ADVANCE PRAISE FOR WHAT THE INTERNET CAN'T TEACH YOU "In a new digital world where instant communication has left us feeling more disconnected than ever, it is the tried and tested values and principles that really make the difference to today's managers. There's a reason why guys like Sam Walton and Lou Pritchett have been so successful. We should all be so lucky as to listen and find out why." -DAN MANGRU, Host of The Mangru Report on Fox Business "What the Internet Can't Teach You has, in one place, the lessons one learns in a military career. I know many military people who failed because they didn't learn these principles of leadership and management!" -COL. WILL MERRILL, West Point, Class of 1958, Airborne Ranger, US Army (ret) "I wish I had had Lou's book back in 1986 when we introduced Stainmaster carpeting to the world. His succinct maxims are a timeless road map to business success, cutting through the fog of circumstance and technology. I recommend it to all young aspiring leaders." -TOM MCANDREWS, the "Father of Stainmaster," Former DuPont Worldwide Director, Flooring Systems Each morning, millions of managers-from supervisors at McDonalds to Fortune 500 presidents-commute to their respective jobs, where their subordinates rely on their leadership, advice, and coaching in order to be successful themselves. Desperate to achieve greatness in a highly competitive world driven by technology, these leaders are often frustrated with the loss of one-on-one mentorship from a boss who has "been there." Lou Pritchett, a former executive who was instrumental in the creation of the partnership between Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart, shares decades of hands-on experience in company leadership, training, and organizational development in order to mentor others with snippets of wisdom and universal truth not found in cyberspace. Future leaders that include entrepreneurs, educators, executives, administrative assistants, and sales representatives will find inspiration in both Pritchett's wisdom and the seasoned advice of other famous leaders, such as Napoleon Bonaparte, John F. Kennedy, "Stonewall" Jackson, and Ross Perot. Management is of dollars and things. Leadership is of hearts, souls, and spirits. In What the Internet Can't Teach You, Pritchett allows others to take a step back in time and learn the same way successful leaders have learned for centuries-through the wisdom of those who know.

What the Internet Can't Teach You

Ageless Information for the Information AgeBy Lou Pritchett

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Lou Pritchett
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-9622-9

Contents

Foreword...................................ixAcknowledgments............................xiiiIntroduction...............................1On Management..............................5On Organizations...........................45On Customer Partnering.....................63On People..................................81On Technology..............................97Parting Thoughts...........................109About the Author...........................111

Chapter One

On Management

Management: (From Old French ménagement, the art of conducting, directing; from Latin manu agere, to lead by the hand) characterizes the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual, or intangible).

Each morning, millions of managers, from supervisors at McDonalds to Fortune 500 presidents, get up, shave their faces or apply their makeup, and go to their respective jobs—desperately wanting to succeed but becoming totally frustrated. Why? Quite simply because they realize that the old system of mentoring, storytelling, and face-to-face discussions is rapidly vanishing and they desperately miss the days where learning via listening and dialogue was standard procedure.

This book targets the American manager, construed in the broadest sense as any of the millions of entrepreneurs, educators, real estate agents, executives, restaurant owners, travel agents, secretaries, building contractors, druggists, clerks, sales reps, doctors, and anyone else whose job requires them to work with and train people. All share a common goal of getting the best out of their suppliers, coworkers, and employees, but these millions of men and women are finding that the Internet is no substitute for face-to-face dialogue. Instead, they realize that all of the marvelous high-speed technology that is available at their fingertips is a far cry from the touch of a mentor or a boss or a friend who sits with them and works through the issues.

For more than ten years, I searched for a book, any book, that would lay out the pitfalls of the almighty Internet and its beguiling ability to subtly replace one-on-one personal contact and learning. I discovered hundreds, perhaps thousands, of books and articles on everything, including how to manage, how to lead, how to train, how to transform, how to reengineer, how to motivate, how to downsize, how to grow, how to inspire, how to market. I found no lack of good material written by smart people on every subject even remotely associated with the theory of managing and leading both large and small business enterprises.

Astonishingly, I also discovered that there were no books that called attention to the dangers of this new and mind-boggling thing called the Internet replacing the human touch, oral tradition, human passion, and the atavistic pulse within us all that asks, "how may I serve you?" Nor were there any books that summarized the personal and institutional learning of the millions of men and women who had gone before—no one had summarized this ageless information into a simple, easy-to-comprehend guide.

The Internet, for all its wonderful positives, had once again demonstrated the wisdom of the old Jesuit saying, "Your greatest strength, faithfully carried out, can eventually become a weakness." Loosely paraphrased, I believe that the Internet has moved many to use electronic communication only, leaving a frigid void in old-school interpersonal communications where we learned through caring, sharing, and human-to-human dialogue. We are rapidly losing the one-on-one, the storytelling process that the cultures before us so successfully used to transfer rules, mores, acceptable behavior, taboos, etc. to those who would follow. Text messaging, (thumb-to-thumb communication, as my good friend Forrest Cottrell calls it), and e-mailing, as fast and expedient as they are, are no substitutes for face-to-face dialogue and even confrontation.

It is now my hope that this book will accomplish two goals: first, I hope it will share with today's managers some of the ageless wisdom hammered out by those who have gone before; and second, I hope it will sensitize those managers who, today, are trying to survive in this take-no-prisoners environment, to the pitfalls of assigning all of their communications to the computer, for a false god it may be.

When asked to list specifically what resources they manage, most managers name products, machinery, buildings, land, and trucks. Most never mention their key and most expensive resource: people.

"Fish discover water last." Taoist saying

Managers must be customer-driven not product-driven. By design, a product-driven company is internally focused whereas a customer-driven company is externally focused.

"Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships." Ross Perot

Managers must never fail to tell the truth and must demand that their employees always tell them the truth. Failing to be truthful in any environment is destructive.

"Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Managers must understand and accept that they are not smarter than everyone reporting to them.

Have you ever met one person who was smarter than ten?

"None of us is as smart as all of us." Phil Condit

Embrace rather than resist change. Change is the only constant in the universe, and failing to recognize this fact is a leading cause of corporate failures.

"It's not the strongest of the species who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." Charles Darwin

Understand that serving the customer is paramount. Customers demand custom, not generic, solutions to their problems, and they seek products they trust, not just products that meet a need.

"Suppliers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have—and does not need if he can trust the brand." Peter Drucker

Manage risk rather than avoid risk. You will never steal second base with one foot on first.

"There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."...