I was going through some old files and came across one from 1998 that I thought was fitting to share with you today. It had no attribution, but a little time with Google and it seems to be a product of Ralph Marston.

You

You are always you, no matter what kind of car you drive or what size house you occupy. You are always you, no matter what color your hair is, or how much you weigh. Inside, it is always you.

You are not your job. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the body in which you live. You are more. You are you. There is no one else like you anywhere. You are unique. You have a special contribution to make, not in the distant future, but right now, today.

There is something you can do right this moment, for which you are absolutely the most qualified, the most appropriate, the best suited person to do it. You are better at being you than anyone else in this world. It is your grand, glorious responsibility and the best opportunity anyone could ever hope to have.

You are you. Make the most of that and you’ll understand how very special it is.

I’ve written on and off that your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is unique and, like a snowflake, no two are alike.

Today is a holiday and holidays are good days to take a bit of time just for yourself, kick back and cogitate about who you are, where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, who you’ll be when you arrive and, most of all, what you will leave in the wake of your travels through life.

I hope you take the time to do it.

Have a wonderful holiday, filled with all the things that matter to you.

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It is the rare leader who leads beyond what is expected of him.Those who do are often labeled as unfit to lead and dismissed.

There are not that many examples of such rare leaders.  General MacArthur was certainly one.  He stood up to President Truman, who was quite happy to play at war in Korea without winning it, which cost many thousands of lives for no real gain.  Gen. MacArthur’s dismissal by the President was a terrible blow to his honorable record of service throughout World War II, an embarrassment to the Army he commanded, and the beginning of an approach to conflict that has plagued us ever since.  But his dismissal was also completely rational, because he was not working to expectations.

Leaders, who wish to keep their jobs, work to satisfy expectations.

Understanding this is critical to our understanding of what has recently happened in the financial and mortgage markets.

The key here is understanding that leaders lead only with the support of their constituency (i.e. stockholders or boards of directors in the case of corporate leaders or voters in the case of politicians).  A leader cannot get away with major strategic direction that his constituency does not approve, such as running full-bore into selling sub-prime mortgages.  This is not a matter of a few rogue leaders who ran ahead of their organizations without oversight or accountability.  Every head of every organization caught with their mortgages down was in that position with the full knowledge and support of his constituency.  That includes Wall Street, banks, and both GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).

Even the criminal actions of overstating balance sheets in order to gain the huge bonuses being offered had to be done with the knowledge and approval of a constituency.  For instance, Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae could not have gotten away with overstating his balance sheet repeatedly to gain the $90 million he earned over 6 years (as the organization was actually failing) without both his board and the Congressional oversight committee assigned to watch his actions approving of it.  In fact, in 2004, when Armando Falcon, the chief regulator who “blew the whistle” on these shenanigans, went before the Congressional oversight committee, he was all but tarred and feathered for his efforts.  No one seemed interested in hearing about anything untoward, because the objective of increasing mortgages to low-income families was being addressed.  End of subject.

Corporate executives also are being whipped for the “outrageous” sums of money they earn, primarily as a reward for pushing stock prices ever higher.  As I have written many times, the tactics they use to accomplish this are more often than not the death-knoll for the long-term success of the organization, but that doesn’t stop the board of directors and stockholders from applauding their efforts.

The problem comes down to, “Who really cares before the damage starts to show?”  Top executives are not stupid.  Neither are politicians (the few years I worked with Washington politicians proved to me that almost all believe they have the best interests of their constituency in mind).  They know exactly where their support comes from and what that constituency wants from them.  Despite all the worries about sub-prime mortgages that were voiced over most of the past decade, no one really cared.

Why?  Because expectations were being met.  The deceit was in hiding the truth from the constituency.  What made the sub-prime fiasco possible was the fact that risk was being “diluted.”  Every time a package of mortgages was sold to investors, the real hidden risks were lost in the mass.  That effectively removed the effect of what would have been the most vocal constituency: those who would have spoken up by keeping their checkbooks closed had they known the real risk.

The only constituency that really knew what was going on in most cases was the one gaining from it.

The same thing is going on in corporations across the country.  Decisions about how companies are being run are coming from the wrong constituency.  The expectations are being driven by boards of directors and stockholders, who care little about the long-term health of the company as long as short-term gains are good enough to increase their personal portfolios.

So, what is the answer?  Can we expect companies to survive and do the job for which they were created, i.e. job and wealth creation for those who invest their time and money into it, when persons with no long-term interest are defining the expectations for corporate executives?  Can we expect government-overseen organizations or programs to have positive long-term effects, if those defining expectations are only interested in narrow outcomes that can create far greater damage but that provide personal gain for them (even if it is only in terms of pandering to the base desires of their constituencies)?

Leaders lead to expectations.  Isn’t it time we started setting expectations that don’t just “use” an organization for personal success and instead start expecting long-term success that builds the organization creating that success?

We are being asked to take a greater personal role in addressing climate change.  Can’t we also take a greater role in demanding corporate responsibility? If not, we may be witnessing the end of the independently-run corporate model in America.

We are delegating far too many decisions that affect us as long as things seem to be “going right” (no matter how obvious the risks are), and then expecting someone else to make things right.  Isn’t now the time for the real constituency to stand up and make its voice known?

We can do it through our investing.  We can do it through our voting and regular conversations with our political representatives.  We can do it in through an unwillingness to let others speak for us, while we sit back and demand that everything go perfectly right for us.

How would you address this without giving even more control to a constituency that would drive the wrong expectations?

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The economic meltdown and political action has pushed other stupidities to the bottom of the page, so I thought I’d offer up three that I’ve found over the last month or so.First up is a sad story about a guy who has been forced out of his normal ride because of high gas prices—familiar enough that you feel his pain?

Don’t. Because the guy is Sean “Diddy” Combs and the ride is his private plane.

Poor Sean. It used to cost only $200,000 to use that plane, but when gas prices escalated this summer he was forced to fly commercial—first class, of course. (See his video plea “for free oil from his “Saudi Arabia) brothers and sisters””

Next up is another little gem about what sets the rich off from the rest of us when it come to gas.

In an effort to be green Cadillac has built an Escalade Hybrid that, according to a print ad in Business Week, gets a whopping 20 city/21 highway. Whoo hoo—but it’s all relative. The non-hybrid version gets 12city/19 highway.

The the stupidity I’ll leave you with will, hopefully, encourage changes in you and those you care for—especially your kids.

The cause of the tragic train crash September 12th that killed 25 people and injured 130 more has been traced to texting.

“The engineer of a commuter train that collided last month with a freight train here, killing 25 people and injuring more than 130, was sending text messages on his cellphone seconds before the crash, federal investigators said Wednesday. …the final one he sent was at 4:22:01, just 22 seconds before the trains, traveling at about 40 miles an hour, collided.” The engineer never applied his brakes.

This should be a seminal lesson to all of you who text while walking, driving, working with machinery, whatever. You wouldn’t read a book while doing any of those things, so why would you text?

Show the story to you kids and friends that text, talk to them (and yourself) and choose not to be stupid.

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Last week Kristen King asked Should Religion Be Part of Your Brand? She said “I wish companies would keep their religious views to themselves…[it’s] unprofessional and it makes me angry.”

It makes me more than angry.

Kristen used Covenant Transport and a design element on their truck that says “It Is Not A Choice It Is A Child” as her example (read her post, I’m not going to repeat it all here).

One of the comments said, “To try to dictate that I should not stand up for the rights of human beings is tyrannical… Would you want to work with a practicing Murder?”

But as Kristen says, “Morality and ethics according to whom?”

Last year in Are ethical values set or fluid? I said “Universally, murder has always been considered bad, but what constitutes murder is ever changing.”

For centuries killing your wife was considered bad taste, but since she was property it wasn’t a crime; certainly killing your slave wasn’t murder in ancient times and in the pre-Civil War days it depended on where you lived and what you believed.

The Army of God thinks it’s OK to bomb abortion clinics and kill the staff, while Osama bin Laden wants to kill “infidels.”

Religion, like sex, used to be private. Now it is evangelized, advertised and promoted the same way as any other commercial product.

But commercial products don’t vilify you for not buying them.

As I said in my comment, “I am so tired of having almost every person I meet explain to me why
1. I’m a horrible person because I don’t have “the true faith” and will go to Hell.
2. The only true faith is their version and if I don’t switch I’ll go to Hell.
3. They’ll pray for me.
I find number three the most insulting, since it dismisses everything else and assumes their superiority.”

Some defend religion in business as nitch marketing, but where is the line drawn? I’ve been on the receiving end when a “Christian” business owner found out that I didn’t share his beliefs. Fortunately, the court didn’t agree that the differences were an acceptable reason for violating a contract.

There may be valid reasons to mention religion, such as Hebrew National (mentioned by one commenter), but Hebrew National doesn’t spend its money lobbying to make kosher the law of the land.

I passionately subscribe to S.G. Tallentyre’s (not Voltaire) statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” only I don’t disapprove, I just disagree.

What I disapprove of is the effort to cram it down my throat; to claim that YOUR morality, YOUR judgments, YOUR beliefs are CORRECT and should color every decision I make or become the law of the land.

What do YOU think?

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I may feel that yesterday was New Year’s, but today is Labor Day—summer’s over, school’s starting, the leaves are turning and the year is nearly done.

Toil slows time, but the years fly by when you’re having fun.

It’s said that if you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life—having fun instead.

Are you having fun yet?

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I know, you were expecting to read about the fifth chapter in IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12 (be sure and download your free copy), but I’m taking a break in the name of politics.

As you all know, John McCain announced his running mate in an acknowledged effort to blunt the Democratic convention momentum (yawn). Nothing new there.

McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Based on my limited knowledge of political maneuvering, her main advantages are gender, Conservative credentials, and age.

Upon reading here and there today, I got the impression that the Republicans are hoping that “Hilary women” will vote the Republican ticket because the Vice Presidential candidate has the same plumbing. Never mind that Palin stands in diametric opposition to most of Clinton’s beliefs.

At the Democratic Convention and in the media Obama was hailed as a personification of Dr. King’s Dream, but If he (an eighth cousin to Dick Cheney and an 11th cousin to G. W. Bush) does win he’ll actually be the seventh black president (after Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower)—just the first one who shows and, as Americans have proved over and over, appearance is everything.

Are we [the American people] really as shallow as we’ve made ourselves out to be?

Is our vision truly so focused on form that substance sinks into oblivion?

Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: JOE M500

I have gas pains, you have gas pains and so we rant.

Rants don’t alleviate gas pain, but they do relieve pressure.

We rant about crude prices and the mean oil producing countries that are more concerned with their own internal economy than with being nice and increasing production.

We rant about the oil companies and accuse them of manipulating prices.

Not that our rants aren’t mostly true, but…

There is something else going on.

Alkylate—or the lack of it.

‘The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of [alkylate] will set the price of summer gasoline – not inventory levels.”

What’s alkylate I hear (most) of you ask.

“…a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.” It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago…”

Where does it come from?

“Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a byproduct of the refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output… “

Of course the effort is recent, planning ahead, AKA, strategic thinking, goes against accepted business practice.

Should the oil companies have seen this coming?

Be sure to check out another other Fun Friday post at Talk Stock Trading

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Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: http://www.larevuedurable.com/

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects the wind; the realist adjusts the sails” — Anonymous

I love this quote and would love to know who really said it.

I’ve been telling people for years that no matter how much they want to change something and how hard they’re willing to work to do it they still need to deal with the reality of now.

There are many things that I disagree with or plain don’t like in the world I inhabit, but I have no magic wand to wave to change them, nor do I have the energy to fight for all of them.

I choose my battles and work to change the ones that are most important to my MAP.

I teach myself to function within the existing reality because railing against them merely wastes my energy, while ignoring the important (to me) ones offends my psyche.

How do you handle your world?

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Paraphrasing David Hannum (not PT Barnum) there’s a fool born every minute and recent happenings seem to bear that out—only most of the current fools have MBA’s and high level jobs.

And then there are the fools in Washington who for years have told us to trust industry and that self-regulation works to our advantage.

And all of us fools who either believed them or were asleep at the wheel.

So in honor of April Fool’s Day here’s a great explanation of the subprime mess that doesn’t require an advanced degree.

It also proves that Hannum was right.

My thanks to Nick Mikhailovsky at NTR Lab for sending it to me.

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I normally keep silly stuff for the weekends, but as an example of leadership futility this was too good to pass up.

Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die
BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) – The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that “all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish.”

It added: “Offenders will be severely punished.”

The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.

Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month’s local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.

“It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me,” he said.

Got that? Leaders should be buried before the rank and file.

Actually, that’s not a bad idea.

What leadership statement have you said/heard recently that forbids/requests the impossible?

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