Let’s begin with a basic question – why do we want to be big? Here are a few plausible responses to that:

1) I want to make a lot of money.
2) I want to employ many people.
3) I want to serve as many people as possible with my product.

Number one is the most popular because this society is hinged on the premise that the more you have the better you are (and the happier you’ll be). Your stockbroker-turned-baker friend will tell you – money doesn’t make you better or happier. More importantly in business, it certainly doesn’t make for happier customers. When money starts to matter more to a company than the quality and caliber of its product or service, its customers are exponentially more susceptible to competitors. Good products breed loyalty and loyalty means repeat business.

Let’s take answer number two. I want to be big so I can employ a lot of people. Why? If its a matter of power you have other problems. But if its a matter of responsibility or wanting to help people, then remember that happy employees are better societal contributions than people with jobs. A company being big and hiring many people means nothing if the employees are unhappy. Large companies are the poster child for this atypical largely depressed American workforce. It’s not that all large companies are bad companies, it’s simply that large companies are generally less able to scale an environment where everyone is doing what they love and feels valued and rewarded for it. Don’t focus on hiring more people, focus on growing a passionate team. That will take a lot more time than Groupon and Wal-mart may lead you to believe.

And finally, the most noble – to serve as many people as possible with your product. Why is that important? For a non-profit that’s easy – to help as many people as possible! (Mental note: There should be a lot more very large non-profits.) But if you’re a business what is the value of serving as many people as possible? A good answer is that you believe that your product makes people’s lives better in which case you really want as many customers as possible. (Apple and Steve Jobs are a reliable example.) But if that isn’t your response, which in most cases it isn’t, then consider that the more people you try to make happy the less people you will. Democratizing your product for the sake of quantity, makes you less able to serve your real customers. Take Jean Paul Gaultier. His fashion is weird and controversial, but its this exactly that his loyal customers love and what’s gained him global brand notoriety. Conversely, trying to please everyone is the reason (I believe) most American cuisine stinks. Pleasing the palettes of immigrants from dozens of countries across the world is no easy to task. Lesson? Create a brand based on who you really are as a company; customers that share your values will buy.

A good product, a good team and finally a strong brand are what make a good business – not size. Happy customers and profitability (not revenue!) are the result. I am not saying that growth is bad, growth is good (I wrote a lot about it last year.) But what is bad is growth for growth’s sake. Its the root problem behind America’s financial collapse and the fact that this country rates 150 out of 178 on the World Happiness Index (two slots above Rwanda). Focus on being the best possible business, not the largest, and chances are growth will come naturally.

Perhaps I’m well practiced. Not at taking up new jobs, but at taking on newness. Part of the design process is embracing the unknown, accepting that we don’t know everything, and being comfortable at diving in to figure things out. I don’t really know much about far-flung topics like firefighting equipment, Cuban culture, or workforce education, but these are the worlds of our clients that I need to represent. And since part of my role as a designer and communicator is relating what’s really important about those things to other people, I get right to work at understanding all of that “newness.” In fact, it’s one of my favorite parts of the job.

Being new at things is something most of us shy away from:

• What’s familiar is comfortable, and we tend to embrace, identify with, or even cling to those things we know we’re good at.
• We avoid practices that take time and effort—hey, I’m busy here!
• We learn that failing is bad, and overcoming newness implies an awful lot of stumbles along the way.
• We love to feel smart, and confronting newness’s lesson that “maybe we don’t know, maybe we’re even incompetent!“—is scary and to be avoided.

But getting comfortable doing the same thing all the time is no strategy for business growth and especially not in the (pardon the cliché) current economic climate. Eventually, it will be time to try something new, like it or not. So, embrace it! And find partners who are adept at new ideas and can not only make newness profitable but occasionally, well, fun.

Conversely, a business’s weakness is that of its leader. If you run an organization, ask yourself what you’re bad at. Are you a bad marketer? Perhaps you don’t know finance very well? Chances are your company lacks brand awareness and is in dire need of a good CFO. This is why when you are trying to improve your organization, begin by improving yourself.

I always say that you can’t be a good woman, a good father, a good boss, or a good son without being first good with yourself. Your ability to give to others is hinged on whether you have something to give. That is why you must cultivate and develop your strengths, passions and interests in order to be able to truly give to others.

For a company, the answer is easy. Surround yourself with partners who have the qualities and experience that you lack. A great wealth advisor or a trusted strategist, can help your business best capitalize on its strengths. Worst case scenario you’re a better company for the experience. Best case scenario you grow your business in a way you never knew possible.

The Mayor has done a lot for Chicago, but one thing in particular resonated strongly. He dedicated himself to create an environment where people and business can flourish. What that means is that it is not any one person’s responsibility, much less the government’s, to create prosperity, new jobs, and a great society. It means that when the fundamental ingredients are in place, in a city’s case – good education, business-friendly policies, safety and beauty, the city, its people, businesses, and communities will flourish on their own.

Now I love this philosophy for two reasons. Reason number #1 – it’s a fundamental principle of life. Case in point, human beings have evolved and prospered on this planet because over the course of billions of years, the chemical and physical environment on Earth has been one that has facilitated and allowed our existence and subsequent evolution. On a smaller scale, the same is the case with mold. When it appears on your bread, it’s because there exists a perfect confluence of factors for it to grow. Reason number #2 – it doesn’t rob the individual of self-responsibility. When you consider that the role of organizations is only to create an environment for good things to happen, it doesn’t mean that a person in that environment still doesn’t have to actually do things! On the contrary it provides the perfect stage for said individual to shine [and an inexcusable one for them to fail, or worse, complain].

So now, let me bring it down to business and strategy – my passion and our business. As an executive or leader this makes your job much clearer. It should not be your work to direct your employees to save the company money. Your hours should not be consumed with drawn out phone calls and conversations convincing prospects and contacts on why you can work with them. You should not stay up all night thinking about how you’ll achieve next quarter’s goals.

What you need to do is simple – create the foundation for your organization to thrive. Create a culture that empowers and rewards your employees to be conscious contributors to the organization’s financial and strategic goals. Create a brand and message that attracts the customers and partners you want to work with. Implement and follow a strategic plan that maps out your efforts for the year leaving you to focus on new relationships and powerful new ideas.

Leaders are people and people are flawed. The greatest leader Chicago has ever had is a great example. He however overcame himself to enable Chicago to become a global city; one with a reputation for good business, strong communities and getting things done. As a leader you have the power to do the same. By putting the right practices and tools in place you will create a fertile environment and your organization, like Chicago, will become much greater than the sum of the people, philosophy and services that comprise it.

This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed ‘Pale Blue Dot’, is a part of the first ever ‘portrait’ of the solar system taken by Voyager.

A reflection by Carl Sagan:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

We came to the conclusion that a great leader, is many things, but one very important one is a disseminator. A great leader is someone who spreads their ideas and vision to other people. Either through publications, speaking, coaching, mentoring, a leader is apt at “planting seeds” in as many places as possible not only to give greater life to his ideals, but also to help others grow with them.

Wait a minute, I thought! That sounds strangely like men’s biological function. As participants of life, men are programmed to spread their seeds as much as possible. From the sheer amount of sperm they’re able to produce, to the oft quoted idea that men are meant to be with many women, men are trained by nature to spread and create as many of themselves as they can. It’s part of the formula that allowed the human race to succeed.

It hit me that that is exactly why men have traditionally been “the leaders” in our society. It’s never been about men being better than women, its simply that their biological preparation has trained them to do what leadership has traditionally demanded. Replicate as much as possible!

Today however, we are in a world where the greatest imperial powers have crumbled. The largest companies that we have built have collapsed and to top it off, the economy has forced the greatest builder of the biggest stuff on earth, Dubai, to stop building. What does that tell us? Spreading your seed is not enough. It is good to expand, but what’s the point of doing so if everything you plant goes bust? What’s the point of having thousands of employees if you can’t properly nurture them? What’s the point of invading other countries, if you can’t handle them? What’s the point of having tons of children if you can’t love them all?

Women however are the nurturers. They are predisposed to take nascent beings, ideas and concepts and patiently nurture them to bring life. They are also more emotional thinkers, a value that has long been missing from strategic decision making. Women are also less impulsive. They are adept at thinking through a decision without diving in head first. Case in point, women investors perform much better than men. They lose a lot less money in tough times and earn more in the long haul.

The point is this. Today is the day for female leadership. Not because I’m a feminist (because anyone who knows me knows that that is the furthest thing from the truth), but because our economy and our society are in need of nurture and cultivation. This also doesn’t mean women leaders. What it means is thinking critically, investing in projects and seeing them all the way through, not just growing for growing sake. Employees are more dissatisfied than ever in big companies, people are tired of the demands and consequences of the bigger, faster lifestyle, our children need our attention. It’s time we invest in that that we’ve built and begun before going on to the next big thing. This will not only give us purpose, but further create sustainable ideas and businesses that are fundamental to growing and giving new life.

Creativity is all about re-arranging, re-inventing and re-thinking. Changing your perspective or seeing something new can help revitalize you and help you to work it out. At my fingertips, I have a fabulous city that is filled with films, bookstores, theaters, museums and music. I flex my design muscles by reading design blogs and magazines, following designers on twitter, and continually looking at sites to see what others are up to and talking about. There are also design groups and events to go to. Meeting and getting to know other designers is beneficial for many reasons, if not only to share nerdy design references.

I count myself lucky to be a creative professional. I love nothing more then having a great brainstorm session or coming up with a solid design solution. You get a runners high off of it, the creative endorphins kick in and you marvel at how fortunate you are to design for a living.

Dear Recession,

The two years that you have been in my life have been the most unstable and yet transformative that our business/organization/department has ever seen (our balance sheet was particularly shocked by your arrival).

When I first heard of you in 2007, I figured that after years of banks and mortgage brokers gorging themselves on unqualified homebuyers, you were just paying them a visit to make amends. Next, when I heard the talking heads on television warning me to stop shopping, I thought it was a scare tactic. It took the near collapse of the auto industry to convince me I was mistaken. I quickly realized you were not particularly selective and further how much the world economy was interdependent.

As soon as 2008, my funding/customers/clients began to fall away. When a grant that was cut off/account who couldn’t afford us anymore/partner going out of business, we began to feel your wrath. First we had to make amends by cutting expenses, pretty soon we were cutting jobs. The swiftness of it all caught me so off guard that I think I failed to lead where I should have, bringing my business/organization/department further into the hole.

With cash flow at a minimum and a dozen or so of my staff members gone, you got me thinking. I mean really reflecting. I started to ask myself questions I hadn’t thought about since I took the helm of this operation. What is it that we do best? What value do we provide our customers and distributors/partners? Why do we do business? How are we going to sell/operate?

This thinking quickly propelled me into a week-long period of sleepless nights, research and maddening note taking… It took my husband/wife/partner pointing out to me that I hadn’t been this excited in years. That’s when it hit me…I was actually planning for the future! I had been so taken up in my success over the last 10+ years that I forgot to do what got our business/organization/department here to begin with… plan for the future!

There is a Spanish song called “Me Asustas, Pero Me Gustas.” (This translates to “You Scare Me, But I Like You.”) I never thought I’d say this about such a difficult time for our business/organization/department, but this has been a hidden blessing. I have realized that no matter how successful I become, I less not forget the importance of setting goals, adapting to change and strategizing for our future.

Communications works much like the brain. With it, we recreate a person’s (or a group of people’s) projection of reality in words, images, and scenarios. Its when people see themselves in something, that they create the emotional connections that drive action. (It’s what we here lovingly call information consumption.)

What we know today about the brain, only proves that everything in life is a matter of perception. If we perceive a problem; we act like there is one. If we perceive love; we respond to it. If we perceive happiness; we become it. The quicker human beings recognize this as reality, the sooner they can begin to make the most of it.

Until then, we communicators will just have to make the best of the situation…

That doesn’t sound right, does it? How can I win, when I lost or stayed the same?

The answer is that in all three situations you’ve measured your performance, which gives you a better chance to set proper expectations the next time around. See, we’re not trying to be the best at predicting outcomes; we’re merely trying to do the best we can to beat unexpected obstacles and make progress. Software development teams who don’t hit their deadlines have done nothing wrong. In fact, they’ve done a more honest job than teams that claim to predict the future. In the end they have software to show off; it’s just being built at a slower pace than some people may have anticipated.

What we have here is a problem setting proper expectations, not a problem delivering software. Ultimately building software is not a predictive endeavor, it’s an adaptive and creative one.