Greetings.  The 2010 U.S. Census is underway and with it the chance to take stock of the more than 300 million people living in the United States.  Hopefully you've filled out your form already (if you happen to live here) and also stopped for a moment or two to think about the process and the importance of collecting this data every ten years.  But how many of you also stopped to think about the notion behind the Census and its critical importance to your company or organization? The simple idea that we seek to understand everyone we work with and the talents and interests they have.  That we count and more fully leverage all of our human assets as a key to reaching our full potential.

If we did this more often we would, in all likelihood, unlock an amazing amount of hidden genius.  Genius that could be used to create far greater innovation and deliver much greater value to the customers and citizens we have the privilege to serve.  Genius that could be used to figure out new ways to improve our products and services. Genius that could be used to reduce the cost of doing business or identify opportunities to improve teamwork and collaboration.  Simply by asking some basic questions and making sense of the answers.  

Questions like:

• What are your strongest skills?
• What are your greatest interests?
• What are you most passionate about?
• What are your "secret" talents that you've never shared here?
• What ideas do you have for making us better?
• What resources would you need to make those ideas come alive?
• What opportunities or customer needs do you think we are missing?
  
• What could we do to make our customers' lives easier?
• What could we do to bring out more of the genius in all of our people?

In essence, taking a "census" of the people who show up each and every day.

We win in business and as nations when we seek to understand who we really are.  And when we use that knowledge to unlock our brilliance as individuals and organizations.

Cheers!