While any country can do a bit of investing to satisfy other needs, it also seems logical that for each country there is a point at which such investing takes enough resources away from the productive economy that not only will the productive economy decline, but with this decline the availability of monies to do those unproductive but necessary things will shut down as well. This is what I call the “sweet spot”.

It is a complicated and, for that reason, a fun problem. For one, you could not create this formula with an analysis fixed in time, as governments seem to be good at borrowing against the future. So you would have to consider the cumulative effects over time, and the sweet spot would be defined not only as a per cent of GDP and a per cent of accumulated wealth, but also as a place in time in the future.

A second interesting consideration is how much of the non-economic funding is to be done by government vs. by the productive (i.e., private) sector. This would involve a whole sub-formula, it would seem, and a “loop” that analyzes whether to maximize the public or private sector funding of these needs first, using the other source as an alternative once the primary source stops growing.

But what a great tool it would be! We could see when things are projected to shut down per the formula, and then just argue about the assumptions shaping the inputs. I see that as a lot more clarity of discussion than we have now in our society. And that would be good!

Jim Hirshfield

If one does not plan to have a career in politics or public service, it is all too easy to fail to put anything about politics into your life plan. This is a mistake. What goes on in the world of politics affects all of us. As someone said, elections have consequences. But sometime, when people rise up, become vocal, and express their concern about what is happening in the country, those in the political world are surprised. They shouldn’t be.

So take a look at your life plan, and see what it contains regarding politics. Don’t have a life plan? Make one. My book will help, if you want help. But do it. Avoid being an eternal member of the silent majority by putting into your life plan the need to understand and respond to things political.

Jim

1. Don’t give the customer any reason to call. That is, anticipate and fix problems before the customer ever sees their effects. We used to hold top level weekly meetings where we reviewed all unsolved customer service problems. More often than not these were new issues, often easily solved, but things the customer service people had not been trained to address.
2. Get rid of those extensive call director menus, and allow your customer to talk to a real person, quickly. I know this is a cost issue. My solution? Allow the customer to self select into a longer automated queue if they are comfortable doing so.
3. Have your Customer Service people take charge of the customer’s problem, lift it off of the customer’s shoulders, give your people a procedure for dealing with these things, and compensate them for doing so. Get back to the customer when a solution is provided.
4. Training, training, training. How can you expect your customer service people to know the answers to all the problems that might come up if you do not gather information company wide, craft solutions, and inform your people about them?
5. Compensation. Craft a structure to pay good employees for good work, as an incentive compensation plan laid over base wage.

Remember, you will not receive a call from your customer when he switches to your competitor.

It is interesting how the process of making public policy highlights so many of the business adages in my book Fortune & Freedom: The Entrepreneur’s guide to Success. Previously I wrote about the need to define the problem before you attempt to solve it, and noted that little of this had been done in the national debate on health care. Someone must have read my blog, because starting shortly thereafter all I have been hearing about is the goals of health care reform. Unfortunately, there has been little discussion about specifics that would address those goals.

So let me give you an illustration of a business fallacy titled “Oh no, you did exactly what I told you to do!” See the picture in my book of the man with anguish on his face? He has just seen the result of his hasty solution to a problem he has not taken the time to define and analyze. Will this be all of us after the Health Care Reform initiatives become law? Or, to say it another way, let’s go back to the issue raised above, define the problems we are working to solve (there are plenty of them), and discuss and agree on solutions to those problems.

It seems to me that most people agree on the need and the goals of health care reform. The problems lie in laying out solutions to specific health care problems, and discussing and agreeing on these solutions. Pretty much all the discussion I have heard to date is vilifying the other guy for not agreeing with you. You certainly could not stay in business if you ran your company that way.

The President at various times says it is both, and that the present high cost of health care is caused by the profits of the for-profit insurance companies (not all providers are for-profit organizations). Some politicians such as Robert Reich assert that government competition to private providers will bring down the cost. (If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you – but back to the subject at hand). So what is the problem we are trying to solve?

And, of course, the above is only talking about the evidence of the problem, not its causes. So once we decide whether we are solving the problem of cost or coverage, we then need to identify the drivers, the problems that cause high cost or spotty coverage. Only after these drivers are defined and agreed to can we start to craft a solution.

Have you heard the phrase “A solution in search of a problem”? We need to be careful what we wish for. Our wish might be granted.

Jim

That question is being asked more often in recent months. If your answer is “yes”, then in addition to seeking your next job opportunity, you might consider working on future opportunities in general.

In “Fortune & Freedom” I talk about the need to accumulate “necessary skills”, whether you intend to become an entrepreneur or simply to improve your future job performance. Those skills include selling, learning how our political system works at the grass roots level, and others. (Take a look at the Table of Contents on the www.furtuneandfreedom.biz web site for the list of the five key skills I think are important).

So between job interviews volunteer in a political campaign (yes, they are going on even now), get a job selling on commission, or take a course in accounting. My book has a lot more detail on what I recommend. So go for it!

Jim

Second, people pay $3 million for a 30 second super bowl ad because by and large advertising on television works. Wouldn’t you thus think that several years of media bombardment telling us how poor the economy is might have a similar effect? We used to call it Bush bashing, then election politics, and now bailout, but it is all media advertising, and the message has been the same.

Who is surprised by where we have come to?

Jim