The universal thing that I have found in business dealings is that the setting of expectations weighs heavily in the level of success upon completion of the project. The Canadian men’s hockey team is playing today and the expectations are high. It will be hard for anyone to accept less than Gold today.

Entering into a successful negotiation means that you have gain a clear understanding of the other party’s expectations. You can then work to align your plans to best fit their desired outcome, but you can also see where you can maximize your own benefit. Some would say that this is greedy, or opportunistic, and it is, but this is the nature of the capitalist free market. There are also worse things than creating a win-win situation.

Use information and communication to create the intersection of expectations and success will follow.

Steven C Davidson – Pursuit Placement Group

The 6 Reasons they are a standout are:

1. They help employees transition to retirement by providing pre-retirement planning workshops and a gradual reduction of work hours prior to retirement
2. Epcor lets employees schedule up to five personal days off each year — in addition to 3 weeks of holidays to start as a minimum. You can also take this time on a per hour basis. 
3. They put their money where their mouth is when they say ‘professional development’. They will subsidize 100% of the full cost of tuition for job-related courses at outside institutions.
4. They provide and manage a community curling club that can be used by employees and retirees
5. They are an official supplier to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, giving employees priority status for volunteer positions during the Games, but more importantly have given themselves a visible presence to the world.
6. Spend a great deal of money on the future with significant investments in alternative energy, including power generation from methane and wind power, while not ignoring the fact that oil, gas, and coal are going to pay for the development of that new technology

You might think that I am bias because they are an Edmonton based company, but the fact is they are a leader that has higher than average employee satisfaction and retention levels and serve as a model for other companies, globally.

Epcor will help lead us into the future and should be a company that others seek to follow.

Steven C Davidson

1. Morbid Curiousity – think about what happened with the Georgian luger, 14 minutes before the video hit Youtube
2. Personal Affirmation – They’ve done it all wrong and I/We would do it much better. This allows us to feel better about not being involved in something, which is actually as crazy as it sounds.
3. ‘Gossipmongerism’ – If I leak the story first somehow I’m smarter and therefore better than the average person. Tiger’s bad, so I’m good
4. Self-preservation – this can be argued I’ll grant you, but there is a bit of evolution at work here. If I see something bad that happened to a person in a particular situation I am less likely to try to take that same action. Whereas, I’m more likely to try something if I see it attempted successfully.
5. Good News Promotes Inaction - Who blinks an eye when someone says the restaurant on the corner is great , but if I said they had rats or cockroaches I’ll bet that would get some people moving. There is just no reason to act if what is happening now is perfectly fine.It’s the, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ attitude. Innovation comes from the opposite however. If Canada wins the hockey game against the Swiss we are happy but relatively inactive. If they lost though, you can bet there would have been a ton of negative action.

So what is the solution… I urge everyone to challenge themselves just once this week with some kind of action that goes against the norm. Not frivolous action mind you, but something that you think could work equally as well as your current method, or maybe better. Challenge gets us to build new nerve pathways in our brains and to grow as humans.

As someone who doubts he uses more than 5% of his brain this is an absolute necessity.

Steven Davidson – Pursuit Placement Group

Safe=Boring=Home at the end of the day…click here

That is really one of the first Biographical books I will look to read. I personally don’t run a Mac yet, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility for the future. When you look at people who have made an impact on life across the planet, Steve Jobs has to be in the top ten. His company came out with an idea for a simple easy to use, and learn computer. He was brought back to the company that had ousted him as it was in a tailspin. The conventional thought was that it could not compete with PC’s due to the market penetration, and the broad base of manufacturers. Those things actually helped Jobs, and Apple to recreate the original impact. Production control, high quality and good looking machines made sense to a lot more people, and that number is still growing, due to ease of use, reliability, and lack of viruses.

He decided to show his company could do the same with phones, animation, music, music players, and most recently with tablets. Apple has duplicated the success of the Mac with arguably the best of class in all of those categories. Even if you do not think those items are the best in class you would have to admit they hold the highest level of popularity in all but the tablet class.

Steve Jobs’ story is one that I want to read, and frankly wish I could emulate. Continue to ask the question, “Why not?” seems to be a pretty good philosophy.

I can’t wait for the iKnee so I can get back to running marathons.

Steven C Davidson – Pursuit Placement Group