Tough Times Tougher Teams

A

OFF-WHITE
PAPER

t ou gh
T I mes:
SM

How to stand up
when everything

STAN around you is

SLAP
falling down.

ompanies the world over have elaborate excuses to explain why
poor performance is rarely their own fault and instead the result
of conditions far beyond their control. They’re quick to assign
accountability to various Acts of God, forces of nature and world
events: El Niño!—no, wait—La Niña!—no, wait—Katrina! The rise
of technology!—no, wait!—the fall of technology! Government
interference!—no, wait!—the lack of government interference!
Iran!—no, wait—Iraq!—no, wait—Iran! Christmas is falling on a
Tuesday! The Kiwi crop has frozen in New Zealand! Those damn
killer bees are back!
Are you managing in maddening times? Yes, but that’s not
important. What’s important is what you do about it. It is the job of
management to bring good answers to bad circumstances.
This may not seem so simple when you’ve never seen circum-
stances like the ones you find yourself in today. It’s easy to become
paralyzed and feel that things are beyond your control to affect.
That’s all it is, just a feeling. In fact, what seems most out of control
is most controllable.

STAN SLAP 1

THe bad news seemed like
THose darn acTs of
compeTiTion’s & oTHer a good idea
employees god
killing me sTaTisTics aT THe Time

WIDE $500 $500 $500 $500 $500
WORLD
of

MANAGEMENT $250 $250 $250 $250 $250
EXCUSES
SM

$100 $100 $100 $100 $100

$50 $50 $50 $50 $50

the
E con om y in
IS
Ha v E CHANGE D
!
our customeRS

RuiNs ! Y our customers may have temporarily restricted
their discretionary spending and they may have less patience with a badly run busi-
ness, but one thing will never change: The most dependable indicator of customer loy-

M any perceive the economy
as a tornado—an unpredictable force of nature that
alty is to become branded. When you are truly branded you transfer sustainability of
the company to your customers. Customers advertise and sell for you and will step up
to save you if you stumble or get attacked.
roars through the business community, flipping slow- Common talk says that a brand is about achieving trust from customers. Nah, trust is
moving cows and august investment houses into road- easy. A brand is about achieving the highest level of trust possible amongst human

$
side ditches. Yet what has befallen the world economies beings. A brand is about faith. Faith is, “I believe, but I don’t know.” A brand is an exten-
was entirely man made, foreseeable and forestallable. sion of a special kind of faith: By serving and saving your company, I serve and save
The good news is that it’s so bad. myself.
If the problem were contained within one industry or There is more mythology, misdirection, superstition and generalized academic bab-
even one country, it could be allowed to fester, but it’s ble about branding than about most business subjects. In reality, big is not branded or
wide and deep and it has to be fixed fast, with major Siberia would be a brand. Branding is not a verb; it’s a tribute—your company can’t
global intervention. Take heart: Businesses will once claim or demand to be branded; it has to be given to you by customers. Branding is not
again spend in order to grow and consumers will once an action; it’s a reaction—it’s not what you do; it’s what happens when you do it.
again buy what they don’t really need with money they Branding and advertising are different things—branding isn’t about communicating
don’t really have. your intent to the world; it’s about why the world should care.
In the meantime, consider this: Why can the economy Any company can become branded but you have to do the things that brands do for
apparently only hurt but never help? When revenue the reasons that brands do them. First is to anchor the business to a noble purpose—
increases in an upturn economy, managers claim the beyond its argument for revenue, brands are conceived as a delivery vehicle to build a
credit—it’s clearly due to their boundless vision and better world. If your only passion is for making money, the cost of obtaining that
tireless expertise. When revenue declines in a down- money will always prove more difficult and expensive than it needs to be.
turn economy, managers blame the economy—it’s Whatever claims you want recognized about your company’s product must also be
clearly out of their hands. present in its process—in the experience that a customer goes through to buy and use
And if a recession is stopping your customers from the product. There is nothing your company sells that a customer can’t buy some-
buying, why are some companies not only surviving where else or even choose to do without—except an intimate, values-based relation-
but posting record gains? The recession isn’t really the ship between company and customer. If you want to be a successful brand, you must
issue. Your reaction to the recession is the issue. be branded for how you sell, not just for what you sell.

BOTTOM
LINE:
CUSTOMERS DON’T
BOTTOM
LINE:
RAISE EXPECTATIONS.
$

GOOD MANAGEMENT WILL DEFEAT A BAD ECONOMY. COMPANIES LOWER FULFILLMENT.
4 TOUGH TIMES:TOUGHER TEAMS STAN SLAP 5

WE have to Do
M0 R E
WITH fewEr

Y
PEOpLe !

our company may be currently
If you want your employees to buy a strategy, you
have to know how to sell it to them. This means selling to
the employees—knowing how the culture works and
how to work the culture. It’s not a matter of informing
the culture; it’s a matter of inspiring it. It’s not a matter of
PowerPoint or bonus programs; it’s a matter of vision and
values. It’s not a matter of logic; it’s a matter of logical
methods for stirring deep response.
An employee culture is the simplest operating system
!
k lLin g
Us
thE competiTION
IS

betting its life on the ability to roll out new strategies in the world: It’s solely concerned with survival and
to the marketplace—ahead of schedule, ahead of bud- emotional prosperity. Unfortunately, that’s its own
get, on the heads of your competitors. Yet most strategies survival and emotional prosperity, not yours and not the
in most companies don’t really work. They don’t really company’s. Still, it’s a rational organism and will devote
do what they were supposed to do, cost what they were resources to achieving any strategic goal as long as it can
supposed to cost or happen when they were supposed link that goal with its own priorities. The culture has
to happen. plenty of commitment to give as long as it perceives that
This is because even the smartest companies subscribe it’s safe and sensible to give it.
to the most dangerous strategic myth: A strategy has to
be planned well to be successful. In fact, a strategy has to
be implemented well to be successful.
Because an employee culture is an information-
gathering organism designed to protect itself, its
antennae are constantly working, its perceptions are
W hat are the components of
business success? Dependable and relevant product
“Implemented well” means that your company must alarmingly accurate, its credibility detector is infallible line, highest-quality customer experience, fierce cash
be able to dependably enroll its employee culture in and its memory is elephantine. Management can’t bluff, management, responsible growth, constant innovation
fierce support of that strategy. If you can do this, you’re bribe or bully an employee culture. You can’t stop an and refinement, strategically sound marketing, and
well on the way to achieving strategic insurance. If you employee culture from existing and you can’t tell it what competent and cooperative management teams lead-
can’t, and you think strategies will be successful anyway, to believe. ing motivated employees.
you’re building a base camp on Mount Delusional. What you can do is respect its power to make or break Which of these components do your competitors con-
Which employee could argue with the irrefutable logic any corporate survival strategy. You can imbed your trol in your company? Nada. None. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.
of urgent strategies during these trying times? Forget strategic and performance goals with the opportunity to Your company is its own competition and can deliver
about the logic: Neither business logic, nor management satisfy what’s most important to the culture, not just to itself debilitating blows the competition only dreams of.
authority nor any compelling competitive urgency will the company. Energy is limited during these difficult times and
convince an employee culture to adopt a corporate cause You can’t sell it outside if you can’t sell it inside. needs to be focused on where it can best help you.
as if it were its own. In the killing field between company Remember this one point when depending on strategic Instead of worrying about the competition, turn your
concept and employee commitment lies many a failed success and you’ll be halfway home. Or in a halfway attention inside and fix what made your company vul-
strategic plan. home. Either way, you’ll have made progress. nerable to a competitive threat in the first place.

BOTTOM
LINE: BOTTOM
LINE:
DO WhAT
YOU DO BEST AND
IT’S NOT WhOM YOU hAvE, IT’S WhAT ThEY GIvE. FORGET ThE REST.

1
Prohibit equations
c.
of denial.

An equation of denial is
when the Peanut Company
of America recently claimed

d.
that “Continued product

Stay recalls have caused us to
declare bankruptcy.” Actu-
ally, flagrantly continuing to

on the solution
poison consumers by allow-
ing rat waste to fall into the
Here are four fast things you chunky peanut butter is

side.
can do right now to keep your what caused the product

b.
organization on the solution recalls. In turn, this caused
The best organizations hold themselves as account- side: federal penalties, individual
able for their problems as they do for their successes. lawsuits, furious customers
Their victories are built upon learning from both and an aghast public, which Endlessly chant
combined to cause the the solution mantra:

{
and growing ever stronger—even during tough times.
Especially during tough times. bankruptcy.
A bias for solutions must be reinforced through When any company
Don’t panic about “Whining” is not a strategy.
every layer of the enterprise. Once people are allowed media speculation. claims that reduced cus-
to blame external conditions for internal perfor- tomer spending has caused
“Victim” is not a job

a.
mance, all hope of aggressive and creative responses The darker the day for the a decline in revenue, this is
description.
departs and helplessness and cynicism take their human condition, the brighter an equation of denial. Fail-
place. the news day, so there will ure to anticipate or react to
“Everyone else is in trouble
The first step to solving any problem is to accept always be plenty of stories circumstances causing
too” is not management
Don’t hang out with the reduced customer spending
one’s own accountability for creating it. Causing a losers, commiserating about how things are bad information.
culture of accountability means influencing people about poor performance. and doubtless going to get is what caused a decline in
to take their sense of self from how they fearlessly worse. It’s the media’s job to revenue.
confront problems and embrace new solutions. Instead, have people analyze sell media, not to fix busi- The only equation for
An employee culture will watch to see what man- the winners—of every size, ness problems. It’s your job success is the equation of
agement emphasizes, what it rewards, what it gives in every industry—that con- to fix business problems. accountability:
priority attention to and what it ignores. It will watch tinue to outperform expec- If it’s also your job to talk
to see what the company protects and what it pun- tations even in a troubled to the media, be careful WE DID OR
ishes. It will use all of these impressions to form market. Deconstruct how about claiming to be unable DIDN’T DO THIS
beliefs about how to behave. The culture will protect they are achieving success to provide a confident com- =
a prized sense—Tough times? Tougher team—no and adapt those behaviors pany response to uncertain THIS IS WHAT
matter what it takes. Creating success against all odds and strategies to your own conditions. Your employee HAPPENED
is a small price to pay. business. culture is listening.


2 4
It may seem a little, ah, …late… to be preventing the
problems that you’re now actually facing but take heart:
There will be plenty of other problems in the future.
This is as good a time as any to get ahead of them.
When things go wrong, companies are generally at
their reactionary, defensive, uncoordinated worst. It’s
when your company should be at its proactive, out-
standing, coordinated best.
Start by planning ahead for everything that could go

Raise the bar.
wrong–it will only seem like an infinite list until you
start compiling it. Meet in work teams to find the best
possible response to each, write them down as “battle
station” commands and regularly rehearse in emer-
gency drills. Doing this now, amidst everything else
you may be dealing with, will give your people a sense
The traditional intent of business has always been to create value—to bring a com-
of control over what comes next.
pelling value proposition to its market. In this era of multiple buying choices and
greatly enhanced customer intelligence, relying on value alone risks commoditizing

Control Consider
your product and forcing margin-shredding competitive battles. The companies
that are surviving current conditions have gone beyond value to also make their case
on relevance.

the damage the upside.
These companies have proven themselves more relevant to customers than ever by
thinking seriously and with purity on their behalf—delivering urgent business
improvement support that sometimes even reduces the short-term incentive to buy.

3
This isn’t as reckless as it sounds: It’s what will cause your customers to make sure
you stay around long enough for them to repay the favor.
As much an improvement as this is it’s only part of the relevance required. The
world is a complex and confusing place. There’s a lot happening in it and it’s hap-
ahead of Being perky during these painful times is at best
pening to your customers, not just as companies but as people. If you want to be rel-
evant to your customers only when you’re trying to sell something, you are choosing
to be irrelevant to them for the rest of the time.
You may understandably want to stop short of taking a social activism position on
time. annoying and at worst delusional. Still, there are some
undeniable advantages that can be gained only by
experiencing such circumstances.
Many management teams have never seen really bad
world events, but your customer experience can still reflect an understanding that times before and have no idea of how to achieve results
the world exists beyond the company-customer business relationship. Your com- if the internal resources and external interest they’ve
pany can take a position about what is right with the world that must be protected grown accustomed to go missing. Operating in times
and what is wrong with the world that must be corrected. You can turn some atten- of duress and scarcity will make any manager wiser and
tion to the people within your customers’ companies when their world turns up or tougher.
upside down. A culture is never more united than when it’s
You don’t have to fear your own company being perceived as human. You want it aroused, either by attack or inspiration. Both your
to be perceived as human. People don’t trust companies; they trust people. This is employee and customer cultures are now under attack;
true even if you’re selling business-to-business. You’re not selling to the enterprise; this means they’re more susceptible to inspiration.
you’re selling to human beings representing the enterprise and the same rule Those managers and companies who do the right thing
applies. are going to be noticed and remembered for it.


6
This would seem the obvious time to slash costs, whack
prices and cut services. Drop the weapons: All this
violence can hurt you more than help you.
Slashing costs is always a healthy exercise, to a point.
The danger is in halting momentum in innovation,

Don’t lose
safety and development of key talent, areas where you
cannot easily restart and which threaten the continu-
ing viability of the business. Business history has dem-
onstrated that companies that continued to spend in

your mind. these areas during recessionary times emerged more
stable and successful than their competitors.
Whacking prices too hard can quickly reposition your

Don’t lose offerings after years of building a value proposition.
The worst position a company can be in is to be a com-
modity selling commodities; have that happen now and

your heart.
it could be fatal. If at all possible, hold the line on as

Look backward.

5
many of your offerings as possible and present a con-
fident, long-term statement.

Not forward.
Cutting services is dangerous if you end up penaliz-
ing the customer—don’t make your problems their
problems. You may think you can’t afford some ser-
vices any more, but that doesn’t mean your customer
doesn’t still want them and won’t reconsider their loy-
alty if they’re removed. What to do if you really can’t Tightened commercial credit. Bank failures. Excess
afford to continue? Develop new ones that cost less housing inventory. Uncertain impact of government
but might mean even more. How do you do that? intervention. Disappearance and reorganization of
Involve your customers; they’ve always had a lot to say large enterprises and massive damage to multiple con-
about your business and this is the time to establish nected sectors. Unpredictable earnings. Fragile state
the dialogue. of emerging world economies. Massive losses in per-
Even more important than not losing your mind is sonal wealth at all earning levels.
not losing your heart. This is the time to be hyper- Ay yi yi.
vigilant about what you believe in most—about how Looking forward for clarity and reassurance amidst
people inside and outside of the company are treated these conditions is a depressing and futile exercise.
and about your company’s responsibility to the world. Don’t do it. Instead, look backward.
Don’t compromise what you believe in regardless of These bad times won’t last forever. The story of how
temptation or stress. If you do, your ultimate survival you stood up to them will. Now is the time to write that
is going to mean a lot less than it should. story so that it ends exactly the way you want it to.


slap exists to help
organizations and their
management teams.
Eliminating all the
excuses for poor per-
formance may not seem
like that much help—
what are you going to
blame now? Relax, we’ve
got your back. Here are
ten substitute cutting
edge explanations for
why it couldn’t possibly
be your fault that sales
are down, product and
marketing strategies
didn’t work and all your
top talent is leaving.

16 TOUGH TIMES:TOUGHER TEAMS 17

COMETS!
There are 100 billion comets in an Oort cloud (a cloud full of comets) and if even
anti-
T he

Ch Ri ST!
one in a hundred was disturbed by a passing star, then one billion comets would
enter our solar system and could easily collide with us. Under ordinary circum-
stances, there’s less than a one-in-a-billion chance that this will happen.
These are not, as you might have guessed, ordinary circumstances.
Scientists now believe an Oort cloud itself is in our solar system, just beyond what American, uh, psychic Jeanne Dixon
is thought to be a tenth planet. This makes it very possible that a comet will eventu- insisted that the Antichrist was born
ally destroy Earth. Oh, great, a new planet—as if you didn’t already have enough on February 5, 1962, which would
competition. mean he got his driver’s license in
1976 and was exposed to disco music

bEe s !
smack out of puberty, no doubt caus-
ing his evil powers to mutate. Dixon
assured her readers that the ultimate
conflict between the Antichrist and
God is going to take place real soon,
so don’t open any emails from
Colony collapse disorder is what occurs when a colo-
yourpal@antichrist.com.
ny’s worker bees abruptly disappear. This is happen-
ing at an alarming rate around the world, starting in
2005. Feral honeybees in North America are now
almost nonexistent and there has been a significant
decline throughout the rest of the world, from Europe
to China to India.
You have your own labor problems to deal with dur-
ing these tough times. Why should you worry about a
bunch of stupid bees that didn’t show up for work?
Well, there’s the potential ecological apocalypse that
could collapse the food chain and wipe out humanity,
for one thing. No more bees means no more pollina-
tion means no more plants means no more animals
means no more man means no more market share.
So what’s up with these bees? Everything from genet-
ically modified crops to pesticides is being blamed,
but two main causes are emerging as most probable:
electromagnetic signals from cell phones and stress. SHIFT! American, uh, prophet Edgar Cayce predicted that within the next several years a pole
“We’ve been pushing them too hard,” says Dr. Peter shift will occur, causing Earth to tumble end over end for several days. According to
Keven, professor of environmental biology at the Cayce, most of the continents as we now know them will cease to exist. None of that
University of Ontario. Evidently, the pressure of
keeping up with email on their BlackBerries is killing
POLE will matter, though, because we won’t be around to see this new world order. Only
cockroaches and discount imported rug retailers are thought capable of surviving.
the little things. Wait a minute….
The decline is continuing and some scientists estimate
that if bees become extinct, then humans have only four
years of life left. Obvious learning point: Don’t waste
time constructing any five-year strategic plans.


T he
B IG
O NE !
In his book Rolling Thunder, J. R. Jochmans, Ph.D., reports that earthquakes will
become so frequent and violent within the next two to three years that “The Richter
Scale (which measures the degree of earthquake intensity from 0-10—each number
representing ten times the destructive power of the previous number) will have to be
revised to include an 11 and a 12.” Dr. Jochmans confidently states that the Califor-
nia coastline will drop off into the sea, and the Pacific Ocean will reach all the way
to Nebraska. Having the entertainment industry and the wine country located in
Nebraska will cause consequences too horrifying to contemplate.
OVERP0PULATION!
The good news: There are more people than ever to buy your products. The bad
news? All those people are destroying the planet. Reasonable estimates are that the
Earth can support 529 million people—we are, shall we say, “over budget” by 10
times that amount right now. Scientists have linked everything from global warming,
the death of the rainforests, acid rain and an increase in serial killers to the human
race far exceeding the capacity of the planet it inhabits. Focus! Focus! The good news
is that there are more people than ever to buy your products.

FA M I N E !
Scientists agree that 70% of the dry regions of the
Earth have degenerated into desert. This, too, is
caused mostly by overpopulation—the massive crowd-
ing of our planet, which means more and more food
crops have to be planted to feed people and the land
isn’t allowed to “rest.” The soil gets drained of nutri-
ents and becomes unable to support any more crops.
It is predicted that this will eventually result in world-
wide famine. Seems like lately it’s always fourth quar-
ter for Mother Nature. She needs some comp time
just like you do, or she’s gonna get burned out and a
little pissy, just like you do.

WAT E R!
from my cold, dead fingers,” you may be sneering.
Better clutch that bottle tightly because another might
not be so easy to come by in the future. Scientists pre-
dict that two-thirds of the world will suffer from short-
ages of fresh water by 2025 and that the per capita water
supply will drop by a third, while the global population
“The world has got a very big water problem,” says Sir is projected to rise by 40-50% within 50 years. Seventy
Crispin Tickell, former British ambassador to the U.N. percent of the world’s water supply is used for agricul-
A name like Crispin Tickell would drive anyone to ture, so we may be able to keep drinking for awhile. If
drink plenty of water—with plenty of scotch in it. we give up eating.
“Wars of the next century will be fought over water,” True, three-fourths of the planet is covered with the
emphatically states World Bank’s Ismail Serageldin. stuff. But only 2.5% of it is fresh and 70% of that is in
The U.N. figures there are already 300 potential con- the form of ice at the North and South Poles. Most of
flicts over water in the world. The explosive potential is the rest is soaked in soil or is deep in underground
most serious where supplies are limited. Think the aquifers that are inaccessible to man. We can get our
Middle East. And think China, where only 30% of the hands on less than 1% of all fresh water on Earth.
nation’s water supply is potable. Talk around the water cooler in your company will
“You can have my bottle of Evian when you can pry it soon be, “Hey, where’s the water?”


(THE ReTURN OF)
EL N I ñ O !
El Niño has been causing climatic chaos going back at
least 15,000 years, according to scientists who have
unearthed clues to its prehistoric presence in the mud
of a South American lake. The Geneva-based World
A LL
THESE
Meteorological Organization says the phenomenon
became more frequent beginning 5,000 years ago,
and its modern-day cycle is every two to eight years—
expect it back any time now.
In the meantime, El Niño’s significant other isn’t
sitting at home, watching her soaps and munching
Bon Bons. Give a big hello to La Niña. Known as the
SC I E N -
T I STS!
“cold tongue” (youch!), this equally destructive aber-
rant weather pattern is happening right now, causing
abnormally cold ocean conditions, suddenly reversed
weather, massively destructive rains and winds. Better
batten down those P&Ls. A recent study by New
York University estimates
that 85% of all scientists
who’ve ever lived are alive
today. It’s reasonable to
assume that if they’ve
already come up with all
of these studied analyses
about what can befall your
company, they’re hard at
work on plenty more pro-
jections of doom. Best to
just give up now, eh?


your
strategies
may be
rocket science.

perfect.
we’re
in the
rocket fuel
business. SM

slap achieves ferocious
commitment in manager,
employee and customer
cultures. We will deliver
emotional commitment
from your managers, sup-
port for strategies and
goals from your employ-
ees and get you branded
by your customers.
Let’s just assume you’re
interested in these sorts
of things.
Our unique solutions are
highest rated in many of
the world’s highest-rated
companies. Companies that
don’t include “patience”
on their list of corporate
values.
No one has ever called
slap ordinary—methods
used or results achieved.

w w w. s l a p w o r l d .c o m

168 South Park, San Francisco 94107
415.362.1240

stan@slapworld.com

© slap 2009. All rights reserved internationally. So there.

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