Thoughts on Hurricane Issac and Entrepreneurialism

This post was crated in response to a posting by IdeaVillage in New Orleans:

The Idea Village ‏@IdeaVillage

We hope everyone is safe in the aftermath of Isaac. If you have any ideas to support the entrepreneurial community, please let us know.

As a New Orleans native and long time entrepreneur, I thought I'd weigh in on the storm and entrepreneurs in the area. The first thing that comes to mind, having survived Hurricane Katrina, is priorities. Our family and loved ones are first that come to mind in a situation like a hurricane. No one is thinking about their business until that basic need to secure for their loved ones or just know that they are secure is established first. We need to care for individuals so that they can then and only then care for their businesses.

This requires something we usually take for granted, communication. In the old days, hurricane Betsy, for example, there were no cell phones. The power went out and so did the phones. Fortunately today, we have cell phones. If the towers survive and power to them remains, and it appears it did during Issac, then communication can be established. This could lead to lives saved, anxiety relieved and the prospect of a return to a focus on saving our businesses.

The only issue here was that cell phone batteries have a limited life. I resisted calling my daughter in NOLA so that she could save her battery until it was needed in the event of an emergency. With this in mind, I replied to IdeaVillage:

George Constance ‏@Georgeconstance

@IdeaVillage Recharge stations for cell phones via strategically located generators would be great. Issac was very connected could be better

A good example of what can be done was noted in Connecticut after the freak ice storm last October cast the entire state into darkness for a over a week. The local high school not only established shelter for residents, but allowed citizens access to a large number of electrical outlets for the express purpose of recharging cell phones. It would be great to see areas under threat like NOLA to establish recharge stations anywhere there's a government response team. By charging more phones, there's more communication, bettre knowledge and response time. It places part fo the response effort in to the hands of the general public. And as the internet has demonstrated, there's power in this connectivity.

I was also impressed with how my wife and I safe in CT were able to keep track of our family in New Orleans through Facebook posts. We could see how bad things were or weren't, to our relief.  The casual social tool demonstrated it had a real potential to deliver vital information on top of cute kitten photos.

Thanks to IdeaVillage for taking the lead. Can't wait to see what others suggest.

How Not To Get Killed Consulting

When it comes to business consulting, the employees are never happy. And one of these employees might include the CEO. It’s understandable, you as consultant are being brought in to correct problems created by the employees or to supplement skills they lack. Either way, they’re bound to take offense and worse yet, become defensive. 

As a paleontological consultant, I often encountered this. One several occasions, I was threatened. One client wished me dead. It was a tough industry to work in. But I needed the work and choosing life developed an approach to consulting that preserved my life, furthered my career and even flipped some adversaries into good friends. I’d like to share the approach here.

Get to the Bottom of things

This is the really tough stage. You’ll have to interview everyone including the guys who want you dead. The trick is to listen long enough to get to the root of the issue and then enlist the problem employee in the solution. This is a two stage process. After all the interviews are complete, you should have a pretty good idea about what happened. This always indicates that the problem employees were less than forthcoming and further interviews are needed. Here’s where the magic happens.

Remove the Problem

In most cases, the problem employee is more of an unlucky employee that the crap landed on. This is usually due to poor planning, lack of communications or a host of other issues. Your role at this point is to reassure the employee that they are safe and even safer by cooperating. A good approach is “Yeah you screwed up but anyone would under those circumstances”. And I like to add that, “I’m sure I can report that you, having the best interest of the company in mind were valuable in identifying and correcting this issue”. 

Remove the Employee

And then there’ always the issue of the malcontent that everyone hates coming in to work because of. This is the easiest issue to deal with. Once identified, everyone will help you build your case and onbce the bad egg is removed you’ll get invited to all the right parties and meet new clients.