One of my favorite all-time sketches from Saturday Night Live is “More Cowbell” with guest host Christopher Walken, which aired on April 8, 2000.

In the sketch, Walken plays fictional music producer Bruce Dickinson. The scene is set in a recording studio, and Walken tells the 1970s Blue Öyster Cult band, played by Will Farrell and other male members of the SNL cast, to start at the top on the song, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” Farrell is on cowbell, and as soon as the song starts, he is whamming away at the cowbell with a drumstick.

About 30 seconds into the song, Walken bursts into the studio from the control room shouting, “wait, wait!” He then proceeds to tell the band to try it again from the top, and says, “I could’ve used a little more cowbell.”

The band starts again with Farrell beating the cowbell even louder this time, while dramatically moving around the room as his tight sweater rides up his abdomen exposing his white, fat, hairy belly. Once again, Walken rushes back into the room and cuts the band off mid-song, telling Farrell, “I gotta have more cowbell.” And Farrell complies.

I’m laughing just thinking about the scene as a write this blog.

I must admit that I think about the “cowbell” sketch from time to time and Walken’s obsessive directive to the band. It usually occurs when I’m trying to meet a pressing deadline, get a corporate client to work harder to get more from their employees, coach an executive to take it to the next level, or simply try to finish the last grueling five minutes in my spin class. I hear the clang, clang, clang and Walken’s voice shouting in my head, “I gotta have more cowbell!”

“More cowbell” is my way of saying to dig deeper, work harder, and give it 100 percent – even when you think you’re already doing so. Great companies did not get great by giving it 90 percent. Great executives did not get to where they are by giving it their B game, and great innovators did not come up with leading edge breakthroughs by playing it safe.

The recent economic meltdown has forced many companies to reassess, regroup, and retool. The road back to sustained growth will be long. Yet, those companies which are obsessive about giving it 100 percent, and successful in encouraging their employees to do the same, will be best equipped to make this journey and ultimately reap the benefits.

So for all you Blue Öyster Cult fans, and Walken and Farrell fans, treat your company and your shareholders to some more cowbell this coming year.

Chances are your company will host a number of off-site or on-site meetings in 2010 aimed at driving corporate strategy development and execution; employee, manager, or executive training and development; or engagement with customers, partners or other individuals important to your business.

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.

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question.

Many of you who are reading this blog probably have your own personal Twitter and/or Facebook accounts. Your employer may also have its own Facebook page. And, your corporate communications department may already have someone tasked to monitor social media sites like Twitter for specific web chatter and trends that may impact your business.

If you’re not already doing these things, you should be. But even if you are, you would only be scratching the surface of what these new social media tools could be doing for your company.

According to About.com, the term “social media” includes the “various online technology tools that enable people to communicate easily via the internet to share information and resources. Social media can include text, audio, video, images, podcasts, and other multimedia communications.”

Of course, social media is not a panacea for companies; and neither was the advent of television and video starting in the 1960s. Yet, television provided an exciting new medium for companies to reach customers and the public through advertising. Those companies that moved early and effectively to take advantage of this new medium prospered. And video later provided companies productive ways to communicate internally and to train large numbers of employees in multiple locations in a cost-effective way.

Likewise, social media provides your company with new opportunities to communicate with customers and the public – in real time – like never before. Social media can also be utilized within your company as very effective collaboration tools. For example, managers within different parts of the company could use a customized internal website or “wiki” to trade best practice information. Employees could use it to provide real-time suggestions on process innovation, or ideas for new or improved products or services.

Social media tools are not your traditional “one-to-many” glossy corporate newsletters or large distribution emails from the CEO. Social media are instead “many-to-many” tools, which support the “democratization of knowledge and information” in a highly cost-effective manner according to Wikipedia.org – a poster child itself for many-to-many Web 2.0.

High benefit. Low cost. What’s not to like?

So add this to your New Year’s resolution list: get serious about new social media tools and put them to work for your company in 2010. New Lantern can help show you how, and I predict you’ll then be tweeting our praises.

Tonight, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will add five more names to its wall of legendary performing artists in the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, DC. The 2009 honorees include: producer Mel Brooks; pianist and composer Dave Brubeck; opera singer Grace Bumbry; actor, director, and producer Robert De Niro; and singer and songwriter Bruce Springsteen.

The honorees will join President Obama and the First Lady in the President’s box at the Kennedy Center tonight for the three-hour live tribute, which will later be aired in a two-hour show on CBS on December 29. Last night, the honorees and their families and friends, were feted at a State Department dinner, hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They will also attend a White House reception this evening prior to tonight’s show.

There are no shortage of annual award shows that pay tribute to the achievements of actors, directors, and musicians. Yet, the Kennedy Center Honors seems to stand apart. It seeks to honor a life-time of talent and accomplishment, not simply a snapshot of fame. The show also uniquely brings together on the red carpet the best that America has to offer from the arts and government.

I have attended six Kennedy Center Honors, and each was as distinctive as the inductees themselves and the remarkable stories told by the famous individuals who spoke on their behalf.

Former President John F. Kennedy said, “I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.”

The highest levels of business achievement, like that of the arts, are attained based on a compilation of successful work over an extended period of time – not merely the results of one quarter or one year. And it is the companies that are the most creative, the most innovative, and the most willing to invest in their best performing employees, which will most likely succeed and endure.

Make it a point to honor those employees who help make your company successful with a little red carpet treatment of your own.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the unemployment rate was 10.2 percent in October –- reaching the double-digit mark for the first time since 1983.

Several leading economists are now predicting an 11 percent unemployment rate by the middle of next year, which would represent the highest level since World War II. Even though there have been some glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel in recent months, the unemployment rate continues to be a drag on both the economy and our American psyche.

During these rough economic times, I urge corporate executives to not focus on the 10 percent unemployment rate, but to focus attention on the remaining 90 percent of those still employed. The speed of the recovery and job growth will hinge on one key factor – whether employees are motivated to innovate to drive new products, more compelling services, and improved processes.

Companies, now more than ever, must re-double efforts to mine the talent of their existing employees and turn that talent into newfound gains. With tight budgets, it will require creative approaches from management such as enhanced incentive rewards programs, imaginative leadership and manager training, and other innovative programs to spur greater employee performance.

The costs of such programs are modest compared to the cost to your company and its shareholders of standing still.

You can choose to see the glass 10 percent empty, or you can choose to see it 90 percent full. Think of it as saving room for cream – or better yet, two-percent milk.

The word “autumn” conjures up a number of different meanings for me: the colorful fall foliage, the flickering light from a jack-o’-lantern, and the smell of hot apple cider.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, autumn not only represents the “season of the year between summer and winter,” but it also refers to “a period of maturity verging on decline.” Now that tends to put a negative spin on an otherwise delightful word in my book, but unfortunately it could be a term to describe some Fortune 500 companies.

Like the verge of decline that some of us may feel with each passing birthday (not me, of course), some seemingly successful companies of a certain age may already be in a gradual descent. And they may not even know it yet. In fact, the lay-offs and cut-backs made over the last year in response to the economic crisis may be masking decline that is already well underway for some companies.

Decline could be the result of not moving quickly enough to respond to a changing marketplace or a more innovative competitor. It could be the result of reductions in research needed to spur promising new products or services. It could be from a decrease in spending on high quality employee and manager training. Or it could be the result of an executive team that has paused too long to enjoy the fruits of yesterday’s harvest. Or, it could be all of the above.

Mature companies which lose focus and drive are destined to lose ground on the competition. Such lost ground over time could indeed prove fatal.

Corporate leaders must constantly challenge themselves and their teams. They must regularly retool and reinvest in their employees–and their company’s future.

In doing so, you’ll likely chase off those pesky autumnal goblins, and increase your chances for a more profitable season.