There are very few places where politicos are in favor with the exception of purely ideological grounds.
An exception seems to be Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, Canada.
It was incorporated in 1974, has had astounding growth over the last three decades and is now the 6th largest city in Canada; located on the Great Lakes it larger than either Milwaukee or Cleveland.
What’s interesting is that the mayor, Hazel McCallion, is 88 years old and has held her office for the last 30 years.
Everyone is buzzing about the town being debt free, but in an interview in the Mississauga News she says, “I think we have to talk in strong terms about subsidized social housing. I don’t think we’re doing a very good job. Quite honestly, the City of Mississauga is debt free, the City of Brampton is debt free and the Region of Peel is debt free—and still we have more than 13,000 families on the wait list. We lead the pack where wait times are concerned.”
I find it sadly amusing that few people anywhere want to understand that you get what you pay for and that includes government services at every level.
Taxes and revenues are directly connected and just because you don’t use a particular service doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.
There are way too many stupid bosses out there, but now and then one of them goes to extremes.
This is the first of an occasional series based on finding or receiving examples of extreme managerial stupidity. If you have a good one please send it to me at miki@rampupsolutions.com, subject “extreme stupidity” (so it misses the filters).
In her annual goal-setting meeting with her boss a woman with a track record building relationships across departments said that one of her goals was to increase her knowledge so she could help the company juice innovation by breaking down silos.
Her boss said, “This place doesn’t work that way. No place does. I think you’re confusing knowledge with ability and I wouldn’t recommend that you build a career based on knowledge. Do yourself a favor, don’t set yourself up for failure.
Focus on something you can really do. Work on your Powerpoint skills. Learn to manage your time better so you don’t have to work so many hours.
Let me explain something to you with an example, I believe in taking care of the customer and the shareholder. I don’t give a sh** about the employee. So I’d never put into my goals ‘build stronger relationships with my team members’ because I don’t care about them. I’d hate doing it and I wouldn’t be any good at it because I don’t want to be any good at it. See what I mean?”
There are multiple stupidities in his comments, so I’ll take them individually.
Obviously this manager doesn’t read the business news. There isn’t a CEO out there who isn’t looking for ways to break down walls and reduce silo mentality; there’s too much proof that doing so sparks innovation and raises the bottom line.
Skills are knowledge in action; knowledge is transferable between industries; in the 21st Century there is nothing else on which to build a career except knowledge.
A company is like a three legged stool with investors, customers and employees being the legs. If one leg is longer or more robust than another the stool will tip over. This type MAP guarantees sky-high costs due to extremely low productivity and excessively high turnover, since employees vote for their bosses with their feet.
Managers are not the front line in most companies—especially those large enough to have silos. This manager’s customers are interfacing with the employees about which he doesn’t give a sh**, so there’s not much reason for them to give much of a sh** about the customers.
Managerial raises and promotions are based on the accomplishments of the manager’s team; there is nothing a manager can do as an individual that will offset a non-performing group. However, how long it takes him to fall on his ass depends on how many levels above him have the same MAP.
If you find yourself in a similar situation here are some ideas on what to do
If possible change jobs; set your own goals and pursue them as openly as is safe and covertly when it isn’t; continue to build both knowledge and associated skills.
And what not to do
Don’t bother reporting him—unless he’s a very recent hire HR and his manager already know; don’t try sabotage—it’s likely to backfire; put it out of your mind—don’t allow it to eat at you or gnaw on it like an old bone; make a screen saver, sign, etc. that says, “This To Shall Pass” and get on with your life.
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.“ –Charles Richards (And it’s your choice…)
“It’s not the plan that is important, it’s the planning”. –Graeme Edwards (Unlike crosswords, plans should always be done in pencil.)
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”. –John Lennon (Which is why you should use a pencil.)
“You see things and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?'” –George Bernard Shaw (One of the basics of my own plan.)
A second innovation commentary comes from consultant Peter Bregman who offers up and interesting perspective on why it’s better to be David in this economy than Goliath.
Finally, what’s happening in compensation these days aside from Wall Street bankers with dubious bonuses?
Who’s innovating? Why is it important to stay focused on innovation? How are companies doing it in today’s economy? Check out Business Week’s story on the 50 Most Innovative Companies and don’t miss the side bar on the 25 most innovative companies you’ve probably never heard about.
A second innovation commentary comes from consultant Peter Bregman who offers up and interesting perspective on why It’s better to be David in this economy than Goliath.
What’s happening in compensation these days aside from Wall Street bankers with dubious bonuses? Here’s the information for those of you wondering what CEOs are earning or whether it’s worth going for MBA.
That’s it for this week. Have a wonderful weekend and keep your eye on the innovation ball—that’s really what pays.
Are there any basic attitudes that you can build into your company’s culture that will encourage, let alone mandate, ethical/moral behavior in the decision making process when ‘moral’ equates to risk?
“…moral dilemmas, the decision to tell the truth or to bury it entails a huge amount of risk and soul-searching. Viewed in that way, what we call “ethics” is really a set of decisions about which risk is easier to sleep with at night: opening up about an uncertain situation or trying to hide the worst of it from yourself and everyone else.”
There are three traits that must be deeply embedded in your culture are
Consciousness. This is also known as ingrained awareness of the ramifications of collective action.
Discipline. Neuroscience research over the last decade has demonstrated that continual, intensive focus changes the pattern of neurons within the human brain.
Empathy. When a company is truly empathetic, the recognition of the value of employees is just a starting point.
The quote above is from an article based on the video below; the speech was given this past January at a Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs seminar entitled “Top Risks and Ethical Decisions.”
For full details read the entire transcript as well as the article, they’re well worth your time.
Shortly after I started writing Leadership Turn I did a post about diversity, ending with this—
“Another way to look at it is that any increased spending on diversity development is an investment and will be more than offset by the increases in innovation, productivity and revenues. If spending $100 results in a bottom line increase of $1000, did you really spend the $100, or did you gain $900? $900 that wouldn’t be there if you hadn’t invested the initial $100.”
How do you define diversity?
True diversity isn’t just diversity of race, gender, creed and country, but what I call the new diversity—all those plus diversity of thought.
Think about it, if a manager really works at it she can create a rainbow-colored group who all think the same way—George W. Bush’s initial Cabinet was ethnically diverse, but their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) was homogeneous.
It’s far more difficult to put together a group of totally diverse thinkers. Managers tend to hire in their comfort zone, but more and more that refers to how people think, rather than how they look.
So what should you do to ensure that you’re building a truly diversified team?
Here are five key points to keep in mind when you’re both hiring people and managing/leading them.
Avoid assumptions. People aren’t better because they graduated from your (or your people’s) alma mater, come from your hometown/state or worked for a hot company.
Know your visual prejudices. Everybody has them (one of mine is dirty-looking, stringy hair), because you can’t hear past them if you’re not aware of them.
Listen. Not to what the words mean to you, but what the words mean to the person speaking.
Be open to the radical. Don’t shut down because an idea is off the wall at even the third look and never dismiss the whole if some part can be used.
Be open to alternative paths. If your people achieve what they should it doesn’t matter that they did it in a way that never would have crossed your mind.
Finally, remember that if you’re totally comfortable, with nary a twinge to ripple your mental lake, your group is probably lacking in diversity.
Reputations are fragile things and company reputations are no different, but in the brave new world of YouTube, Twitter and blogs their fragility has skyrocketed.
Pity Domino’s Pizza whose Conover NC franchise employed two of the stupidest thirty-somethings available. They posted a prank video on YouTube (it’s been removed) that burned through the social media world faster than any recorded wildfire and was just as damaging.
In a 2007 post I quoted Chris Gidez, head of U.S. crisis management for the public-relations firm Hill & Knowlton, “Once it’s on the Web, it’s like taking the rods out of a reactor. Companies have to work harder to determine, ‘Do we need to worry about this?’ “Overreacting can call more attention to a rumor than it gets on its own, I’ve had clients who wanted to respond to a problem with guns blazing, and I say, ‘Hold on a second. You might be telling a larger universe of people about a problem they didn’t know existed.”
I think that Gidez may be giving different advice these days, since it’s doubtful that any rumor, prank or sin will die a natural death.
“If you think it’s not going to spread [in social media], that’s when it gets bigger,” said Scott Hoffman, the chief marketing officer of the social-media marketing firm Lotame. “We realized that when many of the comments and questions in Twitter were, ‘What is Domino’s doing about it’ ” Domino’s spokesman, Tim McIntyre said. “Well, we were doing and saying things, but they weren’t being covered in Twitter.”
By Wednesday afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments, and it had presented its chief executive in a video on YouTube by evening.”
The real problem today isn’t the speed and transparency with which information moves, but rather it’s that the stupidity factor is just as bad, if not worse, than it ever was.
Dr. Jay Geidd, NIH: “The part of the brain that fills in last is the part involved in decision-making and controlling our impulses.”
The articles on teen brain research all indicate that the brain matures around age 25 or later, but it seems the availability of instant fame, no matter how fleeting, has pushed brain maturity way past that mark increasing the level of stupidity that people find so amusing—think YouTube and AFHV.
This weekend talk to your kids. Show them the article; tell them about the legal charges filed and the civil suite in the works. And ask them what business in it’s right mind would ever hire people whose judgment is this bad?
All of them are grounded in stupidity, but it’s age and appearance that I want to focus on today.
Layoffs are always a time when age is in the limelight, but this time it’s working in reverse.
“The share of older Americans who have jobs has risen during the recession, while the share of younger Americans with jobs has plunged.”
It seems that at least parts of corporate America have learned to see past the obvious.
“…employees whom companies have invested in most and who have “demonstrated track records…tend to be more experienced and are often older.””
So some companies have discovered that years of experience have substantial value when it comes to the success of the company.
But what about appearance? How much is hearing influenced by how someone looks at first take?
What better venue in which to consider this than the original British version of American Idol where the contestants are mostly young, generally good-looking and always bust their tails to make an impression.
How well do you think a slightly frumpy-looking 47 year old woman would fare under the scathing tongue of Simon Fuller?
How much do you think talent would offset the obvious visual assumptions made by both the judges and the audience?
Watch the judges and audience reaction carefully before Susan Boyle performs and how quickly it changes when she starts singing (embedding is disabled on this video); check out some of the more than 50 thousand comments.
Think about what happens when a “Susan” comes to interview; how well do you hear past her (or his) appearance?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.“ –Charles Richards (And it’s your choice…)
Who’s innovating? Why is it important to stay focused on innovation? How are companies doing it in today’s economy?
Who’s innovating? Why is it important to stay focused on innovation? How are companies doing it in today’s economy? Check out Business Week’s story on the 
Are there any basic attitudes that you can build into your company’s culture that will encourage, let alone mandate, ethical/moral behavior in the decision making process when ‘moral’ equates to risk?
Shortly after I started writing Leadership Turn I did a 
Reputations are fragile things and company reputations are no different, but in the 
But what about 
