2001-07-01T00:00:00Z

Recent surveys indicate that workers have reached an epidemic level of anxiety, stress, and have more work than hours necessary to do it. They are worried about demands placed on them, the accelerating pace of business and the effects of competition. Deluged with more information that is brought to them at ever greater speed by TV news, magazines, books, e mails and the Internet, they struggle to make it all useful. Today’s business environment has become like a fog covering a region leading to unclear vision, cloudy thinking and confusion as to the safest route. These are issues DCG is hearing from its clients and it echoing a growing trend. So how are DCG’s clients meeting these challenges? By teaching leaders how to clearly communicate the direction they want their company to take, which brings about a sustained momentum of change in the workplace. Employees who hear, understand, and integrate that message into their thinking (buy in) then have a compelling reason to use their own remarkable creativity to generate actions that improve business performance. What are some of the things today's leaders do to improve communications and foster creativity? By taking these five steps: <ol> <li> Provide direction and ensure buy in. </li> <li> Avoid premature judgments. </li> <li> Create an environment where communications have integrity. </li> <li> Build on little successes. </li> <li> Learn the techniques for absorbing information and organizing it for creativity. </li> </ol> 1. We spoke of the importance of providing direction. DCG’s workshops have illustrated that without buy in there will be no sustained movement towards any goal. Buy in is the fuel that causes the brain to persist in its thinking of how to reach the goal. Recently a client remarked, “When employees feel good about the direction the company is going and are confident their ideas count there is no limit or barrier to their innovation. They will continue delivering solutions to customer problems that have quality and value as their signature. Doing this the quickest with the most creative solutions is what gets your next contract and satisfying customers quickly leads to new contracts and revenue growth.” A lesson in creativity — 1 + 1 is not 2. Research has shown that the human brain has unlimited capacity to create pathways of thoughts if unimpeded. It synergizes information so that one thought triggers another, and so on. This is divergent thinking: the ability to start from one central idea and move onto many ideas. Creativity occurs when you start with a thought and the brain’s synergistic ability makes new associations and connections to that thought. Diversity and listening to what each person has to say facilitates this process, which has created a boom for the Internet/e-commerce industry and will continue to allow it to flourish. Imagine Internet users who leverage this unlimited power to communicate with people who will listen to them. The recipient of these ideas integrates them which influences their thinking. The answer is simple but the end result is powerful - - 1 + 1 equals infinite possibility. 2. Premature judgments can fatally stifle creativity. Leaders need to nurture team members to be receptive to different perspectives, suggestions, and ideas. When someone responds to a suggestion with an impatient, “We've heard all that before,” a great opportunity may be lost. Listen to ALL suggestions first. Judgments on the best course of action can be made later. However, if one wants to immediately stop this natural flow of thinking -- shut off our computers, refuse to participate in communication, or begin making judgments. What might be new is one piece of information that could send this amazing mechanism in a totally different direction. However, we have stopped it with a premature judgment. 3. Rich Bannon, winner of CFO Magazine’s Best Practice Award while a corporate executive at IBM, knows the value of dialogue between management and employees. No news is NOT good news, he says flatly. If people are not talking to the management team or to each other, there is a problem. If today's leaders do not provide an environment in which people can share information, problems, ideas, and feedback, then they have seriously diminished their chances of maximizing creative resources. They will not know where to make adjustments and may be focused on the wrong priorities. 4. The human brain thrives on success; the magnitude is not of the utmost importance. What matters is that it has been achieved. The wise leader recognizes this by providing himself and his employees with priorities that build on little successes. Creativity is a cumulative process and the more success the brain has, the more energy it expends to search for additional creative solutions and to tackle bigger problems. The small successes are the stepping stones to building the belief that, "we can do anything." 5. How we store, organize and retrieve information is critical to creativity. It provides the means by which new information links and associates with other ideas. DCG specializes in several techniques aimed at improving the brain's ability to process information, such as Memory Systems and Mind Mapping. What is inherent about what all DCG clients are saying about leadership and creativity is that every idea from every person counts. Diversity, teamwork and valuing different perspectives on a situation encourages creativity. How we build on little successes by themselves may not seem important but it sparks other ideas that make bigger goals possible. It’s like golf: everyone wants to hit the 250 yard drive, but the putting will kill your score. No wonder the yardsticks used to measure a company's value now include employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, organizational learning, innovation and culture. Satisfied employees who have faith in their company’s direction are not only the happiest but they are the most creative and most likely to remain. And that's to everyone's benefit.‡

2009-03-12T02:52:14Z

1 Recent surveys indicate that workers have reached an epidemic level of anxiety, stress, and have more work than hours necessary to do it. They are worried about demands placed on them, the accelerating pace of business and the effects of competition. Deluged with more information that is brought to them at ever greater speed by TV news, magazines, books, e mails and the Internet, they struggle to make it all useful.

true Tony on Leadership Tony_on_Leadership

2009-06-15T05:26:24Z

2001-07-01T00:00:00Z

<h4>Impossible Expectations</h4> Set achievable goals. And with those goals, provide the tools, resources and authority required to attain them. When goals are set but the means to reach them are unavailable, many managers suffer from a disease known as “impossible expectations,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. Symptoms include frustration and severe stress. <h4>Desk Rage</h4> Something ugly is happening in cubicles and offices down the hall and across the country: desk rage. Longer hours and increased workloads have led to shouting matches and lost tempers, according to the Wall Street Journal. In a Marlin Co. survey, forty-two percent of respondents reported they had a job where yelling and verbal abuse occur. <h4>Managing Stress</h4> Moderation in all things. Stress included. Too much stress—caused by information overload, a slowing economy, mergers, acquisitions, and layoffs—can lead to conflict and friction. Not enough stress permits employees to get lazy. So to find a healthy balance, many employees seek the refuge of yoga, meditation and tai chi. <h4>Growing Work Week</h4> More and more people are being asked to be available 24/7. Technology is making us prisoners to our work. Where does it end? Has anyone discovered 25/8? How far does a merry-go-round take you? Who stops it? <h4>MUST READ:</h4> Psychology Today, June 2001, “Meditation” and Business 2.0, May 15, 2001, “Overworked” pg. 60.

2009-03-12T03:13:18Z

2 Set achievable goals. And with those goals, provide the tools, resources and authority required to attain them. When goals are set but the means to reach them are unavailable, many managers suffer from a disease known as “impossible expectations,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. Symptoms include frustration and severe stress.

true Business Trends Business_Trends

2009-06-15T05:04:02Z

2001-07-01T00:00:00Z

In an attempt to maximize quality, many companies have recently implemented the principles of Six Sigma, a quality-assurance strategy. Essentially, Six Sigma means a company tries to make error-free products. The proliferation of this management trend is due in large part to Jack Welch, CEO of GE, a company that reported a $2 billion savings in 1999 due to the implementation of Six Sigma. Motorola and Whirlpool have also adopted a Six Sigma strategy. According to a recent Fortune article, “new consultancies have sprung up just to help companies with their own Six Sigma initiatives, and the hype continues to mount. However, there are mixed opinions on whether or not the Six Sigma hype is warranted.” <h4>Six Sigma Problems</h4> The same Fortune article has highlighted a number of problems companies are having with Six Sigma. For example, when Whirlpool became a Six Sigma company, improved business results were not readily apparent. The company’s stock has declined twelve percent nosedive over the past two years. So how could a corporate initiative geared to tackling quality head-on fail? Like this: <blockquote> by teaching people a complex mind numbing process the CEO isn’t able to consistently motivate employees the company allows the initiative to lose momentum before progress has been made most importantly, the company is in a business in which errors are difficult to track. </blockquote> <h4>DCG’s View</h4> People closet to the problems have the best solutions. Give them the SIMPLE TOOLS necessary to identify and solve their problems, provide them with a louder voice to be heard and the ability and support necessary to IMPLEMENT change. As the worker speaks louder the boss must listen with a larger pair of ears. In order for the boss to hear they must know the tools so they can support their employees’ efforts. A sustainable change process requires an equal commitment to change from all levels of the company.‡ - Jennifer Walsh

2009-03-12T03:21:55Z

3 In an attempt to maximize quality, many companies have recently implemented the principles of Six Sigma, a quality-assurance strategy. Essentially, Six Sigma means a company tries to make error-free products.

true Six Sigma Caution Six_Sigma_Caution

2009-06-15T05:07:33Z

2001-07-01T00:00:00Z

On Saturday, May 12, 2001 DCG hosted the Fourth Annual USA Memoriad (Memory Championship) in New York City. The USA Memoriad is an Olympiad for ‘thinking’ games. Tony Dottino teamed up with Tony Buzan, founder of the World Memory Championship and Mind Sports Olympiad, to bring this competition to the US in 1997. Set up as a sporting event for Mental Athletes, the USA Memoriad consists of five memory challenging tournament-style competitive events including: 99 Names and Faces, 500 Random Words, Speed Numbers, Unpublished Poem and a Shuffled Deck of Cards. The top three winners of this year’s competition were presented with a pair of Business Class Round trip tickets to London each, courtesy of British Airways, a sponsor of the USA Memoriad since its inception. While in London, the Mental Athletes will compete in the World Memory Championship in August of this year. Eighteen Mental Athletes from around the country came to match their skills against reigning three-time champion Tatiana Cooley. As the day unfolded, it appeared that she would be given a run for her money...the scores were so close that no one could predict the outcome until it’s arrival! By the end of the day, there was a new US Memory Champion, first time Mental Athlete, Scott Hagwood. Scott is a chemical engineer from North Carolina who considers himself of “very average intelligence”. After being diagnosed with thyroid <img border="0" src="../images/articles/hagwood.gif" align="left" width="231" height="171">cancer several years ago, Scott was concerned about the effects of aggressive treatment on his mental faculties. While undergoing several days of intensive radiation in isolation, he practiced some of Tony Buzan’s memory techniques he read about in Use Your Perfect Memory. The results speak for themselves. Scott now holds the national title as well as 2 U.S. records by scoring 105 points in Names and Faces and by memorizing an entire deck of shuffled cards in five minutes. We are also happy to report that Scott has been in remission for well over a year. Tatiana Cooley, an executive assistant from New York City, placed second in the overall competition. Tatiana has enjoyed her reign as the US Memory Champion since 1997 when she walked into the competition exclaiming, “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do on a Saturday in New York City than play games with my memory.” She just missed her fourth title by 13 points but did manage to set a new U.S. record of 202 points in the poetry competition. At the awards ceremony, Tatiana announced her retirement at a young age of thirty-something and graciously gave her tickets to the fourth place competitor, Mykie Pidor, a high school student from New Jersey and a three year veteran of the competition . The Bronze Medal was awarded to another new-comer, Joshua Walker, a Computer Programmer from North Carolina. Among the Mental Athletes were nine high school students from the Bergen County Academies in New Jersey. In 1999 Tony Dottino was invited to the school to teach students some memory techniques to assist them with their studies. He told them, “Consider your brain just like any other muscle in your body...the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. And unlike other muscles, it gets better with age.” The students quickly caught on to the techniques and decided to compete. Two of them, Eric Chang and Coral Parmar were Silver and Bronze Medallists respectively in the 1999 U.S. competition and went on to place second and ninth out of thirty in the World Memory Championships that year. For more information on the USA Memoriad, please visit the web site at <a href="http://www.usamemoriad.com">www.usamemoriad.com</a>

2009-03-12T03:25:57Z

4 On Saturday, May 12, 2001 DCG hosted the Fourth Annual USA Memoriad (Memory Championship) in New York City. The USA Memoriad is an Olympiad for ‘thinking’ games. Tony Dottino teamed up with Tony Buzan, founder of the World Memory Championship and Mind Sports Olympiad, to bring this competition to the US in 1997. Set up as a sporting event for Mental Athletes, the USA Memoriad consists of five memory challenging tournament-style competitive events.

true USA Memoriad USA_Memoriad

2009-03-24T00:21:54Z

2001-07-01T00:00:00Z

As a client developer for DCG, I come into contact with many varied companies around the country and it never ceases to amaze me that different industries and companies have similar problems. A corporation takes on the characteristics of its employees. And that’s what I can relate to – ‘people’ problems. What I try to do at DCG is hold up a mirror image to the company – one side shows what it is now, and the other what it can become. The DCG problem solvers can do that. Some of the more common problems I hear in ‘corporate land’ are: <ul> <li> “I have no time to do anything! I’m working 24-7!!!” </li> <li> “We must reduce our costs...our budget is hurting”, or a variation of that theme, “We need more profits!” </li> <li> “Our company has conflicting goals and employees are not sure of where we are going” (a company without a compass) </li> <li> Lack of employee motivation and management initiative </li> <li> Fear of change </li> </ul> Any one of these can bring pain to the people within a company, and each additional problem compounds it. When I pause and reflect on some of the companies I contacted several years ago who were seeking solutions and not finding them, and after becoming DCG clients, I speak to them today and they are confident and without stress...THAT’S MY REWARD! And maybe I had a small part in it – after all, it started with my first telephone call. ‡ - Jackie Sulé

2009-03-12T03:37:17Z

5 As a client developer for DCG, I come into contact with many varied companies around the country and it never ceases to amaze me that different industries and companies have similar problems. A corporation takes on the characteristics of its employees. And that’s what I can relate to – ‘people’ problems.

true Jackies View Jackies_View_200107

2009-03-24T00:22:28Z

2001-07-01T00:00:00Z

Jennifer Walsh interviewing Alan Homyk, Director Environment Health and Safety, Con Edison. Jennifer: Tell me a little bit about Con Edison. <img border="0" src="../images/articles/client11.jpg" align="left" width="123" height="159">Alan: Con Edison began as a gas manufacturing company in the mid-1800s. Now it has matured into a transmission and distribution company delivering gas, electricity, and steam. There are about 13,000 employees in the metropolitan New York area. The company is comprised of union and management employees.   Jennifer: How did you meet Tony Dottino? Alan: Tony Dottino was doing Mind Map workshops at Con Edison. We started talking about Con Edison's Process Center Change, which is an initiative I was part of. He encouraged me to sit in on one of his PITT™ (Process Innovation Through Teams) Workshops.   Jennifer: What was it about the workshop that appealed to you? Alan: Participants are equipped with thinking skills as they related to creativity, teamwork and communication. These elements are integrated and related to process innovation. The workshop stressed an approach whereby the people closest to the problems, the workers, would be able to solve the problems with support from their managers. DCG emphasizes starting off small and working up to bigger things. It's like eating an elephant--you start out with small bites. You can't possibly devour the animal in one gulp. I remember a quote I heard in one of their seminars: "Don't look for boulders. Look for pebbles, and they'll lead you to the boulders." PITT™ Workshops gave participants the tools they needed to make their jobs easier.   Jennifer: What were the key learnings? Alan: First, training the bosses, I came to realize, was a very important element. When employees return to work, ready to apply their new training, managers can understand and support their efforts. Then, there's an equal commitment by managers and employees to change. Though DCG's approach is self-motivating, it needs top-down support. Tony taught the managers how to listen, encourage and support workers. He showed how the stereotypical controlling manager is more effective as a leader that coaches and supports.     We also learned that the best teams were those that were comprised of widely diverse people. And when you're looking for innovation and thinking, people with variety of cortical strengths are going to be able to contribute the widest range of ideas.   Jennifer: What were the challenges of integrating a new approach in your work environment? Alan: The biggest challenge was overcoming employee skepticism that this new program was not just another “flavor of the month”. Over the years, Con Edison has tried several different teamwork programs with mixed levels of success.   Jennifer: How have things changed? What sort of results have you seen? Alan: After about twenty PITT™ workshops, 350 people have been trained, and close to 70 teams have been constructed, the company has projected savings of $5 million.     More specifically, over one and a half years, one team has completed twelve projects. Normally in that timeframe, only 2 to 3 projects would have been completed. They are able to utilize the skills in their jobs every day.     These skills can be applied not just the office but to life. It helps organize thoughts. And it promotes clear and objective thinking. Many of our employees have shared these skills with their families, with excellent results. This is a great a win/win, situation in that PITT™ teaches people simple skills which can improve their business and personal lives at the same time.‡

2009-03-12T03:41:59Z

6 Jennifer Walsh interviewing Alan Homyk, Director Environment Health and Safety, Con Edison.

true Client's Corner Clients_Corner_200107

2009-03-24T00:22:48Z

2001-11-01T00:00:00Z

The benchmarking event was originally started as a forum for our clients to share their progress with one another. The results were so astounding that we opened it up to a select group of prospective companies we felt would benefit by their attendance. We have been delighted by the response and the growing list of participating companies. This year’s attendees included New York City Transit, Con Edison, JPMorgan-Chase, Hershey Foods, Dendrite, Magic Radio Stations, Tampa Energy Corporation, Florida Hospital, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Westchester Management Alliance and Training Group and Gannett Newspapers. The topics covered by the presenters included leadership, communications, team building creativity and change management, and the successes that were being achieved by them. This newsletter is written from the perspective of the attendees and by the attendees with the exception of the New York City Transit Article. 2001’s Benchmarking was held at New York City Transit’s Corporate Center with an inspirational view overlooking the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. This forum was designed to create and exchange the success that DCG clients were having in using the PITT and BrainSmart Leadership workshops. PITT, Process Innovation Through Teams, is a workshop that has helped solve problems through focused team work. Employees and management learn to communicate more effectively with deeper understanding of each other’s needs. The BrainSmart Leader is a process management workshop on how to sustain innovation by motivating people to produce leading edge results and it provides a discipline for the leadership team.§ NYCT Hosts Benchmarking 2001 We were welcomed by Joe Siano, who gave us a background of the Strategic Alignment Program of which PITT has become an integral part.  David Tweedy provided the details of the CPM successes they’ve had in integrating PITT and introduced one of the 19 PITT teams and how they have successfully deployed PITT.  Mysore Nagaranta, Senior VP and Chief Engineer, in detailing his direction for his management team was particularly noteworthy. Mysore’s executive team will be evaluated in the coming years. Each of his direct reports will have 25% of their annual review weighted to reflect special measurements in process improvement projects. The direct reports in turn are required to initiate special process improvement projects within each of their organizations. PITT is offered to the whole organization as a tool to help them achieve their performance objectives. In summary, the reactions of this year’s attendees indicate that through our clients, they have a heightened awareness of their company’s limitless potential when their existing problems are addressed and solved. This is a win/win situation! §

2009-03-12T03:48:12Z

7 The benchmarking event was originally started as a forum for our clients to share their progress with one another. The results were so astounding that we opened it up to a select group of prospective companies we felt would benefit by their attendance. We have been delighted by the response and the growing list of participating companies.

true Benchmark 2001 Benchmark_2001

2009-03-24T00:23:08Z

2001-11-01T00:00:00Z

I had the distinguished honor of attending DCG’s Benchmarking Session on May 14, 2001. To say I was impressed is a gross understatement. Tony Dottino, president of DCG, left a successful career in finance at IBM to follow his passion and create a movement in the business world unlike any other. His pioneering work combines state of the art leadership practices, creative thinking techniques and whole brain thinking that integrates each of these components with a proven financial process analysis to deliver business results. No one out there is doing what Tony does – he is the BrainSmart Leader! The room was filled with nearly fifty leaders from multi-billion dollar companies, all of whom recounted in some form or fashion the success achieved by working with DCG. Each speaker recounted the stories of how innovative thinking, creative leadership and employee involvement resulted in measurable business improvements. It was incredible to hear major business leaders stand and speak about creativity and the power of the brain at work to produce tangible results. Human Resource trainers or leading edge educators typically give such missives, but these speakers were the top leaders in companies such as Con Edison, New York City Transit Authority, JPMorgan – Chase and Jefferson Pilot. One such impressive presentation was made by Rhoda Cutler of JPMorgan-Chase. You may be wondering, ‘What is so astounding about employee opinion survey results?’ After all, any major corporation worth it’s salt conducts them. So what? The distinguishing factor in the successful analysis and subsequent company goals for actions is one of true innovation. Rhoda Cutler, with the expertise of Tony and a band of JPMorgan-Chase Team Champions radically transformed employee opinions into meaningful, specific goals for the company -- those which can be measured because they are clearly defined. They reduced the time to analyze, interpret and develop actions from months, sometimes years in traditional organizations, to a matter of 3 weeks! How did they do it? More importantly, wouldn’t you, as the business leader, want the same? The power lies in using the whole brain -- all of its cortical skills. What does THAT mean? Traditional survey approaches rely on asking employees to state their opinions and then management, sometimes with the help of a select group of employees, try to decipher them so they can later measure improvements. Surveys of this kind, however well intentioned, often leave the receivers with hundreds of questions about what the data really means. ‘What did Joe mean by ‘respect, diversity, or communication?’ The wizardry provided to Rhoda and her team by Tony was Mind Mapping. The Mind Map quickly provided focus to the Managers and Team Champions so they could select the top items to develop an action plan for 2001-2002. The results? Within three weeks the Survey Team presented clear needs to the Executive Managers on which to develop goals in order to improve employee morale. Rhoda Cutler presented the results and focused actions. Her team converged on five critical issues that will be evaluated throughout the next 12 months and then reassessed for improvement using targeted questions to measure improvements. The six critical issues are: Respect, Teamwork, Ethics, Diversity, Integrity, and Worklife. Sound familiar? Maybe, but the difference is that because of Tony’s brilliance and Rhoda’s willingness to be an innovative champion in her own right, each of these words is defined very specifically in terms of meaning, needs, and value potential to productivity in the company. There is no ambiguity at all as to what employees mean when they want to see advancement in these areas. The power of Mind Mapping provided clarity, definition, validation and measures that resulted in the following declarations: Respect: “We promise to be open, be direct, be honest and be polite.” Diversity: “We will adjust to an ever-changing road while holding onto our unchanging principles.” This declaration resulted from a divergent Mind Map which used meaningful terms such as: Geography: on the road, in-house, and telecommuting; Individuality: physical ability, opinions, lifestyle, officer, non-officer, sexual orientation; Personality: serious, humor, playful, aspirations and GIGG (a Dottino metaphor for “Good in-Good Grows!” Smart, isn’t it? No more ambiguity about what employees meant when they responded to the Company Issued Opinion Survey. Clarity reigns. Goals are directed, clear and measurable. Case by case, speaker by speaker, DCG’s work shone. Every single presenter demonstrated measurable business improvements by using the work of DCG and it’s team. True genius at work; in the business world, where time is money; where corporations scurry to retain the world’s top talent, and where increasingly, and rightfully so, employees demand more from work that a paycheck. The power of the brain, combined with leadership, teamwork and process improvements is ready to explode all over the US. These people truly ‘get it!’ § - Rhonda Hess, Hershey Foods

2009-03-12T03:52:14Z

8 I had the distinguished honor of attending DCG’s Benchmarking Session on May 14, 2001. To say I was impressed is a gross understatement. Tony Dottino, president of DCG, left a successful career in finance at IBM to follow his passion and create a movement in the business world unlike any other. His pioneering work combines state of the art leadership practices, creative thinking techniques and whole brain thinking that integrates each of these components with a proven financial process analysis to deliver business results. No one out there is doing what Tony does – he is the BrainSmart Leader!

true A Cut Above The Rest A_Cut_Above_The_Rest

2009-03-24T00:24:00Z

2001-11-01T00:00:00Z

“Fantastic!” “Exhilarating!” “Enlightening!” “Thought provoking!” Superlatives being hurled about Broadway’s Producers or a blockbuster movie? Guess again! These were some of the comments that were expressed by attendees at DCG’s Benchmarking Session on May 14, 2001 at the New York Transit Corporate Center. Jim Chernesky of Crompton Corporation said, “The session was excellent. All the presenters did a superb job of relating to business issues and productivity, and made me reflect...the topic of memory and learning were both enlightening and entertaining.” Debbie Vidiksis of Dendrite Corporation had this reaction: “The process improvement methodology issue at my company is currently in place but not substantiated by anything structured….what I witnessed at the benchmarking is that we need more to get to the benefits and the strategy...it opened by eyes!” Nathan Forde of Orlando’s Florida Hospital said, “I had a chance to meet so many interesting people who are setting new goals and sharing their results with others...matching with their accomplishments made me get new ideas for my company. I now realize through my conversations with Tony Buzan, Vanda North and Tony Dottino that the issue of diversity at Florida Hospital can be addressed with what the brain can do and I will be getting together with Tony Dottino to help me accomplish my goals. Don Benenson of Greenpoint Bank said, “The day had a positive impact. When I heard Jim Snook and Steven Daquila of ConEdison speak everything came together. I could see where the skills being taught by DCG are making a difference.” A communication to me by Scott H. Smith of Tampa Energy Corporation was quite poignant. “With the events that occurred in NY and DC this past week, you (Tony Dottino) and Jackie have come to mind. I hope that you both are fine and that your clients in NY have been managing through this situation. (Please see What’s News) I am proud of our national response of support and am hopeful that only good will come from this evil tragedy. I have felt a degree of connection with the WTC tragedy, in that I was just up in NY for the first time in May. I stayed at the WTC Marriott, which I know is no longer there and spent a bit of time in and around both towers during my short visit, which I will never forget.” Scott continued, “Reflecting on my participation in the Benchmarking, the presenters offered a compelling case for organizations to engage in new strategies focused on evolving from a corporate survival minded approach to a business results oriented approach. Techniques that have been in use that involve improved communication between leadership and teams that inspire creativity and identify tangible expected outcomes from process improvement are obviously the means to an end of this business results oriented approach. The fact that I was able to participate in a number of exercises was very valuable. My participation was well worth the time invested, as well as the opportunity to visit one of America's great cities.” Lavish praise was unanimous for the key note speaker, Tony Buzan, and his stellar segment on memory and learning. Alan Homyk and Al Muzikar of Con Edison, Dennis Collins of Magic Radio Stations, Rhoda Cutler of JPMorgan-Chase and David Tweedy of New York City Transit were heralded for their outstanding contributions. I also received many comments on the ‘mastery’ of the benchmark’s master of ceremonies, Tony Dottino, adding focus, clarity and cohesion to the proceedings. A good time was had by all! §

2009-03-12T03:54:53Z

9 “Fantastic!” “Exhilarating!” “Enlightening!” “Thought provoking!” Superlatives being hurled about Broadway’s Producers or a blockbuster movie? Guess again! These were some of the comments that were expressed by attendees at DCG’s Benchmarking Session on May 14, 2001 at the New York Transit Corporate Center.

true Jackies View Jackies_View_200111

2009-03-24T00:25:23Z

2001-11-01T00:00:00Z

Consolidated Edison, the utility serving New York City and its environs, is in the third year of an extremely successful process improvement implementation using Process Innovation Through Teams (PITT™) and BrainSmart Leader (BSL™). I recently had the opportunity to listen to people from ConEd explain what the key ingredients are to make process improvement programs successful. Not surprisingly a number of the key ingredients center around how the program is launched, and what is done to sustain it. Program Launch – Program launch starts with a good evaluation of the proposed program. Does it match your company’s culture? (Or, if you want to change your culture, does it match the one you want to create?) If the answer is no, look elsewhere. Many process improvement programs are major efforts driven from the top down. Others are driven from the bottom up. PITT™ and BSL™ follow both routes. ConEd liked the initiative and skills PITT™ developed in the workforce. They also liked the way the two programs encouraged, if not outright required, communications from the top down, bottom up and across functional lines. The second step of a successful launch involves getting buy-in from the program’s stakeholders — in this case, the employees, union and managers/executives. Every company has initiated programs that turned out to be “flavor of the month”. Employees will be skeptical of any new program. ConEd explained the benefits of PITT™ to the employees, that it is focused on helping them make their jobs easier and the company more competitive. They also set the expectations that the teams sent to PITT™ would complete 3 projects, not just one and forget about it. ConEd stressed to the union stewards that PITT™ presented an opportunity for the company and union to work together to make improvements. They also agreed improvements from PITT™ wouldn’t result in any loss of jobs for union members. The last group to deal with was the managers/executives. Here ConEd took a unique approach of selling instead of mandating the process. Al Homyk, the initial ConEd champion for PITT™, met with executives/managers to market the program. Executives and managers elected to participate and send teams. Sustaining the Effort – ConEd did a number of things to sustain the effort. First the success of the teams that went through PITT™ provided examples to use in the marketing meetings with managers/executives. The electric operations division of ConEd held recognition breakfasts for the PITT™ teams and their supervisors. Breakfasts were held on the regional and local levels every six months. Electric operations also published a newsletter, The PITT™ Report, which highlighted PITT™ efforts. The letter included a column from the group vice president demonstrating his continued support of process improvement.   Other Key Lessons – There are other key lessons to be gleaned from the ConEd experience.   <ol> <li> Process Improvement needs an owner. Someone has to do the marketing, keep the efforts in the company’s view, and deal with the myriad tasks required to get people to the training and to keep them moving through their projects.</li> </ol> <ol start="2"> <li> The managers and supervisors have to be educated as well. This is where the BSL™ workshop was very successful. At this workshop managers were taught what to expect from the PITT™ teams, how to select a team, and given the skills needed to motivate the teams.</li> </ol> <ol start="3"> <li> Make-up of the project teams is crucial. You need the right mix of people on the teams with the right mix of experience.</li> </ol> <ol start="4"> <li> Communications are critical. This comes as no surprise but you have to keep the successes of the process in front of everyone’s eyes.</li> </ol> While the steps and lessons above will have to be tweaked to best meet the needs of your organization, they provide an excellent roadmap. Is process improvement worth the effort? Just ask the people at ConEd. They’ll tell you for all their efforts they have saved over $5,000,000, improved communications between the workers, union and management, and now have a process improvement program that is largely self-sustaining.§ - Bob McGarry, Sextant Consulting

2009-03-12T03:57:18Z

10 Consolidated Edison, the utility serving New York City and its environs, is in the third year of an extremely successful process improvement implementation using Process Innovation Through Teams (PITT™) and BrainSmart Leader (BSL™). I recently had the opportunity to listen to people from ConEd explain what the key ingredients are to make process improvement programs successful. Not surprisingly a number of the key ingredients center around how the program is launched, and what is done to sustain it.

true Sustaining Success Sustaining_Success

2009-03-24T00:25:54Z

2001-11-01T00:00:00Z

All right, so ConEd has saved millions with process improvement. Obviously the company’s executives and managers love it, but what do the workers think? I got to hear the workers point of view from Jim Snook and Steve Daquila, two members of ConEd’s most successful PITT™ team. In short they love it! I have never seen such enthusiasm from workers for process improvement. Their six-person team has completed more than one dozen projects and saved ConEd more than $1,000,000! And they’re still going strong. Their projects covered a range of areas including: the use of new tools, the use of new methods, improved safety, and the establishment of new procedures. The presentation by these two men was one of the highlights of the day. They talked about the difficulty getting approval for new projects. I would have thought that by the third or fourth time they were told their project wasn’t workable they would give up. Boy, was I wrong. They expect to be told no up to five or six times before finally getting a project launch approved. They joked that if they ever got the approval right off the bat they’d think the project wasn’t worth doing. When they were asked what gave them the incentive to keep launching more PITT™ projects, they explained it was that their ideas were finally being listened to. For years they had tried to make changes without results. PITT™ gave them a discipline to follow to get heard. The fact they are listened to, and their Vice President even asks for their opinions is all the incentive they need.§ - Bob McGarry, Sextant Consulting

2009-03-12T03:59:33Z

11 All right, so ConEd has saved millions with process improvement. Obviously the company’s executives and managers love it, but what do the workers think?

true Bright Lights of Con Ed Bright_Lights_Con_Ed

2009-03-24T00:26:22Z

2001-11-01T00:00:00Z

Change Smart = BrainSmart If you ask Dennis Collins, the VP and General Manager of three radio stations for Jefferson Pilot in South Florida, what his main job is, he will tell you. “I’m a full time CHANGE agent. It’s hard to imagine the daily pressures placed on Business Executives with regards to CHANGE. Everything is changing: the market, the competition, the product, the technology, the consumer’s taste. Everything except the people working for you!” With the corporate office constantly warning Dennis “Change is in Air”, he did lots to prepare for it. He brought in consultants, who helped his team write change slogans, play change games, discuss change for endless hours and even designed the most elaborate business change plan that Dennis in his thirty years of radio had ever seen. But guess what? Nothing happened. Employees, from executives downward, wandered the hallways like business as usual. “I was frustrated and worried,” confides Dennis. “We were living in a ‘nice guy’ environment, where everybody wanted to be accepted, liked and just did not want to rock the boat.” Dennis decided to Call in Richard Israel to assist in his change initiative. The first task was to have all staff acknowledge that change was needed. Everyone in the company received a copy of ‘Who moved my cheese?’ This was a quick read and had a simple message for all. “Change or else”. Next the top team were taken off site for a day long workshop. Each division, i.e. Accounts, Sales, Production, and Promotion were given time to present their respective ‘Current Reality Situation’. We wanted to know ‘just how things are’. People tend to distort reality at this stage. Excuses abound as to why things are the way they are. A common ploy is to portray the current situation as much better than it really is. Simple as this seems, reporting the current reality takes effort, time and honesty. Each department then did similar exercises, but this time they presented their attractive future--how they would like to be at the end of the financial year, only six months away. These department presentations paved the way for the whole team to develop a group Change Map. This map showed where they were (current reality) as a company and where they wanted to be (attractive future). A Mind Map (a powerful graphic technique that provides a key to unlocking the potential of the creative brain) was constructed by all the team players as the summary of the days findings. Laminated copies were made of this Change Mind Map and placed on each executive’s desk as a constant reminder. “Things began to happen. We had two sales teams that had been at each other’s throats for years. They requested an off site joint meeting with no management present and I agreed,” continued Dennis. Richard chaired that historic meeting which proved to be a turning point. “It was all a communication problem. How easy it is to be misunderstood and how simple misunderstandings grow and fester,” stated Richard. The two sales teams came back, renewed and realigned. Soon they were working together and making joint calls! “We ended the last quarter of 2000 with spectacular results. In fact the corporate office is still talking about us in glowing terms to this day;” claims Dennis. Brain Smart leaders understand the need for clear goals that are understood by all and that have group ‘buy-in’. Open communications that flow up and down the organization and the ability for all to listen to each other with big ears is critical. No wonder Dennis Collins has earned the name ‘Change Wizard’ by his peers. Dennis shows us all that CHANGE is something we can all confront and make-work in our favor in these turbulent business times.§ - Richard Israel

2009-03-12T04:01:48Z

12 Change Smart = BrainSmart If you ask Dennis Collins, the VP and General Manager of three radio stations for Jefferson Pilot in South Florida, what his main job is, he will tell you. “I’m a full time CHANGE agent. It’s hard to imagine the daily pressures placed on Business Executives with regards to CHANGE. Everything is changing: the market, the competition, the product, the technology, the consumer’s taste. Everything except the people working for you!”

true Brain Smart Change Brain_Smart_Change

2009-03-24T00:27:32Z

2002-06-01T00:00:00Z

It has been an extraordinary year since our last DCG Benchmarking session. A key lesson that has emerged from this testing year is that with dedication, focus and commitment, workers can triumph over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. DCG is especially proud to acknowledge the work of two of our clients, Con Edison and New York City Transit Capital Program Management, in their World Trade Center recovery efforts. Therefore, we begin this issue of Mind Matters by recognizing the outstanding efforts and achievements of these two world-class organizations. To date, we haven’t found two teams of executives, managers and employees that have faced such enormous business challenges, stress, and time constraints, yet recognized the importance of giving their co-workers the necessary skills and tools to effectively handle whatever challenges arose on a daily basis. Their PITT Teams (for more information about PITT see page 2), made up of line level workers, were energizing, exciting, and passionate speakers. They definitely made the day a value add, by providing us with new deposits to our think bank. Thank you ConEdison’s, Bill Donohue, Senior Vice President of Electric Operations, and Mary Jane McCartney, Senior Vice President of Gas Operations as well as Mysore Nagaraja, Senior Vice President and Chief Engineer of NYCTCPM for helping to make this year’s event such a success through your participation. We expect that the day’s other presenters from IBM, Holiday Inn, ASCAP and Buzan Group all provided a wealth of information and experiences to the attendees. The lessons that these presenters were able to convey provided testimony that the only limits on what people can do are those placed on them by their own thinking and that the human brain has capabilities, that when properly focused, can create awesome results. This year’s event was hosted by Con Edison’s Bill Donohue and Mary Jane McCartney. In Bill’s opening remarks, he emphasized his commitment to making sure his team of general managers, managers and union workers have the tools and skills necessary to improve the way they work together and make continuous innovation a standard. As Bill continued, “PITT is about giving people the critical thinking tools/skills to better identify and analyze problems, develop the best solutions to resolve them, and effectively communicate a plan of action to the appropriate people for implementation.” He especially noted a team that we saw at last year’s session which has just completed its’ 13th improvement effort. It’s union and management teams are a model that we are working to create throughout the company. When asked why he thought PITT works so well, Bill replied, “It’s due to our people. We have truly embraced PITT as a tool to enable our employees to communicate better especially since our executives always leave their stripes at the door.” John Sugrue, a business agent for ConEdison worker’s union, provided the reasons why they were initially skeptical to support PITT. However, Bill Donohue requested of John, “All senior business agents read The BrainSmart Leader, meet with Tony as a team and then attend a PITT workshop.” They discovered that union members were learning new skills and making presentations to executive management that were creating win/win results. The workers were being heard and improved efficiency became the result. Conflicts had a business context and issues were being resolved. ‡ - Tony Dottino, Founder of DCG "I was deeply affected by this session.  I saw that with the proper process, when an employer gives his workers an opportunity to innovate they were able to come up with and design a solution to the problem, so well demonstrated by the ConEd PITT Teams.  Tony Dottino brought a lot of energy and passion to the session, making it a well balanced and stimulating day." Justin Burke, General Manager, Corbis

2009-03-12T14:10:50Z

13 It has been an extraordinary year since our last DCG Benchmarking session. A key lesson that has emerged from this testing year is that with dedication, focus and commitment, workers can triumph over seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

true Electrifing Experience Electrifing_Experience

2009-03-24T00:27:56Z

2002-06-01T00:00:00Z

So Where Did Six Sigma Really Start? The day’s opening speaker provided an interesting insight to the origin of one of today’s business crazes. In 1982 Bill Grogan was an Accounting Director for IBM with the responsibility of closing the books for all of their USA operations. At the time Bill assumed responsibility for this position, the accounting function was responding to a major reorganization that created overtime numbers that ranged from 48-75%. Needless to say, stress was increasing with morale being the ultimate casualty. Rather than attempt to manage an impossible morale problem, Bill decided to call all of his managers together and assert his leadership role by announcing, “We have got to stop or this is never going to end. We must step back and look at what we’re doing in a more thoughtful way.” I was one of Bill’s team members who had been heavily involved in IBM’s Total Quality Management efforts from 1979. So with Bill drawing the line in the sand, I began working with the managers in questioning what they were doing, why they were doing it, whom were they doing it for and was it being done efficiently? Within a nine month period of time, Bill’s team created something they called Process Management. The team was breaking down functional barriers / silos by working as a process team and the results were incredible. The error rate dropped, overtime dropped to less than 10% and morale skyrocketed. Their success became a topic for the IBM Senior Executive Strategic Conference and Board of Director’s Meeting in November 1983. Before long word was getting to IBM’s vendors and companies. Motorola adapted the Process Management concepts and decided to name it Six Sigma. Now you know the rest of the story. ‡ - Tony Dottino, President of DCG "The session was terrific!  I was amazed by the great results achieved by these companies and learned so much from them.  The story of Six Sigma as told by Bill Grogan was enlightening." Fran Riemer,Strategic Outcomes

2009-03-12T14:13:38Z

14 So Where Did Six Sigma Really Start? The day’s opening speaker provided an interesting insight to the origin of one of today’s business crazes. In 1982 Bill Grogan was an Accounting Director for IBM with the responsibility of closing the books for all of their USA operations. At the time Bill assumed responsibility for this position, the accounting function was responding to a major reorganization that created overtime numbers that ranged from 48-75%. Needless to say, stress was increasing with morale being the ultimate casualty.

true Origins of Six Sigma Origins_Six_Sigma

2009-03-24T00:28:48Z

2002-06-01T00:00:00Z

What is PITT and BrainSmart Leader? PITT ™ is a sustainable, implementable and measurable process utilizing the experiences and knowledge of the people who do the work to make efficiency and productivity improvements. It identifies what needs to be done (plan), who will do it (accountability), when it will be done (commitment) and why it must be done (tangible results) and utilizes real life work activities. A BrainSmart Leader™ sustains innovation by inspiring and motivating people to produce leading edge results. It identifies what needs to be done (vision), why it must be done (alignment), who will do it (enrollment), when it will be done (commitment) and how it must be done (creativity), accessing the full creative potential and diversity of the existing workforce. <img border="0" src="../images/articles/What_Is_PITT.gif" width="522" height="163"> “Tony Buzan totally engaged the audience by demonstrating some basic truths about how the mind works and how that applies to leadership communications.” David McIntosh, Baltimore Gas & Electric

2009-03-12T14:39:07Z

15 What is PITT and BrainSmart Leader? PITT ™ is a sustainable, implementable and measurable process utilizing the experiences and knowledge of the people who do the work to make efficiency and productivity improvements. It identifies what needs to be done (plan), who will do it (accountability), when it will be done (commitment) and why it must be done (tangible results) and utilizes real life work activities.

true What is PITT and BSL? PITT_BSL

2009-03-24T00:32:25Z

2002-06-01T00:00:00Z

As more than a casual observer of the PITT process, I have come to appreciate its value as I have directly seen its results – results that engage employees around accomplishing the things that matter most to an organization. Isn’t this the desire of nearly every organization? Yet in practice, this seems so far out of reach for companies large and small. Peter Drucker says one of the great challenges organizations are facing today is “improving the abysmally low productivity of knowledge workers” (Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself, Leader to Leader, Vol. 16., Spring 2000). Another shocking article identified that “Seventy percent of strategic failures are due to poor execution. It’s rarely for a lack of smarts or vision” (Rom Charan and Geoffery Colvin, Why CEOs Fail, Fortune, June 21,1999). How are organizations surviving with such poor focus and execution? It’s easy to see that many companies are downsizing, losing market share, or going out of business – and it is not only because of the economy – though it is convenient to blame poor productivity on the economy alone. Traditional solutions do not seem to solve traditional problems like poor communication, poor execution, poor and inconsistent leadership across the organization, lack of clarity around direction, mismanagement of people, and poor overall results. As we are well into the 21st century, leaders are faced with change like never before. Today, more progressive leaders are looking for pragmatic, simple ways of leading change through to greater productivity and profitability. Many are finding the answer in the PITT process as an important catalyst for sustainable change and profitability. As I observed the Benchmarking Day, it became clear to me, again, that those leaders who have had the courage to call a halt to the craziness, and take a different look at how they engage people within their organizations, are experiencing significant personal and financial results in their businesses. PITT is a non-traditional, pragmatic approach to improving business results. It is all about engaging the creativity of the workforce, opening up effective communication across the organization, competently leading change, and overall teamwork and collaboration. The beauty of the PITT process, as we saw in the ConEd teams’ report, is that these behaviors are integrated and implemented at the process level of the organization – where the work gets done. It is refreshing to see that the results speak for themselves – sustainable cultural change and clear financial results.‡ - Dwight Hansen and Glade Tuckett, Renaissance Partners, LLC “I really related to what the presenters were saying. The enthusiasm of the PITT teams was quite apparent, proving to me that people at the front line have good ideas and if we at PSE&G could figure out how to implement them, we could really save money like ConEdison.” John Cottrell, Manager—Customer Service, PSE&G

2009-03-12T14:49:59Z

16 As more than a casual observer of the PITT process, I have come to appreciate its value as I have directly seen its results – results that engage employees around accomplishing the things that matter most to an organization. Isn’t this the desire of nearly every organization? Yet in practice, this seems so far out of reach for companies large and small.

true Key To Productivity Key_Productivity

2009-03-24T00:33:19Z

2002-06-01T00:00:00Z

If DCG’s Benchmarking Session on April 15th reached only one person, it would have been worthwhile. Fortunately, we know that this one person was reached many times over at this amazing event, as was evidenced by the awesome e mails, faxes and phone calls we received from the attendees. Their insightful comments appear throughout this Mind Matters issue as well as the next. Here, I would like to spotlight George Sanchez, Executive Director of the Washington Heights Business Improvement District Management Association, Inc. This organization is responsible for economic development, advocating on behalf of merchants, providing supplemental sanitation services and programmatic activities. Sanchez and his staff provide major solutions all year long, interfacing with the Mayor, Governor and all government agencies. They have quite a varied and full agenda. George said, “I came to the benchmarking event fully expecting to spend only an hour or two since I had other invitations on hand. But something magical happened and I had to stay throughout the session! And I left much more energized than when I walked in!” (This is exactly what we were hoping to accomplish.) George reflected further, “I’ve attended motivational meetings, quality, TQM meetings, Xerox — you name it — and this was my best day ever at a workshop!” He took a breath and added, “This event reached more than my brain. It reached my soul!” (BINGO!!!) “I was impressed with Tony Buzan because he made associations involving memory fun! Host Tony Dottino orchestrated the event with integrity and energy!” George went on, “and what I heard from the presenters made me realize the problems that must be addressed at our company!” By George, I think he got it!!! Stay tuned to my next column for “Benchmarking Part 2”‡ - Jackie Sulé

2009-03-12T14:54:49Z

17 If DCG’s Benchmarking Session on April 15th reached only one person, it would have been worthwhile. Fortunately, we know that this one person was reached many times over at this amazing event, as was evidenced by the awesome e mails, faxes and phone calls we received from the attendees. Their insightful comments appear throughout this Mind Matters issue as well as the next.

true Jackie's View Jackies_View_200206

2009-03-24T00:34:32Z

2002-11-01T00:00:00Z

<img border="0" src="../images/articles/Iss3Me12.jpg" align="left" width="217" height="194">On Saturday, April 13, 2002 ConEdison hosted the Fifth Annual USA Memory Championship, an Olympiad for ‘thinking’ games, at their corporate headquarters in New York.  US Founder and Chairman Tony Dottino along with Co-Chairman Marshall Tarley teamed up with Tony Buzan, founder of the World Memory Championship, in 1997 to bring this competition to the US. The competition consists of five memory challenging tournament-style competitive events including: 99 Names and Faces, 500 Random Words, Speed Numbers, Unpublished Poem and a Shuffled Deck of Cards. Thirteen Mental Athletes from around the country came to match their skills against the reigning champion, Scott Hagwood. To our spectator’s surprise, they found the group to be ordinary, regular people having lots of fun, laughing at times, serious at others. As the day unfolded, it appeared that Scott would be given a run for his money! Last year Scott was the person taking aim at our three-time champion Tatiana Cooley. Now he is on the other side. As he will tell you, it is more stressful coming in as a target. "I could really feel the pressure," said Scott. One could expect that from the defending champion, but as the day progressed, Scott's nerves started to challenge him. "Last year, I walked in as a nobody...an unknown. All I had to do was focus on my memory skills and not worry about the pressure of the title or being the one to beat." The day proved to be an exciting one! Two US Records were broken: Coral Parmar, a freshman at New Jersey Institute of Technology, holds the Random Words record with 95 and Richard Rubin, a software engineer from Georgia, holds the Speed Cards record, memorizing an entire deck in three minutes and thirty-seven seconds. By the end of the day, Scott was relieved to maintain his title. British Airways, a sponsor of the competition since it’s inception, presented Scott with a pair of Business Class round trip tickets to compete in the World Memory Championships in London this August. He was also invited to speak at DCG’s Benchmarking Session, offering some of his tips and tricks on how to remember names and faces. Scott, a chemical engineer for General Electric in North Carolina, considers himself of “very average intelligence”. After being diagnosed with thyroid cancer several years ago, Scott was concerned about the effects of aggressive treatment on his mental faculties. “It’s amazing how difficult it was to concentrate,” said Scott. Determined, Scot passed the time during his treatments studying a memory-training book, practicing its techniques. The results speak for themselves.<img border="0" src="../images/articles/Iss3Me13.jpg" align="right" width="150" height="183"> “What is so great about Scott is that he took control over a very difficult situation and decided to do as much as he could about it,” commented Tony Dottino. He continued on, “I have great respect and admiration for Scott and others like him who control their destiny rather than feel victims of it and just wait for it to happen.” Shin Fukuda, a senior at the Bergen County Academies in New Jersey, placed second in the overall competition and the Bronze Medal was awarded to Mykie Pidor, a Freshman at New York University. When asked why he got involved with the Memory Championship, Tony Dottino replied, “This competition provides testimony and evidence that your brain, just like any other muscle in your body, gets stronger with exercise. And no, contrary to popular belief, memory does not diminish with age!” All of our Mental Athletes are winners! They have the confidence and self assurance of their own abilities to put their brain in a fishbowl to allow cameras, microphones and spectators to all stare at them as they recall words, numbers, etc. For more information about the USA Memory Championships, please visit the web site at: <a href="http://www.usamemoriad.com">www.usamemoriad.com</a> Consider sending your company’s Memory Champion and /or becoming one of our sponsors! ‡ Karen Pinson, Executive Director of the USA Memory Championship “Everyone in the room sat on the edge of their chairs, picked up their pens and got a sheet of paper. What Scott proves to everyone – anyone with the right focus and training can become a world class mental athlete. In business terms, anyone with the right focus and training can improve their intellectual capacity.” Tony Buzan

2009-03-12T14:58:53Z

18 On Saturday, April 13, 2002 ConEdison hosted the Fifth Annual USA Memory Championship, an Olympiad for ‘thinking’ games, at their corporate headquarters in New York.  US Founder and Chairman Tony Dottino along with Co-Chairman Marshall Tarley teamed up with Tony Buzan, founder of the World Memory Championship, in 1997 to bring this competition to the US. The competition consists of five memory challenging tournament-style competitive events including: 99 Names and Faces, 500 Random Words, Speed Numbers, Unpublished Poem and a Shuffled Deck of Cards.

true 2002 USA Memoriad 2002_USA_Memoriad

2009-03-24T00:38:08Z

2002-06-01T00:00:00Z

For some time now business leaders in the U.S. have been deploying process improvement programs to improve their effectiveness in an increasingly competitive, global marketplace. Often this work results in the removal of significant costs, whether through the updating/reworking of existing processes and/or the elimination of redundant, unnecessary work. Overall the results appear to have been positive, and each year more companies are investing in ways to improve the way they operate their business. The challenge for all leaders who embrace process improvement thinking is to determine how to sustain this way of working once the focus shifts to other important business platforms. At Johnson and Johnson, we have made a significant commitment to process improvement and we’ve already realized substantial improvements. Like other successful companies, we must ensure that that these improvements are permanently embedded into our cultures, and that is no easy task. As internal consultants, we are always on the lookout for alternate approaches to help our clients sustain the changes they make in their businesses. We look for simplicity and ease of implementation. We also look for approaches and processes that are “self-generating,” so that once taught they can readily be reapplied by executive and line worker alike. Tony Dottino’s PITT (Process Innovation Through Teams) Workshop offers leaders one such approach. It’s easy to implement and creates a momentum right from the first workshop. Initial projects, often led by line workers, address operational needs to which they feel deeply committed. PITT offers a structure that greatly increases the probability of success. In turn, these successes “fund” additional work improvements, with a gradual increase in scope and leadership involvement. The BSL Workshop (BrainSmart Leader) provides tools that help managers encourage, harness and steer this new enthusiasm and growing organizational capability. Soon managers and work teams are tackling sizable process improvements with significant bottom-line impact. Listening to the teams present at the Benchmark Day last month at Con Ed in New York City, we were impressed with the impact these teams are having on their organizations. In fact, some of the organizations in attendance have been engaged with this work for over ten years, still apparently seeing the value of PITT in getting everyone involved in making their company the best it can be. This bottom-up / top-down approach is highly enabling and easily replicable. PITT can accomplish needed improvements, foster communication and trust between line workers and upper managers, and provide on-the-job learning and enrichment. By transforming change from a threat to an opportunity, it also appears to support a flexible, proactive culture, able to reinvent itself with minimal effort to meet the constant change that we all face. ‡ George Chewning & Miriam Kotsonis, J&J Learning Services “I was really taken by the genuine enthusiasm of the presenters. They showed me that it’s really the partnership between union / management with the worker that has contributed to their success. They proved that making progress a partnership is key to getting desired results.” Vito Palermo, Retired Financial Executive, I.B.M.

2009-03-12T15:24:39Z

19 For some time now business leaders in the U.S. have been deploying process improvement programs to improve their effectiveness in an increasingly competitive, global marketplace. Often this work results in the removal of significant costs, whether through the updating/reworking of existing processes and/or the elimination of redundant, unnecessary work. Overall the results appear to have been positive, and each year more companies are investing in ways to improve the way they operate their business.

true PITT Is Power PITT_Power

2009-03-24T00:39:28Z

2002-09-01T00:00:00Z

The afternoon topics of the event will be covered in this issue. Starting off was Regina Gramola of NYCT-CPM, last year’s host, who introduced a job order cost team. The significant point was how a team of five workers defined the linkages of thirteen activities of a key work process and prioritized them in a sequence that began generating a return within two months of their initial efforts of $109k. The team plans to use the improvements of their first success in their second project that they expect to be even larger. With the skills and tools they have learned in PITT, resulting in the trust of communication between the team and executive management, the team leader is now able to streamline the overall job order cost process, saving the organization a significant amount of money, while reducing the time to execute a contract through the process.. Is cleaning a hotel room a process, an activity or a task? Does it make a difference to the supervisor or the housekeeper if it is one or the other? Does anyone really care? Candy Jones, General Manager for Holiday Inn, was faced with the challenge of increasing the productivity of the housekeeping staff so that they could clean rooms faster and individuals could clean more rooms. A team of housekeepers was assembled with their supervisor, as well as Candy, to look at how were the rooms being cleaned. The first question that I asked all of them was, “Is cleaning a room a process, an activity or a task?” I also raised this question to the audience at the Benchmarking Session. What we can agree on is that no one agreed. The real question is, does it matter how the management team and the workers viewed this piece of the work? How we think and talk about a piece of work that we do is significant. Whether it is a process (big picture), an activity (a section of the picture) or a task (the details of the picture) makes a significant difference in how people will view their work. When Candy’s team came to a consensus on this as it applied to cleaning the rooms, productivity increased significantly. The issues between management and workers were more clearly defined and they were better able to work together as a team. Marshall Tarley, Director of Leadership Development for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) did an excellent job presenting some of the fundamental principles of Mind Mapping and how he has used them for his leadership development program. Communication, teamwork and creativity of organizational teams has improved drastically. Marshall is doing some groundbreaking work in trying to bring critical thinking skills to ASCAP by tapping into the workforce’s natural creativity using their skills and knowledge to create better ways of doing business. He is enabling his workers to feel self-confident in initiating actions to implement change and they are finally feeling empowered to be accountable for the results of implementing these and producing a bottom line result. Notable to mention is that Marshall has worked out a licensing agreement with DCG so that he can teach the PITT skills to a larger audience of ASCAP employees with minimal dependency on outside consulting. Tony Buzan, the world’s leading speaker on intellectual capital, provided a few significant lessons on the importance of linking memory and repetition. He emphasized how critical this is to leaders that are trying to make changes in their work cultures. <ul> <li> Lesson 1: The importance of repeating a message that you’re giving. </li> <li> Lesson 2: In speaking with someone that you want to remember your goals, make sure that there are associations that are relevant to their life experience to get full comprehension and buy-in into achieving them. </li> <li> Lesson 3: Ensure that it stimulates some level of their imagination so that it sparks it. Make them see a benefit to themselves and create enthusiasm for what the benefits / results will be. </li> </ul> Tony demonstrated these points when he successfully predicted the results of a test that he gave to the 70+ participants with complete accuracy. He then followed this with an explanation as to the science of why he is able to predict with such accuracy. Obviously the message to the audience was clear … if knowing some of these points could help predict the results ahead of time, wouldn’t it be advantageous to utilize this information when trying to manage or lead change at the workplace? Tony’s closing comments were glowing praise to the presenters of the day and why the work they were doing was so pragmatic and related to the need of sustaining a change to an organization. Mary Jane summarized the day’s events by highlighting key points and lessons learned. She describes PITT as a meteor of change. ConEd spun off a generation of employee challenges, deregulation and demographics. “PITT helps us to bring our management and employees together, to use their skills to improve efficiency and safety for our operations. I have been to lots of PITT workshops, each with a new insight. The workshop provides teams with the necessary tools and resources to face the challenges of change.” What caught the attention of the attendees was Mary Jane’s description of her commitment and involvement with the Gas PITT Teams. She has them scheduled to review their results with her every six weeks and both Vice Presidents and General Managers are included in the audience. The teams have the skills and ability to communicate in such a focused way that she always learns something useful that helps her to be more effective in doing her job. One of the greatest results of PITT in ConEd is the communication …. people are talking and listening to each other. The general feeling of the benchmarking attendees: every company dreams of having enthused, motivated and creative employees having fun at what they do. Can it happen? Where’s the evidence that you’re doing it? STOP has become the key word for many of the attendees and because of it, there will certainly be some new faces making presentations at next year’s event!‡   Tony Dottino, President, DCG “The presenters’ application of learned principles to their daily work activities providing extraordinary results while impacting the bottom line was amazing enough, but their accompanying enthusiasm and insights far surpassed anything I’ve experienced in my thirty years of corporate life!” Evelyn Walker, Human Resources Manager, I.B.M.

2009-03-12T15:30:43Z

20 The afternoon topics of the event will be covered in this issue. Starting off was Regina Gramola of NYCT-CPM, last year’s host, who introduced a job order cost team. The significant point was how a team of five workers defined the linkages of thirteen activities of a key work process and prioritized them in a sequence that began generating a return within two months of their initial efforts of $109k. The team plans to use the improvements of their first success in their second project that they expect to be even larger. With the skills and tools they have learned in PITT, resulting in the trust of communication between the team and executive management, the team leader is now able to streamline the overall job order cost process, saving the organization a significant amount of money, while reducing the time to execute a contract through the process..

true Turning on the Lights Turning_on_Lights

2009-03-24T00:39:53Z

2002-09-01T00:00:00Z

Cutting your costs can: <blockquote> <ol type="A"> <li> Make your company shine </li> <li> Kill your bottom line </li> <li> Read on... </li> </ol> </blockquote> Companies are locked in on cost cutting like a heat-seeking missile. But are they using precision weapons? And, are they using their troops to get the laser fix on their targets? Tony Dottino presented an eye opener at the Benchmarking Session, proving with facts, figures, logic and common sense, that the cost cutting practiced by many companies today can lead to their own self destruction. The expenses related to the processes in any company can be classified in four categories: required, preventative, appraisal and failure. Required tasks are the tasks in the activity that are absolutely necessary to produce the output. They would have to be done even in a perfect world where everything was always done right the first time. Preventative tasks are performed to prevent errors from creeping into an activity. Training is an example of a preventative task. Appraisal tasks are tasks performed to find any errors. QA inspection is an example of appraisal tasks. Failure tasks are performed to correct the errors that crept into the activity. Every task performed in a business process falls into one of these categories. Our experience has shown that the percent of resources the average company typically spends on each type of task is: <blockquote> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td valign="top" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> Required 45% - 60 % </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> Preventative 1% - 5% </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> Appraisal 5% - 10% </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> Failure 25% - 40% </td> </tr> </table> </blockquote> That’s right! The average company spends 25% - 40% of its resources on dealing with the results of work errors—work that does not conform with requirements / specifications, and thereby causes problems that must be remedied. The additional work it takes to remedy those situations are called Failure tasks. With this in mind, let’s examine the effect of typical cost cutting efforts intended to raise productivity or improve deficiencies. Company X has been directed to cut costs by 10%. Where is that cut likely to be made? We can’t cut failure tasks because either we don’t recognize a task is a failure (we’ve done it so routinely we think it is required), we don’t have the resources to prevent them from happening or we don’t know the root cause. Often, believe it or not, the first cuts are preventative tasks. For a short while, Company X is satisfied that they’re on the right track. They’ve cut costs. Okay, what’s next? The typical Company X then cuts appraisal work—the efforts to check if the work has errors in it, so it can be stopped and corrected. Another short term “victory.” Costs are cut again. Company X is starting to feel good. They’re hot on the cost-cutting trail. But, that heat-seeking missile is turning in mid-air and coming right after Company X. Failures increase. And now, the errors are getting out to their customers. They end up putting more resources on failure tasks. There’s more failure work in customer service as well. Maybe Company X increases preventative tasks. Then again, maybe not - the budget is used up and they don’t want to exceed budget, especially not in the “cost cutting” environment. Failures rise even more. They spend more money on failure work, and maybe more money to restore preventative and appraisal tasks. The net—costs increases. Customers are unhappy (or fleeing) and employees are demoralized. Is there any place left to cut? The only other cuts would be required tasks. A cut here means the product or service that the activity produced doesn’t get produced. While this is an appropriate choice in a select few cases, it obviously doesn’t have widespread application. The typical cost cutting strategy used by business will almost certainly increase failures and fail to result in any long-term improvements to the business. It is not a growth strategy. So, can we reduce our costs in a way that produces long-term improvement? YES!!! When you combine senior management’s broader view of the business with the workers’ detailed knowledge of how the work actually gets done, and utilize a structured methodology, you can get meaningful results. Senior management knows what the big picture looks like, where to best focus improvement efforts and what results are needed to move the business forward. In summary, indiscriminate cost cutting methods have been proven to be ineffective. They can lead a business into a death spiral of cutting costs which increases failures, which leads to more cost cuts that lead to more failure, and so on. A successful alternative to this gloomy prospect was demonstrated several times at this session—an alternative that has been documented by many companies to reduce costs and produce world class results that last.‡ <blockquote> <blockquote> Robert McGarry, President of Sextant Consulting </blockquote> </blockquote> “The session cut through the malaise of nonsense and got down to the nuts and bolts of where leadership should be!” George Sanchez, Washington Heights Improvement District Management Association, Inc.

2009-03-12T15:38:15Z

true Best of Intentions Best_Intentions

2009-03-12T15:38:59Z

2002-09-01T00:00:00Z

Old, New and BIG As Director of Leadership Development for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), I've spent the past two years designing a leadership development program and using it to consult to and train our middle and upper level managers. This year, I was intent on introducing a staff development program that would complement the leadership program. I was seeking the opportunity to identify talent at the staff level, retain talent by giving them opportunities for growth and provide a skill set that would enable them to add value to the organization. I designed programs to develop many of their "soft" skills relating to emotional intelligence. And, to provide them with the skill set to directly impact the work itself and the bottom line, I brought in a program called Process Innovation Through Teams (PITT). PITT is the brainchild of Tony Dottino, developed in his twenty years plus years as an IBM executive and ten as president of his own consulting firm. I have been fortunate to become a licensed PITT instructor to provide these tools for ASCAP. On April 15, 2002, I sat in Con Edison’s Grand Auditorium on Irving Place in New York City and heard organizations, one after the other, present their experience with cross-functional teams utilizing the PITT program. These organizations, IBM, Holiday Inn, NY City Transit, Con Edison and others, reported solid returns on investment. And, perhaps more importantly, they talked about how their employees have been ignited with enthusiasm in bringing these returns to bear with the innovations they have created.  As I sat there, three things ran through my mind: <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> The Old News – the pace of change and competition; </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> The New News – Recently released statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting that by 2006 there will be 151 million jobs in the U.S. and only 141 million workers; a shortage of 10 million workers. </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="baseline" width="42"> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%"> The Big News to come. </td> </tr> </table> <blockquote>   </blockquote> The Old News We all know we are living in the age of change at breakneck speed – innovation, competition, deregulation, consolidation, mass customization. It’s like being on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cup ride at Disney World. Turns within turns within turns, moving faster and faster. Andy Grove, founder and former chairman of Intel, has said, “in business, only the paranoid survive.” But, business paranoia is not about the competition with others. The paranoia, or phrased in more positive terms, the challenge is move to the cutting edge of efficiency, quality and innovation, to compete with ourselves. How can we do it better? Do it for less? Consistently raise the bar? I interpret those questions as, “How can we tap into the intelligence and ingenuity of the workforce and allow them to utilize their talents?” “How do we get their buy-in and get them excited?”   The New News If you think the talent wars are over, think again. It’s just beginning, and not just for those high tech jobs. It will be across the board. While I sat at this conference listening to the success stories, Time Magazine was out with an article on the emerging shortage of talent, and Business Week had an entire section on the escalating costs of medical benefits. The bottom line is that companies will have to get a big ROP (Return On People); a big return on each person they employ. In order to attract talent, retain talent and capture their value, companies will have to develop leadership, develop their workers, and provide an environment of innovation, entrepreneurship and quality. One that encourages it, stimulates it, provides tools for it, embraces it, recognizes and rewards it. The alternative is stagnation at high cost and poor quality that will be impossible to sustain in the 21st Century.   The Big News We know that in the 21st Century, a company's key asset is its people. That’s a badly overused slogan. But, the fact is it’s true. The company, the organization, is its people. So, here’s the big news, it’s both obvious and astonishing at the same time. We intuitively know it. The big news is: the company has got to be accountable to their workforce first, in order to be able to deliver sustainable good news to shareholders and other stakeholders. We’re not talking soda pop in the water fountains here, or three-day work weeks. We’re talking about building the kind of work environment discussed above. What I have seen from my early work with PITT at ASCAP, is that PITT is a major component of building that thriving workplace of the 21st Century.‡ Marshall Tarley, Dir. of Leadership Development ,ASCAP “I continue to be impressed by the power of PITT and Mind Mapping to energize work teams to deliver real bottom-line business results.” Alan Homyk, Director of Environment Health and Safety, ConEdison

2009-03-12T15:43:18Z

22 Old, New and BIG As Director of Leadership Development for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), I've spent the past two years designing a leadership development program and using it to consult to and train our middle and upper level managers. This year, I was intent on introducing a staff development program that would complement the leadership program.

true Old, New, Big News Old_New_Big

2009-03-24T00:41:20Z

2002-09-01T00:00:00Z

On 9/11 we were all collectively hit – but how you deal with this blow is what separates the “men from the boys”. Either you lay down on the canvas, beaten and afraid to get up, or you spring back up with a heightened awareness and strength, determined to beat defeat! The latter became the thundering theme of this year’s benchmarking on April 15th. Both from the presenters’ side, highlighted by ConEdison and New York City Transit, who were at Ground Zero, and from the attendees’ perspective, who heard their stories. I could fill a book on their awe inspiring reactions. Some of these quotes appear in both this and the previous issue of Mind Matters. Now I would like to spotlight Paul Williams of Paul Williams & Associates. Paul was an international administration officer for five years, dealing with UNICEF and United Nations development programs. Paul and his associates provide seminars and speaking engagements for universities, schools, churches and service organizations (I.e. Kiwanis). Paul said, “If I had been able to attend the benchmarking session thirty years ago, I would’ve been able to better serve the city and state government, federal and international organizations I have been working with. And I really do believe that all of these agencies would benefit greatly from process too!” He expressed, “This was a great learning experience for me and well worth my trip from Silver Springs, Maryland. I learned how to learn from various presenters.” Paul went on, “From what I read in The BrainSmart Leader, combined with the infusion of tools of thinking and mind mapping at the benchmarking, it continues to help me in my dealings with the government and its’ intricate ‘process’. This was all invaluable to me!” Paul continued, “I found the ConEd presentations’ focus on union and management negotiations to serve the common good via process most stimulating…and the NYCT cost savings segment quite remarkable. The Holiday Inn story, as delivered by host Tony Dottino, really got to me because it showed how quality of service, time saving and cost efficiency can be achieved simultaneously when addressed properly.” Paul also gave a special accolade to Tony Buzan, “He tickled my brain!” Thanks, Paul, for your keen perception. On behalf of the attendees I would like to give special kudos to Bill Donahue, Mary Jane McCartney, Bill Grogan, Alan Homyk, Al Muzikar, John Sugrue, Mysore Nagaraja, Regina Gramola, The Specialty teams from ConEdison and New York City Transit and Marshall Tarley. (HUGE applause!!!) Now stand up and take a bow!‡ - Jackie Sulé

2009-03-12T15:45:27Z

23 On 9/11 we were all collectively hit – but how you deal with this blow is what separates the “men from the boys”. Either you lay down on the canvas, beaten and afraid to get up, or you spring back up with a heightened awareness and strength, determined to beat defeat! The latter became the thundering theme of this year’s benchmarking on April 15th. Both from the presenters’ side, highlighted by ConEdison and New York City Transit, who were at Ground Zero, and from the attendees’ perspective, who heard their stories. I could fill a book on their awe inspiring reactions. Some of these quotes appear in both this and the previous issue of Mind Matters.

true Jackie's View Jackies_View_200209

2009-03-24T00:41:54Z

2003-09-01T00:00:00Z

Robyn Bradshaw is a Process Manager for Bond International Software, Inc., an international software company that develops, markets, sells and supports Adapt, the Staffing Industry’s leading software application. As a new client of DCG, Bond was invited to write about their workshop experiences. This is what Robyn had to say: “We are fortunate to have a Management Team who values its employees and wants to improve the balance both professionally and personally. They recognized the need for continuous improvement as the way we should be doing business; therefore began an extensive and on-going training program. We began with the “7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” for all of our employees, not just the selected few. The next step was to provide the company with the BrainSmart Leader and Process Innovation Through Teams workshops offered by DCG. All executive members of our organization attended the BrainSmart Leader program and our workers attended the PITT workshop. Notable to mention is that our CEO attended all three days of the PITT workshop and actively participated. Both of these programs have moved all of us into a forward mode of thinking, performing and communicating. The process improvement workshop has begun to yield measurable benefits, not to mention the immediate savings realized by opening ourselves to new ideas from all voices within the company. This has also provided us with a good understanding of how to use Mind Maps when trying to convey a message. This seems to have taken off in all areas of the company as it was used for creating our new organizational chart and has also become the standard format when documenting high level processes. In order to practice the skills we learned, our CEO inspired our associates to exercise their creativity and set up a Mind Mapping competition. The goal was to use Bond’s Vision Statement and interpret it into a Mind Map that would clearly convey our vision. The Mind Maps could be created using Mind Manager software or freehand and the winning entry would be framed and displayed in our reception area, on our web site and go out to our client base via our newsletter as well. We sent out a weekly reminder and an e mail was sent to the entire staff the day prior to the deadline. Any indication of whom the maps were created by was removed or concealed and each one was assigned a number. The final entries were all posted on a bulletin board in a central and highly traveled location in our office so everyone could see them. A copy of the Vision Statement was posted on the board as well as a document where everyone could “cast their vote” for the entry that they felt best conveyed the vision. A 5-day deadline was set and all were invited to stop by and vote. Overall, this has been an extremely positive action for our company and I am thrilled to announce that Tommy Maine, Jr. Systems Engineer, created the winning entry. (See a branch of the Mind Map on the next page.) The notion to change the culture of an organization requires the necessary skills and tools which these workshops provide … and we must enforce it with passion and tenacity. Then we will move forward, we will succeed and BOND will be better for it!”‡   - Robyn Bradshaw, Bond International “The skills, ideas, energy and teamwork displayed by the Benchmark presenters proved to me that they are on the cutting edge so desperately needed by today’s corporation if they are to survive and flourish.” -Albert Muzikar, Program Manager, ConEdison

2009-03-12T15:49:37Z

24 Robyn Bradshaw is a Process Manager for Bond International Software, Inc., an international software company that develops, markets, sells and supports Adapt, the Staffing Industry’s leading software application. As a new client of DCG, Bond was invited to write about their workshop experiences. This is what Robyn had to say:

true Client's Corner Clients_Corner_200209

2009-03-24T00:42:29Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

“It was awesome…the best event I’ve ever attended…I can’t wait until next year’s,” said Anne Kelly, Director of the Federal Consulting Bureau in Washington, DC. No, she wasn’t referring to the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards, but rather to Dottino Consulting Group’s Benchmark 2003 which was held on February 28th at St. John’s University, Manhattan Campus Auditorium. Anne added, “The high level of enthusiasm from the presenters was refreshing and genuine. I learned so much from them. For example, practical skills and ideas on leadership and process management that I could take back to our workplace.” Tony Dottino was so adroit at highlighting the individuality of each presentation and what they were doing in their organizations to achieve their positive results in meeting their challenges. Dottino said, “The purpose of the DCG Benchmarking is that the audience and the presenters as well walk away with some fresh ideas to apply to their own situations to achieve similar success.” A testimonial to Tony and DCG are the awards his clients have received – ConEdison has 2 Best Practice Awards and is currently Fortune Magazine’s most admired in the utility industry… United States Tobacco has been honored by being selected to participate in a national study for leadership… and Stamford Housing Authority is an acknowledged leading authority for affordable housing for low and medium incomes. Dottino said, “The folks who took in the day will be the leaders of nurturing the human assets that are indigenous to the success of every organization.” </td> </tr> Tony Buzan, key note speaker, literally took us through the earliest stages of life on earth, then on to man’s development throughout civilization (what a time travel!) … and proved to us via a series of historical milestones that we have learned 90% of the brain’s mechanisms in the last 10 years! He said, “In comparison with other planetary development, man is a mere infant. We are also learning how little of our brain we use.” To substantiate this, Buzan showed us a sampling of hundreds of magazine covers from all over the world that only within the last several years are focusing on the brain and the dramatic findings surrounding it. Buzan gave praise to the presentations he witnessed and said, “You are the pioneers in developing and learning about the human mind and the development of intellectual capital which will continue to insure the future prosperity of companies.” “I was most impressed by The Federal Consulting Group’s passionate adoption of these principles and practices. Their groundbreaking work with the INS truly demonstrates that each and every enterprise has both the need for and capacity to grow using these simple and effective tools.” Bob Rickenbach, Managing Director, Fine Light

2009-03-12T15:54:31Z

25 “It was awesome…the best event I’ve ever attended…I can’t wait until next year’s,” said Anne Kelly, Director of the Federal Consulting Bureau in Washington, DC. No, she wasn’t referring to the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards, but rather to Dottino Consulting Group’s Benchmark 2003 which was held on February 28th at St. John’s University, Manhattan Campus Auditorium.

true The Main Event Main_Event

2009-03-24T00:42:50Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

Richard D. Fox, Executive Director of Stamford Housing Authority, provided some legitimate “razzle dazzle” through a series of revealing charts and graphs across the 40 foot stage. Step by step, he guided us through the various stages of management and union working together achieving affordable housing for low and medium income families in Connecticut. What was especially noteworthy of this presentation was the clever strategy Fox has created in bringing the union and management teams together which provided employee integrity for realizing the Stamford Housing goals and dealing with various budget cuts. Using PITT™ as a vehicle to give employees the tools and skills combined with the experience of the workforce to find the solutions. <img border="0" src="../images/articles/SHA.ht3.gif" width="508" height="270" /> “The entire program was so well designed, but I particularly related to the Stamford Housing Authority segment. This is an example of how municipal government can benefit in using a modern measurement tool to improve the quality of life for people in public housing.” Paul Williams, President, Paul Williams & Associates

2009-03-12T15:58:56Z

26 Richard D. Fox, Executive Director of Stamford Housing Authority, provided some legitimate “razzle dazzle” through a series of revealing charts and graphs across the 40 foot stage. Step by step, he guided us through the various stages of management and union working together achieving affordable housing for low and medium income families in Connecticut.

true Stamford Housing Stamford_Housing

2009-03-24T00:43:53Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

Anne Kelly, Director of the Federal Con$ulting Group was a presenter at the event, along with Marilyn Wiles, Chief Operating Officer, who’s topic focused on process changes that they are beginning to make at the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) Detention Camp in Texas. Since this impacts our Homeland Security, you can imagine how the audience was mesmerized. The INS camp in Texas has done a superb job of integrating The BrainSmart Leader and PITT™ workshops. The workers are taking the initiative in bringing together the solutions of how the operations of their detention center can be improved…and the managers are providing guidance and support in expediting the implementation of the employees’ ideas. “I was impressed by the INS presentation as given by Anne Kelly and Marilyn Wiles, for it showed the problems they were facing in their work environment… and after applying the techniques given by Tony, the results were a boost in morale, a happier workforce, proper control and a positive change.” Sebby Raspanti, New York City Firefighter

2009-03-12T16:01:40Z

27 Anne Kelly, Director of the Federal Con$ulting Group was a presenter at the event, along with Marilyn Wiles, Chief Operating Officer, who’s topic focused on process changes that they are beginning to make at the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) Detention Camp in Texas.

true Federal Con$ulting Federal_Consulting

2009-03-24T00:45:03Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

Jim Woodward, Executive Director of Health Med, and his presentation of “How Toxins Affect the Mind and the Body” was not only enlightening, but a stunner! At the workplace, toxins can cause devastation when they are inhaled or transmitted through the skin. Woodward proved his case through the “testimonies” of four workers who were involved in the World Trade Center 9-11 and thereafter. They each shared their personal experiences of how they were brought down emotionally, physically and mentally as a direct result of taking in the toxins during the recovery efforts. The personal sacrifice and unselfishness that these four heroes displayed and the subsequent results they had after working with Jim Woodward who detoxified them to recovery was most moving to all. They received a well deserved standing ovation. In response, Tony Dottino addressed the audience, “Imagine this commitment in your organization…this is the goal of DCG’s work effort.” “What I witnessed were skilled practitioners whose business results from working with Tony Dottino, demonstrated the value of applying these principles to solve business problems and achieve greater levels of profitability.” Carl Franzoni, DMHAS Processing Center, Education and Training Division

2009-03-12T16:04:15Z

28 Jim Woodward, Executive Director of Health Med, and his presentation of “How Toxins Affect the Mind and the Body” was not only enlightening, but a stunner! At the workplace, toxins can cause devastation when they are inhaled or transmitted through the skin. Woodward proved his case through the “testimonies” of four workers who were involved in the World Trade Center 9-11 and thereafter.

true Health Med Health_Med

2009-03-24T00:45:41Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

Consolidated Edison provided a stellar segment. Alan Homyk, Director of Environmental Health and Safety, presented results of a major project they had on a critical business process involving load relief. The discipline and measurement system they are deploying is definitely “Best Practice Award” caliber. Alan shared with us the criterion that ConEdison looked for when they brought DCG’s PITT™ program into the organization. Please look at Mind Map above. Tom Mimnagh, Line Manager, explained how the structure of being involved with a PITT™ workshop provided a breakthrough in identifying major areas for cost reduction. Al Muzikar, Program Director, presented a database that showed all of the results they’ve achieved. Documentation was in a system – where all success stories are stored and can be accessed by other geographical areas and teams, thereby maximizing results and learning. <img border="0" src="../images/articles/ConEd.5.gif" width="535" height="250" /> “Consolidated Edison provided a real eye opener by showing how to make this transition from an isolated activity level up to the process level which gives you much greater results.” Bob McGarry President Sextant Consulting

2009-03-12T16:19:24Z

29 Consolidated Edison provided a stellar segment. Alan Homyk, Director of Environmental Health and Safety, presented results of a major project they had on a critical business process involving load relief. The discipline and measurement system they are deploying is definitely “Best Practice Award” caliber. Alan shared with us the criterion that ConEdison looked for when they brought DCG’s PITT™ program into the organization.

true Con Edison Con_Edison

2009-03-24T00:46:49Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

One of the outstanding presentations lauded by fellow presenters was for Nick Amadori, Senior Vice President from UST who highlighted, “Nutritional Learning”…so well digested by the gathering. He shared with us UST’s participation in a study by The National Leadership Council and what the challenges are that leaders and their corporations are currently facing. A highlight of Nick’s presentation was the importance of leaders to nurture the development of their human assets… that they provide clarity of business directions and goals, establishing buy-in…and finally the most crucial application, making an environment where integrity of feedback between subordinates and managers takes place on a spontaneous basis. That caused one of the participants of Benchmark 2003 to suggest that The BrainSmart Leader be read by The National Leadership Council. Marshall Tarley, Director of Leadership Development at ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), gave the audience raised eyebrows. What was unique about this presentation was that Marshall’s PITT™ team presented to the onlookers their outstanding results sans Tony Dottino. How did they do this, you say? ASCAP worked out a licensing agreement with DCG which utilized DCG’s intellectual property thereby successfully duplicating PITT results. The Chief Operating Officer at ASCAP said, “I see tangible results, with people doing the right things through correct teaching…and we’re moving in the right direction.” As Marshall closed his presentation, “You cannot duplicate Tony Dottino, but you can duplicate his performance and get the same results.” “ASCAP impressed me as an unconventional client, who you wouldn’t normally expect to use PITT. It proved to me that through the proper PITT principles it can work in any company or organization.” Audie Serrano, Media Consultant

2009-03-12T16:31:43Z

30 One of the outstanding presentations lauded by fellow presenters was for Nick Amadori, Senior Vice President from UST who highlighted, “Nutritional Learning”…so well digested by the gathering. He shared with us UST’s participation in a study by The National Leadership Council and what the challenges are that leaders and their corporations are currently facing.

true ASCAP ASCAP

2009-03-24T00:47:26Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

On Saturday, March 1, 2003 ConEdison hosted the Sixth Annual USA Memory Championship at their corporate headquarters in New York City.   The top winner of this year’s competition was presented with a pair of Business Class Round trip tickets to London, courtesy of British Airways, a sponsor of the USA Memory Championship since its inception in 1997. While in London, our USA Memory Champion will compete in the World Memory Championship in August of this year. Ten Mental Athletes from around the country came to match their skills against reigning champion Scott Hagwood. By the end of the day, Scott Hagwood would hold his crown high with 1628 points.  When asked if satisfied with his performance Scott replied, "No, I never am."  However, Scott's feat with the cards is one of the requirements for Grand Master status, one of Scott's goals.  (To date there are no US Grand Masters.)  He still has two rungs on that ladder but with his track record, he'll climb them in no time. Ram Kolli, a graduate student at Virginia Tech, placed second in the overall competition with 1435 points.  Chester Santos, a graduate student from Golden Gate University, placed third with 962 points.  - Karen Pinson, Executive Director, USA Memory Championship “Everything was informative, but I was particularly impressed by The Federal Consulting Bureau who showed the process implemented by Tony Dottino and how useful it is.” Maria Maliborski, Plans / Controls Director, Ernst & Young

2009-03-12T16:34:06Z

31 On Saturday, March 1, 2003 ConEdison hosted the Sixth Annual USA Memory Championship at their corporate headquarters in New York City.

true Memoriad 2003 Memoriad_2003

2009-03-24T00:47:51Z

2003-06-01T00:00:00Z

We need leadership more than ever. Mergers, acquisitions, threats of terrorism, and lack of role models quickly zap our passion to engage fully, in work and in life. At what cost to you? Energy drain? Worker dissatisfaction? Strained relationships? Employee morale? Are you searching for that one magic bullet that will make it all work? Then, wake up and use the one free gift you have; your brain. It is a production warehouse of infinite possibility. What are your production obligations? If you are a marketer, it is to produce products and services that compel the consumer to spend money. If you are a manufacturer, you want on time, zero-defect production and delivery of your products for profitability. Human resources? You want a productive workforce; one that stays with you in a competitive market for talent. The list of needs to retain and profit from our employees grows every single day. What smart business leaders know is how to use the brain to make money. Sound leading edge? Perhaps kind of 'mystic'? It's not. Benchmark Day - 2003. Leaders in industry from the United State's most conservative energy maker, Con-Edison, to the state- of -the- art detoxification program of New York's fire fighters, offered account by account of the ability of human beings to tap into the infinite power of their brains, to make strides. Strides in productivity, health and life satisfaction. Sound kind of new-aged? Maybe a bit, 'out there?' Guess again. Smart leaders, life-long learners, know there is but one magic bullet to profit and succeed. This magic bullet penetrates and unleashes the human potential in each person. The magic lies within the mind of each and every employee. Find out what motivates people and you are a winner. Want to improve your bottom line, top line? Want to be the top quality manufacturer ? Want to attract and retain top talent? Then, get with it or be lost. Lost among the other leaders wondering how to 'get my people to perform?' You can be so much better. Feed your business brain. Contact Dottino's Benchmark network members. Learn how you can unleash the potential of others, and, if you dare yourself. Be a leader, now. Your brain is begging to be productive. Reward it. Rhonda Hess, Director—Leadership Development, Hess & Associates “Tony [Dottino] provides something truly unique – systems which produce actual results, benefits and cost savings.” Richard Lerman, Executive Director and Chief Administrative Officer, Associated Builders and Contractors, NJ Office

2009-03-12T16:37:24Z

32 We need leadership more than ever. Mergers, acquisitions, threats of terrorism, and lack of role models quickly zap our passion to engage fully, in work and in life. At what cost to you? Energy drain? Worker dissatisfaction? Strained relationships? Employee morale? Are you searching for that one magic bullet that will make it all work? Then, wake up and use the one free gift you have; your brain. It is a production warehouse of infinite possibility. What are your production obligations?

true Feed Your Brain Feed_Your_Brain

2009-03-24T00:48:12Z