It’s not everyone who can say they accomplished what relatively so few others have done, beat the long odds and the obstacles, faced adversity head-on, and finally reached the pinnacle of achievement where you can plant a flag and mark it as your own.

As the photo shows above, this past weekend I did reach a once seemingly unobtainable peak …or so it would seem.

What may appear as a desolate and snowy peak just before sunset, is in fact a photo of my neighbor’s roof taken yesterday in late afternoon after a near-record 24-inch snowfall in the Washington, DC area.

Images and words can sometimes create a powerful illusion. They can lead one to take action – or result in inaction – in light of a perceived set of facts. Such a phenomenon is not limited to an individual, but can also beset an entire company or organization.

Companies, which possibly once enjoyed a leadership position or a genuine high level of performance, many times find themselves operating in a culture of perceived accomplishment. The management may convince itself that yesterday’s achievements are still in play, or it may insist that it is further down the field than reality would allow.

Worse yet, management may believe that the company’s employees are fully motivated, productive, and eager to take the next hill.

Things aren’t always as they appear. A false sense of achievement can erode the foundation of an organization, and can eventually bring it down. An honest and candid assessment is a good start, but should be followed by high-value leadership development, employee training, and a creative incentive program that can help put your company at the top if its game.

Let New Lantern help your company truly reach its peak performance.

If this is the case, chances are also high that you’re not getting as much from these meetings or events as you could be. You probably continue to use the same meeting template year after year, and put it in the category, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

It may not be “broke,” but ask yourself this question: Are your investments in these activities costing you more than they are giving back?

It’s time for some fresh thinking and a new template when it comes to your important corporate events and meetings. Attendees and participants should be provoked, engaged, challenged, and inspired. They should be exposed to leaders in their fields, as well as other high-value leaders and innovators. And, they should be put into environments and frames of mind that truly promote development and innovation.

For example, how about a quarterly “innovation” or “strategy” off-site meeting for 40 of your most promising mid-level managers from across the company? Host it in an offbeat and creative setting. Build the agenda around a relevant topic for your business. Bring in one or two inspiring thought leaders. Create some break-out group competition to drive meaningful meeting takeaways. Spotlight the best ideas. Top it off with an imaginative social component.

Create buzz around these events within your company so that other employees will want to attend future off-sites. This alone will give rise to higher personal performance, not to mention the idea generation that comes from the events themselves.

This is only one example. There’s many more where this came from. Let New Lantern help you get the most out of your corporate meetings and events in 2010.

This year, Labor Day for your company should serve as a reminder to re-invest in your employees. Your employees are your company’s single most valuable asset. You already invest heavily in your employees through wages and benefits, but are you truly getting a solid return on that investment? Most likely you are not, and you have no one to blame but yourself.

Treat your employees like a valuable resource, and you will in turn reap the benefits. Nurture their talents, encourage risk-taking, and incent creativity and innovation.

In the article “Where Headhunters Fear to Tread,” this week’s Business Week examines factors that are contributing to an erosion in management talent at some of the country’s top companies. The article notes that “red-flag cultures are those that suffer from bureaucracy, narrow skill-building, risk aversion, or boy’s club aggression.”

Developing talent within your organization does not happen overnight. It takes persistence, a sustained dose of right-brain stimulus, and a senior management team who is willing to provide a culture where talent and creativity can take root and thrive.

Let New Lantern help your company mine and grow the talents of your employees through creative leadership training, performance-based compensation and incentive programs, and other inventive business innovation methods.

The pay-off for your company could be the next hot product or service offering – which would indeed be cause to celebrate the fruits of your company’s labor.

Three cheers for Xerox and its Board of Directors. On July 1, Xerox President Ursula Burns will take over as the company’s CEO replacing Anne Mulcahy, who will become chairman. This action is monumental on a number of levels, and it provides a teaching moment for many corporate boards, executives and managers.

First, Burns becomes the first African American woman to run a large global company, with sales of nearly $18 billion last year. Second, it represents the first time that a woman CEO is being replaced by another woman CEO at a large company. Third, this action is the result of a corporate culture at Xerox that has for decades promoted the notion of giving every employee—regardless of race or gender–an opportunity to succeed. It is this trait in particular that other companies should truly seek to copy.

Ursula Burns was named CEO because she earned it. And most importantly, she was given the chance to earn it over the course of her 29-year career at Xerox. Working her way up the ranks as a mechanical engineer, she was afforded opportunities to succeed–and fail–as she took on greater management responsibilities.

Companies far too often identify a relatively small subset of employees to groom for possible advancement. These employees usually get exclusive and subtle opportunities to advance (e.g., face-time with the boss at sporting events or golf outings), and some not-so-subtle (e.g., accolades and promotions).

In some cases, these employees are identified because they are a more comfortable facsimile of their managers. As this week’s Business Week’s cover story (June 8th) points out, less than 16 percent of corporate officers are women among Fortune 500 companies, despite representing nearly 60% of the workforce. (Comparatively, one third of executives at Xerox are women, and 22 percent are minorities).

Men promoting men are not always to blame. Ironically, women already on the corporate ladder are sometimes hesitant to reach back to help another woman grab the next rung. I have witnessed this phenomenon myself, which has also been borne out in a number of studies in recent years. So outgoing Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy herself –who helped restore profitability to Xerox with a focus on innovation– deserves a lot of credit for giving Burns a chance to grow and advance within the company.

Dick Harrington, retired CEO of Thompson Corporation, and my former boss –serves on the Xerox Board of Directors and always spoke very highly of Mulcahy and Burns.

In the end, women or minorities should not be promoted simply because of their gender or race. They should be allowed to advance because they are given the same opportunities for development and growth, and succeed. Companies increase their own chances for success if they seek to mine and develop talent from every employee. Otherwise, a company and its shareholders will miss out on untapped resources — and will not reap the benefits of an Anne Mulcahy or an Ursula Burns.

Is your company getting a good return on employee investment (ROEI)? Considering the total investment you have in each employee, you need to know that the benefits derived from an employee are in fact outweighing the costs. Costs typically include the base salary, bonus, stock and/or options, health and dental benefits, paid vacation, sick leave, 401(k) match, Social Security, Medicare, payroll taxes (UI), training, computer, phone – and more.

Companies spend a lot of time and energy measuring and growing their non-human investments, and dedicate considerable attention to getting a good return. Boards of Directors and shareholders hold publicly-traded companies’ feet to the fire on these returns as they relate to the investment costs – and rightfully so. But do they hold their investments in human capital to the same level of scrutiny? No, and usually it’s not even close.

How do you explain this, particularly when human capital-related costs are sometimes the largest single expense in a company? It is frankly indefensible. Most companies think they are doing enough by measuring employee performance via a merit-based compensation program. Whereas employee measurement is important, it is no substitute for getting a full return on the investment of that employee.

So what is the answer? A company should start by caring as much for its employees as it does for its non-human assets. Many companies pay handsomely to protect their reputations and to enhance their images with expensive public relations and advertising campaigns. They also spend large sums on buying or leasing space, maintaining and upgrading it regularly; and they spend heavily on facility security, technology and equipment upgrades, and facility grounds and upkeep.

I don’t dispute the need for these investments, but they are no more important than the upkeep and improvement of a company’s single most important investment – its employees.

Companies should constantly challenge employees through value-added training and development. They should utilize creative compensation programs to spur greater productivity and innovation. Companies should meanwhile be aggressive in managing out those employees who are not holding up their end of the bargain – that is, those employees who are taking more from the organization than they are giving to it.

In short, an employer should seek to appreciate its largest appreciating asset by mining and growing the talent that exists in its current workforce. Improving your ROI is smart business, and so is improving your ROEI.

With the current 8.5 percent unemployment rate, and pay freezes or cuts for much of the remaining 91.5 percent of the nation’s workers, there is no better time for companies to embrace creative pay-for-performance programs.

The current state of the economy is undoubtedly making even the best employees anxious. And anxiety breeds under-performance, which can exacerbate your company’s already mounting challenges. Freezing employee salaries doesn’t mean that you can’t reward over-achievers with other perks and pay incentives. Cash bonuses, stock grants, and highly desirable professional development opportunities are fair game and can provide the necessary catalyst for top employees while encouraging under-performers to step up their game.

You can also use the current economic situation as an opportunity to revamp your overall compensation structure. Does your current pay structure fully differentiate between your performers and laggards? Is your current pay plan designed to pay past performance rather than spur improved future performance? Does your current plan truly encourage innovative thinking and risk-taking or does it simply encourage loyalty to the boss?

Here’s a thought: Instead of simply freezing every employee’s salary this year, how about increasing the salaries of the top-performing 20 percent while lowering the salaries of the bottom 20 percent? Your total salary expenditures would remain flat, but your overall corporate performance would surely increase.

Turn adversity into an inspiring opportunity to make the necessary upgrades to your compensation program that will result in performance 2.0 for your company or organization.