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1953!

No doubt there is head scratching about anyone titling an article with a date that doesn’t appear to jump off the page with historical significance.

The fact is that in 1953 many significant achievements came to fruition that continue to impact quality of life:

  • Jonas Salk announced the development of the Polio Vaccine
  • The chemical structure of DNA was discovered
  • Jacques Cousteau published “The Silent World”
  • General Motors unveiled the Corvette

One other achievement of 1953, certainly less heralded, but no less impactful, was the crediting of the concept of “Brainstorming” to Alex Osborn the co-founder of BBDO, the worldwide marketing communications network. His goal was to formalize the creative process of coming up with ideas.

Brainstorming is a creative technique where a group of people interact to suggest ideas spontaneously. The volume and variety of ideas are stressed. The goal is to problem solve through a group effort with ideas just popping up.

Post-It Notes and the iPhone both originated from brainstorming sessions.

The first rule of brainstorming is to come up with as many ideas as possible. It is a quantity over quality exercise.

The second rule is to refrain from judging ideas during the process.

The third rule is to encourage even the most unconventional and illogical ideas.

Finally, everyone should be allowed to build upon other’s ideas.

At Dye & Eskin, Inc. we recognize the incredibly fast-paced nature of the employee benefits business. Innovation is not optional, but rather is required to separate ourselves from others in the field.

We embrace innovation and love brainstorming to bring critical ideas and process changes our clients have come to expect.

Brainstorming is a business way of life for us. Call us to discuss the ideas that are on your mind, and we will share what’s on ours. Together we will come up with great solutions.

Dye & Eskin, Inc.

Call Rick or Jake Eskin for an innovative discussion of topics on your mind.

703 556 0744

TENACITY!

As some of you may know, we at Dye & Eskin, Inc. (D&E) are dog lovers. From mutts to AKC purebreds, many dogs of all shapes and sizes have found homes with us, and some are happily ensconced as members of the office staff.

One group of dogs is particularly well aligned with us by personality – TERRIERS! Terriers are an incredibly TENACIOUS group of dogs, and that trait has served them well over the generations. You can say they possess a level of “doggedness” that translates to persistence of effort and indomitable perseverance.

In 1993, Jimmy Valvano delivered his famous farewell speech imploring the audience to Never, Ever Give Up. His presentation was extremely emotional, and incredibly powerful in both its immediate and long-term effects. At D&E we have combined the tenacious attitude of terriers with the persistent determination of Jimmy Valvano.

For us, tenacity is a core value. It allows us to face business and personal obstacles with goal directed energy and action. We know that a fierce blend of determination, persistence, and grit is the trait that means the difference from being just all right to thriving. The difference between success and failure.

Over the years, though, we have also learned that tenacity can be a negative when you focus on something well past its usefulness. It can be an expensive lesson to learn but it is critical to temper tenacity with rational thinking. It is also important to be sure to have clarity between resilience and tenacity. Resilience is also critical because it fuels the “way back” when we get off track. Tenacity is more active and represents the path to unstoppable progress.

At D&E tenacity is an admirable trait, a core value and the driver of our business.

Never Stop!

Never Quit!

Never Settle!

CREATIVITY and INNOVATION

At Dye & Eskin, Inc.  we have two goals: to create ongoing value for our clients and to keep our employees engaged and productive.  We are obsessed with delivering outcomes that matter to all our constituents. As a future focused organization, we strive to balance the products and processes we imagine with the value we deliver to carriers, clients, and colleagues.

Creativity is the keystone of our business model. It is an overarching concept focused on developing unique ideas. Those ideas may be singular in nature, or an ideation may result in combining multiple approaches to come up with new results. Creativity starts in the theoretical. It is generally abstract and difficult to quantify. It is the human capacity that allows us to envision possibilities.  It is subjective in nature and very hard, if not impossible, to measure.

Innovation is the process of translating those ideas into new products or processes. It is a practical application of what has been envisioned. The focus is on execution and commercializing the concepts that have been ideated. As opposed to creativity, the results of innovation are measurable in terms of market impact, efficiency, and profitability. 

Innovation brings ideas to life.

Innovation may result in a reboot of how you grow. It forces us to deal with what is not working and causes us to become nimbler and quicker in our execution.  We are forced to think about where we are talent deficient, how we can further optimize our business model, and what we are passionate about as we grow our business. 

In today’s world, just being better doesn’t work anymore. Being DIFFERENT does. The combination of creativity and innovation forces us to think about our business models and our passions.

 It creates our path to success.

 

TO DO’s

Recently we read an article by Oliver Beckman, a noted expert on time management, that was focused on “ambient anxiety” – the anxiety caused by technology and the media.

As many can attest, digital exposure is deteriorating our mental states. The constant focus on technological disruption, climate change and social instability puts us in a place where we need to learn to interact with technology and media differently.

True effectiveness requires balance. Finite time, energy and attention can only impact a handful of things. We must give ourselves permission to not care equally about all the “To Do’s.”

Tackling reinvention will determine the future. A good place to start is with customers – understanding how their needs are changing and what they see as underlying megatrends in their industry. Become a questioning human being once again.

For many years, the management guru Peter Drucker, espoused the concept of “Finitude.” He postulated that the truly effective executive only does one thing at a time. We need to set bounds for ourselves and enforce them. We cannot care equally about all the things that require our attention. Put your time into the things that really matter.

It is time for most of us to tackle personal reinvention. Reinvention is about the process of building and transforming based on the best of you as well as the core of what really matters to your essence. This is not “either/or “. It is the combination of your beliefs combined with your skill set.

So… here are your “To Dos”:

  • Re-establish your curiosity and ask questions!
  • Limit yourself to one thing at a time – prioritize wisely

Pick ONE!!!!

CONSTRAINTS AND CREATIVITY

How many times have we heard that to be successful you need to think “Outside the Box”? Is it possible that if we focus on the business, we can grow exponentially by playing “Inside the Right Box!”
It takes courage to seek success on your own terms by defining the distinct capabilities of your organization, and the portfolio of products and services that make use of those capabilities.
Over time we have learned that innovating without boundaries can overwhelm a team with options. Aspirational statements provide them with little concrete guidance for specific activities. Alternatively, constraints spur and guide innovation. Even cost management becomes part of a growth strategy as it is a way to make critical choices about identity and direction. There comes a time when it is critical to ask three questions:

  1. How do we distinguish ourselves from others in delivering customer value?
  2. What are the distinct capabilities that support our value proposition?
  3. What portfolio of products and services can we support?

This does not mean you are complacent or that you fear change. Rather, that your culture reinforces your distinctive strengths.
Distractions can be risky to success. Generating novelty for its own sake is a risky distraction. Creativity is critical but must be aligned with the overall business strategy. Balance your teams with creatives and analyticals.
Constraints spur innovation. Instead of always thinking outside the box, use some rules to draw the right box and innovate within it.
Achieve and enjoy success on your terms!!

ARE YOU LISTENING? REALLY?

The total eclipse on April 8th, which many had the good fortune to observe, created a quiet time of awe among millions of us. Along with deeply felt emotions, there was respectful silence allowing us to internalize the significance of the event.

We wonder what it would be like if we maintained that same respectful silence when we engage with colleagues, friends, and family.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy NY is a world renown university especially well known for its engineering and technology programs. Within its walls is the Center for Deep Listening. This program was developed by world-renowned musician, Pauline Olivero, who described Deep Listening “as a way of listening in every possible way to everything no matter what you are doing.” That thought forces us to think about how much better we could do at being present with others. 

We need to ask ourselves two critical questions: Do you really understand what is being communicated to you? Do you listen to understand or to reply?

Hearing and listening are very different things. Hearing is involuntary. Listening requires a conscious commitment over time. We grow and change whether we listen to the sounds of our daily lives, the environment, or music. Listening is a lifetime practice that depends on accumulated experiences with sound.

Marion Woodman is another academic who espoused that it is fear which prevents us from truly listening. Our fears keep us “blathering” and prevent us from listening.

Deep listening requires complete attention, no assumptions, encouragement for the speaker and the ability to visualize the message. It is an active process. Our goal as listeners is to hunt for missed clues and the subtext of what is said. Listening is beautiful and risk free.

Hearing is listening to what is said. Listening is hearing what isn’t said. – Simon Sinek

LISTEN and SILENT are spelled with the same letters.

SERENDIPITY FRIENDLY

As the speed of doing business accelerates, rethinking business models and redesigning organizations have become table stakes activities.

To be successful, leaders must get comfortable developing creative relationships with uncertainty.  The current business environment requires the courage to embrace ignorance and radically reframe the questions we ask. Goals need to be focused on setting direction, not necessarily with the specific destination in mind. Being comfortable at the edge of uncertainty is now a prerequisite to successful leadership.

Uncertainty and unpredictability can be used as routes to innovation as long as we learn how to connect the dots and utilize “smart luck.” Christian Busch, Director at NYUs Center for Global Affairs, posits that serendipity is the result of the ability to spot triggers or unexpected events and relate them to something else that becomes relevant or meaningful. This talent is known as bisociation. 

Being alert to your surroundings creates an atmosphere where bisociation can flourish. The agenda for all team meetings should include a question of whether anyone had any unusual or interesting business experiences since the last meeting. Those discussions should encourage cross-pollination of ideas and risk-taking.

Serendipity is a skill. Your brain must be in developing mode all the time. The ability to connect seemingly unrelated events, ideas, or existing products is at the heart of serendipity. It requires courage. Ideas and products may be evolving from what appear to be unusual linkages. Those are sometimes hard stories to tell a board, a boss, even yourself. 

Give serendipity a chance. Smart Luck is something of which a company should be proud!

RESILIENCE!

An Institutional Superpower

Every January, the World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland. In addition to a magnificent setting, Davos is the quintessential gathering of political and economic thinking from around the world. Themes emerge that reflect events from the prior year and that inform future business behaviors. This year produced a broad mandate for resiliency management and foresight capabilities. 

The dynamic pace of change makes disruptions hard to predict. As a result, it is crucial to move away from reactive crisis management and integrate risk assessment and management as core functions of our business. Cyber incidents were depicted as the top business risk for companies globally in 2024.

At Dye & Eskin, Inc. these issues have always been integral to our business plan. As part of our routine, we regularly upgrade and stress our cyber response plans. We are alert, prepared to absorb shock, and pride ourselves on anticipating issues before they challenge us.

It is embedded in our culture to think from a variety of perspectives so that we have foresight capability and active response mentalities. Doing this requires building resilience muscles throughout the company. Not everyone has these muscles in equal strength, but we can develop them and back stop each other in challenging times.

Our foundation muscle is positivity. We see opportunity in even the most difficult of times. Positivity is closely followed by confidence, creativity, and experimentation. In separate articles we will explore each of these and its impact on keeping our company a healthy contributor to the economy.

 Dye & Eskin, Inc. embraces change as an opportunity.  We find humor in the small things and willingly learn from criticism. We pride ourselves on being fast, bold, and knowledgeable while staying balanced in all we do. 

Resilience, creativity, and humor are our institutional superpowers.

MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MANTHE SEASON OF LIGHT HOPE

“Man’s Inhumanity to man” is a line taken from a dirge written in 1785 by the Scotsman Robert Burn. In it Burn lamented human cruelty, barbarity, and lack of compassion toward other humans. Basically, he was lamenting mankind’s ability to treat others as less than human.

The 20th century has been the showcase for man’s inhumanity to man evidenced by two World Wars, the Holocaust, numerous other wars and now the disaster in Israel and Gaza. It has been a reinforcement of our ability to do terrible things to one another.

Recently, we heard a colleague say that they have given up hope. They questioned where the strength to go forward could be found and concluded that the cruelty of which mankind is so capable makes us incapable of solving our problems.

We choose this time, regardless of how bleak and disheartening, as an opportunity to dig deeply into ourselves and find a small glimmer foretelling “The Season of Light.” For our survival we must move from bleak to optimistic, from pessimistic to hopeful, from futility to the light. We do not accept that we cannot find happiness.

We must reject the notion that humans were created to be without hope. Hope is not an emotion. It is a way of thinking and a state of being. It can be learned. Hope is consistently linked to better outcomes regarding mental and physical health, academics, and athletics. Hope brings with it a strong sense of purpose, and less loneliness.

We need to embrace grace and humility and commit to the belief that civility will survive.

In the words of Jimmy Valvano- Don’t Give Up Don’t Ever Give Up!

Walk toward the light!



THANKSGIVING

AN ACTION WORD!

When we decided to share thoughts about Thanksgiving, it seemed it would be a snap. With a successful business, a healthy, happy family, and friends that share keen interests in music and sports, we have a lot to be thankful for and gratitude is central to our lives.

Then we saw the Thanksgiving holiday described as “a trite secularized tradition maintained by a nation of overgrown kids.”  It was sad but thought provoking. As a result, we did some research on Thanksgiving beyond the typical depiction of Pilgrims enjoying the fruits of their harvests.

A good starting place seemed to be with one of the earliest leaders of our country. George Washington viewed the good fortune of this country as a challenge to accept the responsibilities and duties that co-exist with giving thanks. He insisted that we must both acknowledge our blessings and recognize our duties to create a peaceful, benevolent world. Washington urged the recognition that poverty and injustice holds everyone hostage until we, who are fortunate, bring our blessings to those who are less fortunate.

Fast forward to the late twentieth century and another American president, John Kennedy. Kennedy said that “as we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”

Both of those sentiments, hundreds of years apart, remind us that Thanksgiving is truly a call to action and should be thought of as an action word. It is not a trite, secularized tradition unless we allow that to happen. Instead, it is a holiday that calls us to be accountable.  It is a call to action. It is a time to count your blessings and then make them count.  It brings with it the blessing of hope and the gift of faith. Both of which need to be actively shared with others.

Thanksgiving isn’t just a day. It is a way of living. We need to realize that our lives are someone else’s fantasy. Thanksgiving is not just a day, but it truly is an action word in every possible sense.

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