Frequent readers know that I am not a devotee of Warren Bennis, who famously propagated the idea that leaders and managers are not only different, but that ‘leaders’ are higher on the food chain possessing far more value than the lowly manager.

I have devoted numerous posts to dispelling this attitude (See series starting here.), much like Don Quixote tilting at his windmills. (It’s not a new attitude; I’ve had a statue of Quixote and Sancho Panza for years:)

I was discussing this over lunch with several executives and voiced my thought that no manager at any level can function successfully in today’s climate unless she is a leader.

This brought forth a terrific response from a CEO that is well worth sharing.

“A manager who doesn’t lead is a bureaucrat.”

An astute, simple and very accurate statement for people who are, or aspire to be, in charge, no matter of what or at what level, to frame and hang on their walls.

If you don’t want to

• craft and share a vision of what, why and when {whatever} needs to happen and leave the ‘how’ to your team;
• share information openly and willingly;
• take the time to craft communications that can be heard and understood by all;
• help both your company and your team become all that they can be;
• shoulder the responsibility, but give away the credit; a
• think ‘them’ before ‘me’;

then you shouldn’t be in charge.

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Last Friday I shared the story of politically incorrect innovation that feeds  you and today I have another innovative food story.

It involves innovation driven first by the loss of a job and juiced by government bureaucracy and the nonavailability of ever getting a food cart permit. And before you start wondering which municipality in what State is causing someone grief, this story takes place in Germany—a country that makes US bureaucracy look like a bunch of amateurs.

The story involves Bertram Rohloff, who lost his job in 1997; he wanted to open a sandwich stand, but the required permits were impossible to obtain.

Rohloff started thinking; he knew that Germans love sausages and that permits made selling sidewalk food impossible, so he set out to invent a way to cook brats where neither the grill nor the sausages touched the ground.

Enter the Grillwalker.

“He designed it with an automatic cut-off mechanism for the gas, to ensure that it was safe in the event of an accident.

“Mr. Rohloff was the first person to don his invention and sell bratwurst on the street. He now has 15 employees selling sausages around the city in teams of two; they take turns wearing the grill and reloading the sausages, rolls and condiments. … He has subcontractors renting them in cities around the country, from Hanover to Karlsruhe.”

But Rohloff has bigger plans than a crew selling brats.

“And Mr. Rohloff has sold the equipment, at $7,100 a piece, to customers in Bulgaria, Colombia, South Korea and elsewhere, including one to a man in Nebraska. Just this week he sold one to a client in South Africa, which next year will host the World Cup soccer tournament.”

Rohloff’s situation necessitated his finding another way to earn a living; once he found it he needed to circumvent the bureaucracy that prevented his doing it; the result is far beyond the simple sandwich stand he originally envisioned. And those who work for him are earning more than their old jobs provided.

One guy, one idea, many people benefiting.

Anything is possible!

Watch the video and let it inspire you.

Image credit: Paul Keller on flickr

Cheating isn’t new, nor is my writing about it.

It probably dates back to the cavemen, but it’s become more acceptable with the passage of time. Or maybe it’s just that the level of cheating needed to upset people and the stakes involved have increased so much.

An article in the Sun Journal gives an excellent overview of the pervasiveness of cheating.

Of course, the best thing to do if you’re going to cheat is don’t get caught, but if you do and lie about it the penalties increase exponentially.

For some reason people are tolerant of the cheating, in some cases they even seem to expect it, but they go totally ballistic when they get denial and lies from the cheaters when they are caught.

Nixon and the Watergate tapes are a case in point. Dirty tricks in politics were nothing new; it was his blatant lying and lack of remorse that resulted in his impeachment.

When Nixon was up there denying that he edited the tapes and claiming to know nothing about it one thought kept going through my mind and my conversations, “How stupid does he thing we (the American people) are?” and that reaction hasn’t changed with any of the hundreds (thousands?) of accusation/proof/denial scenarios that have played out since, whether in politics, business, religion, sports or any other arena.

It takes a great deal from our so-called leaders to get a reaction beyond a shrug of disgust from me, probably because I have no-to-low expectations.

But treating me as if I am stupid will send me around the bend in no time flat.

I have no liking for Bernie Madoff, but at least he had the guts to plead guilty as opposed to Jeff Skilling, who added the cost of his trials and appeals to the rest of his fraud believing that we were too stupid to see/understand what he did.

The saddest part is the example these clowns set for younger generations.

What really happens to those like Nixon, Ebbers, Skilling, and all the lesser cheats?

Some serve a few months or years in jail; they might lose their “good name,” although that will fade in time, but they won’t be left destitute. Most go back to their old life; if they can’t do that they can always write a book, become a guest speaker or go on the talk show circuit.

The same actions that brought them down will serve to lift them up, so what’s the big deal?

As to the sports arena, another athlete on steroids or some other performance-enhancing drug is barely news these days.

“The Canadian sprinter stunned the world by running 100 meters in 9.79 seconds. Oops. Busted. Turned out Ben Johnson was the world’s fastest steroid abuser.

“How many athletes are using performance-enhancing substances? The answer is, everyone who’s willing to.” says Jay Coakley, author of Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies.

“Every athlete looks for an edge,” says Charles Maher, Cleveland Indians team psychologist. “Some are conflicted about it. They want a competitive advantage but they don’t want to damage themselves.”

With no real consequences in the vast majority of cases, and whatever penalties there are quickly forgotten, why not cheat?

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Let’s skip all the guru talk and in vogue words and go straight to the crux of the matter.

You want a

• productive, creative, committed workforce; and
• loyal customers.

That pretty much covers it, but buying a bunch of new apps won’t really cut it (as yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday so elegantly pointed out).

Changing how you communicate isn’t quite as simple as throwing software at the problem, but it works better and is a lot cheaper.

Here is a simple way to start.

• Internally, develop a strong sensitivity to people, all people, not just stars and acknowledge that hiring all stars (even if it was possible) won’t guarantee your company’s success.
• Externally, treat all your customers the same as you would your favorite relative.

Steve Harrison, author of The Manager’s Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies., says “…decent leaders all have one common trait: humility. Unlike star CEOs who seek the limelight, these low-key leaders are ambitious for their companies, not for themselves. They avoid executive pomposity like the plague. All that stuff about pretentious perks and rank having its privileges – for them, that’s not what leadership is about” and cites Colgate-Palmolive Co. chairman Reuben Mark; Nucor Corp.’s former CEO Kenneth Iverson (who died in 2002); Campbell Soup Co. president and CEO Douglas R. Conant; Southwest Airlines Co. chairman Herbert Kelleher; and Dial Corp.’s former president and CEO, Herbert Baum as executives who get it, but there are many more.

What better, simpler, cheaper approach can you find?

Think about it.

All you have to do is be considerate and respectful of others and practice the kind of manners and politeness that seem to be out of date.

In other words, learn to think them, them, them, instead of me, me, me.

Image credit: Warning Label Generator

Click to learn the best focus for life

Image credit: Geek and Poke

Now learn how to guarantee business FAILURE

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Three years ago after reading a Business Week cover story I wrote about ROWE, the results only work environment, and why it is imperative that your MAP support it before you try to implement it.

Last week Michelle Conlin, who wrote the original BW story, brings us up-to-date on Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson, the two HR pros who originally formulated ROWE and used a stealth approach to build the initiative at Best Buy; no longer at Best Buy they now run a consultancy called CultureRx that helps other companies move to ROWE.

Conlin reposts a story that appeared in the Society of Human Resource Managers (members only) about Gap Outlet, which is migrating its headquarters staff to a ROWE environment.

“Eric Severson, vice president of HR, believed the culture and the demographics at Gap Outlet were primed for a solution like ROWE. “We are in one of the worst commute cities and in one of the most expensive places to live,” he explained. “We have a 76 percent female workforce with an average age of 34.””

“ROWE also is self-policing, Severson discovered: People ferret out those not doing the work because everyone is highly protective of the initiative. “There are very few talent management programs that don’t create a sense of entitlement,” he said. “This is an agreement between the employees and the company that in exchange for the most incredible freedom to do your job in a way that makes sense for you, you will perform highly.”

Interestingly, ROWE solves another management quandary—how to correct the employee with marginal output, but who puts in the hours. This is especially valuable with Millennials who often feel that showing up is half the job.

Under ROWE all issues become performance issues, i.e., discussions center on results and how to improve them as opposed to attendance. Since work can be done at any time and the choice is left to employees there are no excuses.

Read both stories, do a reality-check on your MAP and then think about how you can implement ROWE or ROWE-like elements in your organization while keeping in mind Gap Inc. executive vice president of HR Eva Sage-Gavin’s admonishment.

“The culture has to be right first with a high degree of trust. Check your culture, look at your demographics and if all those are green, then what’s the risk in trying it? Go slow, pilot it and check the results.”

Image credit: drustar on flickr

There is much talk about building winning teams and how to lead them and much of that centers on “influence” and “visions.”

The ledgendary Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, an expert on winning teams, provided a far simpler approach that you can be implement in a matter of seconds.

The only caveat is that once started it must be followed exactly and whole-heartedly.

“If anything goes bad, I did it.
If anything goes semi-good, we did it.
If anything goes really good, then you did it.
That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”

If more “leaders” followed this path we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Do you have the courage to implement Bryant’s approach?

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Image credit: ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr

I must say that although I write about it and disagree vehemently with it, leadership is a growth industry, even going so far as to offer PhDs in Leadership.

Those of you who also read Leadership Turn know my thoughts on the subject, but the profile has gotten so high that it reminded me of an article I read last year called Leadership Malpractice.

It’s not a media product or authored by some external pundit, but comes from Harvard Public Leadership Lecturer Barbara Kellerman, author of Bad Leadership and Followership.

Kellerman says that since “leadership is increasingly considered a profession,” leaders should be subject to the same punishments as other professionals, such as doctors and lawyers.

Doesn’t that sound like an idea whose time has come? Especially if schools are going to offer advanced degrees in it.

Kellerman points out that business leaders are appointed; “in the first nine months of this year [2008] a record 1,132 CEOs quit or were shown the door.”

They were let go due to poor corporate performance, but even truly rotten performance carried no serious consequences, in fact, “most left with their financial futures handsomely secured.” Sure, a few are behind bars, but when they emerge they will bear no serious financial hardships.

“No insignificant number of top executives have been culpable of negligence, failures that caused injury to others. To take only a few glaring examples, top executives at A.I.G., Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, or for that matter at General Motors, all failed abysmally to protect employees and stockholders alike.”

Leadership has become a profession in and of itself.

“It is taught in professional schools, in schools of government and public administration, and in nearly all business schools. There are countless books on how to exercise good leadership, and countless courses and seminars, both in and out of the academy, in which leadership is taught. It’s time then to apply to leadership the same standard that we apply to other professions. Similarly, when this standard is not met, even minimally, it’s time to hold leaders accountable by suing them for malpractice.”

Once someone is on the ‘leadership track’ they move forward with amazing speed—and less and less scrutiny the higher they go. When they foul up, they are often eased out, rather than being fired—an action that would make the person or board that hired/promoted them look bad.

By the time they’re appointed to the corner office they are practically untouchable; with few exceptions this applies to the entire C suite. Oh, they can be fired, and they often are, but that rarely impacts their career.

There is much talk of accountability, but most is empty.

Perhaps leadership malpractice would finally bring some serious accountability to the guys out front—the same guys whose monster egos and Teflon finishes keep them walking away unscathed while the rest of us are strung up and left to twist in the economic winds.

Image credit: John of Austin on flickr

Oh for the memory of youth; not memories, but the ability to remember what I’m doing.

Last July I started looking for a new tagline. Even though I’m stuck committed to the blog’s name I want something that reflects my take on leadership as opposed to the generally accepted view.

Like any blogger I asked my then readers what they thought, received some interesting suggestions and promptly forgot about it.

The subject recently came up again, so I looked up the post and here are what I think are the best from those suggestions.

Eric Eggertson, who used to write CommonSensePR, gave me a number of suggestions, among them Seize the future and Inspire and achieve;

I came up with Seize the initiative;

Luke suggested Miki Tells You How It Is;

Phil Gerbyshak took Luke’s idea and came up with No Spin, Just Straight Talk.

Darth Sidious suggested The Drive to thrive and also said my writings have enhanced he and his friends’ Sith philosophy! Hmm, I wonder if George Lucas is aware of that.

Back to the tag line.

What do you think? Do you like one of these or do you have a better idea that reflects the tone and philosophy of my Leadership Turn?

Leave a comment to with a new tagline or vote for one already suggested by October 1 and win a copy of The Three Laws Of Performance. If I end up using one of the above tags I’ll use Ramdom.org to decide the winner.

Enter as many times as you like; previous suggestions are automatically entered.

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