Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics informed its employees in Fort Worth, Texas recently that it has begun blocking on its servers music-streaming websites as well as online radio stations and gaming sites, and sites that stream sports and entertainment. The reason for such drastic action, the company said, was because 10 percent of its bandwidth was being consumed by non-business related activities. This at a time when Lockheed reported its bandwidth consumption is growing at a rate of nearly 25 percent per year.

The article, published by McClatchy/Tribune News, pointed out that Lockheed is not the only company suffering from this dilemma. In a survey of 250 IT managers earlier this year, Network Box USA, a provider of computer network security, found that 10 percent of respondents’ bandwidth was consumed by YouTube. “It’s one thing if a worker is playing cards at his table,” said Pierluigi Stella, chief technology officer at Network Box. “But if he is hogging up bandwidth, he is keeping other people from working. It’s double trouble.”

I certainly don’t mean to single out Lockheed here, because I think this problem affects almost every company and organization in America, if not the world. Aside from the waste of precious corporate resources, it points to a more systemic problem in our work culture: how is it that employees have that much time to spend surfing the Web for personal gratification?

I have come to realize there are two different business models: those organizations that are results oriented and those that are process oriented. But here’s where it gets complicated: the two models can co-exist at different levels within the same organization.

Let me give you an example. The president of a university and his executive cabinet may have in place clear-set strategic objectives as well as action steps to help achieve those objectives. But does the administrative assistant in the English department or the plumber working in Facilities Management have established and stated goals they are expected to achieve?

Years ago, during America’s push to put men on the moon, a journalist touring the Kennedy Space Center asked a custodian pushing a broom what he was doing? “What does it look like I’m doing?” came the response. “I’m sweeping the floor.” The same question to another custodian got roughly the same answer. But when the journalist asked a third employee the same question, the employee smiled and said: “I’m helping to put a man on the moon!”

How engaged are your employees? It’s not enough to have clearly stated goals and objectives in place. Every employee needs to specifically understand his or her role in accomplishing those objectives. And they need to be held accountable.

It’s Friday afternoon as I write this and the weather couldn’t be nicer. I’ve mentally checked out for the weekend so it’s time to have some fun.

This is the season when we get all wound up with politics. That’s why it’s healthy to step back every now and then and enjoy a good reality check:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KucV8renOfI&list=SL

These young folks at Auto-Tune the News are creative in putting together these compilation parodies. And if you take a closer look, they’ll show you how to join in the fun.

Have a good weekend, and if you live in the more northern climates, enjoy your fall foliage (-:

Don’t know where you live, but in my neck of the woods, we currently are being bombarded with political ads. You can’t open a newspaper or turn on a television without learning what a jerk the other guy is and why we should vote for this “outsider” who is determined to take down his or her Goliath and turn things around. Vote for the underdog, the story goes, and let’s get America back to work.

Name-calling and mud-slinging certainly isn’t a new phenomenon. John Adams had to deal with attacks from Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln suffered enough slings and arrows before he beat Stephen Douglas to the White House.

Picking a fight with your opponent and painting him as a villain is one of the oldest tricks in the book. And as much as we say we hate all the negative campaigning, we love a good fight. Start yelling at the guy next to you and see how fast a crowd forms. A good example are the commercials that compare the Mac to the PC. They are funny, edgy, and the differentiators they point out stick with us. Why would we ever consider buying a PC when Mac’s have all those advantages and features?

What works for Madison Avenue can also work for higher education.

Of course, you don’t have to name an entity to start a fight. The villain your institution takes on can also be a problem or issue. Your community college can decide to launch an all-out assault on unemployment in your community. Your university can tackle the local nursing shortage by offering online and hybrid programs to working adults. Whatever the problem, your institution is simply fed up and isn’t going to take it any more. It’s committed to fighting the good fight on behalf of its good neighbors.

The inner child in us loves to fight the bad guys. We also love the idea of coming to the aid of the hero. So what are you waiting for? Go out there and wage war against the villains in your neighborhood.

For anyone who has ever been involved in the process of selling, one of the first qualifying steps is to identify the buying influence. Who has the authority to purchase? Once we’ve identified those individuals, however, we don’t take it to the next step. We don’t focus on that portion of the brain that is authorized to make the sale.

When faced with the challenge of presenting our goods and services, we marketeers describe in some detail what our organizations do. We tell in different ways how we go about doing what we do. But we seldom do a very good job of explaining why we do what we do. And that’s a shame because it’s the emotional side of our beings that have a lot to do with our behavior.

How many times have we turned down an opportunity because it just didn’t “feel” right? Because our “gut” made us hesitate?

Yes, the neo-cortex portion of our brain wants the facts. It yearns for the logic behind making a decision. But the limbic portion controls our emotions. And our emotions are the gatekeeper to our behavior.

Parents rely more on logic in deciding which colleges are right for their children. Which schools can we afford? Which ones can most likely find junior a job after graduation? But students often make their choices based on how a school feels. Where are my friends going? Will I be comfortable in that environment? How do I feel about the football team?

Politics aside, I believe one of the reasons President Obama was able to come from behind and get elected in 2008 was because his campaign was able to get past the what and tap into the why. The majority of Americans supported him, not because of who he was, but because his ideals for change matched their own. We followed him to the White House, not so much because he had a plan, but because he had a vision of hope. We weren’t sure if he could deliver, but in the end, our emotions overrode the logic.

 Yes, logic has its place. But don’t forget to address the why. Tap into our emotions and make us not just understand, but also feel.