Today’s latest social media tools, like Twitter and Facebook, have given the individual customer unprecedented power to take his or her grievance to the masses. One of my favorite such incidents in the last year involved musician Dave Carroll, who took on United Airlines for rejecting his damage claim after baggage handlers broke his guitar. In response, he wrote a humorous ditty called “United Breaks Guitars,” and posted a video of him performing the song on YouTube — which has received nearly nine million views to date.

United’s brand took a beating, and it is not alone. As Bernoff and Schadler point out, these types of single-customer social media firestorms are popping up all over the place, and corporate executives are scrambling to figure out how to effectively respond.

Granted, I am not suggesting that customers, who have a legitimate complaint against a business entity, lay down their new social media guns. On the contrary. I applaud the creative use of technology by a customer to hold a company’s feet to the fire — when a genuine wrong has occurred. But what I also applaud, and encourage, are companies which are beginning to embrace these same technology tools to tell their side of the story.

In a number of my past blog postings, I have called on executives and managers to empower employees to think more creatively, and incentivize them to take risks and to challenge corporate routine. And empowering employees to leverage the same social media tools at work as they use at home opens up a whole new front in cost-effective corporate communications, while better utilizing employee talent.

Of course, this type of empowerment is not without risk as the authors of “Empowered” note. It requires a clear set of internal ground rules that govern both management and employees. But if properly designed and executed, the benefits of engaging employees in leveraging social media will far outweigh the costs of not doing so.

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.

Hewlett points out that flex time is a win-win in today’s economy since many workers will be happy to take less pay if their managers give them a more flexible work schedule. So not only could employers save money by embracing a flex time program, they could also get more out of their employees.

Flex time can come in a number of forms. For example, it may mean working four days a week for a total of 32 hours, and receiving 80% of the pay. Women are particularly attracted to flex time as Hewlett notes, since they are increasingly out-earning their husbands, while still facing domestic duties at home (e.g., as a mother).

A successful female employee and mother typically faces the dilemma of either quitting her job or living with the guilt of not spending more time with her kids at home while they are young. If the mother decides to leave her job, then the company loses out on the talent and investment in that employee. Flex time can potentially keep her at work, contributing to the company’s success, while possibly helping the company save money at the same time.

Ms. Hewlett is the founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, author of nine non-fiction books on business, and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize. She has taught at Cambridge, Columbia, and Princeton.

Her latest book, Top Talent: Keeping Performance Up When Business is Down,” was released in October. Jeffrey Kindler, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer: “The right book at the right time. With skill and conviction, Hewlett provides new insight into motivating your top performers during tough times and preparing your organization for renewed innovation and growth.”

As we have discussed here in numerous blog posts over the last year, tough times are exactly when your company should invest in its best performers and mine all the talent your employees have to offer. This investment can come in the form of enhanced incentive rewards programs, imaginative leadership training, and other innovative programs to spur creative thinking and performance.

It will require a management team who is willing to embrace change, e.g., how and when employees work — in short, a team willing to flex different muscles. I’m guessing you’ll like how the results will look on you and your company.

As I approached him on the sidewalk, I saw that the man had one leg, was in a wheelchair, and was probably around 60 years old. The tune was familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. And then the chorus kicked in. “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, don’t you worry ‘bout a thing…” It was Stevie Wonder’s hit from 1973.

It made for a peppy tune on a sunny, 65-degree fall day in our nation’s capital. I must admit that I usually walk right by and keep my money in my purse when it comes to panhandlers. But on this day I did not.

Not only did this little ditty help pick up my spirits, I couldn’t shake the irony of the moment. Here was a man restricted to a wheelchair, an amputee, and probably living in a DC homeless shelter at night, at best. But yet he was playing, “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing” so the rest of us could have a better day. Now that’s a positive attitude.

Just the day before, I had attended a memorial service at the Kennedy Center for the long-time Washington powerbroker, Anne Wexler (who I blogged about in August upon her death). Over a period of almost 30 years, she had built a lobbying business into one of the most successful and reputable firms in town.

Wexler was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 79, and told by doctors that she only had a couple of months to live. So she used those final weeks to plan every aspect of her memorial service, including the music that would be played.

Toward the end of the service, just after former President Bill Clinton had spoken about Anne, they showed a video comprised of still photos from her life. During the video, several of Anne’s favorite Broadway tunes played in the background. The final song was the farcical “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” from Monty Python. It was the tune I was humming as I left the service.

Although dying of cancer, Anne was still looking on the bright side. This type of positive thinking was Anne Wexler’s trademark, and had much to do with her success as a business woman and an adviser to Presidents.

There is no substitute for a positive attitude. It’s contagious. When it starts at the top, it permeates throughout the entire organization. Employees who have an optimistic outlook and are surrounded by managers who help breed this culture will always outperform the glass-half-empty types.

Sounds like a song you should be humming.

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.

Frankly, your creative place may not be a physical location. It could be a particular state of mind. It could be a certain mood, time of day, or the type of music that you are listening to at the time. It could be something you do such as driving or walking. Or it could be any combination of the above.

Every employee has at least one place that focuses the mind and puts them in a more inspired state. Not a state that will necessarily lead to a nuclear fusion breakthrough, or the next generation of computer chip. But it could be a state that helps them think through a more creative presentation, design a more environmentally-friendly container, improve the profitability of a company service offering, or find a more efficient way to process expense reports.

A company’s challenge is to help find those places for employees where they can be more innovative. Most companies insist that employees produce results in sterile environments under rigid conditions. Ask yourself this question: if you were using your own money to fund a composer to come up with a great score for your next blockbuster movie, would you insist that he or she do it between 9 to 5 on a Tuesday in the small conference room down the hall? I don’t think so.

I realize that organizations may not have the flexibility or the resources to put their employees into their most creative physical spaces. But with a little bit of ingenuity, leadership, and guts to try something different, they could clearly get employees to a better place or frame of mind.

Let New Lantern help your company find its creative place. It could be the beginning of a more beautiful and productive relationship between you and your employees.

A corporate culture reflects an organization’s character, its values and the vision of its management. The culture serves as an unseen GPS for employees, customers, and partners – signaling who you are as a company and how you do business.

Too many companies place a glossy mission or values statement on their website, but don’t work to build a corporate culture that truly lives up to the words.

Senior management cannot impose a desired corporate culture on an organization. It must be earned and built brick-by-brick. Management must create a culture that treats employees as the company’s single best asset. Employees need to know that performance will be measured and appropriately rewarded. Conversely, they need to know that underperformance has its consequences. And employees need to know that the same performance yardstick will be used fairly throughout the entire organization.

A culture that places loyalty to management over performance is a company abusing the shareholders’ trust. Likewise, a culture that tolerates — or worse yet – rewards an attitude that says, “all I need to do is keep my head down, go along with the flow, and not cause any waves,” is doomed to failure.

Jump-start your corporate culture starting today. Let employees know that their talents and value to the company matter. Provide a vision and a clearly defined set of goals for which all employees will share responsibility in achieving. Let employees know that risk-taking, an entrepreneurial spirit, and challenging the status quo are strongly encouraged. And make it clear that a strong sense of ethics is an integral part of your company’s DNA.

If you are able to do the above, your corporate culture will change for the better, your future will be brighter, and shareholders will happily reap the benefits.

The article highlights top companies which are finding ways to spur innovation by taking employees out of their comfort zones, creating new ways to compensate employees for greater achievement, breaking down traditional organizational barriers for increased performance, and leveraging the latest Web 2.0 social networking and wiki tools to enhance collaboration.

New Lantern is a business innovation consulting firm that is perfectly situated to help your company or organization change its game in all of these areas and more.