The company that began in 1869 and sold soup in 120 different countries hit upon bad times. Sales weren’t just slowing, they were declining. They lost 54% of their market value in just one year. Campbell’s executives were told that their employee engagement levels were the worst ever seen among the Fortune 500.

So the board of directors hired a new CEO, the mild-mannered Douglas Conant, to turn things around.

What do most CEOs do in dire situations? They sell off divisions, they buy smaller companies, they move into new markets, they hire investment bankers to evaluate “strategic options”.

But that wasn’t Conant’s style. As he was quoted in a Forbes magazine article, “To win in the marketplace…you must first win in the workplace. I’m obsessed with keeping employee engagement front and center.”

So quarter after quarter, year after year, Conant made sure that employee engagement was one of the top initiatives throughout Campbell’s.

Not everybody got the message. In fact, Conant fired 300 of his 350 managers who just wouldn’t adapt to the new program. For most of the openings, he promoted from within those who understood the importance of culture and its impact on the bottom line.

By 2009, Campbell’s Soup had achieved an astounding 23:1 engaged to disengaged employee ratio. More importantly, in the decade that saw the S&P 500 stocks lose 10% of their value, Campbell’s Soup stock actually increased by 30%.

In other words, “keeping employee engagement front and center” helped Campbell’s to achieve 4x greater results for investors.

The Google alert on my own name shows that my previously scheduled blog post went live this morning. I hop over to kevinkruse.com to make sure it’s all good and notice a typo (“they” should read “my friend”). Damn, I’ll have to fix that in a few minutes after I scan the rest of my emails.

“No! Touch it once,” my inner voice reminds me. I quickly open WordPress and fix the typo.

Next email is from a freelancer giving me his EIN number so my accountant can prep a 1099. I’ll have to send that along with a note to my accountant later.

“No. Touch it once.” I hit Forward, add a few lines and off it goes.

Next email. New invoice from an advisor. “What?! I wasn’t expecting this,” I think to myself. Double-click the PDF. Yep, it’s right. Damn, I just finished paying bills yesterday. I’ll have to stack this for my next scheduled bill pay session.

“No. Just do it now. Touch it once.” Fortunately he takes credit cards. Open the form, type in my info. Email it back. Good, only 3 minutes.

Next email.  I joined the Pennsylvania Society. Somebody needs to know if it’s a non-profit or not. How the heck do I know? Who can I pass this onto? Oh,

“touch it once.” I open a new tab in my browser and go to their page. Quickly scan 2-3 of their pages. No mention of 501(c)3 status. Reply to email: don’t think so.

“Hmmm, I should write a blog post someday about how the voice in my head chants “touch it once” as I clear my inbox each morning. Yeah, that would be a good one. Wait!” Open WordPress, start typing the new blog post. Title, “Touch It Once.”

Touch it once. Touch it once. Touch it once. It’s the cadence call of efficiency and productivity.

Whether I’m going through my paper inbox on my desk, or the email inbox on my computer, if the item at hand can be taken care of in less than 5 minutes I do it right then and there. If I can delegate it, I’ll do that. Otherwise I’ll schedule time to complete it.

Touch it once.

[Now clicking the Publish button]

Last week someone told me that they have a great idea for a new business, but they are going to wait until the economy turns around.

I told them that every one of my businesses I’ve launched in a recession, and that while you always would rather have the market going with you than against you, it’s the smallest variable in the algebra of success. Other companies that launched during recessions include: Hyatt, Burger King, FedEx, CNN, Trader Joe’s, and even Microsoft. My friend wasn’t convinced.

In fact this is the best time in history to start a company. What used to require $10 million of startup funds can be done for a fraction of that.

The Golden Age of Entrepreneurship is Today

Serial entrepreneur, Alain Rossmann, who is currently the founder and CEO of Klip (the maker of the fastest video app ever to reach 100,000 downloads), explained in a recent Business Week article how his new company cheaply purchases hosting from Amazon’s cloud service and uses freelancers found on Mechanical Turk. As he puts it:

“You can achieve 10 times more now with 10 times fewer people and 10 times less capital. It’s unbelievable. This is the golden age of startups, and I hope America and everyone else takes advantage of it.”

This is a sentiment I hear repeatedly from those who are actually creating businesses. Computer power costs a fraction of what it used to just a decade ago. Highly talented freelancers can be found on eLance, Odesk, 99Designs, and other sites. Online social networks make it easier than ever before to spread the word about your goods and services. The only thing the Great Recession has done has been to lower the price of commercial real estate…bad for property owners, great for startup businesses.

If you want to start your business, do it or don’t, but don’t use the economy as an excuse.

And when it comes to hiring, the secret formula is:

Great Hire = A lot of candidates + A rigorous interview process

Once again I see evidence of that, this time from Ron Johnson, who oversaw the creation of the Apple Stores, and who is considered the greatest retail mastermind of all time.

In a recent interview conducted with Harvard Business Review, Johnson explained that to get hired as an Apple Store associate, you need to get through six to eight interviews.

As he puts it, this is a very different process than most retailers who, “…find somebody at the lowest cost who’s available on Saturdays from 8 to 12.”

With this rigorous hiring process, not only do you get great talent, but the ones who make it through feel honored to be part of an elite team, and the existing associates respect them from day one because they know the newcomer has survived “the gauntlet.”

It’s a crude but memorable aphorism: Be slow to hire and quick to fire.

I’m not a Bronco’s fan, but was amazed at how Tebow talked to his team, and even to his opponents.

Here are five lessons from Tim Tebow that business leaders can apply in their own environments.

1) One team, to the end.

At about the 1:00 mark on the audio, Tebow encourages, “Let’s stick together, all 60 minutes.” Reminding everyone as they head into football-battle to stick together as one team. No egos, no show boating, just one team. When Lou Gerstner became CEO of IBM, he was tasked with an historic turnaround. His motto was, “Win. Execute. Team.” The team element is critical in business to ensure that individual units work together and don’t become silos.

2) Be friendly with your competition.

At about the 1:25 mark in the audio, Tebow says to an opponent, “Good play man.” To the Bears’ Lance Briggs, he says “What up, Man? I’ve been looking forward to playing you.” These are players who are slamming Tebow to the ground. This is the team that is trying to defeat him. Coopetition is better than competition.

In my various businesses I’ve always built relationships with rivals and many turned into true friendships. It comes from my belief in abundance. You never know when there might be an opportunity to work together. I’m a fierce competitor when it comes to winning business and I’ve recruited top talent away from rivals, but it doesn’t have to be personal. Building relationship capital can be especially beneficial among your competitors.

3) In tough times, focus on the first step.

Things look bleak late in this game. Tebow settles his team by saying, “Let’s just focus on getting one first down…we’ll get the Mo (momentum) going.” He doesn’t want his team to get emotionally down. He doesn’t want them to focus on the long, tough rough ahead. He knows that games are won, one play at a time.

In late 1990s when I was a senior partner in Kenexa, our biggest client filed for bankruptcy and we faced a huge cash crisis. Despite everyone’s best efforts to manage our finances, it appeared we wouldn’t make the next payroll, which would kill the company. Our CFO almost broke down under the stress of the situation. Our CEO, Rudy Karsan calmly wrote a date on his white board: the date that we would run out of money completely. Rudy said, “Just focus on this date. We just to get one-day past this date, and then it will be alright. We can do it..” I still don’t know how they did it, but payroll was met, everyone survived, and it marked the beginning of a new Kenexa.

4) Don’t let your boss see you sweat.

At 2:35 in the audio, right after Tebow has taken a huge shot, a coach asks, “You alright?” Tebow delivers back flawlessly, “I’m fine. It didn’t phase me at all…He’s hurting more than I am.” Tebow isn’t just managing down, he’s managing up. He’s making sure his coaches are confident that he’s feeling good, and still the right person for the job.

This is a lesson it took me a long time to learn. I once thought being “emotionally honest” deepened my relationship with my boss and team members. I thought sharing all the problems was a way of being transparent. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do that. Get help when you need it, but too much emotion, and running every problem up the flag pole, will eventually send the signal that you might not be able to handle the demands of your position.

In my last company, several client service directors reported to me. One asked daily, “do you have a minute?” With red-faced stress he would tell me about the latest client who missed a deadline, or wouldn’t pay. With my open door policy and belief in coaching, I listened and helped. His peer was a young woman named Jen, who quietly went about her business and barely made a peep.

About once a month, she’d meet with me and say, “I need your advice on Client X…” Very rare, very professional. It wasn’t that she had better clients. But she knew her job was to problem solve and only escalate where necessary. Both directors were getting the job done – their success metrics were very similar – but Jen got the promotion (and the next one and the next one). She gave me confidence. She got it.

5) Shake off mistakes; emotionally support your team.

At the 2:50 mark, Tebow throws a bomb to Demaryius Thomas. This guaranteed touchdown goes right through Thomas’ hands. Instead of screaming at his teammate, Tebow puts his arm around a despondent Thomas and says, “Guess what, you’re about to catch the game winner here in a minute. So you’re good. No big deal. It just makes it closer a little bit longer. You’re about to catch the game winner and then you’ll be the hero of the game.” Thomas stands up and says, “Let’s do it.”

Even the best players occasionally make mistakes. Beating them up only shakes their confidence, or make them focus on avoiding mistakes rather than making great plays. Tebow knew the best thing he could do was to get Thomas’s mind off the last play, and ready for the next one.

Against Chicago, Denver was down 10-0 with only two minutes remaining. Improbably, the Broncos scored twice to tie the game, and then won in overtime 13-10. It’s debatable whether they won due to luck, faith, or skill–or most likely, some combination.

One thing is certain: Tebow’s approach can be as effective on the playing football field as it is in the corner office.

But the goal within the goal was to strengthen relationships among the several different groups. As Rear Admiral Sinclair Harris mentioned in an article about that war game:

“As we all know, trust cannot be surged.“

That line really hit me. As I wrote in my leadership book, We, trust is at the foundation of leadership. In fact, trust is one of the top three drivers of engagement (growth and recognition being the other two). As the Admiral so rightly points out, you can’t just flip the trust switch on. You can’t demand it. You can’t fix a trust problem with money. Trust must be earned, and it must be renewed over time.

Five Ways to Earn Trust

While we can’t “surge trust” here are 5 ways you can jumpstart your trust gaining efforts on your team.

1) Go to them. Early in my career I heard a story about how Al Gore, when he first got to the US Senate, went to all the offices of the other senators to introduce himself. It was a personal touch that won him many new friends that helped to advance his political career. When Kenexa bought my small company in the late 1990’s, I applied that lesson by flying all over the country to meet the other managing partners in the firm. Many were surprised when a month later, as a 30-year old company newcomer, was voted onto the executive committee (beating out many tenured senior partners). When it comes to trust, small gestures count. Taking the time to travel to someone else’s office shows respect and it will be returned.

2) Spend time face-to-face. Ahhh, it’s so easy to direct message someone on Twitter, dash off a short email, or maybe do a quick mobile call on the way home. But what build trust is face-to-face communication. This doesn’t mean all communication needs to be in person, it just means sometimes it’s worth the effort to fly-in for an important meeting, to “break bread” over lunch, or even to chat in person in a conference room. Having communal coffee—or some equivalent—has a magic to it. Maybe it’s because of the addition of body language. Maybe it’s because, when face-to-face, we take the time to ask each other about families, we laugh, we let our guard down. Regardless, realize that face-to-face time isn’t inefficient, it’s trust building.

3) Keep your commitments, big and small. Tell us something we don’t know, you might be scoffing. But it’s incredible how rare keeping commitments truly are. The power is in realizing that all commitments count. Do you show up to meetings on time? Do you actually do the tasks you’ve promised others? Do you come through with promises related to compensation and benefits? And if you break a commitment, make sure to acknowledge the mistake. People will generally immediately forgive, but only if they know you are aware of your behavior and have made amends.

4) Identify common context. My friend, Ian, builds relationships better than anyone I know. I’ve seen him in a variety of settings—from working exhibition booths, to warming a bar stool—and inevitably he asks all the people he meets two questions. “Where you from?” and “Where did you go to school?” He instantly looks for common ground, based on geography. You don’t have to copy Ian’s exact question, but it’s worthwhile to look for common ground. It might indeed be from where you grew up, or perhaps which company or department you spent time in, which reality TV shows you both watch, your favorite sports teams, a passion for mountain bikings, whatever. The key is to establish some mutual interests and experiences.

5) Be vulnerable. Although you can’t “surge” trust, being vulnerable with another person is the quickest way to expedite the process. If you share what you are struggling with—if you share your doubts, if you share your challenge for the year ahead, if you share how you’ve made mistakes in the past—people will almost instantly trust you. You are offering up instant transparency and vulnerability and you are trusting them with the information. You can’t fake this. People will sniff out duplicity a mile away. But if you sincerely share, you’ll be surprised at how quickly they’ll share back, and begin a trusting relationship.

Whether in an actual battlefield, or the in the battle of business, be ever mindful that trust is the foundation for leadership success. You can surge equipment, people, and even ideas—but you can’t surge trust. It must be built, and it must be maintained, over time.

At their recent annual investor gathering, the Acumen Fund shared some truths they’ve discovered along the way.

1. Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth.

2. Neither grants nor markets alone will solve the problems of poverty.

3. Poverty is a description of someone’s economic situation, it does not describe who someone is.

4. We won’t succeed in the long term without cultivating local leaders, local money, and strong local communities.

5. Great people, every time, no exceptions.

6. Great technology alone is not the answer.

7. If failing is not an option, you’ve ruled out success as well.

8. Governments rarely invent solutions, but they can scale what works.

9. There is no currency like trust, and there are no shortcuts to earning it.

10. Patient capital investing is built upon a system of values; it is not a series of steps to be followed.

As a serial entrepreneur it struck me how much of this wisdom applies to business. Especially,

• Great people, every time, no exceptions.
• If failing is not an option, you’ve ruled out success as well.
• There is no currency like trust, and there are no shortcuts to earning it.

What do you think? Which lessons resonate with you?

The Legendary Ray Bard, Bard Press

Earlier this week I attended a conference for authors organized by 800-CEO-Read. I had the pleasure of meeting the legendary publisher, Ray Bard. If you aren’t familiar with Ray, he’s the founder and CEO of Bard Press, with an amazing track record of publishing mega-hits like Wizard of Ads (Roy Williamson) and Little Red Book of Selling.

Ray explained that authors need to consider not just readers, but five different “customers” who all have to “buy” your book. They are:

1) Your personal reader network. This is your current social network of fans, readers, friends, families, clients, etc.

2) The bookstore browser. These are the folks that don’t know you, but might see your book at Barnes & Noble.

3) People who buy for others. This category includes professors picking your book for her students, company executives buying books for their employees, or people buying gifts for others.

4) The retail buyer. This isn’t the end consumer, but rather the “buyer” at Barnes & Noble or another book chain that has to decide whether or not to “buy” a quantity of your books and put them on the shelves.

5) The media. Will print, radio and TV “buy” your story. Will they think your book is interesting enough to put on the air.

As an author, I’ll never think about my projects in the same way again. For example, instead of thinking of a creative title and cover that might just appeal to the bookstore browser, I’ll think about a title that would be provocative enough to earn a TV spot.

Even if you aren’t an author, this can be a valuable exercise as you position your products and services. Sure there is your end-user customer. But who else do you need to sell to? Perhaps a trade magazine editor? An industry analyst? The purchasing department?

Think it through and leave nobody out and success will surely be written in your future.

In a recent board meeting someone brought up John Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change. Kotter is a well-respected Harvard Professor, author, and of course consultant on “change management”–which happens to be one of the hottest business topics in the last decade.

Change management guru’s explain that we live in a dynamic, highly competitive world and there are many changes we need to manage. For example, we might need to change our IT systems, or change our strategy, or change our sales compensation model, or change our R&D process…change, change and more change.

In fact, over 8 million people a month are searching Google on topics related to “change management”, “leading change”, “IT change”, “managing change” and more. Amazon.com returns over 66,000 results when you search for “change management.”

Seriously? Change Is That Complicated?

The funny thing is, I eat and breath change in my businesses daily and have never taken a course in it, read any books on it, or hired consultants to help. In fact, I know a lot of very successful business leaders who also deal in change and have never gotten an outside assist.

Don’t get me wrong, the need for “change” is common, and I consider myself to be quite a “change agent” to use another buzzword. But I have a two problems with all this.

First, it seems like a lot of mumbo jumbo. How would I describe change management instead? How about, “stuff we need to do.”

Business leaders are changing things by definition. In the last year leading a non-profit, I’ve “changed” our marketing plan, or sales compensation, our website, our back-end management system, our conference program, our fees, our membership model, our staff, and on and on and on.

In previous companies I’ve changed HR systems, payroll systems, CRM systems, recruiting processes, QC systems, and help desk systems. I’ve changed programming teams from ad hoc cowboys to teams using capability maturity models. I’ve changed sales teams from cold callers to strategic selling teams. I’ve opened new offices, closed offices, and led virtual work teams.

The world changes daily, and we need to “do stuff” to adapt and succeed. There’s no need to make it sound so unusual or threatening.

Keep It Simple Silly

The second problem I have with Kotter and the hundreds of Kotter-wannabe’s is that I’m a simple guy. No Harvard MBA here–just a simple state school bachelor’s degree (Whoo-Raa, Whoo-Raa; Rutgers Rah…).

8-steps to anything is always three steps more than I’ll ever remember, and if I can’t remember it, I won’t do it.

(Of course if you think you can’t do it, you can always call a consultant. But not me. Bootstrappers, profit-watchers, and fast-growth junkies usually do it on their own.)

So here for the first time is the Kevin Kruse real-world, no mumbo jumbo, three step model for change management:

1) Why Change. Explain to everyone why the change (i.e., the new thing) has to take place. What is wrong with the current system? What benefits will the new system have? Obviously for big changes, the benefits of the “new” had better far outweigh the pain of the “old.”

2) Assemble the Team. Assemble the right team to execute and champion the change, and be very clear on roles and responsibilities. Important rule: only one person should ever be accountable for anything. There can be dozens or even hundreds of people that contribute, but having only one person in charge eliminates the possibility of finger-pointing and eases communication.

3) Reward & Punish. Reward or celebrate those who make the change successfully; punish those who won’t change or interfere with the change process. Be merciless here.

You can remember this 3-step model with the acronym W.A.R.

As in, “Go to WAR for change” or even better, go to W.A.R. for whatever your initiative is (e.g., Go to WAR for the new CRM system; Go to WAR for R&D).

The Key to Making W.A.R. Work for Change: Persistence

To make this three-step model work, you have to constantly be beating the drum. (OK, so changing stuff is a little hard). You can’t just issue a memo or hold one meeting and think it will happen. As a leader you must be at “WAR” constantly. Explain the “why” in a big rally, remind people in your quarterly meetings, reference it in your weekly memos, put it in your annual report. Sound like a broken record.

Once you’ve assembled the team, keep evaluating them. Who needs to be removed because they are too slow? Who should be added to solve an issue? Is the champion/leader getting the job done? Achieving anything comes down to People and Process. If you aren’t getting results you need to change one or the other.

Ready? Go!

If you find comfort in complicated solutions or expensive consultants go for it. As long as it works in the end, that’s what counts. But just know that when it comes to “leading change” or “change management” you have it in your power to get it done.

What are your tips for driving change? Let me know in the comments below.