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Archive for March, 2020

AI is Not Society’s Savior

Tuesday, March 31st, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/77068017@N07/6779368830/

The chatter about how AI will change the world, take your job, out-consult the consultants, displace management, perform reviews, identify potential criminals and reoffenders, diagnose illnesses, etc., especially etc., is never ending.

AI is supposed to bring true objectivity to its many applications creating longed for change.

Yet it’s been proven over and over that AI contains the same biases that created our unfair, prejudiced world; not just in the US, but around the world.

AI is good at increasing bias in the name of efficiency and objectivity.

It is even better at automating the loss of privacy and increasing surveillance in the name of safety.

Long before AI got hot Lou Gerstner knew the solution.

Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.

Something tech has forgotten in its love affair with data and its warped view of progress.

And, of course, profit.

Image credit: safwat sayed

Golden Oldies: Expand Your Mind: Brain Exploration

Monday, March 30th, 2020

Poking through 14+ 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.

I used to do a feature called Expand Your Mind with links to apropos topics and quick, sometimes snarky, comments. Hmmm, may do it again in the future…dee

Read other Golden Oldies here.

There’s a lot of exciting exploration going on these days in space and under the sea, but some of the most exciting is the ongoing exploration of the human brain.

Most people recognize a certain validity in the old maxim ‘clothes make the person’, but would you believe that clothes can actually improve cognitive ability?

If you wear a white coat that you believe belongs to a doctor, your ability to pay attention increases sharply. But if you wear the same white coat believing it belongs to a painter, you will show no such improvement.

Oh, goody; once again corporate America is hijacking brain research to sell more (just what we all need) stuff.

…neuromarketing…helped researchers decode secrets such as why people love artificially colored snack food and how to predict whether a pop song will be a hit or a flop.

This next essay looks at how love affects your brain and you might wonder about its business application, but the information on how relationships change brain chemistry is as applicable to you and your boss and business colleagues as it is to you and your romantic partner—more so, perhaps, considering the hours spent in work-related relationships exceeds those spent on personal ones.

A RELATIVELY new field, called interpersonal neurobiology, draws its vigor from one of the great discoveries of our era: that the brain is constantly rewiring itself based on daily life.

Have you ever wondered why you acted/reacted a certain way? Could it be because of a cat you have, had or visited at some point?

Jaroslav Flegr believes a “latent” parasite may be quietly tweaking the connections between our neurons, changing our response to frightening situations, our trust in others, how outgoing we are, and even our preference for certain scents.

And before you start laughing, consider the words of Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky,

“My guess is that there are scads more examples of this going on in mammals, with parasites we’ve never even heard of.”

Finally, an all natural, fully organic, multi-useful way to improve brain function—and it’s free! Additional benefits include potentially improved business functions and a myriad of benefits to your social life from more ways to meet chicks/guys to choosing restaurants and enjoying vacations.

Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Miki’s Rules to Live by: Great Attitude for Women

Wednesday, March 25th, 2020

Looking for a good first-thing-in-the-morning thought to get you going?

Here’s my favorite.

Image credit: Country Market Place

Leadership by What Example

Tuesday, March 24th, 2020

This is the post that I mentioned yesterday. As Wally points out so elegantly “do as I say and not as I do” doesn’t work anymore — if it ever did. (BTW, you might find this post on leadership as a profession of interest.)

“There is no leadership without leadership by example.” ~ Captain James Westley Ayers, USMC

Captain Ayers was right. There is no leadership without leadership by example. What he didn’t say is that example can be good or bad. You don’t get any choice about whether you lead by example, only about the kind of example you set.

Most writing about leadership by example assumes a good example. If you work hard, the people on your team will work hard, too. If you’re honest, they will be, too. It’s the way it is. It’s human nature.

Human nature has a baked-in capacity and desire for hierarchy. That’s why you must be careful. It’s easy to set a bad example.

People Are Watching

If you’re the person responsible for the performance of a group, the other members watch you. That’s because you have some power over them. It may not be much, but it’s there. They watch what you do as a guide to what they should do.

Everyone I know who’s been promoted in large organizations has some version of the same story. A leader does something without much thinking about it and people take it as a guide to behavior. The story I like best is the one told by Linda Hill about when she was promoted to President of General Dynamics.

She went shopping for a new suit to celebrate her promotion. The salesperson sold her a scarf with the suit and showed her an interesting way to tie the scarf. She wore the suit and the scarf, tied in that special way, her first day on the job. What happened, in Ms. Hill’s own words.

“And then I came back to work the next day and I ran into no fewer than a dozen women in the organization who have on scarves tied exactly like mine.”

Another friend tells about his first day on the job as plant manager. He made several casual comments about how they could move equipment to be more effective. The next day, when he went to the plant, he found that all his “ideas” had been implemented overnight.

Then, there was the friend who forgot to get his usual morning coffee on the way to the office on his first day in a new position. When he realized what he’d done, he said out loud to himself, in his office, “God, I wish I had some coffee.” Within minutes, three cups of coffee arrived.

Be careful what you do and what you say. People are watching.

Be Careful What You Praise

Praise is a power tool. You use it so that people will do things or keep doing things that you want them to do. We love praise. Just remember, people are listening.

You will get more of what you praise. If you praise great ideas, you will get more of them. If you praise courage, people are likely to be more courageous. But if you praise people who work long hours. other people will start putting in more time. If you praise people who answer email in the middle of the night, folks will start sleeping with their phone by the bed.

How Do You Act When Things Don’t Go Your Way?

Some things will not work the way you’d hoped. Some news will be bad news. How you act tells your team members some important things.

If you receive bad news gracefully and take it as information, people will be more likely to bring it. Even more, if you thank them for letting you know. People don’t mind being the messenger that gets praised for doing a good deed. They don’t want to be the messenger who gets killed.

When you’re interrupted it’s another opportunity to set a good example. Treat the people who interrupt you with respect and courtesy. Then, if the interruption is inappropriate, tell them why.

What You Tolerate, You Condone

It’s hard to do, but you need to address behavior or performance that violates your standards or values.

Mark Deterding tells a story from early in his career. Mark was in his mid-twenties, when he was transferred and promoted to plant manager. During his first few meetings, he was struck by the amount of swearing by the seasoned veterans on his team.

He decided he would just model the right way and his team members would change. But it didn’t work that way. They went right on swearing. Here’s the lesson Mark said he learned.

“It’s not enough to just model the way. It’s just as important to clearly and immediately address any issues that violate the values of the organization. When you allow unacceptable behaviors to go unaddressed, you send the message that the behavior is okay.”

Bottom Line

When you lead by example, you use your behavior to influence the behavior and performance of team members. Your influence is a leadership superpower. And, like any superpower, you can use it for good or for evil. What’s your choice?

Image credit: Wally Bock

Golden Oldies: Seize Your Leadership Day: Bad Leadership

Monday, March 23rd, 2020

Poking through 14+ 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.

I was reminded of this article after reading one by Wally Bock that I will share tomorrow. I’ve always found it interesting that certain words, such as influence, are assumed positive, while manipulation is negative.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

There is a dangerous assumption out there that ‘leaders’ are chuck full of positive traits and on the side of the angels, but I’m here to tell you that it ain’t necessarily so. Just as leaders come in all shapes, colors and sizes they come with a wide variety of traits, not all of them positive. But it seems as if succession is tough all over.

Italian police have caught the Sicilian Mafia’s number two, the latest in a string of top-level arrests that has given the crime group that once terrified Italy problems with rebuilding its leadership.

The hero CEO who will save the company easily morphs into the imperial CEO. An intelligent, thoughtful opinion piece by Ho Kwon Ping in Singapore considers the dangers of this happening and assumes it will continue in the US—and it probably will.

The leadership of any company is critical to the success of its mission — but no one individual is mission-critical.

Yesterday I wrote Real Leaders are Fair, which means applying rules equally, but that rarely happens, especially when a government is involved and ours is no different. Consider the non-application of a federal law backed by a presidential proclamation that prohibits corrupt foreign officials and their families from receiving American visas. But business interests always seem to trump fairness.

“Of course it’s because of oil,” said John Bennett, the United States ambassador to Equatorial Guinea from 1991 to 1994, adding that Washington has turned a blind eye to the Obiangs’ corruption and repression because of its dependence on the country for natural resources. He noted that officials of Zimbabwe are barred from the United States.

Finally, on a lighter note, I found the answer given by Ask the Coach to this question to be classic.

Q: I am having a difficult time leading my team. The team members will not follow my instructions, which I am sure would make our project much more successful. What am I doing wrong?

A: What you’re doing wrong is very simple: you have simply forgotten that your team is more critical to the success of your project than you are.

Take a moment and read the whole post, I guarantee you’ll like what you learn.

And if you want more of my picks you’ll find them here.

Wise Words From Richard Feynman

Wednesday, March 18th, 2020

Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman (deceased) provides words that should be taken to heart.

No further comment is necessary.

Hat tip to CB Insights for sharing it.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Intel’s Need to Change

Tuesday, March 17th, 2020

A couple of years ago I wrote

A corporation isn’t an entity at all. It’s a group of people, with shared values, all moving in the same direction, united in a shared vision and their efforts to reach a common goal.

Lou Gerstner, who remade the culture at IBM, most famously said,

I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game.

The culture continued to change when Sam Palmisano took over.

…the biggest breakthroughs are a result of changing the business model and the processes and the culture.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer learned the hard way that culture can’t be changed by edict, whereas Satya Nadella’s approach succeeded.

Over the last year, 110,000 strong Intel has been changing under the leadership of Robert Swan, who considers the cultural change necessary for its survival.

Its culture badly needed an overhaul, and its 110,000 employees needed to confront issues more openly.

“If you have a problem, put it on the table,” said Mr. Swan, 59, who was promoted to the top job a year ago and has since embarked on a campaign to shake up the Silicon Valley giant.

His efforts remain a work in progress. But the changes — some of which lean on the precepts of Andrew S. Grove, the former Intel chief executive who coined the credo “Only the paranoid survive” — are Intel’s biggest attitude adjustment in decades.

The underlying cause is the same as Gerstner and Nadella faced at their companies: complacency.

Complacency, from years of dominating their markets, and silos, from internal distrust and myopic communications.

Intel was the same.

Intel also had deeply rooted problems reflecting its years of dominance, Mr. Swan said. Managers, complacent about competition, battled internally over budgets. Some of them hoarded information, he said.

These are the same problems that companies of all sizes face.

No matter how dominant times change and competitors can seize the day.

While success is often seen as a case of “us” vs. “them” it’s crucial to remember that “us” includes customers, partners and all parts of the company.

Image credit: Aaron Fulkerson

Golden Oldies: Ducks in a Row: Culture is Critical

Monday, March 16th, 2020

Poking through 14+ 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.

Focus on culture isn’t new, but it used to be a lot more positive. These days I see more about toxic cultures than about good ones, but what hasn’t changed is culture’s effect on performance, productivity and staffing. For better or worse, culture is still the most potent factor for any company.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Shawn Parr, whose company works with large corporations, such as Starbucks and MTV, on innovation wrote a meaty post called Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch.

It reminded me of something I wrote back in 2008, because the title is from a quote by Dick Clark, CEO of Merk and after rereading it I decided it’s worth reposting, so here it is.

Culture Trumps All

A post on Dave Brock’s blog led me to an article at IMD’s site called “An Unpopular Corporate Culture” and, as Dave said, it’s a must read for anyone who still thinks that corporate culture is some ephemeral concept with no real impact that consultants use to sell their services.

And a double-must for those who talk about culture’s importance, but don’t walk very well when it comes to creating a great corporate culture.

For those who prefer to put their faith in plans and strategy, hear the words of Dick Clark when he took over as CEO of Merck in 2005 and was asked about his strategy for restoring the pharmaceutical company to its former glory. “His strategy, he said, was to put strategy second and focus on changing the company’s insular, academic culture.” The fact is, culture eats strategy for lunch,” Clark explained. “You can have a good strategy in place, but if you don’t have the culture and the enabling systems that allow you to successfully implement it… the culture of the organization will defeat the strategy.””

If you’re looking for a best practice corporate culture silver bullet forget it—one size doesn’t fit all.

Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, describes that company’s top-down command and control culture of consistency and discipline as “the source of our competitive advantage,” and has made it a priority to reinforce it.

Meanwhile, Robert Iger and Steve Jobs, in their discussions about the acquisition of Pixar by Disney, have been concerned with avoiding an Exxon style command and control culture. Jobs says that, “Most of the time that Bob and I have spent talking about this hasn’t been about economics, it’s been about preserving the Pixar culture because we all know that’s the thing that’s going to determine the success here in the long run.””

It took Lou Gerstner a decade to remake IBM.

The key lesson Gerstner learned in his time with IBM, as he later reflected, was the importance of culture.”Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization’s makeup and success—along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like… I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game.”

The article is more than just additional proof for my favorite hobby horse.

The analysis of the role of employee complaints/negativity play in culture and the importance of what to keep when setting out to change a culture as opposed to what to jettison will give you new insight on your own company’s culture.

In case you still doubt the power and value of culture I hope that Dick Clark, Rex Tillerson, Robert Iger, Steve Jobs and Lou Gerstner combined with the articles in Fast Company and IMD have finally changed your mind.

Flickr image credit: Bengt Nyman

Change Too Late?

Wednesday, March 11th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherdombres/20657778626/

As we saw yesterday, business is learning the hard way that walking their corporate responsibility talk is vital to their very survival.

They aren’t the only ones out of touch.

John C. Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in a speech last month that “there is still time to avert this fate.” Moving inflation up and keeping it there could convince millennials, he said.

“In this case, it’s fortunate that the young are impressionable.”

“Fate” refers to the potential economic mayhem that could result from the high savings rate among Millennials looking to retire ASAP. “Impressionable?” I wonder how long it’s been since he actually knew any of the “young.”

Powerful men who have seen women as things to do with as they please are thinking twice in the wake of #metoo and Harvey Weinstein’s conviction. Hopefully that caution will trickle down to the rank and file bosses who still seem untouchable, although that’s unlikely.

Big Tech is no longer seen a solution to the world’s problems, but, in many cases, as their cause.

Startups are learning that public investors, whether knowledgeable or casual, are still hung up on mundane ideas like profit as opposed to their beloved EBITDA.

Founders, too, are rethinking their actions. Thanks to high profile cases, such as Travis Kalanick (Uber) and Adam Neumann (WeWork), and a much savvier workforce, visions and charisma are no longer enough.

One might look at all this and say, “the world is changing,” although a more realistic view could be summed up as “too little, too late.”

Image credit: CHRISTOPHER DOMBRES

The Downfall of Historic Corporate Responsibility

Tuesday, March 10th, 2020

I wrote yesterday’s Oldie back in 2007; it ended with this comment,

Corporate responsibility is a major buzzword these days, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s tied more closely to

  • doing what’s right;
  • doing what you can get away with; or
  • not getting caught.

It’s taken 13 years for practitioners of the second and third approaches to even consider changing.

The pressure they face to take such steps is real; the industry’s years of reliance on hypocrisy, lobbying, and misleading public relations tactics is eerily reminiscent of the approach taken by tobacco companies, and its litigation risks are set to follow a similar trajectory, with lawyers and activists framing failure to address climate change as a human-rights violation.

The changes certainly aren’t being driven by the Feds (consider the EPA’s decision to limit scientific research when drafting environmental and public health regulations), but by people.

The corporate responsibility façade is—finally, thankfully—crumbling. Activist investors and angry citizens have forced a reckoning. The Conference Board views the upcoming 2020 proxy season as a tipping point for disclosure of corporate political activity.

Even more potent are Gen Z’s and many Millennial’s attitude on choosing a place to work.

Young graduates evaluating prospective employers know that the true narrative of a corporation’s purpose can be found by reviewing who it does business with and which politicians it backs [emphasis mine].

There is no company that can survive without an adequate workforce and there is no Generation in history as suspicious and downright cynical about corporate America, including Big Tech, unicorns and startups in general than Gen Z — an attitude already infecting other generational segments.

Amazon employee reaction to CEO Jeff Bezos’ climate change initiative is a good example.

Amazon Employees for Climate Justice responded to Jeff Bezos’s recent $10 billion commitment to fight climate change by reminding their CEO that “one hand cannot give what the other is taking away.”

That two-faced approach isn’t unusual; in fact, it’s common practice — more plainly described as talk the talk, but screw the walk.

It will be difficult for that approach to continue working when it seriously limits recruiting efforts, not to mention paying customers.

Image credit: Frits Ahlefeldt

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