Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Paycards

Do your employees simply visit a bank machine and withdraw part or all of their pay using a paycard?

There are a variety of applications for prepaid cards, including gift cards, paycards or payroll cards, flexible spending account cards, government benefit cards (such as food stamps), insurance claim cards, employee reward cards, travel cards, remittance payment cards, and transportation cards.  Since the mid-1990s, they have largely served as a replacement for paper-based payment instruments and related devices, such as gift certificates and check-based rebates.

Paycards look and work like a standard debit card, but there's a twist.  Most of the employees using paycards don't have bank accounts (about 17% of U.S. workers fall into that category).  The paycard draws on the payroll account of their employer.

The cards are as easy to manage electronically as direct deposit, eliminate the expense of printing and distributing paper payroll checks, and ensure that everyone gets paid on time and in full.  Paper checks cost $1 to $2 each, while loading a paycard costs about 20 cents.

Paycards are a variant of stored-value gift cards.  The employer sets up a central payroll account and issues a card to each employee, electronically depositing into the account the amount owed each payday.  Employees can access their pay either by withdrawing cash at any ATM or by using the card to make purchases and get cash back.  The company's payroll vendor tracks all the debits and credits for each paycard, sends out paper pay stubs and tax forms, and provides a way for employees to check their balances either online or by phone.

Last year, a survey by the American Payroll Association found that although only 3% of its 22,000 members were currently using paycards, a full 50% were considering adopting them.

Source: Fortune Small Business, Dec 2006/Jan 2007

Holiday Gift Cards

The National Retail Federation expects shoppers to buy close to $25 billion in gift cards this holiday season.

There are two main issuers of gift cards:

1.  Banks and credit card companies push one type, those with VISA, MasterCard, American Express or Discover logos on them.  Recipients can use the plastic at merchants that accept that card.  Almost all of these cards levy purchase fees of a few dollars and charge other fees if the recipient doesn't use them up within six to 12 months.

2.  Retailer gift cards give recipients the run of the store.  Retailer gift cards can have expiration dates and/or maintenance or inactivity fees although most people drain their cards quickly and thus lose no value.

Banks, credit card companies and retailers that issue gift cards don't always follow the same script when it comes to their terms, conditions, fees and footnotes.  "As we enter the holiday season, it is especially important that consumers be alert to the wide variety of terms and conditions available in the gift card market," says Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan.

To check the rules on more than 50 popular cards from iTunes to Wachovia, go to:

Fees, Rules, Caveats on Over 50 Gift Cards – from Amazon to Wells Fargo

Research firm TowerGroup figures that nearly $8 billion of gift card money will ultimately end up unused this year.  Consumer Reports found that more than 23 million Americans have unused gift cards from last year's holidays valued at more than $972 million.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, November 25 and 29, 2006

Top Holiday Gifting Purchase

Prepaid gift cards comprise consumers' top holiday purchase.

Since 2004, approximately two thirds of consumers buy prepaid gift cards.  That represented a $35 billion consumer market in 2005 and the prepaid card has expanded to corporate, government and customer gift, rewards, benefit and expense reimbursement programs.

"Prepaid" describes most of the products on the market today.  The term "prepaid" is associated with products for which the prefunded value is recorded on a remote database, which must be accessed for payment authorization.  There are a variety of applications for prepaid cards, including gift cards, payroll cards, flexible spending account cards, government benefit cards (such as food stamps), insurance claim cards, employee reward cards, travel cards, remittance payment cards, and transportation cards.  Since the mid-1990s, they have largely served as a replacement for paper-based payment instruments and related devices, such as gift certificates and check-based rebates.  The term "gifting" seems to be derived from the world of accounting, as in writing something off as a "gift." 

The freedom of choice by the gift recipient has been the driving force for customer acceptance of prepaid gift cards.  However, that does not indicate acceptance of all prepaid card products.  That degree of acceptance will vary by individual product usage.  Profitability varies in the case of gift cards and cost savings can vary when prepaid cards replace paper-based payment methods. 

Expect ongoing experimentation with prepaid cards to balance user acceptance with organizational effectiveness and profitability...like the new "gifting" feature that allows users of Apple Computer Inc.'s popular iTunes to buy a song, album or video and give it to another user.

Women Getting to the Top

The overall number of women in senior corporate ranks has barely budged lately.

Last year, women held 16% of Fortune 500 corporate officer jobs.  That was a rise of just 0.7 percentage point from 2002, according to a survey by Catalyst, the New York research group.  The survey also found that women made up only 6% of the top five earners among corporate officers, a rise of 1.2 percentage points in the same period.  These are smaller gains than Catalyst found in prior surveys, done every three years over the past decade.

Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling

Some women may be missing out on the executive coaching that equally experienced men get at work.

A recent survey by Novations Group Inc., a consulting and training firm in Boston, found that at 20% of companies offering such coaching, women receive it less often than men, while women get more coaching than men at only 5% of businesses that offer it.

Senior management (usually men) typically chooses who receives coaching, often selecting up-and-comers to whom they relate best, says Deborah A. Felton, a director of consulting in New York for Novations.

What are women managers missing out on?

Developing a pressure-proof demeanor.

Eliminating fidgeting and other subtle behaviors, such as finger tapping, that can detract from a person's authority.

Tending to concentrate so much on getting the job done that they may neglect big-picture thinking.

Not being able to point to where they made a difference.

Not finding time by handing off some tasks to others.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2006

Thanksgiving: 1621 and today

When the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1620, they landed on the rocky shores of a territory that was inhabited by the Wampanoag (Wam pa NO ag) Indians.

In the Spring of 1621, the newly arrived Pilgrims were not doing well in the New World.  They were living in dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of food and nearly half of them had died during the winter.  However, they had the fortune to connect with two English-speaking American Indians, named Samoset and Squanto, who had been hunting in the area that we now know to be Plymouth, MA.   

Squanto decided to stay with the Pilgrims for the next few months and teach them how to survive in this new place.  He taught them how to cultivate corn and other new vegetables and how to build Indian-style houses.  He pointed out poisonous plants and showed how other plants could be used as medicine.  He explained how to dig and cook clams, how to get sap from the maple trees, use fish for fertilizer and dozens of other skills needed for their survival.
    
By the time fall arrived, things were going much better for the Pilgrims, thanks to the help they had received. The corn they planted had grown well. There was enough food to last the winter. They were living comfortably in their Indian-style wigwams and had also managed to build one European-style building out of squared logs. This was their church.  They were now in better health, and they knew more about surviving in this new land.  The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune.  They had observed thanksgiving feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many years before coming to the New World.

Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join them for a celebration, but they had no idea how big Indian families could be. As the Thanksgiving feast began, the Pilgrims were overwhelmed at the large turnout of ninety relatives that Squanto and Samoset brought with them.

The Pilgrims were not prepared to feed a gathering of people that large for three days.  Seeing this, Massasoit gave orders to his men within the first hour of his arrival to go home and get more food. Thus, it happened that the Indians supplied the majority of the food: Five deer, many wild turkeys, fish, beans, squash, corn soup, corn bread, and berries.

Captain Standish sat at one end of a long table and the Clan Chief Massasoit sat at the other end.  For the first time, the Wampanoag people were sitting at a table to eat instead of on mats or furs spread on the ground. 

For three days, the Wampanoags feasted with the Pilgrims. It was a special time of friendship between two very different groups of people.  A peace and friendship agreement was made between Massasoit and Miles Standish giving the Pilgrims the clearing in the forest to build their new town of Plymouth.

Now, as U.S. families gather to celebrate this year's holiday, some will remember the story of the first Thanksgiving Day.  Here are a few suggestions for a more meaningful family experience:

Fix a plate with five grains of rice, corn or other grains to recall the famine suffered by the Pilgrims after they arrived at Plymouth, as well as the hunger that persists in many places worldwide.

Pass around a bowl of nuts and fresh or dried fruits at the beginning of the meal to symbolize the bounty of the harvest.

Invite each child to ask one question about Thanksgiving or American history.

Have the oldest family member light a candle before the meal to symbolize the guiding light that person provides.  The youngest person should blow it out when the meal is ended.

Sources: The Center for World Indigenous Studies, The Fourth World Documentation Project and "The Thanksgiving Ceremony" by Edward Bleier (Crown, $14).

 Cyrus Durey: Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks: Economic Development in Early North America

Frontiersmen of the Adirondacks: Economic Development in Early North America [NOOK Book] (ebook and paperback editions)

 The Life of Margretta

More at: http://www.coachingtip.com/2014/09/we-are-all-indians.html

 

Holiday Shopping Online

More people than ever are expected to shop online this holiday season.

"What we've seen is that the demographics of shopping online have begun to more closely mirror America in general," says Raul Vazquez, chief marketing officer at www.Walmart.com.

About 41% of Internet shoppers in the U.S. made their first online purchase within the past four years, according to Forrester Research Inc.  That reflects the growing number of homes with personal computers and broadband Internet connections.

Retailers are trying to better integrate their online stores with their physical counterparts.  Circuit City last year started promising customers that they could order an item online and pick it up at a local store within 24 minutes.  This year, Circuit City is training store salespeople to help customers place online orders if a store runs out of a coveted gadget.

As the ecommerce industry matures, the offline players will also see slower growth.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2006

Change by Affirmations

Use affirmations to change your mind, mood and health, and reach new levels of awareness and happiness.

Affirmations are spiritual ideals or goals embedded in potent, constructive statements.  Edgar Cayce instructed that an affirmation be spoken (silently or aloud), while maintaining a consciousness of the meaning of the words, and to speak it several times with a positive, expectant attitude, until the whole of one's mental being is affected positively by the meaning.

"Let my desire and my needs be in Thy hands, Thou Maker, Creator of the universe and all the forces and powers therein!  And may I conform my attitude, my purpose, my desire, to that Thou hast as an activity for me."  Edgar Cayce reading #462-8

This affirmation is intended to take hold of desires, needs, and attitudes that we all experience in life and move them to a higher, more universally attuned condition, resulting in greater harmony and happiness in our lives.

Source: Personal Spirituality newsletter, www.EdgarCayce.org 

Women Leadership

The challenge is to help women climb the corporate ladder with leadership development programs, flexible work arrangements and other practices that recognize their unique talents and needs.

Women and Leadership

Women make up 46% of the U.S. labor force but represent a smaller share of executive ranks.  According to Catalyst, a New York nonprofit that researches working women, they comprise:

51% of managerial and specialty positions

16% of Fortune 500 corporate officers

8% of Fortune 500 highest titles

5% of Fortune 500 top earners

2% of Fortune 500 chief executive officers

The Center for Work-Life Policy's Hidden Brain Task Force produced a report, "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success," that was published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) in March 2005.  The article notes that "pull" factors, such as the demands of young children and aging parents, often combine with "push" factors, such as a lack of opportunity at work, to make women head for the door.

"In focus groups, we heard the disappointment and discouragement of women who had reached senior levels in corporations only to find the glass ceiling still in place, despite years of diversity initiatives," the HBR article reported.

Most employers don't realize they're pushing some women out of their jobs, diversity experts say.  The main problem is that the prevalent notion of a committed employee---one who can work long hours, travel and be accessible 24/7---doesn't match many women's lives, says Lisa Levey, senior director of advisory services at Catalyst.  The HBR article says, "The trick is to help them maintain connections that will allow them to come back....without being marginalized for the rest of their careers."

Source: Human Resource Executive, November 2006

Varied Skills; Broader Insights

The more varied your skills, the more varied the neural pathways in use. "They're kind of reservoirs in your consciousness that you can reach back into for insights you're applying to something totally dissimilar," says Pete Dawkins, vice chairman of Citigroup's global wealth management.  "I think the broader, the more of these reservoirs you have available, the more likely you can see through the fog."

Your brain, it turns out, isn't a fixed mass that shapes your behavior.  Your behavior also shapes your brain.  If a gardener takes up a serious interest in engineering, for instance, her neurons form new pathways between previously isolated regions.  "It may well be a mistake to do just one thing," says Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.  "If you practice multiple things you actually get better at any one of those things."  In other words, the benefits of practicing one skill are not limited to that skill alone; they can be transferred.

Should you pour your energies into one single-minded pursuit?  The short answer is no.  The short explanation is plasticity.  Leonardo da Vinci fit at least six careers into one lifetime.  And there's a concert-level pianist named Condoleezza Rice who performs Brahms sonatas with Yo-Yo Ma when she's not busy with her side gig at the State Department.

Scientists are beginning to confirm this in research on how we learn motor skills.  In a study published in 2004 in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Rachael Seidler at the University of Michigan cast doubt on the traditional thinking that any motor skill we learn is limited to a particular context and task.  She found instead that after having subjects learn five different motor skills using joysticks, "subjects exposed to a variety of motor learning paradigms may be able to acquire general, transferable knowledge about skill learning processes."

Source: FORTUNE, October 30, 2006

Personal Coaching is Hot!

"Coaching, while the latest and hottest trend to invade the workplace, is not really new.  It is a new derivative of the best thinking in self-improvement since the turn of the 20th Century.  Coaching found its place in history, and most recently in the business world, when it exploded into the corporate environment in the 1990s.  Today, workplace coaching includes dozens of specialty fields (just like medicine) for every kind of business concern."  Dr. Patrick Williams (www.LifeCoachTraining.com) stated to The Royal Society of Medicine in London, United Kingdom on January 30, 2004.

Dr. Rey Carr (www.Peer.ca) tells us, "Coaching integrates the substance of many fields and the innovative thinking of great pioneers.  Since 1995, the field has grown from two coach training schools to 180; from three professional associations to nine; and from zero magazines/journals focusing on coaching in the year 2000 to eleven in 2005."

As people seek better lives for themselves, either personally or professionally, or both, they're more likely to find outside help to get them there: a professional coach. Here are some FAQs with answers for people considering a coaching relationship:

1. Who are these people?

There are an estimated 20,000 coaches around the globe. You can check out some personal and business coaching websites at the Coach to Coach Network website: www.Coach2Coach.info. Although coaching certificates are good things to look for, the most important credential a coach needs is your trust to help you get to that place of self-awareness.

2. What kind of coach is right for me?

Executive coaches, who typically work with executives in large firms and business owners in small companies, are brought in as (mostly) agenda-free surrogate mentors. That's become especially important in this mobile age when it's rare to find a lifelong veteran available to offer support and guidance. 

Life coaches, on the other hand, are brought in to help people reorder their life to get to where they want to be. Making hard choices about what's important and paying attention to your intentions requires being listened to by a supportive, brainstorming and independent viewpoint.

3. Who needs a coach?

People seek out coaches for an infinite variety of reasons, but there are two typical coachees: people navigating some significant transition in their life or career and those who have some inkling that their leadership style or personality is holding them back.

FORTUNE magazine reported that one reader said, "I went into the coaching experience kicking and screaming, at the insistence of my then-boss. And what an eye-opener it turned out to be. I won't even go into the grim details of bad management habits I had unthinkingly developed in my 14-year career up to that point--but I will say that since I was 'cured' by 12 weeks of pretty intense coaching, I've been promoted three times."

4. What does coaching cost?

Executive coaching engagements typically cost upward of $10,000 per person over a set period of time and include a few face-to-face meetings followed by email and telephone discussions. To help develop executives internally, rather than look for outsiders, companies are often more happy to foot the bill to fix dysfunctional leaders. For the return on investment (ROI) of executive coaching, click here.

Some enterprising fast-trackers can and do shell out for their own advancement. As the price slides downward, though, the buyer should beware.

5. What should you expect?

Coaching is not a substitute for therapy and it's not business strategy. The clients do the heavy lifting. The coach guides the person being coached by asking the right questions. The client has to figure out what behavior needs to change and how best to change it.

6. Does coaching work?

People seeking coaching are self-selecting, so the answer is yes. However, it is best to maintain a guarded edge during the coach selection process to make a good match between what you want out of the coaching experience and the person who can guide you throughout the coaching process. For why many small business owners resist being coached, click here.

Ms. Vikki Brock, MBA and Master Certified Coach (www.coachingwhoswho.com) says, "We are standing on the shoulders of professions that have gone before us.  Coaching is a consolidation and amalgamation of many fields and the integrative thinking of great pioneers.  In its short history, we see considerable focus on recognizing the major distinctions between coaching and disciplines such as therapy, mentoring and consulting."

Sources: "Are You Being Coached?" FAST COMPANY, February 2005 and "Who's Who in Coaching: Who Shaped It, Who's Shaping It." 2006 Proceedings of the International Coach Federation Research Symposium