The problem with the movement is not what they are against.  I don’t like the abuses of Wall Street bankers who lose billions of dollars and then are rewarded with huge bonuses.  That said, I do like greedy people running our economy because they are what makes free enterprise work.  As in all things, it’s about finding balance.

The Occupy Movement has spread from Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Oakland. It has even spread to Europe. It has been expansive, but it has not been effective. The problem is not their cause, but their lack of solutions. It’s OK to be against something, but it takes more than anger to create effective change. People can agree with “I don’t like this or that”, but they need a “let’s do this” to get behind something. In other words, “against” only stops something for a short time at best. If a solution is not adopted, then the old behavior will reemerge. Getting people to nod their heads in agreement is not the kind of dialog it takes to drive change.

Your company can make the same mistake if you aren’t careful. Definitive and narrow statements can draw agreement, but not engagement. Your job is to create and sustain a dialog where people join you. Be sure you are communicating a solution that will draw people into your product or service. Have a strong voice for the solutions your product offers. Don’t just be a voice against your competitors or some problem. Be and communicate a solution worth talking about and joining. That’s what real progress looks like – it looks like a dialog of progress.

There will be a plethora of commentaries on his life and work. There will also be all kinds of prognostications about the future of Apple without his presence.

If one listens carefully to the presentations Steve made, one would hear his unbridled passion to see others have the same kind of vision he did.

Steve Jobs did not have a crystal ball or a supernatural ability to see tomorrow.  He had a passion to create tomorrow and that was his gift.

Steve probably would rather have a legacy of inspiring millions to explore the future instead of just a legacy of products.

Many will offer tribute to him by saying he was a great visionary.  A more fitting tribute would be to see him as an example to emulate.  Let’s ask how we can have his passion and vision – then we can change the world with our contributions, too.

What Steve Jobs did is finished and he will never invent the next new thing again. What Steve Jobs showed us can live on forever and can continue to change the world.

The great frustration of visionaries is that others do not see the invitation they extend. There is something greater you can do today if you unleash your passion. What would you try if you knew you couldn’t fail – or what could would you try if you weren’t afraid to fail?

The question isn’t what will be the next iPhone or what company will be the next Apple.  The question is – who will be the next Steve Jobs in their own company?  It could be you.

Regardless of the merits of their case or the culpability of the bankers, the problem is that people have something to say and they feel no one is listening.  The attitudes that are driving this grassroots uprising are arrogance and indifference.  No leader can sustain the attitudes indefinitely before the law of the invisible hand comes to life and people react.

Right now, you need as many engaged employees as you have, offering life saving discretionary efforts to your business. When the feedback loop is broken, employees will become disengaged and that can lead to active disengagement, which can kill your hopes of surviving the present economy. Check to see if you are listening and if you are not sure, get help fast.  People know you can’t always do what they want.  They just want to know their opinion matters to you and that you will listen to them. Tip: Most often, your feedback loop in broken in middle management; so get on it!

Steve Jobs epitomizes a visionary because he is a genius at knowing what the market wants even before consumers know.   What Jobs did instinctively at Apple was look at their core competencies, the available technology, emerging uses for both and then create something new and exciting. He went through a process of listening to his company and the marketplace. It is the art of hearing the dialog between consumers and technologies.

You can have a process that will help your people understand how to create tomorrow’s dialog today.  This process involves learning how to listen and how to see where the conversation is going.  The right tools and processes will allow you to initiate the next dialog with your customers instead of allowing your competitors to have the first word in tomorrow’s conversation of products and services.

No one has a good idea every time.  There are some that have only had one great idea in their life, but what if this one is it?  What if you keep the value you have created and never give it a voice?  If you do not speak for the value in you, then the world will never know it.  What is the human cost to your life, the life of your friends, and the world if your value is hidden and silent?

And what about the cost to your company or organization?  Companies today spend millions to mine and organize data.  They have server farms generating sales and performance data twenty-four hours a day.  But how can real and dynamic innovation come from this data if the majority of the people in the organization are simply allowed to recite it and are never allowed to innovate with it and create value?  This is the greatest waste of human potential our world knows today.  The innovative human mind has been silenced so that we can digest more data and facts.

For value to be created from data, there must be a link established between the data and the human condition.  The more the human condition can be accelerated or improved, the greater the value of the applied data.  This only happens when someone is able to take the data from its static condition and interpret it through experience and context.  Once this is done, the voice of innovation must take over and give wings to the information so that someone can understand how the innovation will generate value for others.  This is the cutting edge of communication.

The only way you can safeguard yourself from such stupendous mistakes is to focus on the fact that everything you do says something to your customers.  You have to be sure what you do does not send the wrong message.  BOA might have easily justified their decision internally because of their financial troubles, but that was irrelevant to their customers.  Either BOA doesn’t care, or they don’t understand what they are doing to their customers.

You have to be very careful and examine every action you take in the marketplace and know exactly how it will be heard by your customers.  What you think you are saying is irrelevant – only what they hear is important.  If you do have to deliver bad news, get some counsel from a communications strategist (not just a PR or advertising person) before you do it.