Here’s a tip for companies:  give every official position term limits.  Just like people can only be President of the U.S. for four years, renewable for another four years maximum, or Governor or Mayor of many states or towns for a limited amount of time, give the CEO, the President, and the department Directors of your company, term limits.

Here are some of the benefits:

Every person brings different skills, strengths, vision, weaknesses and needs to the position.  Different skills, strengths and vision will bring new life to official leadership of the company or department, as needed from time to time.

It’s hard for most officials to keep growing in the same position over many years, or to admit when they want to move on.

Passing along the job means officials need to train others about what they do, and pass along specific skills, relationships and knowledge needed to do their job well.

The group of people who choose the new official — ideally this is the people whom the official will be the official for — the people who work in that department or company, will choose the new person.  This means:

 - coworkers learn about what you do in your job — you become more appreciated.

 - coworkers choose the new person — they feel responsible for who they work with.

I’ve been developing a model where companies can be, not like plantations with owners and bosses, but like towns.

Company as town.  Right now we usually sell shares of a company, and people who own shares decide what the people who work at the company will do.  But picture a company as a town.  Who owns New York City?  I live in New York City.  I work in New York City.  I can own real estate, which is similar to Class B stock without voting rights, or to local currency.

Virtual land as stock without voting rights.  Buying and selling blocks of land is fine, and recently instead of giving a stakeholder 1/5th of profits for work he’d done to help my business get started, I gave him one block out of five in a virtual town, but we can make the experience of owning land even more attractive.

Ratings.  Every service and person can set up shop on the virtual land, like building real estate on land.  Picture the squares of a checkerboard.  I start my retail makeover service on a square.  Customers rate my services a 9 out of 10, in answer to the question, “How likely are you to recommend this service to a friend?”  I start my narrative learning theory class on another square.  Customers rate that class a 7 out of 10.  As other people who work in the “town” offer services, each service gets a reputation.

Counter-intuitive. Think of a time when you’ve had a great experience with a salesperson or someone in customer service.  Now, because of your great experience with that sales representative, are you much more likely, a little more likely, or not at all more likely to want to talk to someone they work with?  What about their company as a whole?  Because of your great experience with this person, are you much more likely, a little more likely, or not at all more likely to want to do business with the company again?  With me, because I had a great experience with a salesperson buying my laptop at a Best Buy store in Atlanta, I’m only a little more likely to want to interact with another salesperson at that store, but I’m much more likely to want to buy again from Best Buy.

The Atlanta theory of influence.  There’s a restaurant in Atlanta that I absolutely love.  I rate the restaurant a 10 out of 10.  The block the restaurant is on though, is only made a little bit better by the restaurant.  I’m only a little bit more likely to go to another business on that block.  And the restaurant has no impact on how much I like the neighborhood, which is run-down.  The restaurant has a huge impact on how much I like Atlanta.  As soon as I ate at the restaurant, I became much more likely to want to go to Atlanta.

Modeling.  So in this virtual town, which is a new kind of company, I’m setting up a reputation system where relationships and influence are modeled visually.  When someone rates my retail makeover service a 9 out of 10, that has a small positive influence on the services which are located nearby to mine.  It has no influence on the neighborhood — the bigger area of checkerboard squares.  And it has a big positive influence on the town — the whole checkerboard.

Benefits.  Let’s say there are 1,000 people working at a company-as-town.  Each person has a rating.  Each service has a rating.  Each workgroup or block has a rating.  Each department or neighborhood has a rating.  The company as town has a rating.  Ratings are useful.  People and services with the highest ratings will benefit from high ratings points as do businesses rated on Citysearch.com or Yelp.com — you see a service is good by its reputation.  If a company takes a small portion of income to each service or person, just like cities collect taxes on income, then the company can even redistribute income based on points.  A big benefit to grouping relationships — people who work together — in this locality way, is that people on the same block can pool their resources to organize a block party, and people in the same neighborhood can pool their resources to create a website which attracts customers.

Michael Neill’s Tip of the Day today is called “How to Win Games and Influence Dolphins.”  Michael writes about positive reinforcement, drawing on dolphin trainer Karen Pryor’s book “Don’t Shoot the Dog.”

‘What makes human beings jump through hoops and exhibit entirely new behaviors never before seen in the species is the experience of “winning” - of succeeding at what it is we are setting out to do.’

‘”Winning” in the sense I am using it here is unique to the individual - it is anything that feels like success, be that the signature on an order form or the smile of approval of a loved one, boss, or friend.

You can increase your skill at recognizing wins by first identifying what games you (or the person you are trying to motivate) are playing. You can then work out what would constitute a win in each game.

For example if the game you are playing is selling a product or service, some possible wins include getting a hot lead, enrolling a new client, or making a sale. If you’re playing the weight loss game, those wins can include saying “no” to a piece of chocolate cake, knocking a few numbers off the scale, or fitting in to a new (or old!) item of clothing.’ -Michael Neill

This is why I think it’s so important to have a shared life dream in a personal relationship or at work.  First identify what game you’re playing.  Then decide how you’ll know when you ‘win’ or end up where you want.  Agreeing with your partner means you’re playing the same game.

Today I launched Retail-Makeover.com.  Check it out.  One sheet of tips is the stages of the shopping process, so you can break down how shoppers shop and when they decide to buy.  There’s info on how to lead your own retail makeover.  And there’s an article on relationships at work, with eight keys for success.