Marina Gorbis's Blog, page 1270

Harper Lee and Dr. Seuss Won’t Save Publishing

The hottest trend right now in publishing is…things that were written more than a half-century ago. This month, publishers have enjoyed an unexpected bonanza from the vault, starting with the release of Harper Lee’s late 1950s creation Go Set a Watchman, which sold more than 1.1 million copies in North America during its first week on sale and now has a whopping 3.3 million copies in print. On July 28th, Random House will issue Dr. Seuss’ What Pet Should I Get?, another Mad Men-era manuscript expected to be a blockbuster, with a million copies already printed. Of course, the “forgotten treasure” boom can’t last forever; there are only so many relics you can pull out of the archives.

This blast of nostalgia, while great in the short term, illuminates a problematic phenomenon. Publishers are relying on successful retreads like Harper Lee and Dr. Seuss, whose names alone will sell books, and authors who come to them with a pre-existing “platform,” i.e., a built-in audience. What they’re often missing these days is a partnership with less prominent authors they cultivate over the long term, enabling them to be far more successful than they could on their own.

Though exact numbers are hard to come by, there’s a clear consensus that following the economic shocks of 2008, advances paid to writers are declining—in some cases precipitously. And the major publishing houses are increasingly eschewing midlist authors—those who sell under 15,000 to 25,000 copies—in favor of focusing on a few titles that are expected to be blockbusters.

Publishers’ caution makes logical and economic sense. That risk mitigation is their industry’s analogue of the sweeping shift away from generous corporate pension “defined benefit” plans to more tightly-controlled “defined contribution” plans like 401ks. This “show-me-your-audience” skepticism may be a smart move. However, it also risks hastening the decline of the publishing industry, because when authors (or celebrities) have built up enough of an independent fan base, they may well balk at accepting the standard 15% royalty on hardcover book sales or 25% of ebook sales, when they could earn up to 70% if they self-published. This is especially dangerous because publishers have become so reliant on the power of their stars’ brand names – as evinced by the massive pop of “Robert Galbraith’s” crime novel The Cuckoo’s Calling once he was unmasked as JK Rowling.

Will every prominent author migrate to self-publishing? Certainly not. Popular business author Seth Godin, for example, experimented with it and later moved back to his publisher, Portfolio (which also released my book Stand Out). Many authors appreciate the turnkey services publishers provide such as distribution, design, marketing, foreign rights sales, and editing.

But it’s risky for publishers to assume that will be sufficient to keep their top authors in the fold. Each of these services is becoming more commoditized as time passes: physical distribution is less essential as readership migrates online, and affordable design services like 99designs have proliferated (even popular author Tim Ferriss used the service to prototype designs for his commercially-published bestseller The 4-Hour Body). It’s become accepted wisdom among authors that you are responsible for publicizing your book (and that it’s a terrible mistake to rely solely on your publisher to market it for you). And high quality editing, while it’s the lifeblood of a good book, is also relatively easy to come by on freelance sites like Upwork. The sites aren’t solely the province of cheap providers with a shaky grasp of English; they’re often populated by journalists who lost their jobs in the past decade, including more than a quarter of all magazine journalists and a whopping 16,000 newspaper reporters and editors.

So what can publishers do to remain relevant beyond trawling attics for lost masterpieces and signing deals with Snooki? Here are five strategies that can help ensure publishers don’t lose their most prominent authors the moment they rack up enough email subscribers or social media followers.

Become a full partner with authors. Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha, and Chris Yeh suggested in The Alliance that employers and employees should begin to think of careers as short-term “tours of duty.” For the sake of their survival, however, I’d argue that publishers should take the opposite tack, striving to build lifelong professional relationships with the authors they represent, so that their success is win-win. A model like Madonna’s deal with Live Nation might serve as an example; they’re taking a stake in her as a brand, with everything from records to concerts to licensing on things like perfume. If a publisher were able to sign a 360 degree deal like that with its thinkers—tied into speaking, conference, and teaching/online course fees, and mutually benefiting from raising the author’s profile—interesting synergies could result.

Be more transparent with data. If I were to self-publish on Amazon, I’d see thorough, up-to-the-minute sales data about how my book was performing. Publishing through a traditional house? Most of us get weekly Nielsen BookScan reports—courtesy of Amazon—and sales figures every six months from our publisher. It’s an 18th century level of opacity that seems shockingly out of date for authors trying to make smart marketing decisions about how and where to promote their books. How can you even know, if you get zero real-time feedback? (A hat-tip here to Penguin Random House, Portfolio’s parent company, which recently launched a comprehensive Author Portal that tracks weekly sales, putting them light years ahead of the competition when it comes to analytics.)

Build their own brand and audience. Let’s face it: most publishers have very little to offer authors when it comes to direct marketing, because (unlike Amazon) they generally don’t have buyer data or their own lists. (Harvard Business Review Press, which published my first book, Reinventing You, is a notable exception.) Instead, most publishers rely on the author to move copies by selling to his corporate clients, or her personal email list, leaving authors to wonder what, if anything, they’re adding to the marketing mix.

These days, few publishers have a distinct brand identity; most readers know what to expect from a John Grisham novel, but they rarely know what to expect from a given publishing house, if they’ve even heard of it in the first place. Most readers don’t decide what to read according to the logo on the spine. But publishers could seek to develop their own unique brand identity, a la Harlequin romances, so that readers could become fans of the brand and discover new authors because they know that if so-and-so published their favorite author, they’re likely to enjoy their other titles, as well. That would make it far easier for the publisher to develop their own email list and social media following, enabling them to go to authors with a valuable asset that they rarely possess now: an audience bigger than the author’s own. Would having a direct channel to consumers be irksome to Amazon, as well as the independent and chain bookstores with whom publishers work? Yes, of course. But it may be worth it. As tech thinker Gil Elbaz has noted, “Whoever has the most data will win.”

Connect authors to each other. One special ingredient that publishers retain—and that authors would have real difficulty replicating on their own—is convening power. Publishers have assembled cadres of talented thinkers but almost never bring them together to connect, trade best practices, or get to know one another. That’s a lost marketing opportunity, but even more importantly, it’s a loss in terms of creating what musician Brian Eno called a “scenius”—a kind of ecosystem of mutually-reinforcing talent, a la Bloomsbury or the Harlem Renaissance. That might sound lofty, but when writers get to know one another, they’re more likely to both cross-promote (enhancing their marketing) and cross-pollinate (enhancing their ideas). Publishers who could provide these kind of connections would likely find authors clamoring to work with them.

Double down on quality. If publishers are going to make themselves indispensable, one way to do it is a quality play, bringing together a crack team that provides white glove service to create an amazing product across editing, design, and more. Personally, I’ve received excellent editorial and design help from my publishers, but that’s not the case with every author these days. One friend who worked with a major publisher told me in all seriousness, “I don’t think my editor read my book.” Another friend reported that upon submitting the first draft of his manuscript, his editor had exactly zero edits for him and immediately moved it along in the process. If these publishers continue to act as a rubber stamp, the only service they’re really offering their authors is hassle-avoidance; for self-published authors, it still takes time and effort to assemble your own freelance team. Getting serious about quality would not only help commercial publishers offer real value to their authors, but would also help their books stay distinctive in the face of mass self-publishing.

Despite the dire news surrounding it, the U.S. book and journal publishing industry is still doing well, bringing in nearly $28 billion last year, a 4.6% uptick from the year prior. But then again, AOL still has 2.2 million people paying for dial-up access, bringing in more than half a billion dollars in revenues last year, so profitability doesn’t equate to long-term prospects.

With strategies like these, publishers can increase their value proposition and position themselves as essential partners in their authors’ long-term success, cementing their profitability for years to come. Because hoping to find another lost manuscript is not a business plan.

The Essential Guide to Crafting a Work Email

You, like me, probably rattle off emails quickly, all day (and sometimes all night) long. And that means the people receiving your emails are doing exactly the same thing. Whether this is good or bad for us, generally speaking, is an open question. But until we all get better at dealing with email overflow, how do you make sure the ones you send get noticed – and for reasons other than an unfortunate Freudian typo?

First, the basics. They may seem obvious, but they’re easy to forget.

Text

– Enough with the lower-case “i” and lack of periods. Even the little things, like using proper capitalization and punctuation, can help your messages stand out in an inbox full of acronyms, fragments, and misspellings. And as business writing expert Bryan A. Garner says, “It takes less time to write a clear message the first time around than it does to follow up to explain what you meant to say.”

– However, there are occasions when an emoji or typo may be appropriate. A smiley face could work if you’re mimicking the style of the person you’re communicating with, says Harvard Business School PhD student Andrew Brodsky. And a strategic typo might be smart if your message requires a high degree of authenticity (to make it seem like you’re not carefully crafting your message), especially if you’re in a position of power. But before hitting sned (see what I did there?) make sure you ask yourself whether it’s “important in the situation to seem more emotionally authentic (by making errors) or competent (by making no errors)”?

– Can people actually read your green cursive font? Probably not. Remember that an email is, aside from a piece of communication, a designed experience. A distracting font, or more than three types of fonts, can take away from your message (or cause someone to hit “delete”). Some good choices include Arial, Helvetica, Lucida Sans, Palatino, and Verdana, according to social entrepreneur Dan Pallotta.

– Don’t forget a subject line that’s short and descriptive. If you need the recipient to do something as a result of your email, include a clear call to action.

Length

– No one will read huge blocks of text, says Pallotta. You can break them up by visually highlighting key messages, explains Bridgespan Group’s Katie Smith Milway, or stick to the rule of composing a single screen of reading or less.

– But even if you trim the fat, keep the meat intact, instructs Garner. “Consider your message from their perspective. They aren’t as immersed in your project as you are, and they probably have many other things going on. So remind them where things stood when you last sent an update, and describe what’s happened since then.”

– Above all else, get to the point quickly. No need to butter anyone up (though an authentic complement here or there is probably OK) in order to get the job done.

You and Your Team



Business Writing

Don’t let poorly-crafted communications hold you back.

Revisions

Yes, there are rules for this. Generally speaking, the number of recipients dictates how many revisions you should do, according to author David Silverman:

1 to 5 recipients = 2 to 4 revisions
5 to 10 recipients = 8 to 12 revisions
Company-wide or to Executive Committee = 30 to 50 revisions

The crux of his advice is that no email should be clicked-to-send without revision. Other suggestions from Silverman include deleting anything written in the heat of moment or that seems especially amusing or clever, and allowing a day to go by before hitting “send” – who knows, the issue that provoked your typing may be resolved outside your inbox. (According to Milway, even setting a two-minute delay on your email can make a difference.)

Timing

In general, avoid sending emails at the end of a workday or on the weekend (there are exceptions, of course, which I’ll talk about in a moment), or when you know people don’t have the time to read and answer them.

Recipients

The usual rules apply: Don’t include anyone who might be confused about why they’re on the email, and avoid using BCC unless you’re sure it’s necessary, says Garner. ” It could get you a bad reputation as being indiscreet.”

And when you’re on the receiving end, please don’t be that person who starts the “Reply All” chain from hell. 

Aside from the basics, there are a whole bunch of email tips that apply to specific circumstances. Here are a few to use in tricky situations.

When there’s a conflict or bad news. For the most part, these are best dealt with in person. Email, while great for some things, can be a bad place to handle a touchy issue because it’s incredibly difficult to predict how emails will be interpreted by the recipient. Andrew Brodsky says there are a couple of reasons for this: first, people infuse their own emotions into a message, regardless of the sender’s intent; and, second, there are a lot of contextual factors (how long you’ve known someone, for example) that come into play.

Whenever you can, he says, put yourself in the recipient’s shoes before hitting “send.” It’s also a good idea to explicitly state your emotions to prevent frantic guessing on the other end of the message.

Author Joseph Grenny advocates for asking yourself the following question before considering an email about conflict or bad news: “Can I do this well without seeing her face — and without her seeing mine?” We gather important information from faces, he notes, and we tend to be more ethical and empathetic when we’re looking someone in the eye.

An email could be OK when you have a long history with someone and have a good grasp of their emotions. But you should approach your note by stating your intent before delving into the message and immediately change mediums if things start to get emotional. Pick up the phone or use Skype when tension arises.

When you’re unsure of how to respond. We’ve all gotten tricky emails about “a complex negotiation, or a politically sensitive situation. Or maybe it’s just from a person who unnerves you,” writes CEO Anthony Tjan. He first recommends buying some time, either with a short “got your message” or by not responding for 24 hours (“not responding is its own kind of response, which can often work to your advantage”).

Then he suggests employing what he calls the “Four C’s” as you consider how to respond: Context, content, contact, and channel.

When you’re emailing someone powerful. It can be terrifying to email a high-powered executive from any company — or even your CEO. Yet sometimes it’s a good idea, according to writer and entrepreneur Peter Sims. Most higher ups, he says, crave insight from the front lines of their companies. And even though it’s fairly likely you won’t get a reply, there are well-documented incidents of cold emails opening up a productive conversation or being the start of real change within an organization. Sims also offers some tips for when the best time to reach a busy executive is, and rules of thumb on persistence.

Of course, much of the advice above applies, including keeping your message brief and to the point.

And finally, a reminder: While email is something we do constantly, don’t let it become a mindless pursuit. It’s not the only method of communication at your disposal — even if it is the default.

People Offer Better Ideas When They Can’t See What Others Suggest

Companies from BMW to Kraft have invested a good deal in soliciting “open innovation” ideas from consumers, but the results have been underwhelming: Of the more than 23,000 ideas gathered by Dell’s Idea Storm site, only 2% have been put to use, and Starbucks has implemented an even smaller fraction of the 200,000 suggestions submitted to My Starbucks Idea (including 6,000 for new varieties of Frappuccino).

We think companies can do better. The key, we’ve discovered, is preventing participants in these forums from seeing the same body of suggestions as their neighbors. That’s because of the perverse dynamics of brainstorming.

If you gather consumers together to generate ideas, you’ll usually get more participation and more creativity than if you asked those same people individually to put ideas in a suggestion box. But these gatherings quickly find their creativity limited because of social convergence: The participants all see the same ideas, with the result that people pick up on each other’s suggestions rather than offer fresh insights. Other participants keep quiet, either because they worry that their ideas might be ridiculed or because a few talkative people dominate the conversations.

Fortunately for open innovation, the online environment makes it easy to overcome this problem.

The trick is to avoid clustering, where the same people have the same experiences. We want Mike and Beth to see and discuss each other’s ideas, and Beth to interact the same way with Dan, but we don’t want Dan to loop back into Mike’s ideas. No two people see the same batch of ideas, so each person retains an independence that helps to combat social convergence. These partial connections within the overall group of participants provide some diversity while diminishing the pressure for conformity. You still have plenty of interaction, but it’s distributed across the full group, which can be of any size.

To do this, you need anti-clustering software, which is not difficult to create; we were able to develop it ourselves as part of our research. The software makes sure that no participants share the same body of ideas and the same neighbors as anyone else. We applied it to an idea forum for a fictional company trying to develop a better mobile-banking application. We recruited participants and randomly divided them into clustered or nonclustered groups of 10 to 15 people each. To get the discussions going, all the participants had to offer an initial idea, which only their neighbors were allowed to see. We then asked everyone to offer additional ideas, which could be new or could be a more developed version of the first. The nonclustered groups’ suggestions were more creative and had higher market potential than the clustered groups’, according to a panel of independent judges. In other words, less interaction meant more innovation. (We describe our findings in detail in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Marketing Research.)

In practice, this means that Dell would be better off imposing some structure on its Idea Storm sessions: Instead of making all ideas and comments available to everyone, Dell should limit the exposure. The company would get a boost to R&D that could eventually pay off handsomely.

Of course, Dell or any other company would need to be upfront about what it was doing or it would risk controversy (think of what happened to Facebook when it manipulated the newsfeeds of some participants). The company would do well to explain its thinking, emphasize the randomness of the assignments, and allow participants to see all submitted ideas at the end of each session.

There’s also no reason Dell couldn’t randomly reshuffle participants’ connections over time, as long as it continued to limit clustering. Friends who missed out on each other’s postings in early sessions could eventually expect to be connected.

We looked only at clustering, but software allows other kinds of adjustments. If a participant isn’t contributing, or is contributing too much, he or she could be reassigned to a different place in the forum. People could be reassigned over time by theme or product category — or jumbled together in a diverse mix if that yielded better results. Once participants were comfortable with some structure, companies could try out a variety of approaches in real time, just as Amazon relentlessly experiments with its user experience.

Experimentation is easy, so these structuring techniques could work in any kind of online forum, starting with general chat groups. All that’s needed is some kind of metric for assessing results, so that approaches can be compared. Who knows, maybe even technical-help forums could benefit from some structuring. And with companies relying increasingly on online forums for customer engagement, these software-imposed structures could eventually become a key tool in a social media strategy.

There are multiple reasons for setting up open innovation initiatives with consumers. Both the suggestions and consumers’ votes on them serve as feedback on existing offerings, and participation can bind people to the brand. Even the act of setting up a forum can boost the brand. We suspect that certain companies perceived as stodgy have sought online suggestions mainly for the cachet.

But if you’re seriously trying to use open innovation to boost R&D, imposing limits can make for better results, not just in product ideas but in better customer experiences overall.

To Hold Women Back, Keep Treating Them Like Men

Are men and women different? While almost every executive I have ever met, anywhere in the world, says yes, most diversity policies are designed as if the answer were no.

Last week, the Global Head of Diversity of a leading professional services firm told me that she “didn’t want to be treated differently.” That, I answered, is why most professional services firms are still hovering well below the 20% female partner level. As long as men and women are treated exactly the same by organizations, most women will continue to be shut out of senior roles.

And yet for the past 30 years, managers have been taught to do just this: treat men and women exactly the same. That is considered the progressive thing to do. Any suggestion of difference was, and often still is, labelled a bias or a stereotype, especially by many women, eager to demonstrate that they are one of the guys, or the in-group.

The business world’s denial of differences hurts women, and excludes them in a myriad of ways – consciously and unconsciously – from leadership. Because differences are not recognized, women are too often simply judged as “not fitting” the dominant group’s systems, styles and patterns. There were good reasons for pushing “sameness” in the past, and the laws of many countries underlie today’s companies’ insistence on similar treatment – being treated the same is, after all, better than being treated worse. But today, those are not our only options. It’s time for companies to adapt to women – or watch them walk out the door to competitors who will. In all the companies I work with, lack of recognition of basic differences like career cycles, communication styles, or attitudes to power is enough to eliminate one gender and prefer the other.

When the roles are flipped – when females form the dominant group – ignorance about differences also hurts males. This is the argument of Michael Thompson, one of America’s leading experts on the psychology of boys and the author of Raising Cain. In a speech last week at the Chautauqua Institution, he argued that because eight out of nine U.S. teachers today are women, schools today judge boys learning styles subpar because they deviate from the norm set by girls and women. Instead of adapting to boys’ differences (“more physical energy, developmentally less mature, use language differently,” as he put it), we insist that both genders behave the same, and medicate our sons to calm them down. According to Thompson, 11% of American boys are diagnosed as having ADHD and are on drugs for it. That’s 85% of the global ADHD drug consumption. And since the late 1990s, boys have been more likely to drop out of school than girls. Imbalances like these help account for the growing gender imbalance in higher education (60% of university graduates will soon be women in the U.S.).

We are creating a paradoxical situation: An educational system that produces a majority of female graduates (the majority of BAs, MAs and PhDs in the U.S. are now women), and feeds them into an economic system that has not yet adapted and keeps recognizing and promoting male styles as superior.

It’s not that women in business or boys in school need “special treatment.” Rather, every organization aims to maintain a high-performance meritocracy. But the simplest, most basic measure of this, that both genders succeed equally, remains an elusive one. What we see instead are unconsciously self-preferential systems being created, their leaders convinced that gender shouldn’t matter.

By the way, I’m not arguing that gender differences are innate. Innateness doesn’t matter for the purposes of this discussion. After all, businesses don’t debate whether the differences between Chinese and American employees are innate. They know that to work with and for the Chinese requires learning their language and culture. Working across genders is similar. Companies and managers, as well as teachers and educators, will need to learn the real and imagined differences between genders – and adapt to them if they want to work with and for both men and women. They urgently need to become “gender bilingual” if they want to tap into today’s talent pool.

In education, this does not mean creating boys-only schools, which doesn’t solve the challenge of learning to learn together. For business, it does not mean continuing women-only networks and coaching and programs, which doesn’t solve the challenge of learning to work effectively together. Nor does it mean rolling out the kind of training that insists we are all the same, and the only obstacle is bias. (Bias is a problem, of course, but it’s far from the only one.)

It does mean getting leaders to prioritize gender balance and be familiar with the kind of cultures and systems that enable it – and those that eliminate it.

How?

Strong leadership: Clear leadership from the highest levels that gender balance is a strategic priority for the organization.
Committed leaders: Aligned senior teams that are both convinced that change needs to happen, and equipped to lead it.
Skilled and accountable managers: Managers who are skilled at managing across gender differences – both as talent and customers – and focus on it as an organizational priority.

Denying the existence of differences between men and women (or boys and girls) was a useful phase we had to go through. It got us to here. Now that the reality of gender has changed, so should our approach. Managers – both male and female – should embrace the differences and get everyone to succeed.

How to Fall Back in Love with Your Job

Even exciting jobs have boring days. And when you’ve been doing the same tasks, going to the same office, and working with the same people day in and day out, you’re bound to fall into a rut on occasion. When that happens, how do you recognize what’s happening and counteract it? What can you do to revive your interest in your work? And how do you know the difference between being in a temporary slump and needing to leave your job?

What the Experts Say

“One of the toughest things about a rut is acknowledging that you are in one,” says Daniel Gulati, a tech entrepreneur and author of Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders. We tend to either plod along unhappy and dissatisfied, or overreact to the slightest hint of tedium and quit. “All of us have parts of our job that feel like a grind,” says Gretchen Spreitzer, professor of business administration at the University of Michigan. “But you have to look for the things in your everyday work life that give you joy, and find ways to bring more of those into your job.” Here’s how to revive your interest in your work.

Take action

Some people make the mistake of assuming that the slump will pass or that there’s nothing they can do. But you shouldn’t sit back and hope things change. Even small, incremental changes to your everyday work can prove transformative. The key is to take small actions, and to do so deliberately. “The vast majority of people lack a coherent, actionable strategy to get from dissatisfied to satisfied to wildly satisfied,” says Gulati. “But even the act of putting together some thoughts about what might improve your job tends to have a positive effect.”

Think about what you like doing…

Spend a few days mapping your energy and engagement levels at work every few hours. People often begin to notice obvious peaks and valleys to their days—times when they feel productive and engaged in their work, and other times when their attitude sours and their energy wanes. Use that information to pinpoint what tasks make you feel motivated and absorbed. We have a tendency to fixate on the aspects of our job that make us miserable, which can make us feel even worse, says Spreitzer. “Try instead to find the things about your job that make you eager and engaged,” whether it’s brainstorming with a small team, or interacting one-on-one with clients.

…And what you’re good at

“There’s a real correlation between what you’re good at, what makes you happy, and what other people are asking you for,” says Gulati. If you aren’t feeling good about what you are contributing or are struggling to find aspects you like, have a look through your inbox to see what expertise, tasks, and input people are requesting from you. Assuming you enjoy that work, perhaps you can shift some of your responsibilities or attention to be more focused on doing that type of work.

Redesign your role

Don’t assume that you have to leave your job or your organization in order to create a job that feels more fulfilling. “There are lots of ways to make changes around the edges of your job description to play more to your passions and talents,” says Spreitzer. Volunteer to take on a new project to give yourself exposure to tasks and departments outside of your normal role. Work with your colleagues to see if you can participate in different meetings or take more ownership of client relations. “It’s very rare that people reject a free, smart pair of hands,” says Gulati. “Try to start doing the job you want, even in a very, very small way.” And if you aren’t able to accomplish such shifts on your own, approach your boss. “Make it known you want more challenges that fit your goals and talents,” says Gulati. Your boss might have opportunities you haven’t considered.

Seek out passionate people

Our work relationships have a profound effect on how we perceive our jobs. And since passion can often be contagious, surrounding yourself with energetic people, whether at the office or in professional networking groups, can help revive a sagging interest in work. Attend professional networking events and mixers in order to meet peers. Meeting new people committed to their careers and explaining your own goals and passions to them can help renew your sense of mission and expose you to aspects of your job that you may not have previously appreciated. Or offer to mentor or teach new colleagues. “Our skills grow and deepen when we teach others,” says Spreitzer. And you don’t have to be a seasoned executive to be a strong mentor. Mentoring others can also offer new meaning to your everyday tasks, and “one of the things most associated with feeling energized at work is feeling like our work has meaning or purpose,” she says.

Celebrate your accomplishments

Don’t just keep a daily “to-do” list. Start keeping a brief “did” list each day with all the things you accomplished. It might be as big as acing a presentation or landing a new contract, or as simple as responding to a dozen important emails or filing your expense reports. But crafting the list can give you a renewed appreciation for the things you’ve been able to achieve for the day, which often produces a little emotional boost. “If we start lamenting the things that aren’t working in our job, it puts us in a more negative place,” says Spreitzer. Focusing on the positive can create a virtuous cycle. Reviewing your accomplishments can also help you identify what you’d like to be doing more of. “Then you can use it to build a bridge between what you have achieved and what you want to work on,” says Gulati.

Know when to move on

“You can have bad days, you can have bad weeks, but you can’t have bad months,” says Gulati. If you’ve tried aligning your responsibilities with your passions, networking with interesting people, and setting attainable goals and you still feel as though your job is more grind than gain, it may be time to take more drastic action. You might explore whether there’s a different role in the organization where you can bring more of your strengths. And if that doesn’t work, “it may be time to try something new,” says Spreitzer. Figuring out the path ahead can sometimes be difficult for ambitious, successful people, says Gulati, because they tend to have a lot of options. “Trying to adapt to the situation around us can be a really useful strength, but it can also be a gating factor when it comes to making progress in your career.” The key is to explore what you enjoy so you make the smartest jump.

Principles to Remember:

Do:

Do a self-audit of tasks and responsibilities you enjoy.
Make a regular list of things you’ve accomplished. It will give you a renewed appreciation for what you’ve achieved.
Look for colleagues and other professionals who are engaged in their work. Their enthusiasm can be infectious.

Don’t:

Dwell on what you don’t like about your job.
Assume your job is fixed. There are often small, incremental changes you can make to your role that make it more enjoyable.
Move on hastily.

Case Study #1: The power of enthusiastic peers

Corrie Shanahan was feeling restless. Though she liked the stability of her role as head of communications for the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), which finances private-sector ventures in developing countries, she could feel her interest in her role beginning to wane. “I had just been doing it awhile,” says Corrie. “I found myself becoming less excited over time.”

Then a colleague invited her to give a talk about the work of the communications department at an orientation program for new hires. Corrie was surprised at how much she enjoyed the experience. “Having to articulate the mission of the organization to new employees reminded me why I was there,” she says. She soon began volunteering to speak regularly at the on-boarding sessions, finding that explaining the organization’s aims helped her to find renewed purpose in her work. It also put her in touch with newcomers “whose contagious enthusiasm rubbed off on me.”

She also took over leadership of the IFC’s professional women’s group. The role put her in touch with a wide range of women across the organization, which not only gave her a chance to network with peers but also to mentor younger women and build new relationships. “Meeting these women gives you more perspective on your own role and career,” says Corrie, who happily stayed with the job for several more years before leaving this year to found a consulting practice specializing in leadership and communication. “You have to find the things you currently enjoy about your job, and see what you could expand or amplify.”

Case Study #2: Taking on new tasks

Several years ago, Sarah Flanagan began to feel dissatisfied. She was working as an account manager for Events.com, an events registration software company, but didn’t feel as challenged as she would have liked. There was a lot of excitement and buzz inside the company around some new products in development, but Sarah felt isolated from those efforts. She knew she’d like to add more marketing tasks to her role because she really enjoyed them, but she didn’t know how to go about it. “It made me feel stagnant,” she says.

An opportunity to spread her wings came in a meeting soon after. The company needed a temporary marketing site for an upcoming product launch, but all of their developers were busy readying the product for the market. “I was just in the meeting as support staff,” Sarah says, “but I spoke up and said I’ve been taking HTML classes at night.”

She took over the launch of the temporary marketing site, and really enjoyed the experience. “I loved that I had something that I could physically look at and say I built this,” Sarah says.

Because she had done a good job, her bosses encouraged her to take on more marketing responsibilities in addition to her account management tasks. Over time, her job began to tilt more in the marketing direction, though she continues to retain oversight of some client relationships. She’s happy she’s been able to not only stay at the company, but also to shift her job into something that’s just right for her. “I come to work excited every day, and I hope to be able to do the same for years to come,” she says.

Prevent Email Horror with a 2-Minute Send Delay

Marketing manager Grier was just plain tired of colleagues playing the expert in her domain. When a designer sent her an e-mail questioning her choice of quotes for a new product brochure, she snapped.

“How about you do your job, and I’ll do mine!” she typed back rapidly and punched “send.” A split second later, she wished she hadn’t. Her better self knew that a dose of circumspection would have saved her from the now face-to-face damage control she had to do with an offended colleague.

When was the last time you sent an email that seconds later you wished you hadn’t? Maybe you forgot an attachment? Maybe you forgot to check spelling or to delete the e-trail below your message that had personal comments — too personal. Or just maybe, like the fictitious (but realistic) person I’m calling Grier, you were irritated, and you realized you should have slept on your response before firing it off?

You and Your Team



Business Writing

Don’t let poorly-crafted communications hold you back.

It’s for these sorts of reasons that several years ago I decided to put a two-minute delay on all of my office emails. It’s come to my rescue many a time, allowing me to pop into my outbox and fix inaccuracies; add the PowerPoint file I forgot to attach; or re-edit a sensitive message for nuance. I’d love to say it’s simple to get started, but if you use the version of Outlook that I use — Outlook 2013 — you’ll need to navigate a rabbit’s warren of clicks and commands. It’s worth it.

Go to the “Home” tab and click on the “Rules” drop down
Choose “Manage Rules and Alerts”
Under “Email Rules” choose “New Rule” and under “Start from a blank rule” click on “Apply rule on messages I send.” Click “Next,” which will show conditions — you don’t need to choose any of these, just click “Next” again.
On the final menu (the “Actions” page), check “Defer delivery by _ minutes” and fill in the blank. I choose two minutes, because it often takes me a minute to realize what I’ve forgotten!
Click “Next,” and fill in any exceptions to your new rule.   Then, click “Next,” and “Finish” (Don’t forget this last step, or all your clicks will be for naught.)

(For info on different versions of Outlook go to: support.office.com and search for “Delay or Schedule Sending Messages.” One caveat: users report that it doesn’t work on Outlook for Macs.)

If you use Gmail, you’re in luck, as Google just added an “undo send” feature, which is much simpler. To enable it:

Go to the little cog icon in the upper right-hand corner and select “Settings.”
Look a third of the way down the page for the “Undo Send” section.
Check “Enable Undo Send” and then choose between 5, 10, 20 and 30 second windows of unsendability. Again, I’d go for longest interval to give your mental red flags a chance to flutter.
Make sure you hit “Save Changes” at the bottom.

Three Common Saves

Preventing a pickle like Grier’s is one way that a delayed send can save you from yourself. But it’s likely not the most common. In my experience, the top three rescues are from crossed messages, forgotten credits, and ingratitude.

Crossed messages occur when one reads e-mails out of order, answering a question that a subsequent email has rendered obsolete. Or, when one efficiently answers screens full of email offline during a flight — only to synch up hours later and find the criteria changed when you were somewhere over Nebraska. Then there’s the group e-mail, where replies cross in the ether, one carrying info that affects the other.

Exclusion can happen, unwittingly, in messages acknowledging broad-based teams. Darn it if one doesn’t realize, seconds after clicking send, that she forgot to acknowledge the social media associate, or the company founder!

My favorite save is from sounding ungrateful. No matter how much we appreciate the shoulders we stand on, too often our emails cut directly to the task at hand. Just as they sail away, we realize that we meant to open with thanks, and close with appreciation. Mercifully, a two-minute delay gives us a second chance to do just that.

The Downside

No change lacks drawbacks, and there are at least two when it comes to delayed sends.  For one, in a meeting or on a conference call, you can’t circulate a document right away away. In our age of instant gratification, people can get frustrated waiting for your email to clear your inbox (even if it’s just two minutes!). For another, when responding to email on planes right up until the flight attendant calls for shutting down electronics, you have to find ways to sneak an extra few minutes of power.

But these grievances pale in comparison to the upside. In a digital world, we still need to think before we speak, but with a delayed send, we can rethink after we email.

Your Team Can’t Read Your Mind

Steven Moore

When you live or work with people for a while, it’s easy to assume that they can read your mind and that you can read theirs. Whether it’s a spouse or a long-time team member, you may presume that you know what they’re thinking and that you can save time and effort by not having to spell everything out. Unfortunately, though, mind reading is a risky short cut, and is more likely to backfire than not.

At work, mind reading can lead to confusion, such as when a manager assumes that his team members already know what he wants: “You know what kind of effort I need here.” But what if they don’t? Instead of saving time, you’ve wasted it, which could have serious consequences. For example, you may need to re-launch a new product because important team members weren’t fully aware of the requirements (even though you assumed they would be). Taking these short cuts can also contribute to poor morale (“I don’t know how my boss wants the earnings report done because she never tells me”) and a lack of teamwork (“I can’t help my colleague because he doesn’t let me know when he needs help”).

It’s always better to take the time to give or get the full story before you take action. That way, you avoid wasting time, effort, and your colleagues’ goodwill.

When you’re asking a team member to produce something for you, start with the big picture — the what and the why: “We need to create a new kind of report for our current project, something that everyone in the organization can understand no matter what their background is. This will help everybody in the company work with us.”

From there, spell out the details: who, when, where, and how. “We need Eleanor and Robert to outline what will go into the report and email that to us by Monday. Then we need for each of you to give them your content in PDF form by Wednesday. Lana and Jeff will then edit the report and pass it on to all of us to review on Thursday so that we can put it out to the rest of the company on the website next Friday. Any questions?”

Of course, there may be people who have already heard those directions, so if you’re speaking in person, don’t waste their time by repeating yourself over and over. If you’re communicating by email, they’ll be able to scan it quickly. But remember that people may need to go back later for more information. They may be in the middle of the project when they need a refresher on what happens next. So close your initial conversation, whether it’s face-to-face or online, with a “Please ask me if you have any questions” or “Please save the written version of this plan and let me know if I’ve left anything out” to demonstrate your willingness to say more and help them attend to the details.

Explicitly tell your team that you don’t expect anybody to read your mind. No question is a dumb question. If you’ve already explained a project once and someone asks you to repeat some information or give more details, welcome their question or request, and demonstrate that you’re glad they asked.

Master of the “dumb question” myself, I learned in business school that while it’s not always easy to ask the question that others seem to know the answer to, sometimes it’s essential to do so. When I entered Wharton’s required first-semester class in quantitative analysis, I hadn’t taken a math course in a long time. The professor was tough, fast-talking, and formidable. He didn’t take it kindly when someone asked a question that was anything but brilliant. Yet I knew that I needed to, or I wouldn’t pass the course. As I’d raise my hand week after week, some of my classmates would roll their eyes as if to say, “Oh no, she’s going to ask another question and he’s going to humiliate her once more.” And he did, but I got the information I needed. So did many of my classmates, who later thanked me for asking the “dumb” questions they’d also needed answers to. (By the way, our professor eventually congratulated me for my good scores and for my engagement in class.)

Make it easy for your team members to understand what you want. Be generous about answering their questions, make their understanding a priority, and foster an environment of open communication and information sharing. You can do that by modeling the behavior above. You can also applaud people when they make efforts to fully inform their colleagues and keep them in the loop.

No one on your team should expect or encourage mind reading. Instead, spell things out — and ask that your team members do the same.

How Pharma Can Offer More than Pills

For years, there has been a push within the pharmaceutical industry to move “beyond the pill” —  in other words, to build and deploy complementary services and solutions to diversify revenue sources. The rationale is simple and elegant: A company with experience selling pharmaceutical products should be able to successfully and profitably sell its large customers (health plans, delivery systems, and governments) other health care offerings.

The impetus to move beyond the pill typically arises from one or two realizations: 1) medicines alone are often not enough for patients to achieve optimal clinical outcomes, and 2) as pharmaceutical pipelines dry up, beyond-the-pill businesses can be valuable new sources of revenues.

However, many beyond-the-pill efforts have sputtered or died. During my years working as a pharmaceutical industry executive and advisor to senior management, I have observed that these initiatives typically fail because of one of three challenges:

Leadership. Many pharmaceutical companies make the mistake of transitioning outstanding leaders from their sales operations to head their beyond-the-pill businesses.  However talented they might be, these individuals often lack experience building non-pharma service businesses. In addition, pharma companies occasionally acquire new services and solutions companies and try to integrate them. These integrated businesses are also typically led by pharma managers who don’t fully understand the acquired businesses and their markets.

Regulatory environment. One perceived asset in launching new beyond-the-pill businesses is existing customer relationships with large payers, health systems, and physician groups. While these relationships certainly help to open doors, anti-kickback statutes require pharma companies to document and charge back the fair-market value of any added services or solutions delivered to customers of its pharmaceutical products. This requirement is a strain with which entrepreneurial competitors outside the pharma industry do not have to contend. In addition, many top pharma customers (payers, etc.) also sell health care services and solutions. As a result, pharma companies occasionally ends up competing for business with their most important customers.

Access to capital. Capital to build and grow diversified new businesses is scarce — particularly in publicly traded companies that have obligations to shareholders. All things being equal, when boards, CEOs, and executive committees allocate capital, they are more likely to support and develop a molecule that could yield a billion-dollar annual annuity or enhance the sales of an existing molecule than enter an unfamiliar business whose margins are much smaller and whose long-term business prospects are less clear. Consequently, beyond-the-pill initiatives often start auspiciously with generous seed funding only to lose ground in later rounds of capital allocation when new scientific projects with higher potential returns must be funded.

Pharmaceutical companies can give flight to beyond-the-pill initiatives by recognizing the long history of false starts and proactively avoiding repeating mistakes associated with them. Here’s how:

Recruit industry outsiders. The talent and skill needed to build and market services and solutions is different from the talent required to market drugs. So when pharma companies select leaders for the new undertakings, they should strongly consider recruiting new talent from outside the industry. For example, when Sanofi created its new chief patient officer function to build solutions that matter most to patients, it recruited Anne Beal, a physician who has been deeply involved in efforts to reform U.S. health care, to fill the role.

Form partnerships. When possible, companies should avoid building their own solutions or acquiring any other companies. Instead, they should partner with other companies — something Novartis recently did this when it launched a $100 million investment fund with technology giant Qualcomm. Partner companies can bring an external perspective on the solutions landscape and provide capabilities that pharma companies would have difficulty building themselves.

Revise regulations. Anti-kickback statutes were the product of an era when financial payments were given to physicians and hospital systems in exchange for prescribing. With the emergence of digital health tools and the health care industry’s focus on value, these regulations require some rethinking and new industry guidance. Pharma companies should seek a new regulatory framework by proactively engaging in the United States with the Office of the Inspector General, Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Avoid standalone solutions. Any new services or solutions should be supportive of the core pharmaceutical business and not compete with it for capital or management attention. So rather than trying to build beyond-the-pill solutions that are decoupled from their core pharmaceutical products, companies should strive to enhance the effectiveness of their own medicines with tightly linked complementary services, solutions, and tools that encourage patients to be more engaged in their own care and help them adhere to their prescribed therapies.

Integrated clinical trials. Pharma companies should consider integrating beyond-the-pill solutions into clinical trials so that they can eventually sell services and drugs together as a packaged offering. A progenitor to these types of clinical trials was Biogen Idec’s recent study of the use of Fitbit devices to monitor multiple sclerosis management and progression. By pairing medicines with wrap-around solutions within a clinical trial setting, companies can differentiate their offerings and generate additional revenues — particularly in chronic disease categories where patient engagement is critical to achieving better outcomes. Medicines could accordingly reach market with a label that includes an “around the pill” solution such as a wearable or another tracking device.

The world will continue to need companies that develop and commercialize new medicines. Those same companies must not lose sight of this fact and recruit the right leadership to use around-the-pill services, solutions, and tools to enhance the clinical effectiveness and commercial success of their core products.

The Problems with Jet.com’s Pricing Model

On Tuesday, online retailer Jet.com opened its virtual doors to the public. Even before its launch, the start-up was reportedly in negotiations with investors for cash infusions that would value the company at a startling $3 billion.

So what’s unique about Jet that’s led to such a hefty valuation, the backing of prominent investors (including Goldman Sachs and Google), and the flashy media blitz the web retailer is currently enjoying?

First, Jet has an alluring pledge to bring the Costco warehouse pricing model to the web. In return for a $49.99 annual membership fee, Jet claims it will not make any profit from the products it sells (which will come from its inventory or partner sellers); its sole source of profit will be from membership fees. Second, founder and CEO Marc Lore has a track record of e-commerce success — previously selling his start-up, Diapers.com, to Amazon for $545 million.

This may seem like a recipe for success. But is it?

The Good: Jet is innovative in providing discounts to motivate consumers to behave in a manner that is good for the company — a hallmark of a great pricing strategy. Customers, for instance, will reap discounts if they waive return rights, pay with a debit card (which charges a lower commission) instead of a credit card, and/or order products that can be efficiently shipped (read: from same warehouse). Instead of profiting from these cost efficiency choices like most e-commerce companies, Jet is giving these savings back to its customers.

The Bad: The two-part pricing model (membership and product purchases) has benefited Costco for two key reasons. First, Costco has lower costs, both in terms of negotiating volume discounts for inventory as well as being situated on the cheap outskirts of towns. It’s difficult to fathom how Jet (a company with no revenue and $225 million of raised capital) and its partner retailers will be in a position to negotiate lower product prices or achieve cost efficiencies compared to rival powerhouses such as Amazon and Wal-Mart. These retailers enjoy the buying power and efficiencies garnered from generating annual revenues of $89 billion and $486 billion, respectively.

Second, the market environment that Costco succeeds in is vastly different than the one Jet is boldly entering. Costco pledges to not mark up product costs by more than 15% while its rivals (grocery and department stores) routinely have a 25% – 50% markup — a significant difference. As a result, Costco’s prices are noticeably lower to consumers. Jet’s competitors aren’t similar margin-laden sitting ducks. On the contrary, in 2014 Amazon earned an operating profit of $178 million on revenues of $89 billion. This translates into an extremely low operating margin of 0.2%.

The Ugly: The key motivation for customers to purchase from Jet is to save money – its prices are claimed to be 10%-15% cheaper than online rivals. This may be the case now. But does anyone seriously believe that Wal-Mart (the self-anointed “Low Price Leader”) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon’s ambitious CEO) are going to roll over and take a beating on price? Of course these mighty retailers won’t cave, and we’re in store for a brutal price war. Consumers who plunk down $49.99 for a Jet membership are in essence betting that deep-pocketed rivals won’t compete on price. This seems like a losing bet to me. And if this warehouse pricing model does succeed, what’s to stop Amazon from offering a similar option?

While we wait for all of this to shake out, there are a few options for both consumers and investors.

Consumers should take advantage of the three-month free membership trial and enjoy the discounts while they last. As an example of the absurdity of Jet’s pricing model, a Wall Street Journal shopper recently purchased 22 items from Jet.com. As it turns out, Jet didn’t actually stock 12 out of the 22 items — so it ordered the products directly from retailers like Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney to be shipped directly to the shopper. The Journal paid $275.55 for these 12 products, but Jet in turn paid rivals $518.46 to fulfill the orders. This resulted in a $242.91 loss for Jet.com on that order alone.

For investors, one hope is to bully Amazon. If Jet encroaches on sales too much, it may make sense for Amazon to buy the upstart instead of taking the market cap hit. That said, this sets a bad precedent. You can bet investors will immediately line up behind the next Jet.com, in hopes of strong-arming a similar payday. Another option for Jet might be selling it to an Amazon rival that’s saddled by a brick & mortar-based brand image, to use as their e-commerce platform. The tagline of “Jet, powered by Wal-Mart” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

It’s unclear whether Mr. Lore and his fellow Jet investors will walk away richer after this highly publicized experiment. What is certain is that any possible riches won’t come from Jet as a freestanding business. Its pricing model simply doesn’t make enough sense.

Business Competition Has Not Gotten Fiercer

It’s become part of the conventional wisdom. The internet and globalization have combined to render almost every company vulnerable to greater competition than ever. Barriers to entry are withering, innovations are easily copied, and disruption is everywhere. To take an extreme example, Rita McGrath told strategists in an HBR article to just give up on sustainable advantage altogether and work on gaining only temporary boosts.

But is business really so competitive – not in a few prominent industries, but in the economy as a whole? The macro numbers tell a very different story. As Michael Porter argued a long time ago, the simplest measure of competition is profitability. The more competition a company faces, the harder it is to make money. Just look at what’s happened to workers. With weaker unions and greater international trade, they’re exposed to much more competition nowadays. As a result, wages have stagnated or fallen in the U.S. in recent decades.

But corporate profits have actually been rising since the 1990s, the opposite of what you’d expect if business was really so competitive. Puzzling anecdotes abound: Microsoft has missed out on a series of new products in the past decade, yet as Don Sull points out, it continues to be highly profitable.

The decline in competition shows up in all sorts of other metrics, starting with the size of companies. In a competitive economy you tend to get lots of little, focused companies. If a company tries to become big, it usually fails because it becomes less flexible and responsive to competitive threats. If it succeeds, that’s usually because it has economies of scale that serve as a competitive advantage. A variety of evidence suggests that company size has increased in the last decade, not decreased. Those competitive advantages are real.

Meanwhile we’re seeing less entrepreneurship. Overall new business formation is much lower than it was in the 1980s. Despite the internet and cheap, super-powerful computers, people aren’t seeing a lot of opportunity to challenge incumbents. Silicon Valley may be buzzing with startups, but as Eric Garland recently pointed out, most of them are trying to get sold to the giants, not to run them out of business. Business dynamism seems to have fallen, removing rivals that would have dampened profits in previous decades.

And what about the internet anyway? There’s been growing attention to the power of intermediaries. As Benjamin Edelman noted in HBR, “businesses and consumers have become starkly more dependent on a number of powerful platforms.” Instead of ramping up competition with frictionless commerce, the web may be generating a whole series of winner-take-all monopolists. And the web itself doesn’t have the power it used to. Much of what used to take place there is shifting toward apps, which are “walled gardens” controlled by big companies.

When big companies do gain a competitive advantage, they have less to worry about from regulators. The current investigation into airlines notwithstanding, the U.S. government has been less concerned with antitrust than in previous decades. As Luigi Zingales has observed, politicians are increasingly “pro-business” rather than “pro-market.” And with the electoral system relying more on corporate donations, it’s become easier for big companies and their industry associations to win support for beneficial regulations and subsidies – so much that “corporate welfare” has become a rallying cry of the Tea Party. Washington, D.C., has become one of the wealthiest parts of the United States, even as federal employment has fallen.

How can the conventional wisdom be so wrong? One possibility is that labor, capital, and many commodities have become so cheap that big companies are getting a windfall. Another is that short-term oriented companies are so desperate for margins that they’re hollowing out their operations or eating their R&D seed-corn. But we’ve seen higher profitability for so long that deeper forces are surely at play. Otherwise, business competition would have eventually forced companies to pass the windfall onto consumers.

Maybe profitability has been high because a continuing stream of “big bang” innovations have added so much value that companies can keep a large chunk as profits even while lowering prices for consumers. But there’s no evidence of these big gains in the macro evidence. Overall productivity growth has actually been below historical levels for the last decade. Corporate profits have risen relative to overall GDP. We are living in a time of amazing technologies, but that’s arguably been true of every period since the industrial revolution.

In fact, if competition is as tough as people say, we should see companies scrambling to work much more efficiently with new technologies and work practices. But they don’t seem to be, at least at the macro level, as compared to earlier decades. A close look at a number of HBR articles will show authors expressing frustration that companies are taking their time in implementing great new management ideas.

Taking a cue from Don Sull, we can distinguish between two types of competition. One is the kind of disruption that McGrath and others are talking about, where once prized strategic advantages disappear almost overnight. That still happens, but it’s a much smaller share of the macro economy than we think. The other is the more static, ongoing rivalry that Porter focused on, which seems to have declined since he wrote Competitive Strategy, and which describes most industries.

Part of the problem here may be simply inertia. U.S. corporate profits peaked in the 1950s, then declined as companies struggled with European and Japanese imports starting in the 1960s. The 1970s added deregulation to the mix. Back then U.S. industry truly did face intense competition. Profitability eventually started rising again in the 1990s. But we were slow to get the message, probably because we were so impressed with the internet and globalization. Major companies and even whole industries were getting “blown to bits” in very public ways. It was easy to assume that competition was just as intense as ever.

The other factor is surely that a lot of us would rather talk about competition than the opposite. Going back to the 1970s again, the struggles of big companies led to an explosion in business media. Corporate doings became a prominent feature of news reports, and successful CEOs became cultural heroes. Once in place, these voices inevitably looked for something dramatic to talk about.

It’s similar to what has happened with violence in society, which also spiked in the 1960s and 70s. Murders and assaults have fallen dramatically since then. Yet most people think violence is still high, because the news media loves to report those stories. Business is just less interesting when competition is moderate, rather than intense.