Three Key Questions; City Bin Theme; India Tour; Hotel Cut-off

Mumbai 25th, Bangalore 26th — I'll be leading one-day workshops in India next week, more below…but first

Cut-off for Group Rate Tomorrow — those signed-up for the FORTUNE Leadership Summit have until tomorrow, April 20, to book hotel rooms at the group rate of $169 – here's a link for details

Sh*tCan It — OK, so this isn't exactly the name of Galway-based The City Bin Co.'s latest theme. They've chosen the more appropriate title "Bin It", but the idea is the same. Notes CEO Gene Browne, "Most of the time we're adding to our subordinates workload with new initiatives, ideas etc. (recently I discovered that my assistant was updating a spread sheet each morning just as I asked her to do three years ago. The only problem is that I stopped needing it two years ago!). Most of the time, particularly in service businesses, employees just assume someone somewhere requires the output of what they are doing." Here's the visual they are using for the theme"

Three Key Questions — continues Browne, "Our theme seeks to root out these wasteful activities. They're usually small but when added up across the firm they waste a lot of time, energy, money or space. Now we are rewarding employees to eliminate activities that waste time, money, energy or space. Basically there are three criteria:

• Question every activity you do that involves time, energy, money or space.
• Ask yourself, who would be negatively impacted if you weren't doing this?
• If the answer is nobody, then stop doing it."

Fun Rewards — wraps-up Browne, "They fill out a 3×5 card and hand it to their manager for immediate approval or an explanation of why it's needed. We reward based on the number of approved cards. 5 = Two Cinema Tickets. 10 = Shopping Voucher, 15 = Meal for Two etc. It's been a great success so far. We will make this theme a permanent feature going forward." There is no better time to start spring (or fall for our Southern friends) cleaning. If you haven't picked a theme for April – June, shamelessly steal The City Bin's.

Andreessen on Taxes — in the what-its-worth category, with all the talk about taxes and the Buffett Rule this week in the US, I thought VC Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape (and Ben Horowitz's partner), had the most rational thoughts on the matter (because I agree with him!).