When to Swing - Decision-Making

Welcome to this week's?MAD?newsletter - for C-level Executives who want to?Make?A?Difference - in themselves and their organizations.?This week's features -?#DecisionMaking, #Cybersecurity for websites, and the #Economy - especially when dealing with uncontrollable factors.

October 25, 2022

In this Issue

1. A?Good Ball?to Hit
2. A?Magnanimous?Merchant
3. How to "Just do it"
4. Cybercrime:?Protect Your Website
5. Hiring, Quitting, Firing
6. Econ Recon: “Serenity Economics”

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A Good Ball to Hit

The World Series is upon us, and a recent article presented?some interesting thoughts about baseball and decision making. Ted Williams, the last .400 hitter, wrote a book about his core competency with a bat in which he shared a fundamental lesson he learned about?when to swing, and when not to, that helped him became one of the all-time greats.??If he waited for a pitch that was really in his sweet spot, he would get a hit 40% of the time. But if he was impatient and swung at something on the lower corners he would only get a hit 23-25% of the time.?

Williams grasped that the way we make decisions —?our decision process?— matters.??

Learn what it is was in this short article:?“What the Science of Hitting Can Teach You About Better Decisions.”

A Magnanimous Merchant

Meet one of the truly great entrepreneurs of all time.?Julius Rosenwald.??

Julius who?Julius Rosenwald began his business life as a vendor to the young Sears Mail Order Business in the late 1800s, eventually becoming its CEO. Sears was a fast-growing company with a lot of problems when Rosenwald took the helm, especially regarding quality and service.?He made it into the nation’s premier mail order retailer.

Sears was truly the original Amazon?and brought affordable, quality merchandise for the first time to millions of farm families in what was then still a primarily agricultural America. He also groomed his successor, General Robert Wood, to make Sears a success in the brick-and-mortar arena. He pioneered or was an early advocate of many of the management innovations commonplace today such as profit sharing.

Alas, no company is granted immortality. Sears, in the decades after Rosenwald’s passing, failed to meet the needs of a changing retail environment and is a shell of its former self. But the company that Julius Rosenwald led and helped to build had a tremendous impact on the quality of life of millions of Americans for decades, and generated wealth that benefited thousands during his lifetime through his philanthropic work.?

Julius Rosenwald’s life was a life well lived.?An article on Rosenwald from the American Business History Center is a little longer than what I normally offer here, but you will find your time well spent. It portrays a man who appears to have used every minute of every day in worthy pursuits.?I hope you’ll take the time to learn from, and by inspired by,?the remarkable life of a?Magnanimous Merchant.

How to “Just do it.”

It’s said that “what’s well begun is halfway done”….and sometimes it’s a defining moment early on that makes all the difference.?Sometimes those defining moments take the form of documents that set forth principles, values and rules. Think of the Magna Carta, The Declaration of Independence, and The US Constitution.

A single document can also create a roadmap for a great company.?

This short article from INC Magazine?shares a one page, 45-year-old internal memo from Nike penned by its marketing head Rob Strasser.??Titled “Principles”, it offers 10 points that “set the stage for Nike to become a $135 Billion Company….and show how establishing rules can build powerful cultures.”?

Cybercrime:?Protect Your Website

I’ve featured suggestions for cybersecurity in past newsletter issues. Few businesses lack a robust website. Websites are not immune to potential hacking. Share this article, Website Security, with your team from vetted Vistage Trusted Advisor, Sean Parnell , President of? Innovaxis Marketing , which addresses practical tips including:

1. Choose a hosting service that offers maximum security.
2. Offer added security through two-factor authentication?or 2FA.
3. Protect your site (and speed it up) with a?content delivery network (CDN). (This was a new one for me!)

The article focuses on Word Press websites but the suggestions are worthy of review for your own peace of mind.?Check with your team to be safe.

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Hiring, Quitting, Firing

The business media increasingly looks to Vistage for research?on numerous business topics in the small to mid-size space. In the past month, Inc, the Wall Street Journal, HR Morning, and Construction Executive?have looked to Vistage for insights on Hiring, Quitting, Firing. Check out the?“Vistage in the News Page”?for fact filled articles, podcasts and more.?

Econ Recon

Serenity Economics:?Most of us are familiar with the “Serenity Prayer” which says,?“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”?Turns out that this is good advice when it comes to making decisions in the midst of economic un-controllables such as inflation, increasing labor costs and interest rates.?ITR Economics Connor Lokar provides some sound?“economic therapy”?in the latest ITR Trends Talk??“Control What You Can Control”.

Closely related to the above is another blog post from Dr. Alan Beaulieu of ITR who provides some timely advice on how to?“Stay Ahead of Mounting Labor Costs.”

Check out Dr. Brian Wesbury’s??“High Frequency Data Tracker”?for?year over year economic comparatives.?

I encourage sharing. Please re-share this post on social media. I also distribute via email and welcome new subscribers. Wishing you a productive week!

Sue Tinnish, PhD,?Vistage Chair, Facilitator, & Executive Coach

Find me easily at: 847.404.7325,?[email protected], Twitter:?@STinnish, LinkedIn:??www.dhirubhai.net/in/suetinnish, Website:??https://vistage.com/chairs/sue.tinnish?