IT’S FOR REAL

NOT A JOKE

The Office of Government Ethics

Ethics in Government Act of 1978 (read the PDF file or click the Flickr link for a summary)

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/caveman_92223/3781992502/

I read a great post by Jennifer Miller on the ubiquity of ‘perfect’ in descriptions and the dangers of embedding perfection as a goal in corporate culture.

It reminded me that ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ are right up there with ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ on the overused/abused scale—more, actually, since they represent a condition beyond human abilities.

Humans don’t do absolutes particularly well.

They do better on a strictly personal level when they have absolute control over all parts of the equation, but even then their score leaves much to be desired—just consider the infidelity statistics.

Add to that the fact that the standards themselves are a moving target. Even those that seem to be absolute, like murder, have a definition that changes with societal attitudes towards what constitutes a victim.

Since humans so often fall short of perfection, society and corporations codify the definitions to make it easier to adhere to them. That’s especially important when it comes to ethical stances, which is why condoning deviations, as described yesterday, is so devastating to the organization.

The take-away is simple: never establish goals that set you or your people up for failure.

If you are prone to talking in absolutes, “we will always…” here is a simple rule to guide you.

“We will always” is acceptable if you are discussing well defined intangibles, such as ethics and values that apply equally to everyone in the organization, but isn’t applicable in setting tangible goals, such as quality rules for defects.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

According to a post in Forbes by Gregory Unruh, citing one at Motley Fool, many corporations include “ethical waivers” in their corporate Ethical Codes of Conduct, including Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Citigroup, Altria and many others.

Waiver clauses leave the door open for companies to violate their own code of ethics if executives and the board decide it’s a “good” idea. In effect, waivers are a “code of ethics safety valve,” the metaphorical opposite of a blow-out preventer. Why have them? Waivers will just cause problems; a corporate code of ethics is created and designed to limit management decision options to ethical choices. Usually it’s not a problem, but ethics can sometimes impinge on profits. Corporations and their shareholders don’t like to miss out on profits, so the safety valve allows them to sacrifice their ethics if the price pressure is high enough.

Why am I not surprised?

Both authors do an excellent job lambasting the idea that if it pays enough ethics can be waived, so I’m not going to restate the obvious.

Granted, it does take Board approval to use the waiver clause, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem.

Enron’s Board waived the Code of Ethics that prohibited self-dealing by corporate officers and approved off-balance sheet “special purpose entities” and we all know the result of that.

Again, no surprises; not when so many companies put profits, share price and looking good ahead of everything.

What did surprise amaze flabergast, me was that the Goldman Board has issued no waivers.

Confronted about this waiver, a Goldman spokesman responded to blogger ZeroHedge by saying: “The ethics code, including waiver provision, was required under [Sarbanes-Oxley] (Note: It’s not.). No waivers have been requested.”

Isn’t it nice to know that Goldman considers all their actions over the last few years to be ethical.

Wow! I’m not just surprised, I’m speechless.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/saeba/3479264260/

See all mY generation posts here.

Ethics. Integrity. Both words weave their way through most business and political news these days. So I thought is would be fun to see what some famous folks have said about them over the years.

As I read through dozens of quotes I couldn’t help wondering at the hypocrisy of so many in politics and the financial industries had ever done the same—or if they would even recognize themselves if they did.

Think about it; Albert Camus said, “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.” If that is the case there are a lot of beasts running around these days.

If it’s true that “integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching,” I wonder what it means when people skip, ignore or just don’t bother when people are watching—maybe that’s the real definition of arrogance.

If Samuel Richardson was correct when he said, “Calamity is the test of integrity,” then Washington and Wall Street fail miserably and they certainly don’t believe Anon’s common wisdom that says, “Don’t worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.”

Perhaps they aren’t guilty by reason of insanity—that is if we concur with Nietzsche, “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”

The last word goes to Albert Einstein, “Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.”

Join me tomorrow for a look at why flexible ethics are what really pave the road to Hell.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/erdogan/3112323705/

I get really tired of the L word (leadership), but I can’t seem to avoid it. It’s used whether applicable or not—more often because the people described are positional leaders than because they actually embody real leadership

The Washington Post’ leadership section has a new blog that looks like it is worth reading, especially if you are interested in analysis of the exploits of leaders ripped from the headlines.

“PostLeadership” is a new by Jena McGregor that will examine real time leadership lessons as they unfold in the news — explaining what works, what doesn’t and who is getting it right.”

Her first post, What BP’s Tony Hayward can learn from World Cup coaches, gives you a good feel for both her writing and her opinions. I highly recommend it.

Now for a couple of guys who actually deserve the L word.

22 years ago he was a dairy farmer who started a co-op with a few neighbors. Today he is CEO of a 550-employee company with $530 million in sales last year, but it isn’t your typical corporation.

George Siemon isn’t just in the business of organic milk. As the CEO of Organic Valley, he has shepherded the company to its own organic brand of leadership and corporate culture.

Are you a Mark Twain fan? If so, get ready to have your world rocked.

Twain spent the last four years of his life dictating his no holds barred, half million word autobiography, but said that it should not be published until the world was ready to deal with his unvarnished views. 100 years after his death his decedents have decided it’s time. The first volume (of three) will be out in November.

Ron Powers, the author of “Mark Twain: A Life,” said in a phone interview. “He’s been scrubbed and sanitized, and his passion has been kind of forgotten in all these long decades. But here he is talking to us, without any filtering at all, and what comes through that we have lost is precisely this fierce, unceasing passion.”

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroelcarvalho/2812091311/

I think Harvard’s Jim Heskett poses some of the most thought provoking questions in his “What Do You Think” forum of anyone on the web and his readers generate some of the best commentary.

In the current forum he asks, Is Profit as a “Direct Goal” Overrated?

In his experience, the most profitable companies are run by people who don’t focus on profit.

Almost to a person, they treat profit as a by-product of other things to which they devote most of their attention, things such as a focused strategy that delivers results to carefully-selected customers while pursuing policies and practices that leverage results over costs, hiring people with the right attitude (one that fits with the organization’s culture), and proper training and organization (often in teams).

Heskett cites Obliquity, a new book by British economist John Kay, who argues that business problems cannot be solved by drawing a straight line between cause and long-term effect because they are so complex, a manager’s information so incomplete, the competitive environment so complicated, analytic techniques so inadequate, and the number of things over which a manager has control so limited, that it is impossible to make the connection with any assurance.

Tony Hsieh is adamant about not focusing on profit, but that didn’t stop him from building a billion dollar company.

Take a few minutes and read both Heskett’s thoughts and his readers’ commentary. (The forum is open for comments until July 28.)

Not surprisingly, many of them disagreed and felt that profit is the right focus.

I think that it may have been true in the 20^th Century, but it certainly isn’t in the 21^st.

What do you think?

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/3000884022/

Monday I wrote how people’s short attention span and memory plus general apathy enable the Teflonizing of brands that screw up, so that nothing sticks.

This is just as true of all the personal brands jousting for space on the planet.

Coincidentally to my plan for today’s post, Phil Gerbyshak Had a guest post Wednesday by Sally Hogshead, author of Fascinate, called Powerdrunks: How They Got That Way, and Why You Might Become One.

Sally’s explanation on what drives a power trip makes additional comments superfluous, so read that post before continuing with this one.

Sally gives good advice on how to stop yourself from becoming powerdrunk, but what of all those who are not only powerdrunk, but Teflon-coated?

Think Bob Nardelli, John Thain, others on this list, the jerk in the next cubicle who was fired only to surface at the cool company down the street or any politician/any party.

How do they do it? How, no matter what, do they come up smelling like a rose in another position of power?

Like companies, they take advantage of spin, but rely mostly on charm, too many managers’ intense dislike of the interviewing process, including on senior levels where, it is assumed, the recruiter has done most of the work, and selective hearing when checking references.

Teflon goes on layer by layer each time there are no consequences for the actions; most people function on the what you see is what you get, so eventually invincibility sets in and the whole Teflon process becomes self-fulfilling prophesy.

But what can you do when the decisions aren’t yours?

You can actively remember; actively means reminding others even when they don’t want to hear it. You can learn to be honest and still legal when giving a reference. You can care about those around you and protect them from powerdrunks. And if they are politicians don’t vote for them and don’t allow them to hide behind their ideology—even when it’s yours, too.

In other words, change your MAP, since you can’t change theirs.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/portland_mike/4588219036/

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryan_rancatore/4536626113/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryan_rancatore/4530067553

It’s not just companies, these days branding is applicable on a personal level as never before, whether you are a rock star, a rock star CEO or a wannabe; a college student, new grad or a working stiff trying to improve your lot; everything is about “the brand.”

Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace has a good post on the value of first impressions, since research has shown that there may be a second chance.

Part of branding is the impression you make, so I thought I would share a multi-decade observation on the subject that applies to everything—interviewing, public speaking, personal relationships—the entire spectrum of human interaction. It is neither good nor bad, merely human.

First impressions are generally based on personal prejudices and chemistry.

I’ve found the former can change from negative to positive based on further interaction, but that chemistry only changes from positive to negative.

For example, years ago I spoke at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco; afterwards a woman thanked me and told me that based on my appearance she almost left. (I am nearly six feet tall and although not model thin I wasn’t plus-size, either.) She assumed that I would have nothing intelligent to say on the subject based on my size, but instead found my material valuable and my presentation excellent. Obviously, I had crossed several of her visual prejudices.

Chemistry, however, is entirely different.

Chemistry is not grounded in anything rational, not even personal prejudices, nor is it irrational—it just is.

Think about it; you meet someone and have an instant positive reaction to the person for absolutely no reason you can figure out.

It isn’t sexual attraction, since the person can be of either gender; it’s a psychological reaction along the lines of I want to know that person better and then acting on the desire because the chemistry is so strong.

When the chemistry is mutual, you experience that heady feeling of instant connection, whereas with bad chemistry people can’t even hear each other. However, positive chemistry can change the minute the other person opens her mouth and every thought and word turns sours your initial reaction.

As your own brand manager, here are your three critical take-aways:

• First impressions do count and shouldn’t be neglected on the assumption that you can change them later because you suddenly decide it’s worth the effort;
• chemistry is chemistry and outside of your control; and, most important of all,
• don’t hide behind chemistry and use it as a rationalization for not putting out first impression effort.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/