6/11/2007

WHAT'S IN A NAME?.........'WIKI'...........WIRED COLLABORATION.

"wiki": communicationsas in Wikipedia.

Any collaborative website that users can easily modify via the web, typically without restriction.

A wiki allows anyone, using a web browser, to edit, delete or modify content that has been placed on the site, including the work of other authors.

This has been found to work surprisingly well since contributors tend to be more numerous and persistent than vandals and old versions of pages are always available.

COLLABORATIVE WRITING

"Collaborative writing is working in a group as small as two or as large as one can imagine to create a document. The group members can work in a synchronous environment (face to face, at the same computer, in the same classroom) or asynchronous (discussion board, email, letters). The group collectively negotiates, coordinates, researches and monitors their writing process to accomplish their task. Often group members will be assigned roles such as monitor, consultant, editor, reporter and leader to streamline the process. They will often follow a schedule of brainstorming, outlining, drafting, reviewing, revising and copy editing to produce the document. This coordinated consensus will produce many benefits. Maximum input, increased learning, varied points of view and fraternization are benefits of this style of work. It is believed this method of writing will produce a higher quality of work as opposed to a single writer/single reviewer method. Collaborative writing is utilized by members of academia, business and government."

Lowry Curtis Lowry, 2004

Rx..............A SENSE OF HUMOUR? 'They' say that an acute sense of humour masks a very intelligent mind.




'They' say that an acute sense of humour masks a very intelligent mind. Nothing could be more accurate or life defining.



In view of the fact that humour puts two completely disparate thoughts together in a juxtaposition such that the connection between the two thoughts are so absurd as to be humourous........and,

In view of the positive health rendering value of humour we advocate its abundant use in our daily communication.

Here is a definition: "A sense of humour is the ability to experience humour, a quality which healthy people share, although the extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, and context."

In engaging others in genuine conversation our skill and ability to establish the extent of another individual's 'sense' of humour is a reliable precursor of the likeliness of the outcome we may be seeking in our dialogue.

6/10/2007

THE FOG OF WAR..............A DOCUMANTARY by errol morris

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a documentory film directed by Errol Morris and released in December, 2003. The film includes an original score by Philip Glass.

It won the Acadmy Award for Documentory Feature for 2003.The film consists of interviews with former United States Scretary of Defence Robert McNamara, detailing his life and the difficult decisions that he made during his career. The term "fof of war" refers to the cloud of uncertainty that descends over a battlefield once fighting begins.

IRAQ - Does History Repeat Itself?

  • The tragedy & Lessons of Vietnam
  • The film's eleven lessons
  • Empathize with your enemy.
  • Rationality will not save us.
  • There's something beyond one's self.
  • Maximize efficiency.
  • Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
  • Get the data.
  • Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
  • Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
  • In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
  • Never say never.
  • You can't change human nature.
  • McNamara's additional ten lessons

These were written as a companion to the film and are included in the Special Features of the DVD.

The human race will not eliminate war in this century but we can reduce war, the level of killing, by adhering to the principles of a just war, in particular of proportionality.

The indefinite combinations of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.

We are the most powerful nation in the world — economically, politically, and militarily — and we are likely to remain so for decades ahead. But we are not omniscient.

If we cannot persuade other nations with similar interests and similar values of the merits of the proposed use of that power, we should not proceed unilaterally except in the unlikely requirement to defend the continental US, Alaska and Hawaii.

Moral principles are often ambiguous guides to foreign policy and defense policy, but surely we can agree that we should establish as a major goal of U.S. foreign policy and, indeed, of foreign policy across the globe : the avoidance in this century of the carnage — 160 million dead — caused by conflict in the 20th century.

We, the richest nation in the world, have failed in our responsibility to our own poor and to the disadvantaged across the world to help them advance their welfare in the most fundamental terms of nutrition, literacy, health, and employment.

Corporate executives must recognize there is no contradiction between a soft heart and a hard head. Of course, they have responsibilities to their employees, their customers and to society as a whole.

President Kennedy believed a primary responsibility of a president — indeed "the" primary responsibility of a president — is to keep the nation out of war, if at all possible.

War is a blunt instrument by which to settle disputes between or within nations, and economic sanctions are rarely effective. Therefore, we should build a system of jurisprudence based on the International Court — that the U.S. has refused to support — which would hold individuals responsible for crimes against humanity.

If we are to deal effectively with terrorists across the globe, we must develop a sense of empathy — I don't mean "sympathy" but rather "understanding" to counter their attacks on us and the Western World.

One of the greatest dangers we face today is the risk of mass destruction as a result of the breakdown of the Non-Proliferation Regime.

We — the U.S. — are contributing to that breakdown.

11 Lessons from Vietnam

The origin of the film's lesson concept is the eleven lessons in McNamara's 1996 book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam:

  • We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience …
  • We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
  • We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
  • Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
  • We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine…
  • We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
  • We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.
  • After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
  • We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
  • We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
    We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions

… At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.


CONCLUSION:


Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues.

In pursuing our vision of transformational change in a 'wired' world we are obliged to tidy up the mess we inadvertently can create through the deployment 'process' of clinical change. The word 'clinical' implies the notion of 'sanitized'.........which is not necessarily present within The 'Fog of War'.

On Iraq: "If you break it.....you own it!"

General Colin Powell
United States Secretary of State


THE 'COLLABORATIVE' HEART AND MIND

"Corporate executives must recognize there is no contradiction between a soft heart and a hard head."

The Fog of War

Robert S. McNamara

United States Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968

NET GIVERS

"We make a living by what we get...........we make a life by what we give."

Winston Churchill

CLARITY

As the mind clears, the eyes see more.

"THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH"........

..........everything you ever wanted to know......but were afraid to ask.

It is a clinical statement of the facts as we understand them..........based upon our 'financial MRI'............and delivered with insight and care only upon a deep understanding of the needs of our client.

IN SEARCH OF MEANING........

We are passionate and relentless in our search for meaning.....in its discovery......and deployment.....with excellence in our execution.

We believe in both intuitive (experiential...instinctive) based and the logic based discovery of meaning. We use an applied science approach to the process of discovery.

Our instinct includes the sum of all our experiences...retained in 'our' hard drive for immediate access to be considered as data in our never ending search.

We also believe passionately in delivering the "unvarnished truth".

THE TRUTH...........WHAT IS IT?.......SOME THOUGHTS.

And the 'truthiness' shall set you free.

'Feeling' the truth might be as good as thinking it.

School taught one and one is two, but by now, that answer, just ain't true.—

The Moody Blues long before Stephen Colbert happened along to give the world "truthiness" — voted last week as word of the year in a poll by Merriam-Webster's dictionary — there was a certain Pontius Pilate, circa the first century A.D., who is said to have asked a relevant and seemingly urgent question:

"What is truth?"

He never did get an answer, which is scarcely surprising since, in the ensuing 2,000 years, we've yet to provide anything like a simple one.

Theories abound, of course, "Truth" being the big game for hunter-philosophers — the definitional trophy everyone would love to hang in their study, just above a brass plate with his or her name on it.

Any philosopher worth his salt has tackled the issue.

There's the ancient "correspondence theory" (Plato, Aristotle; a proposition is true if it corresponds with the real world), and "coherence theories" (a variety, most of which say statements are true if they "cohere" with other statements accepted as true), and even a "consensus theory" (if most of us agree something is true, then it is).

To each of those theories — and countless others — have come objections small and large. We could get close to discovering what truth is but never close enough to satisfy most of us.

It turns out we may have been tackling the problem the wrong way. As a Polish logician named Alfred Tarski started emphasizing in the 1930s, we'd been bundling together two questions without worrying about how one related to the other: "What is true?" and "How do we know what we say is true?"

Separate those two questions, and a lot of intellectual fog starts to lift. We remove unnecessary complications."There are huge numbers of statements that are true and we just have no way of finding them out," says Norman Swartz, philosophy professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University.

For instance, someone must've been the architect of York Cathedral in England, says Swartz, but his name is lost. There could now be competing claims about who the architect was, but we would have no way of knowing which claim is true. Yet one of those claims has to be true.

History is loaded with situations where we still don't know all of the facts, adds Tom Hurka, philosophy professor at the University of Toronto. "The truth about why the dinosaurs went extinct, we may never be able to find, but there is a truth."

In other words, an external reality and truth do exist, even if we can't always grasp it, much less like it.

"Truth is a matter of what the nature of reality is, and reality is what it is regardless of what anybody thinks about it or would like it to be," says Harry Frankfurt, professor emeritus in philosophy at Princeton University and author of the best-selling On Bullshit and the just-published On Truth.

"So it's independent of our responses, or our expectations or hopes or gut feelings." What, then, are we to make of "truthiness," hailed by the Merriam-Webster people as, more or less, their word of the year?

The expression was popularized by Stephen Colbert, who first used it on his satirical television show The Colbert Report while skewering U.S. President George Bush over one of his judicial nominees.

Said Colbert: "If you `think' about Harriet Miers, of course her nomination's absurd. But the president didn't say he 'thought' about his selection. He said this: 'I know her heart.' "Notice how he said nothing about her brain? He didn't have to. He feels the truth about Harriet Miers."

The same basic narrative was at play when Bush opted to invade Iraq, Colbert suggested. That decision might not stand up to rational analysis, but hey, "doesn't taking Saddam out feel like the right thing?" For Colbert, "truthiness," not blue states versus red ones, is the real divide south of the border.

There are people who rely on their intellects and think things through in their pursuit of truth. And then there are those who simply go for "truthiness" — shorthand for gut feeling — with scant (or no) regard to facts, intellect or logic.

Truthiness, in short, seems to hail from the same dark alley as "bellyfeel," the Newspeak word George Orwell coined in Nineteen Eighty-Four to denote "a blind, enthusiastic acceptance."

Truthiness also has an arresting echo in former president Ronald Reagan's verbal misstep when he declared, "facts are stupid things." (He'd misread "stubborn" on the teleprompter, and seemed truer to himself in the process.)

But has Colbert, on sober second thought, actually captured an essential difference?

Is intellect and analysis the only path to truth, while mere truthiness and gut feelings lead to foolishness and falsehood?

Shouldn't we bear in mind Tarski's distinction between what's true and how we know what we're saying is true?

As 21st-century humans, we still tend to admire heroes who, faced with a complex or threatening situation, listen to an inner voice that seems more heart and soul than mind. We see it in the television detective who just knows someone is lying, even if he or she can't articulate why the (presumed) villain is lying.Is this conclusion wrong because it's been reached via gut feeling or gut instinct?

In casual conversation, we tend to use the two expressions interchangeably, and they seem to be in the same hamper in Colbert's definition of truthiness.But maybe we need to think about a distinction between the two.

A gut feeling implies something raw, an emotion.

In his book Blink, which is all about first impressions and instant decisions, Malcolm Gladwell expressly avoids using the word "intuition," on the grounds that it implies emotion.

A gut instinct, by contrast, seems to go beyond emotion, even if it includes an emotional element. There's something rational backing up an instinct, although we don't immediately recognize it that way.

Consider what happens in baseball when the team manager has to decide which pinch-hitter or relief pitcher to send in. There are two competing theories about how he should make this decision, how he should seek the right choice, the truth.

The manager can use his head, scan vast tables of numbers about a player's past performance and come up with an answer based on statistical probabilities.

Or he can rely on what we sometimes cherish as a hunch, a gut instinct.That hunch, it turns out, is a lot more than momentary emotion, notes Frankfurt.

"If he has a great deal of experience with this sort of thing and has many, many times sent pitchers up and seen what they do, and many, many times compared the statistics of a pitcher with the actual performance of the pitcher on a particular day, I suppose that his gut instinct may be more reliable than the conclusions to be drawn from statistics."

"He may, without realizing what he's doing, perceive aspects of the situation that aren't reflected in the statistics: a sparkle in the eye or the way the guy walks or whatever it would be.

"It's based on experience — a decision that is now completely instinctive, but is informed by some prior analysis that is no longer front-of-brain. More often than not, the player who looks hungry or hunted on a particular day will exceed the expectations his record might otherwise suggest — and the coach knows it. He just reaches this conclusion by picking up on body language and mixing that with great experience.

Hurka offers an automotive analogy: "When you learn to drive a standard-transmission car, you've got to go through the sequence of events — depress the clutch, put it in gear, give it a little gas, release the clutch — and you go through them in sequence, thinking about what you're doing."

But once you learn how to drive, you just do that automatically without thinking. Your sense of when you should change gears is just based on what the engine sounds like. It's not by the seat of your pants. It's just because you've done it unconsciously many times. It's become second nature.

"We do a lot of things that way. When we first meet someone, for instance, we come to a whole bunch of conclusions about whether that person is apt to be trustworthy or loyal or a potential friend. That's usually because we've previously encountered that "type," or unconsciously recognized some familiar body language that either warns or reassures us.

But just because we've arrived at this "truth" by something other than an explicitly intellectual, fact-based process doesn't make the conclusion untrue.In some cases, going with your instinct may even be preferable, says Hurka, such as the daunting prospect of choosing a spouse.

"The idea that you're going to sit down and draw up a check list of pros and cons for different possible spouses, you're not going to do a good job doing it that way. In that circumstance, it's much better to just let yourself either respond or not respond to people.

"The problem is, we can't immediately know whether someone using gut instinct has actually arrived at the right decision and captured the truth. Nor can we fully understand how they've reached this conclusion — the second, Tarski question.

Not even the person making that gut decision can articulate the process, says Frankfurt.

"For people who rely on their heads, at least you can check up on them, you can investigate their thinking and decide whether or not their thinking is rational, whether the evidence they've relied upon is sufficient to warrant their conclusions.

That may be why so many of us, Colbert included, prefer the more overtly intellectual path in matters of state.

As Frankfurt puts it: "In a face-off between people who rely on their heads and people who rely on their hearts, my inclination is to favour the people who rely on their heads.

"But I recognize that some people, their hearts are very reliable. The trouble is, you can't be sure which people those are.

"At least not until it's too late.

Dec. 17, 2006.

KENNETH KIDD

FEATURE WRITER

The Toronto Star

TRUTH TO POWER OR TRUTH TO AUTHORITY?

Which is it?

Our employer has authority and responsibility.

Our client has power.

We have a choice in our interpretation of the direction we will seek in speaking truth as we understand it.

Dan Zwicker.

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER

Speak Truth To Power is dedicated to the promotion of human rights awareness.

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER is a division of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.

(This is an excerpt)

DEFENDER FROM SPEAK TRUTH WINS 2006 Nobel Peace Prize!

"On behalf everyone at Speak Truth to Power, we warmly and delightedly congratulate Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen bank, recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

The pair was honored for their development of microcredit, a banking system which helps poor people in Bangladesh start businesses without collateral, enabling them to lift themselves out of poverty."

As the Nobel prize committee stated: "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.

Microcredit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.”

EMPATHY..........the key attribute of professional advisors.

In the delivery of unconditional service to others in the most sensitive personal areas of their lives the capacity for genuine....empathetic understanding is without equal.

Here is a definition:

Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, "to suffer with"): is commonly defined as one's ability to recognize, perceive and directly... experientially feel the emotion of another.

As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively divine another's modes of thought and mood.

Empathy is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.

This is a "sine qua non" in the delivery of life related financial instruments.

Dan Zwicker.

JUSTICE LOUIS BRANDEIS an american icon

One hundred and fifty years ago Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was born in Louisville, Ky., the son of immigrants from Czechoslovakia.

He graduated from Harvard Law School with some of the highest grades ever received there.

He was named to the Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson as its first Jewish and most liberal member.

If he is remembered for nothing else, he will be remembered for discovering a constitutional right to privacy, which became the underpinning of the right to an abortion.

But there is more.Justice Brandeis upheld the right of an individual to "think as you will and to speak as you think," even against the government.

He enunciated a right to be left alone by the government as the right "most valued by civilized men."

He held that decency, security, and liberty require that "government officials be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen."
He asserted that the doctrine of separation of powers was adopted "not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power."


And, on an issue hotly debated during President Roosevelt's New Deal days, he held that there must be power in the states and in the nation to remold, through experimentation, our economic practices and institutions.

SALESPERSON OR LEADER?

In the provision of financial security at the time of death the instruments that we use for the benefit of our clients are not made available through an act of sales.........but rather through an act of genuine leadership.......one on one.

There is no joy in dealing with the subject of death.

There is, however, great satisfaction in knowing that at a moment of extreme personal distress those individuals who are professionally authorized to provide a replacement of the capital that would otherwise have been provided had the deceased lived were able to provide the social, economic and moral leadership necessary at an earlier date leading to a decision on the part of the deceased to put in force the coverage that would one day become essential in the lives of those who depended upon his or her well being.

There is no sales process known that fulfills this service.

Dan Zwicker

GRATITUDE'S INFLUENCE ON CLIENT RETENTION

The feeling of gratitude allows us to forgive those matters which we generally consider troubling.

When we are capable of forgiving the road reopens.

Hence its central importance in the marketing of services of any kind where strong interpersonal relationships are essential to the long term continuity and success of the relationship.

4/22/2007

DELEGATE...............

............UP!

The head of IT at Accenture tells the following story (paraphrased).

One of his IT executives could not attend a scheduled conference. 'Attendance is mandatory'. The executive said he would 'delegate someone to take his place'.

'You can only delegate up...not down.'

He delegated his immediate superior.........the CIO.

It worked out well.....'better than it would have had he attended on his own.'

2 points:

  • In an complex knowledge/information/IT environment down is inferior....the 'platform' is an inverted T with our equals, superiors and subordinates collaboratively adjacent. Up in competence is superior.
  • He never missed another meeting

accenture

"THEY" SAY THAT A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOUR ................

...............MASKS A VERY INTELLIGENT MIND.

Humour is the juxtaposing of 2 very disparate thoughts. To recognize the humorous absurdity of the juxtaposition requires the intelligence to which "they" refer.

CHEMISTRY AND LEGAL AGREEMENTS

The best assurance of the long term implementation of any legal agreement is the presence of palpable chemistry between the signatories to the agreement.

Issues arise, muddy the water, become very disturbing frequently to the point of potentially 'hostile' reactions.

No legal agreement can build in a resolution mechanism to these emotionally inflammatory disputes.

It's best that you "really like" the signatory(ies) to the agreement....it's your best chance at mediating a resolution.

If one or both signatories die...the agreement trumps all alternatives.....the subject of chemistry is moot.

WITHIN THE PHRASE "VALUE ADDED"........

..............the key operative word is "ADDED" continuously....unconditionally.That is commitment.

GRATITUDE.......

........is the 'sine qua non' of effective marketing.

It builds and secures lifetime client loyalty.

It is the manifestation of the laser like satisfaction of a recipient's core need for 'value added'...........never forgotten.

My first mentor in business who was a renowned success in the structural steel and real estate industries..........having purchased half of the prime real estate in Ottawa said,

"Dan, when I charge a client a dollar I make sure he receives $1.10 in value."

He told me this 40 years ago. To this day I am grateful to him for sharing his own lifetime of experience and success with me freely and generously.

Above all that I valued was his trust.

PRODUCTIVITY > COMPLIANCE > EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

For our insight into the global IT real-time solutions we provide, please click on the link at:

www.firstfinancialconsultinggroup.com

and then call us at:

416-726-2427

or

email me directly at:

dzwicker@interlog.com

Our teamwill be pleased to help.

dan zwicker

4/21/2007

TO QUALIFY AS A PLAYER

you must:

  • show up
  • show up on time
  • show up dressed to play

MOST SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE NEVER GROW UP.......

.......their passion gets in the way!

OUR FUTURE DEMANDS.......

Transformational leadership........that includes pragmatic 'smarts'.

The Boomers demand it.

They want to know how they and their families will be better off for having put their trust in our advice.

THOUGHTWARE.......

We have moved through a transition from software to 'thoughtware'.

Our work is distinguished for its innovative, collaborative eBusiness based financial services Professional Practice real-time delivery 'platforms'.

In a globally IT interactive financial services environment we deliver with our partners complex/knowledge/information based client user friendly real-time training, solutions and continuing education.

Our suite of applications and continuing education provide exponentially productive and compliant financial services support solutions to a globally diverse client community whose unique needs demand sound financial judgment that assures professional reliablity, integrity and consummate interpersonal trust.

In the delivery of all complex information trust is the 'linchpin'.......trust is paramount.

We deliver.

Call us......and let us demonstrate how.

dan zwicker
first financial consulting group
and partners

THE EVOLUTION OF..........'TRUST'

INTEGRITY > PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE > MARKETING > GRATITUDE > TRUST.

EPIDEMICS ARE 'VIRALLY' EXPLOSIVE.

"Explosive ideas should be thought of as "viral' epidemics."

They reflect 'contagious behavior'.........little causes which have big effects.

In a real-time globally interconnected IT environment they represent the basis for explosive exponential market access.

Ideas, products, unusually complex services, messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.............organically.

People become "infected".

Their organic nature is the source of their explosive impact.....

The changes happen at the margin; they are incremental changes........little changes that have big effects.........that happen in a hurry........with an exponential level of acceleration.......at one dramatic moment.

The name given to that one dramatic moment when everything can change all at once is "The Tipping Point".It is reflected in the "Aha!" behind every successful consumer discovery of a marketing message that resonates congruently with their deepest needs

malcolm gladwell
- The Tipping Point


PASSION ATTRACTS

It is the source of all exponential results.

There are 168 hours per week available to each of us.

To the extent that we fully engage others with our genuine passion we can begin to map out a plan of extraordinary achievement.

No successful leader is absent the capacity to fully engage his or her audience.

In an age of instant global real-time communication we each have the essentials necessary for explosive exponential personal achievement.

Genuine passion is not to be interpreted as a means of advocacy nor does it reflect 'volatility' in any form.

"SOCIAL EPIDEMICS" THROUGH THE TRANSLATION OF IDEAS INTO ACTION.

"Human beings are profoundly social beings influenced by and influencing other human beings, no matter how much technology we introduce into our lives."

"Contrary to the prevailing wisdom of mass trends and focus-group marketing a few individuals or a single hapazard event can set off a social epidemic that profoundly alters the culture."

malcolm gladwell
The Tipping Point

COMPREHENSIVE FINANCIAL PLANNING.......A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?

ethicSurvey finds a growing culture of planning among Consultants.

Financial planning: it's a term increasingly being used in the financial services industry. But what does it mean, exactly?

Last fall, Investors Group's Research department and Advanced Financial Planning Support worked with Advisor Impact, a company specializing in research and education for financial advisors, to ask a representative sample of Consultants about the role that financial planning plays in their individual practices.

"Financial planning, in the context of this study, refers broadly to creating a long-term path for clients to help them reach their goals, as opposed to focusing on products and services in a vacuum," says Julie Littlechild, President of Advisor Impact. "And the numbers suggest a definite financial planning culture at Investors Group," she says. "This is good news, because the industry is moving at an increasing pace towards a financial planning model."

The financial planning study found that Investors Group Consultants offer both existing and prospective clients a comprehensive solution to meet their financial needs. They do this because they believe this approach is valuable to clients, explains Littlechild. And, with little exception, Consultants plan to expand the scope of financial planning among their clients.

"We have a distinct advantage over many firms in that Investors Group Consultants recognize that offering financial planning translates to substantial benefits both to the client and their practices," says Debbie Ammeter, Vice-President of Advanced Financial Planning Support. "The majority of competitor firms now provide some tools to support the financial planning process, but their advisors do not work from a strong culture of planning.

"There is a clear window of opportunity in the marketplace with respect to offering a more comprehensive financial solution to clients. Based on this research, Investors Group appears to be well-positioned," says Ammeter.

The comprehensive financial planning concept is still a new one for many clients. As clients come to expect financial advisors to prepare plans for them, the ability to provide a financial plan is only a competitive advantage if clients can distinguish between a good plan and an inadequate one, says Littlechild. In order to ensure that this is a competitive advantage, advisors will need to look at financial planning in the context of the total "client experience," including every point of contact associated with the planning process. This will be the driving force in setting firms apart.

Investors Group Consultants said they differentiated their financial planning offering from that of competitors by providing more advanced and extensive financial planning, having access to experts and specialists, and by having a stronger focus on implementation. "Consultants can strengthen their relationships with clients by knowing and fulfilling their clients' financial planning needs. Putting the focus on a long-term written plan gives Consultants and clients something to focus on regularly, instead of looking at investment performance for the past quarter only," suggests Ammeter.

The Consultant experience across the country confirms the benefits of financial planning to clients. Surveys of consumers back this up. A November 2001 Decima survey found that people who have financial plans are more confident about their financial stability and their future: 42 per cent of those with a plan were very confident that they would reach their financial goal for retirement, compared with only 24 per cent of those without a plan.

"None of this surprises Advanced Financial Planning Support," says Ammeter.

"We know that financial planning serves as the best foundation for establishing and developing enduring client relationships. Put all of this together and it is clear that planning pays!"

Investors group.

INSIDE UPS united parcel service "brown'

The creation of a performance anatomy

—all high-performance businesses, including UPS—follow a specific pattern.

First, the company's leaders must have stable values that they can draw on to guide the company through good times and bad, and through periods of both rapid change and relative calm.

Second, those values must be brought to life via strategic messages—the rituals, lessons, images and stories that top management uses to show how the values translate into action.

Finally, the strategic messages become, over time, shared mindsets about critical aspects of the organization—mindsets about the balance between strategy and execution; the cultivation of talent; the strategic importance of information technology; the need to measure performance selectively; and the drive for continuous innovation and renewal.It is the combination of these three elements—leadership values, strategic history and shared mindsets—into a performance anatomy that makes it possible for the organization to build on past successes while adapting to future challenges.

The results:

Today, the elements of that anatomy inform every aspect of UPS, a company with more than 400,000 employees and revenue of some $42.6 billion in 2005. As a result, the world's largest package-delivery company also delivers superior financial performance: Its average pre-tax operating profit margin of more than 14 percent was higher than that of its major competitors over three-year and five-year spans (2002–2004 and 2000–2004)

accenture

EFFECTIVE MARKETING........

......takes place within an instant of 'discovery'.

When we discover that something we have sought has just appeared the gratitude we feel is one of 'ownership'. The ownership being referred to is of ourselves through our growth during that brief moment of discovery.

It cannot be taken away. It is ours.......for a lifetime.

WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW.....

......what you don't know the pros call this "unconscious incompetence".

MARKETING SUCCESS OCCURS.......

.......when your client's response is ....."Aha!".........It is the expression of gratitude we feel when we know that we have solved our need.

Maintaining client gratitude is essential to maintaining client goodwill.

KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW............AND THEN FIND OUT.

.......when your client's response is ....."Aha!".........It is the expression of gratitude we feel when we know that we have solved our need.

Maintaining client gratitude is essential to maintaining client goodwill.

HOW WELL ARE YOU PREPARED TO RETIRE AT YOUR CURRENT STANDARD OF LIVING FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS?

Here is a starting point:
  • Do you have a 'defined benefit' pension plan?

(a plan provided by your employer on the basis of a actuarially legislated lifetime pension amount paid to you by your employer at at given retirement age).


If you have one more than 80% of your estimated retirement needs will likely be covered.....based on the old 70% rules which these plans considered as well as mortality and investment factors. The key change is in mortality........we are living longer.......which can trigger shortfalls.

If you don't have one you might have ask for help. With no defined benefit plan you face three types of risk that you will have to manage:

  • longevity risk
  • inflation risk, and
  • market risk

Longevity is self-explanatory and is becoming a bigger problem as people live longer.

Inflation can add up surprisingly fast. An annual inflation rate of just 3% can cut the value of your savings in half in just 20 - 24 years. Considering that at age 60 we are currently living 30 years to age 90......the remaining 6 -10 years can be painful....and are under these circumstances.

Market risk is a matter of whether or not you are lucky enough to retire in a bull market.

Other factors to think about include:

  • lifestyle
  • debt load, and
  • inheritance

All of these factors vary widely from person to person.

What it means is that you can't sit down and simply find 'the number' in one sitting.

There is no quick fix. It takes 40 years to reach this stage.

One essential is that you search for and locate a trusted financial advisor.......with the professional practice credentials, experience, commitment and references you need to undrstand the choices available.

The financial planning profession offers state of the art solutions that are comparable to a thorough medical examination which includes an MRI.

4/20/2007

A DEMOGRAPHIC SNAPSHOT OF OPINIONS ON RETIREMENT AMONG 30 - 65 YEAR OLDS.

How much thought have you given to retirement?

  • a lot of thought......31 %
  • some thought - a little thought - no thought at all......69%


Are you ahead or behind schedule in your retirement planning and saving?

  • very much ahead......4%
  • a little ahead......7%
  • on track......35%
  • a little behind......31%
  • very much behind......23%

ARE BOOMERS IN A STATE OF DENIAL ABOUT THEIR RETIREMENT?

BMO Financial found that only 28% of Baby Boomers have savings and investments worth $100,000 or more!

In fact, about one in five have no savings at all, and 73% are still carrying debt!

With statistics like that, you can't blame people for trying not to think about retirement, and what it's going to cost them.

Author Lee Eisenberg says it's the last taboo!"

People would sooner offer personal guided tours through their medicine cabinets, provide detailed dossiers on their sessions with their psychotherapists and cosmetic surgeons, or describe in graphic detail which particular sex acts they long to perform with this, or that man, woman, or farm animal, and with what boot, whip, kitchen appliance or hand tool.

"When told that "I am insured......I have a $100,000 of life insurance!" a colleague of mine replied "I guess you aren't planning on being dead very long!" We can add to that "With $100,000 in savings I guess you aren't planning on being retired very long!"

The foregoing summarizes the current retirement status of 72% of the Baby Boomer generation. No wonder it is causing a state of fear and denial.

At age 60 next to good health the most critical resource necessary to ensure a life in retirement has been consumed..........time.

BMO suggest that the old rule of thumb that you need 70% of your ore-retirement income to have full life "is useless". Because Canadians are healthier, more active and are trying to take advantage of this next phase of their lives their lifestyle costs go up.

The word "retirement" should be retired because it's more of a "transition" today than a complete departure from a traditional
working life.

CULTURAL COMPETENCE IS AN ESSENTIAL IN ACHIEVING A GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN A SERVICE ECONOMY.

"Companies needs new cultural competencies to meet the needs of future customers" (Carlos F. Orta (President and CEO of Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (HACR U.S.A.)."

In a service economy where each employee's contribution is critical to business success, a company's ability to inspire a process of continuous learning and improvement in every employee will define its competitive advantage. This is what BellSouth calls "a better return on your investment in human capital". (This has been my core belief put into professional practice for over 40 years personally....Dan Zwicker).

Companies that create cultures of development - where all employees, encouraged to reach their maximum potential, contribute their best efforts to the company's shared business objectives - will continuously recruit and retain top talent, and, therefore, outperform companies that do not. (My core belief is that collaborative practice drives exponential performance through strategically competitive advantage within complex knowledge/information based/professional practice advisory service organizations...Dan Zwicker).

The sine qua non of a culture of development is committed leadership, beginning with the chief executive officer. "If people see the chief executive engaged, explains Orta, "then it filters down throught the company.

Leaders who view inclusion and development as strategic business imperatives, commit to achieving them, incorporate them into every aspect of business strategy and demand accountability at every level of the organization will realize the promise of exponential growth through diversity and inclusion.

'Best practices' point to a CEO who builds a strategic network of policies, practices and programs that work together to increase individual performance and organizational productivity.

These practices are essential for exponential market growth, strategic competitive advantage and relevance within a globally interactive marketplace........Forbes

MUTI-TASKING.............REALLY?

Here are several dictionary definitions:

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)

mul·ti·task·ing

–noun Computers.

the concurrent or interleaved execution of two or more jobs by a single CPU.

Also,

multi-tasking.

American Heritage Dictionary

The concurrent operation by one central processing unit of two or more processes.

There is no such thing among human beings. We must prioritize our tasks......and then focus on getting them done.....one at a time.

THE BOOMERS ARE DRIVING FINANCIAL SERVICES THAT DON'T EXIST..........YET! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BANKS.

The Canadian banks have a competitive advantage on the creation of the future services being sought by the 'Boomers' who are starting to retire this year as they reach age 60. Professional Practice advisory services distribution must align itself with the needs of the emerging Boomer market. It includes the intergenerational wealth about to be transferred from the post 2nd. WW II generation to its children..the Boomer generation.

BMO Harris Private Banking has engaged Dr. Howard Bergman, a leadiing professor of geriatric medicine at McGill University in Montreal and a director of its Division of Geriatric Medicine in participating in enCircle, a council of geriatric health-care professionals that would advise a new wealth-management service for well-to-do-seniors. BMO Harris' initiative represents the first time a non-health care organization has shown an interest in leveraging his expertise.

Launched in the spring of 2005 , enCircle is a banking and investment program for seniors with investment assets that exceed $500,000. In addition to investment management, enCircle clients are offered a variety of services such as bill payment, and tax-return filing for snowbirds , estate and trust services and travel planning. Members also have access to information about home care and health care via a 24-hour helpline run by FGI World, a company that supplies employee assistance programs to businesses. Clients are charged an annual fee ranging from 1% to 1.7% of their investment portfolio, depending on whether the client is looking for passive or active management of their portfolio.

The enCircle advisory council, which consists of five members including Bergman, was created to provide guidance and advice to BMO Harris. It's not involved in creating financial products themselces, but it does commenton a range of issues, from the simple, such as creating easy-to-read documents, to the complex such as the psychologicaland kegal issues that arise among family members who care for aging relatives.

For Jean Blacklock, vice-president and managing director of personal trust services at BMO Harris, the council has more than lived up to expectations. In particular she gives it credit for focussing enCircle services so that they target not just seniors but the needs of their families as well. (We refer to this as "The Broad Concept". It is an approach developed by an icon in the Canadian life insurance industry, Hal Zlotnik, CLU over 40 years ago). "After we launched, we realized that a number of seniors are coming to us via their adult children," Blacklock says. "The council gave us a clearer perspective on families and the needs of that adult caregiving generation."


The idea of creating a service catering to seniors first took seed at BMO in early 2004. Blacklock remebers coming across a StatsCan report at the time that showed demographic growth rates across different age groups over a 10 year period. "It was negative in every category except 60 and up, and I thought, 'This is our growth area and a wonderful opportunity. Let's go after it."

Starting virtually from scratch, Blacklock and her colleagues began creating various products and services catering to older people such as the bill payment program which remains part of the enCircle program. A few months later, Blacklock attended a conference in Washington and learened of at least two U.S. banks that, in addition to providing financial services for their seniors, had also set up health information helplines for o;der clients for Blacklock it was a revelation. Banks tend to think only about their financial products. (This is a move from commodity based marketing to complex information/advice based 'professional practice' marketing). But with seniors she realized, health issues can affect every part of their lives - including their banking and investment needs (not to mention their life, retirement, estate and longterm care needs. Why is it that the banks always see the unfolding of the financial services markets long before the life insurance industry?). We needed to be more attuned to that. Only we're a bank. We didn't have the expertise." So Blacklock and her group began approaching members of the geriatric medical community, such as Bergman asking if they'd help the bank. (collaborative practice at its professional best!).

The response was positive and the advisory council was born.

The succes of enCircle - sales are exceeding 150% of forecasts, Blacklock says - has been felt across BMO Financial Group. And the advisory council modelis now being adapted for other departments. In september, for example, BMO Financial Group launched its "New Retiement Initiative." It's being afvised by acouncil of medical, legal, and public policy experts, who are helping the bank anticipate emerging retirement trends, such as the growing phenomenon of Boomers leaving work at earlier ages to start part-time businesses.

Bergman who turned 60 this year, believes enCircle is a step toward changing society's perception of seniors. "The current image is often negative," he says. "The image it brings to mind is that in 20 years, we'll be overrun with older people, incontinent and demented, pushing walkers through the streets." The reality couldn't be further from the truth, he says.

The seniors of tomorrow will be healthier and more active than ever before. And that's exactly what society has always wanted to see - people living longer and living better. There will be challenges Bergman says , but there are also opportunities. "The more industry gets involved, the better off older people are going to be and the more we are going to develop a positive view on aging."


From: Financial Post Business.

INTEGRITY VS..................................

.................COMFORT.

Integrity trumps comfort....always!

"GRACE UNDER PRESSURE"

A characteristic attributed to President John F. Kennedy.

Needed today more than ever.

WE CAN ONLY CONTROL.......

.......OUR PRIORITIES, OUR ACTIVITY AND OUR COMMUNICATION.

RESULTS ARE NOT ALWAYS WITHIN OUR CONTROL PARTICULARLY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF INTERDEPENDENT COLLABORATIVE OPERATING RELATIONSHIPS.

NASA "COLLABORATES" WITH NATIONS IN SPACE.....CNN

A wise practice for the achievement of extraordinary and essential complex results on earth.

MDRT 'TOP OF THE TABLE'

The Olympic Gold standard of the life insurance industry.

INTENSE CURIOSITY.......

.......A LIFETIME ASSET.

BRAIN POWER........

......."in financial services, it's the brain power, it's the customer service skill, it's the innovation and creativity, it's the relationship building, we're not selling widgets, we're selling talent".

Janet EckerTFSA Executive Director

FEAR.......

.......of success or failure are identical.Both are a fear of exposure.

THE BEST LEADERS

"combine intense professional will with personal humility."

Jim Collins, author

4/19/2007

"THE SITUATION IS THE BOSS"

'Olympians' do whatever it takes to accomplish their goal.

Jack and Gary Kinder

4/18/2007

THE VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE.......

is realized only once it is applied competently.

Then there is no price

.........simply value.

FROM COMMODITY SALES TO PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

The contemporary consumer market for financial services needs, wants and is demanding that complex knowledge and information be simplified and delivered for consumer action through competent, trusted and compliant professional advisors.......formally educated, professionally designated and trained by competent mentors and 'coaches' as financial services 'professional practitioners'.

The platform for the delivery of this service is being integrated into the entire current financial services product creation and delivery infrastructure. It is client engagement focussed - not product promotion driven. Comprehensive 'MRI' analysis first - solutions second. It requires an act of leadership - one on one. It is the antithesis of salesmanship.

The process is transformational in its impact upon the way the entire industry delivers its service to the consumer.

It is IT real time based and global in its reach.

We are delivering it through every financial services venue.

Toronto 06 10 2006

THE NET WORTH OF A 'KNOWLEDGE' EMPLOYEE

The seven largest global pharmceutical firms pay their employees relatvely similar salaries, but their workers' true net worth varies widely, based upon the value of each company's knowledge capital.

The most valuable employee net worth is shown as varying between a high of $538,431 (U.S.$ 2004) per employee and the least valuable at $2,656.

The extraordinary differences are found in the quality of the investments made by the firms in knowledge, research and development........resulting in research breakthroughs, rapid responses to health emergencies and improved diagnostics.

Here is the net worth equation:

KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL WORTH/EMPLOYEE -

ANNUAL EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION =

NET WORTH/EMPLOYEE

DUE DILIGENCE > OPTIMUM SOLUTIONS > EXPONENTIAL RESULTS

.......through the coaching of 'Olympic' class self-confidence.

In all our initiatives to engage with clients and collaborative professional 'partners' we are uncompromising in our search for integrity and character of purpose. We accomplish this through our disciplined exercise of continous due diligence. Congruency of purpose is our key objective.

COMPETENT EXECUTION IS .......

.......the bottom line.

WHY IS IT.......

.......that when we undergo a surgical procedure we assume the surgeon is competent.....enough to get us through it alive?

.......why is it in our daily experience with inadequate.....sometimes incompetent service we shrug it off?

.......the dismissal begins with "well.......

"Our position in the capital risk field is that we provide a solution to the irrecoverable loss of time. Capital is time........compressed into currency.

Is our obligation to be competent any less than that of a surgeon whose sole purpose is to prolong the optimum quality of life possible given the time a patient is expected to have?

We take the view that there is no difference in our professional obligation to our client.

Time is a constant to be enjoyed whether it be granted through good personal health or sound financial health or both.

A LIFE INSURANCE ICON AND MENTOR

17 years before I entered the life insurance industry I met my life insurance agent on campus in my third year at university. As sometimes happens my roommate asked me if I would like to sit in on an initial meeting with an agent from Mutual Life. He knew I had a deep interest in the subject and thoughtfully extended an invitation.

I sat in.........met my agent Steve......purchased my first life insurance policy that evening......and was served by my agent until his retirement 5 years ago. Two years after I met my agent in Kingston I finished my schooling and moved to Montreal to begin a new career.

For 17 years I frequently asked my agent questions that were of interest to me and invariably received comprehensive typewritten detailed replies often 10 - 15 pages in length.......complete with ledgers, graphs and source notes.

Steve was an icon at Mutual Life and in the Canadian life insurance industry......a member of the elite Mutual Life Hall of Fame, a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table, a prominent leader in The Life Underwriters Association of Canada (LUAC) now known as Advocis........and most importantly a consummate professional, gentleman, devoted husband and father. I was honoured to have him as my life insurance agent.....and lifetime friend.

Why this story? Steve Roughton was my model of professionalism and excellence.......the person to whom I looked as a basis for my own professional practice when I entered the field 17 years after we met.

Our models are the basis of our practice. If we are fortunate enough to have professionals who model excellence their legacy is continued through those who follow.When I entered the field I knew no other standard........and I have practiced what I observed throughout my professional life........with extraordinary gratitude to my friend and agent.Incidently, Steve's father and grandfather preceded him at Mutual Life and set the stage and their lifetime standards and expectations for his career.Sometimes we are simply lucky in our choice of relationships and friendships.

REAL TIME COMMUNICATION

The options:
  • voice mail
  • mail
  • fax
  • email
  • text


In a wired real time world our preferred real time choice is in bold.

LIFE INSURED FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS.......

.......are not sold.

They are made available through, empathy, understanding, compassion and an unselfish act of leadership one-on-one.

.......for those who qualify.

WE DON'T CREATE SELF-CONFIDENCE.......

........we discover it

........we nurture it

....... and we empower it to its highest performance levels through our commitment to 'olympic' calibre coaching

........among and for our closest, colleagues, associates and clients.

OUR CARDINAL PRINCIPLE.......THE ENGAGEMENT OF 'NET GIVERS'.

In our process of discovery in selecting associates and clients we seek out 'Net Givers'.

In all relationships we give and we take. At one end of the spectrum we find takers.......and at the other end givers.

In a collaborative professional practice environment we consider it essential that each participant in the relationship be capable of 'net giving'.

Our view is simply that if all participants were 'net takers' there can never be a surplus to dispense to others.

Our experience has shown consistently that the 'net giver' (who gives more than he or she takes) has a 'cup' that is overflowing......a stronger collaborative relationship position than either half full or half empty.

We are uncompromisingly disciplined in this view.

LEFT-BRAIN.......RIGHT-BRAIN.......

your bias makes a difference.......in every decision.

"HIGH PERFORMERS WELCOME UNCERTAINTY.......

and recognize that risk drives value."

accenture

MONEY AND PERSONALITY.......

.......their relationship and the predictive science that ties them together.......governs our personal and financial results.

"HIGH PERFORMERS STEP OUTSIDE.......

.......well-worn organizational pathways."

accenture

"INSIDE EVERY HIGH PERFORMER.......

.......there is an even higher performer trying to get out."

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"WE MAKE PROMISES.......

.......that have no expiration date."

New York Life.

That life insurance statement of a unique lifetime commitment has no comparable.......including the mythical phrase "buy term and invest the difference"

.......for how long?
"Don't send your ducks to eagle school."

Why? Because it won't work.

A magazine not long ago had a full-page ad in it for a hotel chain.

The first line of the ad read:"We do not teach our people to be nice."

The second line said,"We hire nice people."

Jim Rohn