LAWYERSCHILE EL MUNDO INTERNACIONAL DEL ABOGADO

Rodrigo González Fernández y un grupo de egresados de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad la Republica en Chile ha decidido poner al alcance de todo el mundo de la profesion legal importantes materias en Ingles para ir practicando el trabajo en materia de Tratados internacionales y que nuestra profesión estará en primera linea. Invitamos a todos a opinar, debatir, participar activamente.Es el primer blog legal en inglés de latinoamerica.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Larry Bodine Twitosphere Drawing in a Steady Stream of Twittering Lawyers

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Larry Bodine

Twitosphere Drawing in a Steady Stream of Twittering Lawyers

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

A steady stream of lawyers is using Twitter.com -- on their computers and on their Blackberrys -- to network with peers, post industry news and drum up business.

How to tweet

Twitter is a free social networking service that allows users to post and receive messages.

Updates from others appear on Twitter.com or on sites connected to Twitter accounts, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

(A user of Twitter.com is known as a "tweeter" or "twitterer." The message posted is called a "tweet." When you post tweets, you're "tweeting.")

Messages must be under 140 characters in length. They can be sent to an individual as a direct message or to your entire network.

A key feature is the ability to "follow" other Tweeters. By visiting the Twitter account pages of other users and clicking on the "follow" button, their postings start appearing on your home screen.

But you don't have to open your Web browser to link in to Twitter. Downloading programs such as Twitterific will send Tweets to cellphones as text messages. Other programs such as PocketTweets and Tweetie are used with the iPhone.

Wayne Serra spends his workday immersed in the rarefied world of intellectual property law.

He prepares software patent applications, defends infringement claims and advises clients on medical research developments. But every once in a while, the Cleveland lawyer sticks his toe into the broad conversational river known as Twitter.

It's like microblogging crossed with instant messaging. The initial appeal appeared to be mostly among tech-heads and teenyboppers who had an urge to relay real-time bulletins to their friends about any and everything.

Reasons to tweet

• Expand your network.

• Drive traffic to a blog.

• Simulate the water cooler

Message colleagues.

Monitor the buzz.

• Keep up with a local court.

• Track activity at a conference.

• Promote an event or seminar.

SOURCE: Robert J. Ambrogi, Law Technology News

Now the Twitosphere, as it's known, is drawing in a steady stream of lawyers and other professionals who are networking with peers, posting industry news and drumming up business.

"It's a very powerful tool, a way to get discreet bits of information in front of people," said Serra, a partner at Ulmer & Berne.

Serra, 41, has Twittered about:

Interesting patent cases in court
Novel interpretations of intellectual property law
Issues at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
New computer technology.

He's also kept touch with other patent lawyers and with IT leaders such as Apple's chief design technician, Jonathan Ive, and a top program manager at Google, Chris DiBona. He follows 61 other Twitterers and has 118 following him.

Serra's goal is to build a community of like-minded professionals who exchange ideas. Ambrogi calls it a virtual water cooler. The Boston attorney at first doubted Twitter's usefulness because of its "high noise ratio." Now he views it as an interesting way to keep his finger on the pulse of what lawyers are talking about.

Lawyers can use Twitter to monitor what's being said about their firm, a client or a business, Ambrogi said. Twitter also can play into the "ubiquity factor" of marketing -- repeatedly getting your name in front of potential clients.

Twitter is indeed full of banal chatter, maybe because it's free, easy and instant. It's biggest drawback, users say, is the sheer onslaught of words. For lawyers operating under information overload already, it can be a prodigious distraction.

Follow The PD

Plain Dealer news and more is available on Twitter. To see some of our feeds and find out how to follow us, go to cleveland.com/twitter.

Ambrogi handles it through software called a Tweetdeck that scrolls in-coming tweets on a screen separate from his computer, much like a Times Square ticker tape. Even so, it's a time-eater, and Ambrogi frequently shuts off the tweets.

Kevin O'Keefe, chief executive of LexBlog, also was a Twitter skeptic. "I couldn't see the benefit of it, someone saying 'My cat just rolled over,' " O'Keefe recounted in a call from Seattle, where he runs his Internet marketing company for lawyers.

He changed his mind after last year's devastating earthquake in China, when Twitter broke the news before the mainstream media. Twitterers also got the jump on the terrorist attack in Mumbai and the Continental Airlines jet that slid off a runway in Denver last month. "Holy &* %%, I was just in a plane crash," passenger Mike Wilson messaged seconds after the accident.

Convinced that Twitter had impact, O'Keefe signed up and began weaving it into his legal work.

He now pronounces it the single biggest branding tool he's ever used. It allows lawyers to network on steroids, he said, making it a far more efficient tool than joining a country club and playing golf.

Tags: Tech

CONSULTEN, OPINEN , ESCRIBAN LIBREMENTE
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02- 8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación y consultoría en LIDERAZGO - RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES , y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Credit Crisis Litigation -- The Hottest Practice area by Larry Bodine

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Larry Bodine

Credit Crisis Litigation -- The Hottest Practice area

Kevin Lacroix, hot law practice, law firm marketing, marketing directo WEBINAR PRESENTED BY: Apollo Business Development
SPEAKER: Kevin M. LaCroix, Esq.
DATE: March 12, 2009; 1PM - 2:15 PM Eastern
LOCATION: on the web, on your computer
CONTACT: Laura Kresich, Program Director; (Tel) (773) 966-9273 or www.PBDI.org
Save $50 by registering on or before February 27, 2009.

The subprime loan crisis created a giant wave of commercial litigation that will surpass the number of cases that grew out of the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s. Since we last presented this program in September 2008, the economy has worsened significantly, creating multiple new opportunities for legal work.

Lawyers who want a large and profitable caseload of litigation that will last for years will get smart about credit crisis litigation now. This webinar is designed to do exactly that: identify the causes of action, the plaintiffs and the defendants -- and show you the business development techniques to amass clients in this historic surge of litigation.

Lawyer Kevin M. LaCroix has been lecturing and writing a blog about credit crisis litigation since it began. Mr. LaCroix has been involved in directors' and officers' liability insurance issues for over 25 years. He began his career as a coverage attorney and partner at the Washington, D.C law firm of Ross, Dixon and Bell.

"I've gotten a lot of calls, especially in the last six weeks from lawyers who are not active in the sector and want to become active, but they don't know how to get into it – how to get up to speed and how to attract clients, what areas to focus on," LaCroix says. "There's more litigation and it's evolved."

Save $50 by registering on or before February 27, 2009.
Contact Laura Kresich: (773) 966-9273

or email Lkresich@LawMarketing.com
Registration fee: $300
Sign up online at http://www.pbdi.org/pages/cceventform.asp?EventID=216

For general information, please visit www.PBDI.org

Tags: LMA, Legal, Marketing, Sales, association, credit, crisis, director, litigation, loan, subprime

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Larry Bodine

March 17-18: Economist Conferences' Seventh Annual Marketing Forum

I plan on attending this conference. If you are going, let me know at Lbodine [at] LawMarketing.com.

Economist marketing forum

Chief marketing officers have been hit with a double whammy in the current financial turbulence: the slowing economy is forcing most of them to become cost-cutters just at the time they are being asked by their CEOs to take more responsibility for building brands and increasing revenue. At the same time, media consumption habits are changing significantly, leading CMOs to struggle with how to build brands in the digital age. They need to use their marketing dollars more effectively, decide on the proper mix of online and offline spending, take advantage of new technology and learn to reach and engage customers in new ways that underline two-way dialogues rather than simply pushing out one-way marketing messages.

CMOs also are being asked to take the lead role in "greening" their companies, as sustainability has become a smart way to do business and win customers rather than a simple buzzword. Plus, given the flattening of the world, they need to expand the reach of their brands globally. All this occurs as the average tenure of a CMO continues to decline and they have to fight influence in the executive suite. These and many other paradigm shifting changes in marketing will be discussed at Economist Conferences' Seventh Annual Marketing Forum.

For more information or to reserve your place, please contact:

Rosemary Didomizio

Customer Relations Executive

TEL: (1.212) 554-0627

E-mail: americas_customerservice@economist.com

For Attendees: The Economist has established a LinkedIn group for all people who will be attending the event (speakers, attendees, among others). I encourage you to join the group where you can talk shop with your peers or just send out a friendly meet and greet email. To join the group, please click: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1565287

Details: Register here

The registration fee for corporate executives is $1,695. The fee for executives outside the marketing function and representatives from business service companies and solution providers is $2,595. If you have a discount code, please enter when registering.

Tags: Marketing

Advice From Lawyer Lincoln

Advice From Lawyer Lincoln

A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade, said one of our nation's most famous lawyers, Abraham Lincoln. But in honor of President's Day, you can have the privilege of some of Lincoln's advice at no charge, courtesy of Rhonda Abrams in this article at USA Today. From the story, here are some choice pieces of Lincoln-esque advice for lawyers:

On planning and time management:

-- "Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can then be done."

On dealing with clients:

-- "An exorbitant fee should never be claimed. As a general rule never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case. ... Settle the amount of fee and take a note in advance ... and you are sure to do your work faithfully and well."

-- "Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser -- in fees, expenses, and waste of time."

On the importance of quality and integrity:

-- "If in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer."

Have a great Presidents' Day weekend -- we'll be back at Legal Blog Watch on Tuesday.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Carolyn Elefant on February 13, 2009 at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Valentine's Day Roundup

Valentine's Day Roundup

Everyone loves a love story, even lawyers. From around the blogosphere, here's a roundup of Valentine's Day-related stories:

Partners in law and life: The idea of husband and wife attorneys working at the same firm is no longer unusual these days, as firms are eliminating policies that bar couples from firms, according to the National Law Journal. It seems that working in the same office is one of the best ways to spend time together given the long hours that law practice demands.

Romance 101 for lawyers: South Florida lawyer Hugo Alvarez shares his story of how he proposed to his wife here. After dating her for two years, Alvarez created a fictitious lawsuit and had his then-girlfriend served with a subpoena for a deposition -- and she asked him to represent her. At the deposition, Alvarez had the opposing counsel question his girlfriend, and when counsel reached the question series' arc, Alvarez took over, dropped to his knee and presented a ring. The couple still has the actual deposition transcript to document the day.

And for the less romantically-inclined this weekend...

If you've got 60 minutes, you can get a divorce: The ABA Journal reports on the "60 Minute Divorce," the brainchild of New York's Brodsky Law Firm. Essentially, married couples seeking to separate can show up at the law firm, pick up a $10 gift card for lunch at McDonald's or Starbucks and enjoy a final awkward meal together while the firm prepares a $699 divorce ($299 for the divorce, with the rest for filing, process and court fees). After lunch, the couple returns to the office, signs the paperwork and splits.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Carolyn Elefant on February 13, 2009 at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday the 13th Comes a Day Early for Law Firms

Friday the 13th Comes a Day Early for Law Firms

Don't call Bruce MacEwen, of the Adam Smith, Esq. blog, a triskaidekaphobic. As MacEwen argues, yesterday's spate of law firm layoffs (nearly 800 associates and staff nationwide, according to The Recorder) has nothing to do with bad luck, it's just another sign of today's recessionary times.

Still, why did firms announce so many layoffs on Thursday? MacEwen says that it's partly coincidence, but also partly a result of three other factors:

* Financial results for 2008 are now in, and there can no longer be an argument in many firms that "we need to wait to see what the numbers actually are" before making any decisions. Lawyers are, among other things, believers in evidence, and the results of 2008 are now in evidence. I can imagine that many tentative decisions which were awaiting confirmation by the final numbers were pending, only to be announced this week.

* Similarly, no one wants to be so heartless and inhumane as to fire people during the holidays. This would explain the withholding of layoff announcements during December and early January.

* During end-of-year discussions with clients about collections and expectations for 2009, you have to believe that some reality checks were put in place about what level of revenue firms might expect going forward. If those expectations are now built in to the firms' 2009 financial models, adjustments in the cost base might be in order.

Seems that this Friday the 13th is just a sign that many more days of bad luck lie ahead for lawyers.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Carolyn Elefant on February 13, 20

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

LatinLawyer distingue a estudiosjuridicos chilenos

cinco importantes estudios juridicos chilenos son empresas juridicas de servicios

LatinLawyer distingue a estudios juridicos chilenos

La prestigiosa revista jurídica LatinLawyer anunció a los ganadores de su premio "Acuerdo del Año" para 2008.

Y son cinco los estudios chilenos que aparecen destacados en dos de las categorías que califica la revista: fusiones y adquisiciones, finanzas corporativas, financiamiento de proyectos, disputas y reestructuración.

En la "Disputa del año", obtuvo el primer premio la solución al conflicto que hubo entre GasAtacama con las distribuidoras Emelari, Eliqsa y Elecda por contratos de suministro. En esta operación participó como árbitro Ricardo Peralta, socio de Peralta, Gutiérrez & Asociados, mientras que el estudio Cariola Diez, Pérez-Cotapos & Cía participó como asesor de las tres distribuidoras, en tanto Bulnes, Pellegrini & Urrutia representó a la contraparte (GasAtacama).

En la categoría "Financiamiento del año", aparece como finalista la negociación para GNL Quintero, en las cuales el estudio Guerrero, Olivos, Novoa y Errázuriz participó como asesor de los acreedores del proyecto para una planta de regasificación por un monto de US$1,1 billones, mientras que Larraín y Asociados representó a GNL Quintero.

Friday, December 19, 2008

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ, CHILE, LES DESEA FELICES FIESTAS

RODRIGO GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ, DIRECTOR DE LA RED DE 105 BLOGS Y TODO NUESTRO PERSONAL LES DESEA

A NUESTROS QUERIDOS LECTORES DE LA RED

UNA FELIZ NAVIDAD EN COMPAÑIA DE FAMILIA Y

UN EXTRAORDINARIO Y PROSPERO AÑO NUEVO , Y QUE SEA LLENO DE ENERGIAS.

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en RSE de la ONU
www.consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
www.el-observatorio-politico.blogspot.com
www.lobbyingchile.blogspot.com
www.biocombustibles.blogspot.com
www.calentamientoglobalchile.blogspot.com
oficina: Renato Sánchez 3586 of. 10
Teléfono: OF .02- 8854223- CEL: 76850061
e-mail: rogofe47@mi.cl
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación y consultoría en LIDERAZGO - RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – BIOCOMBUSTIBLES , y asesorías a nivel internacional y están disponibles para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Political Lawyers Ask, What Could Be Verse?

Political Lawyers Ask, What Could Be Verse?

It is the time of year when poor Clement Moore begins rolling restlessly in his grave. The author of the 1823 poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," is condemned to endure a perpetual litany of adaptations and parodies of his one enduring work. The latest comes from the government affairs group at Womble Carlyle, where lawyers are predicting a Christmas Eve flurry of activity from the Federal Election Commission and felt compelled to rhyme about it.

At the Womble blog Political GPS, it is noted that the FEC has announced action on only 38 enforcement cases this year, compared to an average of 100 in previous years. There is good reason for this, the blog suggests. For the first half of the year, the Senate was deadlocked over new appointments and the FEC lacked a quorum. Without a quorum, it could not authorize any investigations or even any settlements.

The blog predicts "that a bunch of cases will come tumbling out of Santa's bag, just in time for Christmas." Many will involve routine matters, but a few will involve what election law insiders call "Christmas communications" -- notable announcements that get lost in the season's snowdrifts. To mark this annual end-of-December ritual, Political GPS offers its take on Moore's verse:

'Twas two days before Christmas at the Federal Election Commission,
When the press office issued a quiet transmission.

Whispers of cases backed up for weeks,
The docket shakes loose, with hardly a squeak.

There is more, but rather than deprive the blog of your clicks, I encourage you to read the rest here -- with due deference, of course, to the spirit of Mr. Moore, not to mention the FEC.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on December 17, 2008

Crack Cases Clog Federal Courts

Crack Cases Clog Federal Courts

A new report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission says that federal courts handled more than 17,000 cases this year brought by crack cocaine offenders seeking shorter prison sentences. The cases came in the wake of retroactive amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines that reduced prison terms for crack cocaine offenses.

Nationwide, 17,168 cases were filed seeking sentence reductions and 12,119 were granted. The jurisdictions that saw the greatest number of these cases were Virginia's Eastern District with 1,113 and Florida's Middle District with 1,065. The federal circuits with the most filings were the 4th with 3,899 and the 11th with 3,314. The cases that were successful resulted in an average decrease in sentence of two years, from 137 months to 114 months. Of the cases that failed, the most common reason was that they were deemed ineligible for the reduction under the revised guidelines.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on December 17, 2008 at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Worst Judicial Hellholes

In the spirit of the holiday season, the thoughtful folks at the American Tort Reform Association have delivered their annual gift to the defense lawyers and tort critics of the world. In what has become an annual tradition, ATRA has released its latest ranking of Judicial Hellholes, "America's most unfair jurisdictions in which to be sued."

After a reprieve last year, West Virginia reclaims its 2006 top spot on the list for what ATRA describes as "its near perfect storm of anti-business rulings, massive lawsuits and cozy relationships between the personal injury bar, the state attorney general and some in the judiciary." Six other jurisdictions make the list: South Florida, Cook County in Illinois, Atlantic County in New Jersey, Montgomery and Macon counties in Alabama, Los Angeles County in California and Clark County in Nevada.

ATRA also provides a "watch list" of jurisdictions that could become trouble and doles out "dishonorable mentions" to the supreme courts of Massachusetts and Missouri -- the former for a ruling about doctors' duty to warn of a drug's side effects and the latter for a ruling "that effectively invites plaintiffs from all around the country to file claims in the Show Me (Your Lawsuits) State."

For the first time this year, the report strays from its criticism of plaintiff-loving judges to include plaintiff-loving legislators. Judges, after all, must "play the cards they are dealt" by state legislatures, ATRA notes. In a section of the report titled "Tort Deform," ATRA criticizes a "more activist strategy" of lobbying by the American Association for Justice and its state counterparts to enact laws more favorable to plaintiffs. This seems odd, given the longtime activist lobbying pursued by so-called tort reformers and ATRA's own stated mission of lobbying for laws more favorable to defendants. When it comes to defining hellholes, I guess the devil is in the details.

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on December 17, 2008

Friday, December 05, 2008

TOM PETERS Advice for Tough Times December 2008

Advice for Tough Times

Tom Peters Times--December 2008

Advice for Tough Times

This special edition of the Tom Peters Times contains contributions from around the Tom Peters Company team. We are collectively frustrated at the general air of negativity in the business news, so we decided to compile an extra TPTimes edition with personal stories, advice, and selected media clips to help sustain you through these testing times.

Visitors to the blog on tompeters.com know that Tom frequently recommends tactics for this most disruptive of eras. We have synthesized some of Tom's most compelling messages into six pieces of "Advice for Tough Times." Using this list as a template and an idea from Tom as introduction to each section, TPC-ers have added their contributions under the following headings:

Excellence

Opportunism

Visibility

Transparency

Demeanor

Paradox

We hope that our observations, insights, and stories will inform and inspire your own action agendas. Think of this as a smorgasbord of ideas! Enjoy! We've posted the text on our website, also, to give all our readers the chance to revisit this newsletter if you choose.

Madeleine McGrath
Managing Partner, UK

Excellence

Get on with doing the business you have and see it through brilliantly. Stick to the basics. Keep it simple! The devil is always in the details.

When it comes to focusing on the basics, cash flow and customers both come near the top of most peoples' agendas. Recent entries on tpwireservice.com, offer some great advice on these subjects.

In "Hug Your Customers," we are reminded about good habits that can turn customers into a cadre of unofficial marketing evangelists and keep our business in the forefront of their radar screens.

"Economy Requires 'Back to Basics' Cashflow" presents reminders and tools to help us stay focused on the lifeblood of our businesses--CASH!

And a recent BusinessWeek feature warns that the current financial crisis requires a different approach to the fundamentals of our businesses in "Why Traditional Recession Tactics Are Doomed to Fail This Time." On the basics theme, one of their key observations is that "strategists must rediscover the lost art of authentic value creation."

Lessons for us all?

Are you doing all you can to ensure that the resources you have at your disposal are deployed on the products and services in your portfolio that create the most value for the customer?

Are you making it absolutely clear to everyone who works with/for you that the fulfillment of the customer work you do have must embody the highest level of excellence that you can collectively achieve?

Opportunism

Opportunism--there may be a lot of room for it--will pay off through speed off the mark and excellence in execution.

Richard King, Managing Partner, UK, observes that, like London buses, recession and business opportunities often come along at the same time! Virgin Chairman Richard Branson is currently talking to a group of interested parties about a possible bid for London's second largest airport, Gatwick. The UK Competition Commission has ruled that Gatwick's current owners, BAA, may have to sell the airport because of their market domination. BAA also owns London's Heathrow and Stansted airports. In these difficult times, Gatwick may turn out to be worth a lot less than its £2.5bn market valuation. So, it's "opportunity knocks" in recessionary times for Sir Richard, who never needs asking twice, and a big challenge for Virgin to put together the consortium needed to pull off what would be a major coup, for Virgin and for all victims [Richard's word] of the current London airports' customer service!

Madeleine McGrath has unearthed an opportunistic proposal from the New Zealand Institute (NZI) to their Government that may have ramifications for business leaders. Previous recessions have seen unsettled expat New Zealanders move back to the Australasia region, but too many have chosen to settle in Australia rather than coming all the way back to their homeland, says the NZI. The intention this time is to compete aggressively to encourage talented Kiwis to return home and deploy their skills in support of their own nation's economy. (See the NZI's October 2008 paper, "Economy on the Edge.") How many employers see their current employees as an asset rather than an expense when times are tough, let alone their former employees? Yet businesses often lose their best people to the competition, and this downturn may be the chance to get some of them back!

Lessons for us all?

Are you thinking laterally enough about opportunities and needs that are being manifested in your marketplace?

Are you thinking laterally enough about your talent pool, and using the recession as an opportunity to attract the very best?

Visibility

March toward the sound of the guns. MBWA (Managing By Wandering Around). People have to see who they are working for and who they are dealing with.

Tom Peters says "Treble Your MBWA": "One of my favorite quotes, from Carolyn Lamb ... goes like this: 'A year from now you may wish you had started today.' Yes, today many of us wish we had 'wildly' 'over' invested in those employee-vendor-client-community relationships when the market was heading North and there was a little slack in the system. Well, perhaps we didn't, but ... it really is never too late. ... Work the damn phones. Keep working the damn phones. Show up. Keep showing up. Call clients and suppliers, ask them how things are going, and how you can help. This is not about sales (directly), but about 'showing up'-taking time from your busy affairs to offer assistance of any sort. (E.g., offer up your network ... Etc.) This is even more important with our employees. 'Over'inform--the rumors are invariably worse than reality. 'Over'do your MBWA ..." (Read the complete blog entry.)

Richard King has this story for us all: "Like most business leaders these days, the CEO of a specialist manufacturing group I know well has planning and implementing cost reductions right up there at the top of his jobs list! Last week I heard that one of his Directors had missed a committed savings milestone. This delinquency had come to light in the week before the Director concerned had booked a family holiday. Rather than reacting immediately and risk spoiling the whole family's break, the CEO lived with his frustration until after the holiday. When the Director returned, he was invited to an offsite one-to-one session with the CEO--on his first morning back. I'm sure there was some pretty straight talking done, in private, between the two of them! How do I know this story? The Director told it to me because he knew I was looking for stories of leaders facing up to the unpleasant realities of this recession. He especially wanted to express his appreciation for the considerate way his CEO had treated him.

Lessons for us all?

Are you tracking numbers of customer, prospect, and networking contacts in your regular reporting and recognizing those people who are working hardest on relationships?

Have you adopted/recommended "face to face" as the management medium of choice for delivering tough news to employees, colleagues, and partners?

Transparency

Be absolutely straight with people, especially those at the front line. People who play the blame game in any way, shape, or form are out of here!

"Our people are our most important asset," or so says many an annual report. Val Willis, a U.S.-based Facilitator, spotted a great example of a business facing up to the challenges of these tough times, but staying true to its people principles. In San Antonio, Texas, the downturn forced Toyota to close their plant for three months. The dilemma they faced was how to handle this in regard to their 4,500-person workforce. According to Financial Week, Toyota is redeploying their workers on community work, retraining, and education classes in lieu of layoffs. "This was the first chance we've really had to live out our values," said Latondra Newton, general manager of Toyota's Team Member Development Center. "We're not just keeping people on the payroll because we're nice. At the end of all this, our hope is that we'll end up with a more skilled North American workforce."

In a second example, Ruth Smith, a UK Facilitator, explains how a retail client had set about responding to their constantly changing market conditions by instigating weekly management/front line sales reviews to pick up and respond to trends in customers' purchasing habits quickly. At the meetings, they make instant decisions on changes to promotions and product offerings in order to capitalize on customer demand. This week-by-week approach had led to criticism by staff of so-called "knee jerk and reactive" managers, and changes were often resisted by front liners until they were brought in on the review meetings. Once managers took the time to engage everyone in the process, rapid adjustment and constant change have become normal business.

On tpwireservice.com, we find this Daniel Goleman article entitled "Tea and Empathy" from strategy+business. Goleman identifies what he calls the crisis of accountability that organizations are facing, and contends that transparency, social and emotional learning, and leadership must take a much higher profile on the leader's agenda.

Lessons for us all?

Are there any ways in which you can use layoff situations to build and strengthen your workforce and your culture?

Are you doing everything you can to keep all employees informed of your emergency plans and strategies?

How tuned in are you to the emotional temperature of your business?

Demeanor

Banish "gloomy" from your persona, even if it kills you! But remember, "sunny" is pretty stupid, too. Who do you think you're kidding?

As we watch the media pundits and commentators pick holes in the world's politicians' brave attempts to address the current economic mess, a new book from one of Tom's Cool Friends, Raj Setty, is a welcome ray of light. The book's title is Upbeat, and it contains many gems of inspiration to encourage a positive attitude during tough times. At the outset, Raj sounds off at the insidious impact that negative conversations have on your life. If every conversation that you have begins with a depressing catalogue of doom and gloom, not only are you setting a depressing tone, you are also wasting that time. In that context, banning gloomy conversations about things over which you have no control becomes an immensely sensible, positive resolution. Think about it!

UK Executive Coach David Pilbeam helps to shed more light on what leaders can do to engender a positive attitude in their people and sustain an upbeat atmosphere in the workplace. "People always feel better and can perform better when they are in situations where they can use their strengths," says David. So he recommends that leaders take the time to think, or discover, what the strengths of their key team members are, and to reframe work projects so that people can use their natural strengths and the business can benefit from them. Productivity, performance, and personal confidence all go up.

Lessons for us all?

Are you doing your best to stay out of negative and unproductive conversations? How about stimulating the opposite?

Are there any ways in which you can reframe what your people are working on in order to make better use of their strengths?

Consider appointing a "mood monitor" to give you direct feedback when your demeanor is becoming too gloomy (or vice versa!).

Paradox

Have a positive mental attitude AND be ready for the worst.

Mike Neiss, U.S. Facilitator, reports that he recently attended a meeting at a client company whose market had just tanked. Rated the number one place to work in their industry by Fortune, this business is in Fast Company's top fifty innovative companies in the world, and its latest product line is winning rave reviews from publications ranging from Wired to BusinessWeek. The COO announced that it was essential to make an immediate workforce reduction, and because the company was already quite lean, the reduction would really test the mettle of the organization. They discussed how to act in strict accordance with the core values of the company and how they would ensure the business reasons for the cuts were communicated to everyone. They were concerned about the impact on the essence of what had made them a great company, and the heavy additional burden that would be transferred onto those who remained. The COO then revealed the information they would be sharing with employees about the company's future plans, including continued funding of R&D projects, investments in employee development, and improving the infrastructure of the business. "This was clearly not just PR spin," Mike reflected afterwards, "but actual plans with real numbers coming directly from the top officers of the company." The confidence that they would emerge from this recession a stronger company "with their soul intact" was obvious. Mike left the meeting impressed with their commitment to be absolutely honest with their workforce and inspired by their confidence about the future. Not a word was said about creating or protecting "shareholder value," but Mike is convinced that market value will increase as a result of the changes.

Necessity and hard times often go hand in hand with invention. With this in mind, Helen Green, another of the UK team, reports on a letter she saw in the London Times. The writer, British Academic Brian Kettell, drew attention to the explosion of innovation that took place during, or shortly after, the Great Depression of the 1930s ... "frozen food, jet engine and Sellotape (1930), electron microscope (1931), Polaroid and parking meter (1932), FM and stereo recording (1933), cat's eyes [retroreflective safety device] and Monopoly (1934), canned beer, nylon and radar (1935), voice recognition systems (1936), photocopying (1937) and ballpoint pens and instant coffee (1938)" ... the list goes on and on!

For more ideas about how to stimulate innovation, don't forget an all-time favorite, Tom's "Pursuit of Luck," which gives you lots of ideas about ways to break free from your current thinking patterns.

Lessons for us all?

Have you been back through your list of cutbacks to be sure that you are not draining off your future lifeblood, personal or business?

Are there any uncomfortable changes you have been avoiding (be honest!) that you really should act on now?

Have you considered making a list of the things you will be most proud of achieving in 2011?

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