As you probably know by now there is change afoot at Leadership Turn. Specifically it’s ending, as all good things end, and that means change for me and you.

But that’s good.

As Harold Wilson said, “He who rejects change is the architect of decay.  The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

Edwards Deming said it more simply, “It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory.”

Well, I plan to survive and we sure aren’t dead, so change it is.

When change hits have you noticed how much energy people expend looking for reasons not to change? John Kenneth Galbraith said it best, “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

I don’t mind big changes, such as moving from California to Washington, but I hate changing little stuff, especially personnel changes in the companies with which I frequently deal.

When that resistance kicks in I remind myself of something I read years ago—if nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies. Good thought—change as metamorphosis.

Pauline R. Kezer said, “Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.”

Kurt Lewin opines, “If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.” Boy, is that true.

But it is John Lilly who really understands what change means, “Our only security is our ability to change.”

Change should be embraced, even when you’re not sure what it will bring.

Since b5 notified me the Leadership Turn was ending I’ve wondered what the change would mean to me. Will you migrate to MAPping Company Success and continue inspiring me to explore articles I read and share my off-the-wall ideas? Will you read a blog that doesn’t have ‘leadership’ in the name?  What will I do with the extra time?

What kind of butterflies will this change bring?

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See all mY generation posts here.

There are many ways to build a career and Brian T. Moynihan chose one of the most unlikely—he fell up the corporate ladder into the CEO job at Bank of America.

It was a familiar role for Mr. Moynihan, who, in many ways, has had a career of falling into bigger jobs at the bank when executives were fired or shunted aside.

What is the essence of human nature? Flawed, say many theologians. Vicious and addicted to warfare, wrote Hobbes. Selfish and in need of considerable improvement, think many parents.

Nope, biologists are finding that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others—unfortunately they (we) grow up.

Would you like to live to be 100 or more? Several Wharton professors offer up a thoughtful overview of what that kind of longevity could mean.

Last, and maybe least, I decided that I shouldn’t miss the Tiger Woods band wagon, but only because KG Charles-Harris sent a scan of a great satirical take on the whole thing and it was just too good to resist.

Image credit:  MykReeve on flickr

Let us start with a question. Do you read Schumpeter in The Economist? Most of the time I really like what he says, but every now and then I disagree.

A good example of this is The cult of the faceless boss; I don’t agree that a CEO has to be flamboyant, maniacal, egotisticical and overbearing to be brilliant.

Whereas I found The three habits…of highly irritating management gurus to be right on and which has a comment that was too good not to quote here.

I’m thinking of titling my new management tome: “How I Learned My Five Most Effective Management Habits in Kindergarten, While Winning Friends and Influencing People by Using a Twelve Step Program, and All Inspired by Sun Tzu and Genghis Khan.”

Speaking of overbearing and egotistical what do you think of this CEO? One can only hope that he’s been canned—better yet, he should become a patient in his own facility.

Finally, Peter Schutz, former CEO of Porsche, sums up the two necessities for success, “People buy other people and corporate culture,” something that made Zappos what it is, but that many executives forget.

Leadership Turn is ending; its last day is December 29. I’ve enjoyed writing it and our interaction since August 16, 2007; LT may end, but I’ll keep going at my other blog.

Your favorite features will continue, along with my take on corporate culture, motivation and my quirky, somewhat jaundiced, view of leadership. Please join me at MAPping Company Success or subscribe via RSS or EMAIL.

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Life is about choices; we make choices every day that affect not only the immediate subject, but also those around us and our future.

Sometimes we don’t even notice the choices we make, but that doesn’t change the size of their effect.

The following is a teaching fable that has been around in various forms for years.

An old man told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people.

He said, “The battle is between the two animals that live inside us all.

One is Evil—it is made of anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good—it is joy, peace, love, authenticity, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, and compassion.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Which wins the battle?”

The old man replied, “The one you feed.”

It is with your choices, not just the conscious ones, but all of them, that you feed the beasts.

You can never rid yourself of all the traits that comprise either the evil or the good beast, but you can control their size, frequency and intensity.

It’s your choice.

Leadership Turn is ending; its last day is December 29. I’ve enjoyed writing it and our interaction since August 16, 2007 and I hope we can continue at my other blog.

If you enjoy my views and writing, please join me at MAPping Company Success or subscribe via RSS or EMAIL.

Your comments—priceless

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Are you one of the millions who talk on your cell phone when driving?

Or are you one of those stupid (my opinion) enough to text and drive?

Does it matter since everybody (except us dinosaurs) does it?

And who is responsible if there is an accident as a result of the distraction?

An interesting question that is currently playing out in court.

Christopher Hill, then 20, told the police he was so distracted by a cellphone call that he ran a red light at 45 miles an hour, hitting Ms. Doyle’s car as it crossed in front of him.

Doyle died and Jennifer Smith, her daughter, is suing Samsung and Sprint.

Ms. Smith argues that the industry’s success in marketing to drivers is the reason people like Mr. Hill do not change their behavior or pay attention to what she characterizes as faint warnings by the industry.

A previous suit in 2003 was thrown out of court.

Now anyone who follows the tobacco lawsuits knows how difficult it is to prove that companies knew their product had risks even when testimony and exhibits are overwhelming.

So it seems a no-brainer to assume that there is no smoking gun for plaintiffs to find.

But—the $150 billion industry has aggressively marketed to drivers for 50 years.

Bob Lucky, an executive director at Bell Labs from 1982-92, said he knew that drivers talking on cellphones were not focused fully on the road. But he did not think much about it or discuss it and supposed others did not, either, given the industry’s booming fortunes.

“If you’re an engineer, you don’t want to outlaw the great technology you’ve been working on,” said Mr. Lucky, now 73. “If you’re a marketing person, you don’t want to outlaw the thing you’ve been trying to sell. If you’re a C.E.O., you don’t want to outlaw the thing that’s been making a lot of money.”

Not everybody felt that way.

In 1990, David Strayer, a junior researcher at GTE, which later became part of Verizon, noticed more drivers who seemed to be distracted by their phones, and it scared him. He asked a supervisor if the company should research the risks.

“Why would we want to know that?” Mr. Strayer recalled being told.

Bell Labs is gone and many of those involved are retired and, like Lucky, have no real incentive to lie about what went on (if they were even inclined that way)—in other words, no actively vested interest.

Where does corporate responsibility lie in situations such as this?

It’s a lengthy article, but one well worth reading.

And you might ask yourself how many of your calls from behind the wheel are really so critical they couldn’t wait; and those that really achieve critical status. And of those that truly meet the critical test, how many would take so long that you couldn’t pull off the road?

As to texting, I can only hope that when you’re busy looking at the screen and hitting the keys that you run into an inanimate object as opposed to one with humans involved.

Either way, the next time you start getting involved in anything while driving ask yourself this: how well would you sleep for the rest of your life if you were Christopher Hill.

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If you are a manager and despair at the quality of people that fill your entry level positions, not their attitude, but their skills and basic education, prepare for it to get worse.

Perhaps instead of ranting and whining about America’s loss of global leadership we should look closer to home for the real cause—US education.

The ethnic groups with the worst outcomes in school are African-Americans and Hispanics. The achievement gaps between these groups and their white and Asian-American peers are already large in kindergarten and only grow as the school years pass. These are the youngsters least ready right now to travel the 21st-century road to a successful life.

By 2050, the percentage of whites in the work force is projected to fall from today’s 67 percent to 51.4 percent. The presence of blacks and Hispanics in the work force by midcentury is expected to be huge, with the growth especially sharp among Hispanics.

No, whites and Asians aren’t smarter, but they do have socioeconomic advantages that are lacking for these minorities.

Advantages that our educational system and politicians at all levels are doing little to address.

It’s not always about money, although that is a part of it, nor is it about standardized tests that do little to improve true education, it’s about innovation and educating outside the box.

Harvard Graduate School of Education is creating a new doctoral degree to be focused on leadership in education. It’s the first new degree offered by the school in 74 years. The three-year course will be tuition-free and conducted in collaboration with faculty members from the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The idea is to develop dynamic new leaders who will offer the creativity, intellectual rigor and professionalism that is needed to help transform public education in the U.S.

Creativity, intellectual rigor, professionalism; this leadership isn’t just about visions and influence, it’s about creating people who will roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty often toil in relative obscurity on the biggest problems facing this country.

Kathleen McCartney, the graduate school’s dean, explained one of the dilemmas that has hampered reform. “If you look at people who are running districts,” she said, “some come from traditional schools of education, and they understand the core business of education but perhaps are a little weak on the management side. And then you’ve got the M.B.A.-types who understand operations, let’s say, but not so much teaching and learning.”

Will it work?

Can the program make a difference quickly enough to change the current downward trajectory of our future?

Will other schools step up to the plate now or will they wait a decade or so and see how the Harvard program fares?

Does anybody care enough about what will happen in 20, 30, 40 years to accept a little discomfort now or should we just build more prisons?

Leadership Turn is ending; its last day is December 29. I’ve enjoyed writing it and our interaction since August 16, 2007 and I hope we can continue at my other blog where Leadership’s Future will carry on.

If you enjoy my views and writing, please join me at MAPping Company Success or subscribe via RSS or EMAIL.

Your comments—priceless

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Last month I wrote a post at Leadership Turn on the incredible stupidity executives have exhibited by focusing on the Boomers and Gen Y, while ignoring the depth of talent available to them in Gen X.

Based on the comments I really hit a nerve.

A few days ago I received an invitation to review a new book. I’m not accepting it, so I want to make it clear that I have no idea whether it has value or not—this is not a book review.

But the fact that it was written, whether it’s good or not, proves to me that the stupidity I referred to previously is worse than I thought.

The book is “Millennials Into Leadership: The Ultimate Guide for GenYs Aspiring to Be Effective, Respected Young Leaders at Work.”

I don’t disagree that companies are prone to throwing people into management roles and expecting them to swim, but I also don’t believe that reading a couple of books takes the place of a decade or more of experience even when that experience isn’t coupled with the kind of development that companies should do.

I’ve worked with thousands of managers at all stages of their careers and the majority all say the same thing.

Few talk about having a mentor or working for extraordinary managers; most say they learned what not to do working for poor managers and did the opposite when they were promoted—they learned by doing.

Leadership/managing isn’t at it’s best as a DIY function. Books can discuss the tools and even describe how to use them, but that is a far cry from doing it.

I don’t like waste and that is exactly what is happening.

Current management wasted the Gen X resource and rather than admit the error and reclaim the resource they look to a new, larger generation to come to the rescue, while books such as this make that generation believe they are ready to do it.

Now is the time to change that pattern. As the economy turns around business can turn around their attitude and recognize the need to utilize their Gen X resources and develop Gen Y beyond what they will find in popular books.

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To my readers: Leadership Turn is ending; its last day is December 29. I’ve enjoyed writing it and our interaction since August 16, 2007 and I hope we can continue at my other blog.

If you enjoy my views and writing, please join me at MAPping Company Success or subscribe via RSS or EMAIL.

The WELCOME MAT is out!

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Welcome to all my readers from Leadership Turn

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