A Linking Mess: Week of 11/18/2013

Every week, I read stuff, find things that are both informative and interesting to working professionals, and offer it for your consumption.

For the week of Monday November 18, 2013:

To sleep better, limit your bedroom activities to sleep and sex – The Economist

Here at Leggett & Platt, we sell good sleep. We do it through the marketing of our comfortable bedding products. (Marketing example: as a copywriter, instead of writing that our products are “comfortable,” I might write that they’re “ultra-comfortable.” I learned how to do that in college.) But through the Adjustable Bed Group, we are also realistic in our marketing, knowing that the bedroom – and the bed – has become a place for many other things, such as watching TV, using a laptop, and reading. This article emphasizes that if good sleep is your number one goal, you should limit the number of things you do in bed.

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Nov 18 2013
By Paul M. Johnson

A linking mess: week of 11/11/13

Have you logged onto the Internet lately? If not, you’ll notice that the Web people have posted a bunch of articles since you last looked in. Some of the stuff is even worthwhile. But there’s a lot of dross, too, and what I like to do is sift through it and share the good stuff with friends and coworkers (some coworkers are also friends – you know who you are). That’s the purpose of this column, incidentally. I read stuff, find things that are both informative and interesting to working professionals, and offer it for your consumption. Yes, the definition of what is worthwhile reading is mine, but there’s a good chance you’ll agree. We’ll see, anyway.

For the week of Monday November 11, 2013:

Reverse mentoring – the young mentoring the older – Wall Street Journal

This piece is from 2011, but I come back to it regularly. For an old-schooler like me, it’s beneficial to have young people around – except maybe when I want to illustrate a point by bringing up something that happened on “The Brady Bunch”; they’re terrible with Greg Brady background knowledge, which is sad. But they keep me current and help prevent me from slipping into lameness. Some smart companies actually assign reverse mentors to their “older” employees.

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Nov 13 2013
By Paul M. Johnson

Sometimes the Entire Strategy Needs to be Reconsidered

Board Chairman & CEO David S. Haffner

Board Chairman & CEO David S. Haffner

For four full decades—from the 1960’s through the 1990’s—Leggett & Platt achieved growth of 15% per year (on average) in earnings, dividends, and stock price, largely by pursuing a strategy that focused intently on revenue growth. Over those 40 years revenue ballooned from $7 million to $4.3 billion, earnings grew about 1000‐fold,and our stock split approximately every 5 years. But as we entered the new millennium, our strategy seemed to lose its effectiveness. For the five years ending December 2007, Leggett & Platt’s stock priced moved sideways while the S&P 500 index achieved an 80% return. The desire for topline growth had led us to make certain acquisitions for which it’s now clear we paid too much, given their failure to meet expected performance levels.

We needed to make a change in strategy.

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Nov 11 2013
By David S. Haffner
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