are serious charges, we know, and we'll present the facts to support them in Standing on the Sun (our forthcoming book). Our point is that, as fans of capitalism, this is one of the things we have to admit that capitalism, as it's currently practiced in mature economies, isn't getting right. If capitalism is capable of evolving, as we say it is, then this is something it needs to leave behind.

The kind of competition that carried the day in Adam Smith's world of many small competitors will have to take on a new form suitable for a world of global corporations with market power. The quest for "sustainable competitive advantage" that has so captivated executives and their consultants is antithetical to the ideal of "free markets." Today's form of capitalism offers management an overwhelming incentive to amass market power and dare regulators to stop them. After all, why invest in a competitive advantage if you can't use it to threaten would-be rivals. (Odd, isn't it, that vocal proponents of free markets also oppose the regulation that would keep markets competitive?)

Is there any reason to believe that, as the real action of capitalism shifts to emerging economies, we will get beyond this wasteful model? Perhaps. In many less developed economies, demand is growing so quickly that the field of competitors remains wide. Though a Unilever, say, might compete in India head-to-head with a Procter & Gamble, the main points are won there through real innovation (i.e. value adding for customers) because there is still ample work to do to adapt the product to local requirements and establish efficient supply chains. (China, of course, presents its own story. While competition certainly occurs, the unabated and even growing reliance on state-owned enterprises exerts its own discipline on competitive practices.)

The usual response of End of History believers is that the differences between mature and emerging economies are temporary, only due to their different stages of maturity. Inevitably, they say, emerging economies will adopt the West's prevailing model of capitalism — and wind up in the same place. But capitalism's main action will take place in markets where competition has not already reached its end-game, and any capitalist raised on a competitive landscape of oligopoly will have to learn to adapt.

More important, we don't believe it's the end of history. We think that the game evolves, and once you've become the center of gravity of capitalism, there's no need to conform to old rules. You can make your own. And if you had already seen how ridiculous Paul Giamatti looked ruining his suit on a tarmac, would you then go and do it yourself?

The New York Times Is Dead Wrong

As a public speaker, I'm always looking for ways to engage my audience. One old trick — which I never use, precisely because it is so old — is to challenge executives and entrepreneurs to imagine their obituary in the New York Times. What impact did you have? What contribution did you make? What kind of life did you lead?

As it turns out, this audience-participation exercise requires a special act of imagination for women. Consider this amazing statistic, brought to you by a Web site called The NYTpicker, which pokes, prods, and otherwise critiques the world's greatest newspaper. For the month of August, the New York Times ran 78 obituaries, but only six were of women. For 2010 as a whole, the Times has published 698 obituaries — and only 92 were of women.

What's going on here? The question is especially vexing since the percentage of women in the paper's 2010 obituaries is virtually identical to the percentage of women chronicled in Times obituaries back in 1990. "Are the world's prominent women — the ones deserving of NYT obituaries — simply living forever?" the NYTpicker wonders. "In the last two decades, has there been zero growth in the number of notable women who've died? Does it stand to reason that no more women have worked their way into the limelight in the last twenty years than in the previous twenty?"

It's always fun to challenge a powerful institution like the New York Times — especially when it is (ahem) dead wrong.

But the real issue, I'd submit, goes beyond a "gender gap" in the editorial offices of one newspaper. It speaks to basic questions of life, work, success, and how society (and all of us) measure those attributes.

For example, Who really matters? So much of how we continue to define impact (one reason to deserve a prominent obituary) involves people with high-profile positions in established organizations — big-time lawyers, Fortune 500 executives, investment bankers and money managers.

Yet in an age of huge problems and great flux, many of the people who have a real, game-changing impact are startup founders, social entrepreneurs, community activists, nonprofit leaders — the sorts of innovators to whom we pay plenty of attention today, but who have been flying under the radar for decades. I'd much rather read about the passing of a gifted educator, or a committed neighborhood leader, or a beloved nun, than yet another starched-shirt banker or lawyer. These unsung heroes and grassroots innovators don't live forever — even if their ideas and impact do.

A related question is, What really matters? As a society and business culture, we still tend to equate money with success. If someone is rich, the thinking goes, he or she may or may not be a no-good SOB, but a fortune is evidence that someone is smart, or at least shrewd, and no doubt a success. Which helps to explain why so many wealthy males get New York Times obituaries, while women who died with smaller bank accounts, but who may have led richer lives, don't get the attention they deserve.

If we've learned anything from the boom-and-bust cycles over the last 20 years, it's that money is a pretty empty (and fleeting) metric of success. I think back often to an interview we published in an early issue of Fast Company with the philosopher Jacob Needleman, a professor at San Francisco State University, who wrote a great book called Money and the Meaning of Life.

"What's your definition of success?" we asked Needleman. His answer: "To be totally engaged with all my functions, all my faculties, all my capacities in life. To me that would be success. I grew up around the Yiddish language, and in Yiddish there are about 1,000 words that mean 'fool.' There's only one word that means an authentic human being: mensch. My grandmother would say, 'You've got to be a mensch,' and that has to do with what we used to call character. To be successful means to have developed character."

Maybe it's time to pay more attention to the legacy of people with deep character than those with overflowing bank accounts. They may be harder to find (Forbes doesn't publish a list of the World's 400 Best People), but they may offer richer lessons about what it means to succeed.

So as I think about the bizarre gender gap in the obituary page of The New York Times, I worry less about what it says about the newspaper of record--and more about what it tells all of us about who deserves such recognition in the first place, and what their stories might suggest about a life well-lived.

Come to think of it, maybe that exercise I dismissed at the outset of this post isn't such a bad idea. Imagine your obituary in the Times. What do you hope it will say?

For a Better Career Outlook, Look Inward

Here's an idea for your next performance review: Do what the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies do for their annual evaluation by the board of directors — write a self-assessment that helps guide the conversation. What you write will be a valuable tool for the performance review and, even better, a custom guide for your own development.

Ongoing self-assessment is one of the five zones of strength that leaders have and non-leader managers don't, according to one of our ongoing workplace studies (pdf). Indeed, self-assessment makes a major contribution to all the other strength zones, the study concluded.

There are times at work when we tend to be on autopilot, repeating what we do without asking why. At these times we need to step back and reflect on our habits. A look inward will not only give you a better knowledge of what makes you tick, but will help you understand others' motivations better. It also will help you make sounder intuitive decisions, a highly valuable ability these days when change is accelerating and you have to act without having all the information you want.

Self-assessment, the first step in any personal improvement process, is often the hardest. You might find it awkward to request feedback or painful to face unpleasant truths. There's no hiding from being judged, though, because a manager's shortcomings are on full view for everyone, even if the manager denies them.

Here are some guidelines for writing a self-assessment that scores big at the performance review and gives you a roadmap for developing your career:

Reflect. We found that successful leaders think seriously about their motives, beliefs, assumptions and actions. They analyze each day's events and the outcomes of their decisions, particularly how they affect the big picture. They force themselves to give a full hearing to ideas that contradict their own. They take responsibility for their mistakes and treat failure as a chance to learn and grow. Even at the pinnacle of their careers they're committed to lifelong learning.

Ask for feedback. Get opinions on your performance from everyone you work with. Resist the temptation to argue against criticism, and be careful not to let your assumptions about your capabilities color what you hear.

Be brutally honest about your shortcomings. As Oliver Cromwell reputedly told his portraitist, include "warts and all." The boss won't take the write-up seriously if it's not real — and will give you credit for your openness. One hint that you're ducking doing this: You're describing a missed goal and putting more blame on external factors than your own actions. If your weaknesses list is too skimpy you may not be digging deep enough, with either self-reflection or your feedback sessions.

Highlight your contributions to the bottom line. Did you lead your staff to overcome a tough problem? Solved a nagging process glitch? Improved connections up or down the value chain? Broadened market share by training the sales force, bettering customer service, helping to create a new product or break into a new market? Cite all the hard data that's available. The people who gave you feedback on your performance might know about payoffs of your work that you don't.

Describe the areas in which you improved your capabilities, via company-sponsored training and on your own. Position yourself as you would a product: Is your strength in leading, innovating, lowering costs, technology, logistics, analysis, controls, quality, problem solving, international business, e-commerce, negotiation, or a combination of these capabilities?

Don't be a thunder-stealer. Plain and simple: avoid taking more than your share of credit for a team's success. Self-serving judgments of any kind will undermine your credibility.

In addition to following these self-evaluation guidelines, year-round you should be asking yourself these reflective questions: Is what I'm doing working? How can I make it better? Am I realistic about my capabilities? Have I fallen into any unproductive habits? Is any behavioral problem like temper, disconnectedness, undue optimism or unneeded anxiety getting in the way? Am I capitalizing on my strengths and correcting my weaknesses? Am I focusing on my priorities? Am I modeling the self-awareness that I expect of others? Am I studying the competition and the customers intently but neglecting to look inward?

Self-assessment is a skill. It can be learned and it can be honed with constant practice. Know thyself, Socrates counseled. That's good advice for developing a manager's career.

Sharon Daniels is chief executive of AchieveGlobal, which provides performance improvement consulting and solutions in leadership, sales and customer service. You can contact her at sharon.daniels@achieveglobal.com.

Facebook Tests Stalker-Friendly "Subscribe to" Feature

Facebook is testing a new feature that allows any user to "subscribe to" another user. What with having hundreds of friends, multiple news feeds and only so many hours in the day, you might miss out on what your ex-girlfriend is doing these days--and that will not stand!

The "subscribe to" feature gives you notifications whenever someone to whom you've subscribed takes action on Facebook, from status updates to photo uploads to wall comments. The new feature doesn't seem to extend as far as Facebook Places check-ins--Facebook says it only applies to updated statuses and new content. Here's their statement:

Yes, this feature is being tested with a small percent of users.  It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content (photos, videos, links, or notes).

AllFacebook notes that while this is sort of creepy for individuals, it could be used to great (and less weird) effect with public pages (eds. note: Please stalk Fast Company on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/FastCompany). Imagine following a band, and never missing when that band sends out a Facebook message with new tour dates. You could see how business and other groups would find the feature pretty useful, especially since it distills the true fans from the casual ones who join every page.

In the wake of pretty much continuous privacy scandals, it's unclear how Facebook will make this feature seem palatable. It doesn't exactly allow anything that wasn't possible before, but it makes obsession much easier. Perhaps Facebook would implement a way for users to approve subscribers?

In any case, the feature is merely being tested now, and may or may not ever be implemented for the general public. How do you all feel? Is this a valuable new tool, or a step over the line into creepiness?

Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed on Twitter, corresponded with via email, and stalked in Brooklyn (no link for that one--you'll have to do the legwork yourself).

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Google's Eric Schmidt Shown as Perverter of Privacy on Times Square Jumbotron

Google's "Don't Be Evil" motto has become increasingly controversial in the past year as the Internet giant made private GMail contacts public with Google Buzz, collected personal information from Wi-Fi networks in Street View vehicles, and most recently teamed with with Verizon to hammer out questionable net neutrality policies. While it's possible (and maybe even probable) that none of this was done with malicious intent, Google's capacity to invade our privacy is scary. That's why Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, took to Times Square this week to protest Google's privacy invasions.

Consumer Watchdog's Times Square ad, which is visible on the 540-square-foot Jumbotron, portrays Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a creepy character in a Google-branded ice cream truck that drives down a street while collecting personal information from children. Text at the bottom encourages viewers to text a telephone number for more information (spoiler: the text results in a reply asking for your name and email address to "help stop Google from invading your online privacy!").

It's a move that will draw attention to Google's ham-handed privacy blunders from people who might not have otherwise been aware of them. That's a good thing for consumers, but Google might want to gear up for damage control. Check out Consumer Watchdog's full investigation into Google here, and watch the Times Square ad below.

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Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

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eBay's Shtick in a Box: Reusable Shipping Container Is Innovation Expo-Winning Idea

EBay is perhaps the ultimate online destination for used goods, so it only makes sense that the site is taking its hand-me-down sensibilities a step further with the eBay Box: a shipping container designed to be sent from sellers to buyers and back until the container becomes a soggy heap of post-recycled mud. The box, which is made out of 100% FSC-certified material, features water-based inks and requires minimal tape to close.

The box idea was the grand prize winner at eBay's annual Innovation Expo, a celebration of creative ideas from eBay employees. Designed for "simple green shipping," eBay believes that a single box reused five times could save nearly 4,000 trees, 2.4 million gallons of water, and conserve enough energy to juice up 49 homes for a year.

EBay will send out a pilot run of 100,000 boxes in October to all sellers who request them. Recipients can log on to a special website to report on the status of their boxes (and track them as they move from place to place), and after a few months, eBay will evaluate the program and figure out how to proceed.

We love the idea, but have one little concern: bedbugs. The little critters are becoming an increasingly large problem in the U.S., and sending nook and cranny-filled boxes from house to house seems like an easy way to spread bedbugs far and fast. Let's hope we're wrong--this is an idea that deserves expedited delivery.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

Pepsi Refresh Project Announces Do Good for the Gulf Finalists

Earlier this summer, Pepsi announced that it would dole out $1.3 million in grants for Gulf oil disaster-related projects as part of the Refresh Project, Pepsi's online cause marketing campaign that asks participants how the company should give away cash. Now the wisdom of the crowd has whittled down potential Do Good for the Gulf grant recipients to 32 finalists.

The final projects span a variety of themes, but they all have one thing in common: They impact local communities and are implementable in a year or less. Among our favorites: a $250,000 grant for mental health services for oil disaster victims, a $50,000 grant to provide shelter to animals that lost their homes after the oil disaster, and a $25,000 grant to build seafood farms to help displaced seafood workers.

The winners won't be announced until September 22, but a Refresh Project representative tells us that the finalists are virtually guaranteed to get cash barring any paperwork issues.

Even after Do Good for the Gulf ends, the larger Refresh Project will continue. Pepsi plans to give out a total of $20 million in grants in 2010 in six categories: Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education.

[Do Good for the Gulf]

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

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