This is the 14th issue of The Better Mousetrap.Many of you have joined our mailing list after the first issue. So we have archived all the 13 previous issues on our website. It's easy to review all of them. Just click here for the list or go to the Cheshire Group website and click on the link that says The Better Mousetrap E-Mail Newsletters.

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KICKING THE CARROT THROUGH THE GOAL POSTS.
Motivation and Inspiration.

How do you motivate others? For people in business, this is a deeply interesting question. If we could just learn to stimulate the folks we manage...if we could inspire them to strive to their highest potential—well!—think what the company could achieve! Think of the profits! Think of the return on investment! Think what would happen to the price per share, for heavens sake!

So back to the question: How do you motivate people?
Answer: You can't.

People commit themselves to a purpose. This commitment is an individual decision, and it's called self-motivation.

Well, that shouldn't seem too foreign to business managers. There are, after all, a couple of basic motivational terms that business people use all the time and "purpose" is one of them. "Objective", "goal" and "target" are three other terms that get tossed around too, and all four words get mixed up. But when you're trying to understand motivation, it's important to keep the terms straight. One way is to define them in the context of spectators at a football game.

Question: What is the objective of a football game (i.e. what do we want to do?)
Answer: We want to win.

Question: What is the goal of a football game?
Answer: To score more points than the opposing team?

Question Then what is the purpose of a football game?
Answer: Vicarious thrills.

Ah-ha! People commit at the purpose level so they're committed to football for vicarious thrills.

Since employees also commit at the purpose level, and not at the objective level, they need to see the purpose of the system. And they must see the purpose in terms that are beneficial to them. It is at this point that many managers fail. They fail in two ways: 1) for not making the purpose plain and 2) for expressing the purpose in their terms. E.g. "We must all dig in and work hard to get the company's stock up two points by the end of the quarter."

Yawn.

If the employee isn't invested in profit sharing, it means little to him or her whether the company makes a specific profit. Nor is it smart to assume that an employee's purpose is the same as the corporation's purpose (which is—by the way—to create wealth through a service relation to a system.)

To get people to commit to a purpose, give them a purpose that's worth commitment. You can't motivate someone else but you can inspire. You can hold out a purpose worthy of commitment; the individual will do the rest.

THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM IDENTITY THEFT AND SCAMS.
Helpful ideas from the Small Business Service Bureau and the Cheshire Group.

1. Never provide or "update" personal information in response to an e-mail.

2. Don't give out your PIN or other personal information on the phone.

3. Sign the back of your credit, debit and charge cards.

4. Don't give out your credit card number unless you initiated the transaction and know who you're dealing with.

5. Shred mail and other papers containing personal information before throwing them away.

6. Don't carry PIN numbers or your social security number in your wallet.[This is a problem if you have a Medicare card since your claim number is your social security number. For a way around this problem send us an e-mail.]

7. Make sure every PC that you use online has anti-virus software and a firewall and that you subscribe to a service that continually updates the software.

8. Put your phone number(s) on the national Do Not Call Registry. You can do it right now by clicking here.

9. Reconcile your bank accounts monthly and report any improper transactions. Do the same with your credit card bills.

10. Review your credit reports from one of the three major credit reporting agencies every four months. It's free. Start by clicking here. Review the report carefully and report any errors.

11. Your Homeowners Insurance policy, for a small annual fee, will provide some monetary protection if you should have a loss due to identity theft. Check with your broker.

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR BEST IDEAS?
Survey commissioned by Staples has some suprising answers.

HOW TO CHOSE A PRINTER.
The Cheshire Group's Rule of Thumb.

Everyone buys printing from time to time. And there are a host of printers available to do your work. So how do you go about choosing the right one for your company?

Well here's a handy rule of thumb that seems to work. In printing you can have:

Good
Fast
Cheap

But you can't have all three from any given printer. You can only have two.So select the two that are best for you and chose the printer who can deliver.