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Stretching Your Troops: William Eventoff
E-mail: MelindaSherwood@princetoninfo.com
Incremental goal-setting might be safe, but ultimately
it’s not going to help your company grow. It’s necessary to set
stretch
goals, says William Eventoff, principal and consultant for ESTM
Associates in Toms River. “If operators in a call center are
answering
80 percent of the calls, and you said knock it up to 82 percent,
someone
would figure out that they just take a shorter coffee break,”
he says. “But if you said 95 percent, that would be more of a
challenge. That’s what gets people thinking outside of the box.”
A senior examiner for Quality New Jersey, the Governor’s Awards for
quality excellence, Eventoff wants to help businesses, from high-tech
to manufacturing, create an entrepreneurial culture and sort out
knotty
problems. “I think one of the things that’s key to surviving and
thriving is for businesses to internalize the capacity to observe,
understand, and have a culture of innovative change,” he says.
He speaks on “Surviving and Thriving in the New Economy,”
on Thursday, April 13, at the Technology New Jersey meeting at DeVry
Institute. Call 609-419-4444. Cost: $30.
A chemist by training, Eventoff has a bachelors from Hunter College,
Class of 1968, and a graduate degree in chemistry from University
of Michigan. While doing graduate research work, he was led into
crystallography
and eventually the study of viruses. At the time, however, computers
were still relatively unsophisticated, making the study of viruses
quite difficult. So Eventoff went into computer science, which led
him to building computer systems for businesses.
All along, the scientific method has proved his most valued
instrument.
“I think a lot of things are connected by a logical process, and
I’ve internalized the scientific method,” he says. “That’s
how we approach a lot of business problems. We’re really looking at
observations, understanding what they mean, putting together a plan,
looking at the results, and building a feedback loop.”
Faced with a problem, executives tend to huddle in a conference room
and set goals for the company without the input of employees. That’s
been unproductive, says Eventoff. “Businesses have gone through
many attempts to change during the 1980s and 1990s, and between 50
to 70 percent of companies didn’t achieve the results that they
intended,
and the underlying reason is that it’s people who change, not the
organizations,” says Eventoff. “You can have a brilliant
leader
who sees an opportunity and has all the brilliant processes, but if
you don’t bring the people along, you don’t get a drastic change.
The techniques we use are mainly trying to involve staff. Otherwise,
they’re not committed to it.”
A business that can survive rapid change and grow is one in which
people feel empowered by continuing opportunities to learn and by
the ability to bring ideas forward and act across organizational
lines.
Eventoff gives the following managerial advice for businesses facing
any range of problems:
Identify the key people in an organization who can beagents of change.Set-up a structure for people who are influential to act.Set stretch goals. “Things that can’t be achievedby small evolutionary changes,” says Eventoff. Make goalsconcrete,and build constraints around the solution so that the organizationcan live with it.”We’re giving people a recipe for building that type ofinnovative culture, that’s always looking at what’s going on,”says Eventoff. “People can fail, but they don’t like to. So theystart to think of innovative ways to reach the goal.”Friday, April 14Top Of PageU.S.-Cuba Trade DealsAfter nearly 40 years of economic sanctions, the UnitedStates is slowly resuming trade relations with Cuba, a Caribbeannationthat will provide a multitude of opportunities for New Jerseycompanies,says John Kavulich, president of the U.S. Cuba Trade andEconomicCouncil, a non-profit, non-partisan organization located in New Yorkthat provides information on Cuba to American companies (call212-246-1444).”There’s little doubt that, with 11 million people, Cuba is anattractive market for businesses that export,” he says. “TheCuban government has placed a substantial quantity of resources intodeveloping a national healthcare system and regardless of what typeof government is in place post-Castro, the Cuban people are goingto want to preserve as much of that national healthcare system aspossible. That will provide opportunities for New Jersey-basedhealthcarecompanies.”On Friday, April 14, at 8 a.m. Kavulich will educate businesses oncurrent U.S-Cuba relations, and the market outlook for the future,at the International Trade Roundtable Meeting at Raritan ValleyCommunityCollege. Call 908-526-1200, ext. 8235.An expert in international business who has worked in 59 countries,Kavulich holds a bachelors in business administration from GeorgeWashingtonUniversity, Class of 1983, and has been a marketing consultant since1984. He was a consultant to the Select Revenues Subcommittee of theCommittee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives(1993-1994),and was recognized as being the first United States-based marketingconsultant to be retained by the government of the former SovietUnion.”More than one news organization including CBS called me the`image-meister’to the Kremlin, which was a little much,” says Kavulich. “Myworkingin the USSR led me to take a look at Cuba, and what I found was thatmy interest in obtaining information about Cuba far surpassed theCuban government’s ability to provide the information in a timelyand consistent way.”The U.S. placed an embargo on Cuba on January 1, 1959, after FidelCastro declared the island a Communist state. Prior to that time,nearly 85 percent of tourists visiting the country were U.S. citizens.U.S. relations with Cuba deteriorated during the period leading upto the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962,and trade restrictions remained intact until the 1980s. Between 1980and 1992, however, foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies were onceagain permitted to export food products and healthcare supplies toCuba. Direct exports from the United States were still banned.In 1992 Congress enacted the Cuban Democracy Act, which eliminatedthe unrestricted sale of food and health care products from thirdcountries but reestablished direct export of healthcare products fromthe U.S. to Cuba. “It was looked at as carrots and sticks,”says Kavulich. “The Cuban Democracy Act was designed so that ifthe Cuban government took steps that the U.S. government foundpleasing,it would expand the relationship. Otherwise, it would reversecourse.”Over the past seven years, the Clinton Administration has expandedits interpretation of the Cuban Democracy Act, and last year,reestablishedthe export of food directly to Cuba. Given the changing course ofU.S.-Cuba relations, the Cuban government decided in 1993 that anonpartisancouncil was in fact beneficial to both countries. The Council is thelargest, most credible resource for people interested in informationon Cuba. “Any government official, business executive, journalist,or academic contacts us,” says Kavulich. “Having done thatwithout ever issuing a media release says something about thecredibilitywe’ve earned.”As trade relations between the U.S. and Cuba improved, the Cubaneconomyhas rebounded — particularly in tourism. In 1993 Cuba receivedonly 500,000 tourists annually, the majority from Canada, Mexico,and Europe. In 1999 Cuba received 1.65 million tourists, and thisyear 2 million are expected.In the next decade, says Kavulich, U.S. companies could be influencing80 percent of Cuba’s GDP. “The sectors that are going to providethe greatest short-term opportunities,” says Kavulich, “arethose companies exporting healthcare products, tourism products, foodproducts, and infrastructure in terms of energy and transportation.”Top Of PageNew Economy Real EstateCommercial and residential developers are feeling what’scalled the “Wealth Effect,” says Paul Nadler, aneconomicsprofessor at Rutgers University. “They feel wealthy and they’regoing to spend — the person across the street has a beautifulhouse, but they’re selling so they can build something the size ofthe Taj Mahal,” he says. “That’s all stock market money.”Eventually, Nadler predicts, when stocks begin to reflect earnings,commercial development in New Jersey will slow down, but until then,the challenge for developers will be spending their money wisely.”They’ve got to start thinking in terms of where people are goingto live,” he says, “where people are going to be willing towork. You listen to the radio and hear 40 minutes to get through theLincoln Tunnel, and more and more we’re going to be seeing peoplenot wanting to commute.”Nadler discusses “Real Estate Projects in the New Economy,”on Friday, April 14, at noon at the Industrial/Commercial Real EstateWomen meeting at the Raritan Center Sheraton. Call 973-325-2700.A graduate of Brown, with a BA in economics, Nadler earned his PhDat New York University and taught banking to IBM employees for twodecades.With the shortage of land and increasing traffic congestion in NewJersey, the commercial developments projects that pay off are goingto be creative, says Nadler. “More and more businesses are movinginto the suburbs, like RCN,” he says. “But that’s going tobe tough for mass transit.” Developers need to start looking atareas that already have a transportation infrastructure, like Newarkand Trenton, says Nadler, and change the prevailing attitude of the20th century: “In America, it’s cheaper to make a dish than washone — it’s the same thing with cities,” he says. “It’scheaper to make a city than to wash one.”Top Of PageLiving with Toxic WasteA piece of New Jersey’s past that citizens and companiesare eager to put behind them is toxic waste, but as the number ofNew Jersey’s brownfields indicates, it’s a legacy that’s not so easilyburied. How companies and communities view the risks of toxic wasteand the responsibilities of waste management is a topic of peculiarinterest to John Weingart, assistant director of the EagletonInstitute, and one of the speakers at “New Jersey’s Landscapein 2050,” a conference at the Woodrow Wilson School’s DoddsAuditoriumon Friday, April 14, at 9 a.m. Call 609-258-3000.During his 19 years at the New Jersey Department of EnvironmentProtection,Weingart headed a state agency whose primary purpose was to find atown to volunteer to become home to a disposal facility for NewJersey’sradioactive waste. The need for a state facility was prompted in partby the fact that the governor of South Carolina, the state that hadaccepted radioactive waste from New Jersey power plants and researchcenters for many years, threatened to close down its facility.As head of the New Jersey Low-Level Radioactive Waste DisposalFacilitySiting Board, founded in 1987, Weingart spoke to numerous RotaryClubs,politicians, and citizens on the reasons the state needed a wastefacility and how it would affect the community in which it was built.”We tried to design something with enough incentives,” saysWeingart, “because at first glance it would probably be quiteterrifying.”After three years of campaigning, twelve New Jersey towns steppedforward as candidates for the new facility. Among them: Rooseveltin Monmouth County, Elsinboro, Alloway and Carney’s Point in SalemCounty, Fairfield in Cumberland County, Bethlehem and Delaware inHunterdon County, Hamburg and Hardyston in Sussex County, Springfieldin Burlington County, South Harrison in Gloucester County, and LowerTownship in Cape May County. “Many of the people in those townsworked for the power plants in the area and were comfortable withthe idea because they knew how radioactive material was handled,”says Weingart.Outside of those communities, however, Weingart discovered a largegap between the public’s perception of radioactive waste and whatexperts agree on as its major risks. “Much of the public tendsto worry about the wrong things and I think that’s a major issue,”he says. “When you end up with well-credentialed, knowledgeablepeople disagreeing, how do the rest of us who don’t know the subjectdecide? Some people would say better safe than sorry, but that’s aninoperable decision when you have to make a choice — there isradioactive waste and society has to decide where to put it.”Adding to the public’s resistance to a radioactive dump site in theirhometown was the feeling that government and corporations don’t tellthe whole story. “One thing I ran into was that they felt thatthe government has lied to them in the past,” Weingart says,”thatthings that were said to be safe turned out not to be, thereforeleadingto contaminated sites.”The New Jersey Siting Board abandoned its project when the wastefacilityin South Carolina reopened in the mid-1990s, but Weingart capturesmany of the lessons that he learned from the ordeal in his book,”Wasteis a Terrible Thing to Mind: Radiation, Risk, and Distrust ofGovernment,”being published by the Center for Analysis of Public Issues in lateMay.Weingart went to Brandeis University, Class of 1970, for a degreein sociology, and attended the Woodrow Wilson School. Between 1990and 1994 he was assistant commissioner of the DEP, but he is probablymost well-known as a radio personality, host of WPRB’s “MusicYou Can’t Hear on The Radio” on Sunday evenings.”I listen to a lot of music that is at least 50 years old,”says Weingart. “It’s a powerful impression — the way we’rebringing the past with us as we move into the future. It’s challengingto find productive ways to talk about public affairs in New Jerseybeyond sort of grumbling and being nostalgic for good old days thatnever existed.”Saturday, April 15Top Of PageIt Takes Making a VillagePeople cling to the past even as they move into thefuture — a lesson to be learned by developers and suburbanplannersaround the country, but especially in New Jersey. For manycommunities,the price of modernization is the loss of traditional communityvalues,and when that happens, everyone loses.”There are market studies that show there’s an immediate highervalue in sales in developing a sense of community and a sense of placethat is largely desired among people who miss it,” saysElizabethPlater-Zyberk, an architect and founder of the Congress of NewUrbanism, an interdisciplinary organization devoted to stoppingsuburbansprawl and urban disinvestment. “In most parts of the country,the underlying regulatory system promotes suburban pod developmentrather than integrated neighborhoods and towns. New Urbanism reallypromotes the traditional community — compact, pedestrian-friendly,mixed-use neighborhoods and towns.”To illustrate the kind of community that is commercially successfulas well as socially functional, Plater-Zyberk points to Princeton.”Downtown Princeton with the shopfronts on the street, a smallhotel, churches, small houses and then bigger houses not too far awayis a perfect traditional town plan,” she says. Plater-Zyberk willkeynote the second annual Sandra Starr Foundation Communiversityconference,entitled “Building Urban-Suburban Alliances,” on Saturday,April 15, at 1:30 p.m. at McCormick Auditorium on the Princetoncampus.The conference begins at 9:30 with a panel on “Bridging City andSuburb in Mercer County,” with Marty Johnson, presidentof Isles, Connie Mercer, director of HomeFront, Mel Lehr,vice president and director of transportation planning at FredericHarris Inc., and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman. That is followedat 11:15 a.m. by a community discussion with Dan Napolean ofthe Family Resource Center of Trenton, Maria Hernandez of theMercer County Hispanic Association, and Richard K. Rein of U.S.1, among others. Call 609-924-6992. Www.sandrastarr.org. Free.The Congress of New Urbanism (415-495-225), based in San Francisco,works with both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departmentof Housing and Urban Development to develop design standards thatpreserve communities and the environment. For HUD, the Congressdevelopedstandards for HOME and HOPE VI programs that fund affordable housingnationally. “It’s about building communities rather thanprojects,”Plater-Zyberk says. “HOPE VI takes old housing projects anddesignsthem to be mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhoods.” Locally,Plater-Zyberkand her Miami architecture firm, Duany Plater-Zyberk, worked withTrenton officials to develop a plan for the Capitol building andofficeson State Street.A Princeton University alumna (Class of 1972), Plater-Zyberk did hergraduate work in architecture at Yale and now teaches at theUniversityof Miami. She is also on the board of trustees at Princeton. Her newbook is titled “Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and theDeclineof the American Dream.”Suburban sprawl is a problem that faces the country at large, butNew Jersey is a terrific case study of what happens when the forcesof modernity push too hard. “There’s always something fallingapart or growing badly,” she says, “and people are regrettingbuilding today instead of welcoming it. I know this is important toNew Jersey.”Developers should focus on building complete villages rather thancommercial or residential communities, and look creatively at theunique assets that many areas already have. “Princeton Junctionis an ideal location for a town center,” says Plater-Zyberk.”There’salso opportunities surrounding Forrestal Village. The big pictureinvolves making some decisions about conservation, places that younever want to build in, setting up a transportation system thatorganizesnew building and rebuilding, and then looking at places where thereis already investment, like Trenton and Newark.”Tuesday, April 18Top Of PageEmployment IssuesThe federal and state versions of the Family & MedicalLeave Acts are just different enough to cause confusion for manyemployers,and the challenge for most businesses without human resourcedepartmentsis to decide how to provide employees their rights under both laws.How the family leave acts should be interpreted depends on the hoursan employee works, the number of employees in a company, and thelocationof the company.That will be the subject of “Time Off: State and Federal Lawson Employee Leave, Vacations, and Holidays in New Jersey,” onTuesday, April 18, at 9 a.m. at the Princeton Marriott. BuchananIngersollattorneys Steven Berlin and Louis Sapirman will lead thediscussion. Call 715-833-3959. Cost: $189.Top Of PageBebe & Big BrothersThe annual “free” ice cream cone day at Ben& Jerry’s is Tuesday, April 18, noon to 8 p.m., at the ForrestalVillagefood court, and Bebe Neuwirth, a Princeton High School alumnaand star of stage and screen, is scheduled to scoop beginning at 12:30p.m. The event will benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters of Mercer County.That Neuwirth is a celebrity scooper is just part of the story.It seems that the actress’s father contributed to founding a newprogramthat has multiplied across the nation. In 1991 Lee Neuwirthof Institute for Defense Analyses and Gary Turndorf of theLandis Group had assembled a small group of mentors and needed helpwith screening, training, and case management. The mentors had beenrecruited by Project ’55, established by the Princeton UniversityClass of 1955.Big Brothers Big Sisters agreed to provide the orientation for thisgroup, and the group “adopted” Cadwalader elementary schoolthat year. At first, the staff of the social service organizationworried that this program would be a watered down version of thetraditionalone, where an adult is paired with a young person for home-basedweeklyactivity. “That opinion soon changed when Big Brothers Big Sistersof Mercer County received an exemplary award at a national conferencein 1992,” says Kim Cody a spokesperson. This idea grew sothat 168 agencies around the world have a school-based mentor programwith this one used as the model. For information call 609-656-1000(www.bbbsnj.org).Wednesday, April 19Top Of PageElectronic Bill PayingElectronic bill payment is a Catch-22: until enoughcompanies issue bills electronically, consumers aren’t interested,but until enough consumers are interested, billers will stick topaper.So while online stock trading and shopping are hitting critical mass,it could be some time before the idea of paying your bills on theweb catches on, says Donald Licciardello, president of PrincetoneCom, the online bill publishing company at 650 College Road. “Itwill be slower growth until the value proposition works for theconsumer,”says Licciardello. “It’s not very convenient to pay two billsonline and the other two by check. But if your bank had 15 bills itwould be another thing. It really has to do with enough bills beingpublished.”Licciardello speaks on “How E-Business Can Bring Your Organizationin the 21st Century” at the Princeton Chamber meeting onWednesday,April 19, at 7:45 a.m. at the Nassau Club. Joining him is DavidHisbrook of Xlibris, Freda Howard of Howard Lane GiftBaskets,and Toni Tracy of Franklin Electronic Publishers. Call609-520-1776.Cost: $21Two years ago, as Princeton TeleCom, Princeton eCom was helping bigbanks deal with electronic payments — now the firm uses the sametechnology as a leading provider of Internet bill publishing andpaymentservices for large businesses and financial institutions like BellAtlantic Mobile and Ameritech. Electronic bill publishing is a muchcheaper alternative for billers, says Licciardello. “Typicallyit costs $1.50 to get one bill prepared, printed, and mailed,”he says. “This online process could cost the biller as littleas 30 or 40 cents.”Licciardello, a former Princeton University physics professor andan alumnus of the University of Scranton, Class of ’68, and theUniversityof Virginia, founded Princeton eCom., A year ago the company fileda preliminary statement with the Securities and Exchange Commissionfor a $46 million initial public offering. It was pulled for variousreasons, says Licciardello, but he hopes to restart the process sometime soon.In the world of online bill payment, there are three players —billers, bill publishers (like Princeton eCom), and aggregators.Licciardellouses the book publishing business as an analogy: “If you wereStephen King you wouldn’t go to Kinkos to copy your book, you’d goto a publisher like Doubleday,” he says. “In the same way,a biller outsources to a publisher like Princeton eCom, and we handledistribution to the consumer’s favorite financial website orportal.”That would be the “aggregator.” “Your billers can chooseone publisher and another choose another publisher, but the aggregatorcan have both publishers,” he says. “It’s like you go toBarnesand Noble you don’t see one book from one publisher.”Princeton eCom’s biggest competitor — Atlanta-based Check Free— serves nearly twice as many billers as Princeton eCom, but themarket is big enough for both companies, Licciardello says. “CheckFree, the largest bill publishing company, announced that they have60 some billers online,” he says. “We’ve announced 30. Sowhen you think about the number of billers out there, this is anascentindustry.”Put in a different way, Americans receive 1.5 billion bills per month,Licciardello estimates, or a total of about 18 billion bills per year.Right now, 180 million of those bills are paid online. By 2003, thatnumber is supposed to increase dramatically — up to nearly 2billion.But, as Licciardello points out, “that’s still 2 billion out of18 billion.”With all indicators pointing to a dramatic growth in online bill pay,Princeton eCom has grown rapidly over the past two years. It had 56workers in 1997, 80 employees last year, and now has some 230employees.The company just raised $35 million from Billing Concepts, the SanAntonio-based company that provides billing solutions to companies,particularly in the telecommunications industry. The company purchased$27 million of Princeton eCom’s convertible preferred stock.For small business owners seeking to bring their companies into the21st century, the time might not be right to offer online bill paymentservices, however. “I think businesses should probably wait untilthe aggregators have enough customers coming to pay the big bills,like telephone and electric, and then it would behoove them to gettheir bills there too,” says Licciardello.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
