“Zilch — The Power of Zero in Business” by Nancy Lublin, Portfolio, $25.95.
“Do more with less” seems to be the mantra of global business these days. The problem: Most business efforts to achieve this center around slashing headcount and employing a “don’t worry about the mules — just load the wagon” mentality.
In stark contrast, nonprofits have been productively operating on shoestrings forever. While there have been casualties in the nonprofit world, their failure rate doesn’t come close to approaching that of new business failures. Lublin’s message: For-profits can learn from nonprofits.
How? Start with rethinking the management attitude toward employees. They aren’t assets. They’re equity.
“When people feel they’re working with others rather than for them, they find work more meaningful.” Relative to expanding “with,” think about your physical work environment. With nonprofits, which constantly deal with space constraints, executives are always close to staff. They interact daily; they know the people. An executive isolated from his/her people tends to interface with other executives more than the staff. This “absentee” management creates communications gaps and makes communication, even in a flat organization, appear as top down.
When it comes to staffing their organizations, nonprofits prize passion over expertise or experience. Why? Passion translates directly to job ownership and productivity. “If passionate people don’t have the experience, they make it their business to find out. If they require an expert skill to do a job well, they acquire it.” Passionate people, while competitive, focus on “trying to surpass their last personal best.” They work with imagination and inspiration — and never shy away from responsibility. Lublin doesn’t suggest companies drop pedigree from their hiring criteria; she advocates adding passion to it.
At the end of each chapter, there are 11 questions whose answers show you where you are relative to where you want to be. I found that reading the questions before reading the chapter helpful to understanding her message.
“$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better” by Christopher Steiner, Grand Central Publishing, $15.99.
In an economic time marked by stock market and housing market downturns that have taken trillions of dollars in individual wealth, it’s hard to imagine that increased gasoline prices would have a positive effect on our lives. Yet, Steiner’s findings make sense.
One key point: the relationship between health care costs and the gas pump. Could increased pump prices reduce obesity? Yes, according to a study by Charles Courtemanche, an economist at the University of North Carolina. “A sustained $1 in gasoline prices equals a 10 percent dip in the nation’s obesity rate.”
With close to one-third of Americans considered obese, and over 100,000 per year dying from obesity-related ailments, a decrease in obesity is a win/win. As to why obesity will decline, Courtemanche study shows:
1. People will use more mass transit (i.e. They’ll do more walking to and from transit stops.); and
2. They’ll dine out less frequently (i.e. less consumption of junk foods and decreased portion size). His study suggests $11 billion annual savings on health care.
J. Paul Leigh, professor of health economics at the University of California — Davis, weighs in on reduced health costs from another angle — reduced air pollution. “Bad air” doesn’t just cause bronchial problems; its cumulative effects cause heart problems. Over 25,000 Americans die annually from particulate pollution.
The bottom line: We’ll be thinner, breathe easier and live longer.
Increased gasoline prices also mean we’ll live closer to work, limit spur-of-the-moment shopping trips and take close-to-home vacations (i.e. the fuel cost of air travel would make long flights too expensive) and drive diesel/hybrid/electric cars. Conservation will improve the environment for successive generations. Just don’t charge your electric car at the same time as three of your neighbors — you’ll blow out the power for your block.
Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated book reviewer.
