Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Sometimes old posts just depress me. I wrote this one in 2008 and it’s still applicable today. With very slight alterations, it would be just as applicable in 1908 or 1808 or even earlier and it will probably be just as applicable in 2118 and beyond.

Expecting companies to “do the right thing” when they think the right thing will impinge on their bottom line is just plain stupid. It hasn’t worked historically and I doubt it will work in the future; certainly not on the tech world, whose arrogance makes Wall Street look humble.

The only thing stupider is businesses’ inability to understand that the right thing is often more profitable — of course, they could take a lesson from Blackrock,  but more about that tomorrow.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Yesterday I asked, “What else does Wall Street and the financial industry do besides cripple corporate strategic efforts?”

They fight for self-regulation, assuring watchdog agencies and Congress that they are good guys that should be trusted to do the best thing and that the economy will tank if any kind of control or regulation is enacted—and they win.

They win based on the money spent to focus the efforts of well-connected lobbyists on stopping cold, or at least significantly watering down, any legislation or rules that might offer protection to us—the people who keep them all in BMWs and champagne.

Wall Street and the other financial services industries aren’t alone in this, every industry does it, but the money guys seem to be exceptionally successful—until something blows up. Then, when public outcry is loud and tempers are hot, Congress has the leverage to pass anything—whether it fixes the problem or merely makes them look like they care.

Deregulation was one of the prime factors in the S&L mess in the eighties; earnings pressure combined with personal greed fueled many of the recent corporate financial fiascos—think Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia Communications, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P.Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and others.

And now, of course, we have the Sub-prime debacle with which to contend.

And after each of these, Congress, the SEC and others all run to add laws and rules to prevent it from happening again.

The repercussions from the latest snafu (Navy term meaning ‘situation normal—all f*ked up’) are reverberating through the credit markets making it more than difficult for corporations, small business and just plain folks to access it.

Who will step into the breach to provide investment and liquidity?

Private equity and big hedge funds—both with even less regulation and even larger egos and greed factors than more traditional Wall Street firms.

But a land grab by big hedge funds and private equity firms might create new problems. The Securities & Exchange Commission and the Finance Industry Regulatory Authority oversee investment banks to some degree, and the Federal Reserve is moving in that direction. But hedge funds are largely unregulated and aren’t bound to make any disclosures to anyone but their investors. Even that information is often incomplete. A move by hedge funds into traditional corporate finance would mean even less transparency than exists on Wall Street now.

It’s a sad fact that the 214-year-old force that was instrumental in building the most powerful industrial nation on the planet could be just as instrumental in presiding at its demise.

Understand, it’s not that I have much faith in government regulation, but have seen little-to-no proof that self-regulation works—it’s too much like having the fox care for the hen house.

So-called government intrusion is the result of the inability of various industries to “self-regulate” for any reasons other than short-term profit, doing as much they can get away with and pushing the boundaries beyond what’s reasonable.

So you tell me, how can we get well-reasoned laws that aren’t defeated or seriously watered down by special interest groups and industry lobbyists before the crisis?

Image credit: pinkfloyd

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Invent: Create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of.

Inovate: Make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.

If you look carefully there is very little actual invention going on these days, it’s mostly innovation, based on previous products.

However, sometimes innovation is radical enough that it should count as invention.

Consider the lowly toilet.

The Gates Foundation has been funding the effort to reinvent the toilet.

In 2011, the Gates Foundation launched the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge to bring sustainable sanitation and hygiene solutions to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who do not have such access. The challenge, which is ongoing, is a global call to researchers around the world to develop innovative and financially profitable systems to manage human waste. The systems must operate off-grid, cost less than $.05 per day, and function in poor, urban settings.

Even corporate giants got into the effort.

Kohler—a leading U.S. manufacturer of toilets (…) received a Gates grant in 2014, describes these toilets as “stand-alone units that take in wastewater, then disinfect and purify it to be reused for toilet flushing.”

But water is also a scarce commodity, even when it’s reused.

Now, from a group of students at the University of British Columbia, comes the  MYCOmmunity Toilet.

The MYCOmmunity Toilet consists of a mycelium tank that is small enough to sit inside each individual dwelling. (…) when it’s full, the toilet is buried in the ground or left somewhere out of the way for another 30 days to allow the composting process–aided by the mushroom spores–to finish. Each toilet includes local seeds, which can be planted on top of the toilet, allowing plants or crops to grow from the human waste.

Although it was designed specifically with refugee camps in mind, it would seem to have far greater potential.

The MYCOmmunity Toilet qualifies as an invention — with the potential to truly change the world.

Image credit: 2018 Biodesign Challenge

A couple of months ago I wrote two posts, Ducks in a Row: Respect vs Nice and Ducks in a Row: Respect Does Not Mean Agreement.

Yesterday I had some feedback from a senior exec who said that while he agreed in principle, he wouldn’t try to apply it to his team. He went on to say that his team was so diverse, consisting of recognized experts from different disciplines, that they had only two things in common.

The first was the size of their egos; and the second the desire to solve the problem — their way.

I asked if he had even tried any of the idea in the linked articles.

He said no; he’d been down that road in the past and the cost in time and energy was too high.

I asked if he would reconsider if I could show him a team that made his look like easy, with egos that dwarfed theirs.

He laughed and sure, so I showed him.

The team is made up of politicians from all parties, government officials, corporate CEOs, trade unionists, clergy, journalists, academics, and activists.

That got his attention, as did the task they were brought together to address, because it is not only larger, but far more intractable.

…top Mexican leaders who are working together on a project called Méxicos Posibles (Possible Mexicos) to develop solutions to their country’s daunting problems of illegality, insecurity, and inequity.

Since I knew he was listening I told him one more thing; maybe the hardest one for him to accept — that his ego was similarly sized and his own belief in his ability to make it work was no different than any member of his team.

I told him brute force wasn’t going to cut it and that he didn’t have to do it alone.

Méxicos Posibles used a consultancy led by Adam Kahane, author of Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust.

I suggested he start with that book and other resources linked in my post.

I reminded him he has the stature to reach out to people like Kahane and get a response.

Hopefully I got through; I’ll know in a few weeks what direction he chooses and will let you know.

Image credit: Hiking Artist

There is much talk about the importance of empathy in today’s workplace, both externally and internally — but is empathy enough?

Is it enough to put yourself in the other person’s shoes? Is it even possible when the shoes are from a totally alien situation. Can a white guy, born with all the advantages those two words imply, really feel, i.e., empathize, what a dark-skinned woman/LGBT feels in the same circumstances?

Doubtful, if for no other reason than for one it’s an academic exercise and for the other it’s the reality of life.

For empathy to have meaning it needs to move from intellectual effort to real world action, as LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said in his graduation speech at Wharton, “Put another way, compassion is empathy plus action.”

Not just at work, but life in general.

Compassion is not just morally correct, it offers substantial ROI, including building trust, to those who practice it.

The flip side is developing a culture with a compassionate ethos. That’s what our leadership team has tried to do at LinkedIn; create a culture where people take the time to understand the other person’s perspective, and not assume nefarious intention; build trust; and align around a shared mission. After nearly 10 years, I still celebrate the fact we can make important decisions in minutes or hours that some companies debate for months. Create the right culture, and you create a competitive advantage.

Obviously, as with any top university, the Wharton graduating class is privileged, no matter their color, gender or orientation. The alumni network will confer opportunities long after the degree, itself, does.

Read Weiner’s thoughts, because adding compassion to your skills set/qualifications is probably worth more in the long run.

Image credit: LinkedIn

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

As you know, the blog was dark last week. It was the first time I’d taken time off and, while I needed it for many reasons, one major one was to revaluate the ROI I get from writing a daily blog. As I explain in this post, we should expect as solid an ROI from our actions when investing in ourselves as we do when investing in the outside world.

I haven’t made any hard and fast decisions, but I do know that changes are ahead.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

How many times have you said something like, “I’m not very good at X.” only to be told not to be so hard on yourself, not to put yourself down, or some variation of that theme?

I grant you that sometimes these comments are accurate and that the person is under-rating herself, but, just as often it’s a valid statement of fact.

Maybe it’s partly a function of age, but, it’s mainly a function of knowing one’s self and knowing when a viable ROI on the time/energy investment to change/create/fix something in ourselves just isn’t there.

For example, All my life I’ve been a procrastinator. I was about an 8 on a scale of 10, with ten being the worst. Over the years I invested a tremendous amount of time and energy in changing that—and I did change it, to a 4. When I hit four, I realized that the effort it was taking me to move to 3.8 was larger than when I moved from eight to seven.

That meant the change wasn’t particularly productive, in other words, bad ROI. So I stopped investing in change and learned to compensate instead, meaning I channeled my remaining procrastination into areas that don’t really impact the important parts of my world.

The point of all this is two fold

1. Know yourself well enough to know what you really want to change—change is a very personal decision—because to change successfully, it must be your idea.
2. Recognize when the return on your time/energy being spent is too low to warrant the investment and develop work-arounds to deal with the remnants of the change-item.

Finally, don’t let those pesky don’t-be-so-hard-on-yourself comments push you into actions that aren’t in your best interest. After all, they don’t know me as well as I know me, or as well as you know you.

Image credit: Euro Betting Tips