The coming jobs war by Jim Clifton

Written by Gallup, the polling organisation the book gives a frankly depressing view of the likely future track of the 'developed western countries' particularly America.  In fact the book is a little too xenophobic for my taste, although the messages as the author says could be applied anywhere.  What he seems to fail to realise is that there are many other countries in the 'race' he describes and I see no particular reason why the USA should win.

In addition to the well known 12 employee engagement questions (that we really should use at work rather than keep developing our own as there is so much baseline data) the book outlines a set of customer engagement and student engagement questions along similar lines

Six years into our global data collection effort, we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact. What the whole world wants is a good job. This is one of the most important discoveries Gallup has ever made.Read more at location 118 •
Humans used to desire love, money, food, shelter, safety, peace, and freedom more than anything else. The last 30 years have changed us. Now people want to have a good job, and they want their children to have a good job.Read more at location 126 •
So what would going broke look like on a national scale? Well, take a look at Detroit, and imagine that economic disaster coast to coast. Look at California. California can’t pay its pensions, it will likely declare bankruptcy, a lot of its employees are going to be out of a job, and its bond holders won’t be able to get their money. The same is true for Illinois and Michigan.Read more at location 187 •
Yet a country’s GDP is its most important leading indicator. So goes its increase and decrease, so goes jobs, spending, tax base, and then everything else. Size matters, but so does direction.Read more at location 280 •
And then there’s this fact, which few people seem to recognize: All money is going to get spent anyway. You’ll spend it, your business will spend it, or your government will spend it.Read more at location 351 •
“My hard-earned government pension has been slashed.” You’ll start hearing this slowly at first, and then all the time. That’s because when the GDP has no growth, there is no job growth, which depletes the once huge tax base that pays for everything. And so the government has to cut services by a third, including government pensions.Read more at location 370 •
With fewer jobs, there are fewer workers to fund Social Security. So payments get cut. And it’s a significant problem for a democratic system that has elected officials who don’t want to address it, because explaining that this program simply cannot continue making the payments the way it does now will cause them to lose elections.Read more at location 390 •
Plato made a very cruel but astute observation: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”Read more at location 766 •
Innovation has no value until it creates something a customer wants. Here is a Gallup economics finding that few leaders anywhere know: Even the best ideas and inventions in the world have no value until they have a customer.Read more at location 894 •
Let me summarize the biggest body of behavioral economic data in the world on workplaces. It comes from a Gallup study on workplace productivity, and it consists of 12 critical elements of work life. Gallup has asked millions of workers worldwide to respond to these items for more than a decade and always finds the same thing: Miserable employees create miserable customers.Read more at location 1048 •
And if you can’t find the misery quotient, I guarantee your accounting department will. It will take a year or two though. I’ve observed that employee misery precedes all the easy-to-find data by one day to two years, depending on the type of business. Somebody in the company needs to treat a customer like hell for between one day and two years before the customer will defect. Customer defections are immediately followed by job loss.Read more at location 1053 •
And then there are the 19% of actively disengaged employees who are there to dismantle and destroy your company. They exhaust managers, they have more on-the-job accidents and cause more quality defects,Read more at location 1082 •
Gallup also found that other apparent key variables (such as “I’m fairly compensated”) outside the 12 didn’t distinguish between engaged and disengaged employees. These 12 items hold up statistically throughout all job variations and throughout business and industry, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the military, education — virtually all jobs everywhere in the world.Read more at location 1097 •

There’s one behavioral economic demand left, and it is big. If you don’t get this one right, everything after it falls apart. Once you have carefully diagnosed an individual’s strengths and given her that near-perfect job that she has real talent to perform with a mission and purpose, make sure she has a great manager. Everything else on The Gallup Path shuts down if an employee has a bad boss.Read more at location 1217 •

A leader’s most defining moment is the decision of whom to name as manager at any level — whom to put in charge of developing the talents and skills of others. If a leader chooses good managers, everything works. If a leader assigns the wrong person as manager, everything fails. Nothing fixes bad managers, not coaching, competency training, incentives, or warnings — nothing works. A bad manager never gets better.Read more at location 1224 •
In fact, one of the biggest blind spots in most American businesses is that they don’t realize how big the emotional economy is within their own customer base worldwide. The best corporate leaders in the United States are still unaware that they are leaving a great deal of money on the table through abysmal execution of the employee-customer links because they are so focused on the “hard numbers,” of which they have already squeezed every dollarRead more at location 1291 •
To measure customer engagement, these are the best 11 questionsRead more at location 1306 •
Gallup scientists have found to ask customers anywhere in the world: CE1. Taking into account all the products and services you receive from them, how satisfied are you with (Company) overall? CE2. How likely are you to continue to do business with (Company)? CE3. How likely are you to recommend (Company) to a friend or associate? CE4. (Company) is a name I can always trust. CE5. (Company) always delivers on what they promise. CE6. (Company) always treats me fairly. CE7. If a problem arises, I can always count on (Company) to reach a fair and satisfactory resolution. CE8. I feel proud to be (a/an) (Company) customer. CE9. (Company) always treats me with respect. CE10. (Company) is the perfect company/product for people like me. CE11. I can’t imagine a world without (Company).Read more at location 1307 •
There are more than 75 million students enrolled in schools in the United States — nearly 50 million in the 5th through 12th grades. They are the successors of today’s business leaders. The problem is, approximately 30% of those students will drop out or fail to graduate on schedule. About 50% of minorities are dropping out. This gives the rest of the developed world a huge advantage over the United States in the upcoming economic wars.Read more at location 1406 •
Gallup continues to find, as we have for more than 75 years, that lots of money is rarely the solution to big problems. Sometimes, in fact, the bigger the problem, the less expensive the solution. What’s expensive is trying to fix after-the-fact outcomes rather than creating strategies that get at the behaviors and cause.Read more at location 1425 •
Gallup Student Poll Items: 1. Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to ten at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time? On which step do you think you will stand about five years from now? 2. I know I will graduate from high school. 3. There is an adult in my life who cares about my future. 4. I can think of many ways to get good grades.Read more at location 1481 •
5. I energetically pursue my goals. 6. I can find lots of ways around any problem. 7. I know I will find a good job after I graduate. 8. I have a best friend at school. 9. I feel safe in this school. 10. My teachers make me feel my schoolwork is important. 11. At this school, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. 12. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good schoolwork. 13. My school is committed to building the strengths of each student. 14. In the last month, I volunteered my time to help others. 15. Were you treated with respect all day yesterday? 16. Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday? 17. Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday? 18. Did you have enough energy to get things done yesterday? 19. Do you have health problems that keep you from doing any of the things other people your age normally can do? 20. If you are in trouble, do you have family or friends you can count on to help whenever you need them?Read more at location 1488 •
If you were to ask me, from all of Gallup’s data and research on entrepreneurship, what will most likely tell you if you are winning or losing your city, my answer would be, “5th to 12th graders’ image of and relationship to free enterprise and entrepreneurship.” The better the image, the more likely your city will win. If your city doesn’t have growing economic energy in your 5th through 12th graders, you will experience neither job creation nor city GDP growth.Read more at location 1530 •
1. The United States spent $2,500,000,000,000 on healthcare in 2009 — two and a half trillion dollars. Nearly half of this comes from Medicare and Medicaid (taxes). And the other half is private insurance and out-of-pocket spending. 2. This is the biggest price tag for anything in America. War in Iraq and Afghanistan run about $200 billion per year. The healthcare bill per year is 10 times bigger than the annual warRead more at location 1621 •
A hospital is, honest to God, a more dangerous place to be than Iraq or Afghanistan. Over the last eight years, about 6,000 American soldiers have been killed while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the same time, nearly 800,000 American patients have been killed by healthcare mistakes — and about 8,000,000 injured. War fatalities are so small compared to what is happening in hospitals and healthcare facilities. And of course, patients aren’t dying for their country.Read more at location 1666 •