#58: Cash is no longer king

Did you know that there are 1.5 billion credit cards in America? It seems that the average household has over 10 credit cards.

So, how did you pay for your gifts this year? Ten years ago, Americans paid cash or check for 70% of their purchases. Now more than 50% of purchases are charged to cards. Cash is no longer king.

And yet, according to some estimates, there are 80m unbanked consumers in America. They pay $1.5b in check-cashing fees a year. So card companies are offering ‘pre-paid’ cards that can be re-loaded.

The last hold-out of cash is the small purchase (newspapers, bus tickets and so on). Now credit card companies are offering ‘contactless cards’ for purchases under $25. These cards wirelessly beam data to a receiver in a store. The process takes less than 2 seconds, resulting in fewer queues. I can’t wait.

I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am

#57: Economic well-being

In this time of good will and good spending, how is your well-being? Some economists argue that how much you spend is a better measure of economic well-being than how much you make.

Researchers at the American Enterprise Institute state that the middle class is doing better than the upper crust, based on how much they’re spending. However, new findings by other think tanks show that the growth in over-all consumption is unbalanced: Spending by high-income Americans is strong, spending by low-income households is way down since 2001, and spending by the middle class is weaker than normal.

Conservative economists like to argue that wage stagnation and income inequality are not really big threats to our standard of living. But the growing income inequality is fostering consumption inequality - meaning that we cannot spend our way out of today’s economic troubles. It is time to try a different fix.

I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am

#56: A crèche for men

On this last day of holiday shopping, where will you be? Try Hamburg, where a shopping mall has a crèche for men, stocked with beer and computer games, so that the males can play while the females shop.

Or maybe you’ll be window shopping online before heading out. Thanks to the Internet you can do comparative shopping before you leave home and thanks to the cell-phone you can make comparisons while already shopping.

Or maybe you will go to a real store simply to see and touch the merchandise before heading home to buy it cheaper from a virtual store.

Next year you might be using a software robot to do your shopping on-line. Automated shopping robots will search out deals on your behalf and will buy automatically if they find the right combination of price and features. This will give you much more holiday time at that crèche with the beer. I’ll drink to that!

I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am

#55: Expectations can influence behavior

At this time of year we wonder whether we’ve been good enough to expect a reward from the jolly fat man in the corner office. So it’s a good time to remind you that expectations can influence behavior.

‘Expectation’ has two meanings: likely-to-happen and ought-to-happen. Often in organizations, likely-to-happen outweighs ought-to-happen. In other words, a manager knows what behavior is required, but believes that inappropriate behavior is more likely to occur.

This can cause a vicious cycle: A manager’s expectations of how a subordinate will behave can determine how the manager treats that subordinate. In turn, that treatment will affect how the subordinate responds, which then reinforces the manager’s expectation.

The good news is that the cycle can also reinforce good behavior. The bad news? Whatever reward you expect, it’s not necessarily your fault. But maybe, in your case, that’s good news.

I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am

#54: Lack of sleep at work

Tell your boss it’s true: Working long hours with little sleep reduces your performance.

According to a sleep specialist at Harvard Medical School, getting only four hours of sleep for 4 days in a row, or staying awake for 24 hours straight, creates a state similar to drunkenness.

Like drunks, the sleep-deprived do not realize that they are making decisions that no person in her right mind make.

Like deciding not to take a vacation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 33 percent of American workers will take only a seven-day vacation, including a weekend. No wonder people are moody at work.

But wait! Being moody at work might not be a bad thing. Experiments at the University of Washington show that individuals who experience emotional ambivalence, that is, feeling positive and negative emotions at the same time, are likely to be more creative.

I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am

#53: Team work - part 3

Today, many people acknowledge Edwards Deming as the father of total quality management. Yet, when he first shared his ideas, American managers chose to ignore him.

At the time, one would not use the words quality and Japanese in the same sentence. This could be why Deming found a very receptive audience in Japan for his quality ideas. We all know what happened next.

Why did American managers find his ideas unacceptable? Deming maintained that people do not set out to produce poor quality. Instead, the systems and procedures, designed by managers, prevent people from delivering quality.

The same argument applies to team work: People don’t set out to work poorly together. Poor team work is often the result of inappropriate systems, procedures, management style or organizational culture.

So, to improve quality and team work, get rid of the nonsense.

I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am

#52: Flying cell phones

Work bit 1: People always leave cell-phones on by mistake. So, if cell phones in aircraft are really dangerous, they would be band outright. The truth is that cell phones interfere with mobile networks on the ground, not with aircraft navigation systems.

Work bit 2: Next year many airlines will introduce in-flight calling. At that stage all concerns about aircraft safety will disappear at the prospect of airlines getting a cut of the sky-high calling charges.

Work bit 3: Talking about cell phones. What’s the most annoying thing about them in the workplace? Apparently, it’s the different ring tones. Your colleagues wish your phone merely rang like a telephone, instead of sounding off like an MP3 player gone wild.

Work bit 4: As for sounding off, Plato once said that wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.


I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am

#51: Team work - part 2

Often, the most visible result of poor team work is inefficiency, whether in the form of wasted resources, wasted time, or wasted effort. No wonder managers normally tackle team problems from an efficiency perspective and immediately set out to improve team work.

Yet, the fact that it seems necessary to teach people how to work together should warn you that you are confusing symptoms and causes.

An efficiency perspective aims to fix what is perceived to be wrong and automatically draws your attention to symptoms. On the other hand, an effectiveness perspective aims to achieve desired results and outcomes; hence this approach tends to focus you on underlying causes.

Note that an effectiveness perspective does not concern itself with team work, because team work is not really the desired outcome. What is desired is the output that the team should produce.

I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

#50: Blood pressure work culture

Work bit 1: A new study from the University of California has found that people who worked more than 51 hours each week were 29 percent more likely to have high blood pressure than those who worked 39 hours or less. The likelihood rose steadily with the number of hours worked, even after adjusting for factors such as socioeconomic status and body weight.

Work bit 2: Japan has a notoriously high-pressure work culture which has given rise to a phenomenon known as "sudden death from overwork." But today, Americans work longer hours than do Japanese.

Work bit 3: Almost all of the developed world has legislation limiting work hours, except for the United States.

Work bit 4: If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. So said Lane Kirkland.


I’m james@nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2006 James Henry McIntosh

James can be heard on Public Radio, 88.9 FM WCVE, Richmond VA.
Monday - 7:19am and Saturday - 8:19am