Engagement is a hot topic, especially now, but it isn’t a new one—think buy-in, ownership, commitment, involvement, etc.

The term may change, but the behavior has been consistently on management’s radar for decades.

Whereas the way to achieve it is as old as humanity.

Disengagement is costly, “Gallup estimates it costs the US economy about $300bn a year and that 17 per cent of employees are “actively” disengaged. These employees each cost their employers $13,000 a year in lost productivity.”

But, as any successful manager knows, engagement is as simple as 1, 2, 3—4.

The Big 4 are

1. respect;
2. encouragement;
3. support; and
4. rewards.

It’s not as if this is secret management knowledge. There are thousands of books, hundreds of classes, dozens of blogs and forums all teaching variations on this theme. I most recently read it again here. (Be sure to read the comments.)

So is it’s that simple, why isn’t it put into practice more often?

MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is the reason. MAP shapes a person’s actions

If you don’t really believe in the value or numbers 1 or 2, you can talk all day and your people will hear what you say as hollow, i.e., no authenticity.

Number 3, support, includes skills training and career development, but how do you provide these when money is tight or, even in good times, when your company doesn’t believe in it?

Ingenuity. Not just yours, but your group’s. Your people aren’t dumb, they know when the company can’t/won’t fund training, but there are tons of ways work around that, such as sharing their own expertise with each other during organized brown bag lunch sessions.

Number 4 also usually involves money, as it should. But when there’s an authentic, provable lack of funds to provide significant rewards, every company can find enough, monetary and otherwise, to prove that they value their people’s contributions.

Again, people aren’t dumb. If the CEO, execs or their boss receives a bonus after telling people that the company can’t afford raises or rewards, it shouldn’t be a surprise when they disengage and eventually leave.

That’s it; not rocket science, but it must be done consistently, sincerely and with great enthusiasm.

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‘Leader’ is one of the most maligned, abused and misused words in any language, but now and then it’s aptly applied.On July 9, 2007, the world lost a real leader, someone who truly deserved that appellation, Alexander Vladimir d’Arbeloff.

Co-founder of high-tech company Teradyne, philanthropist and MIT patriarch, he was a unique individual.

Unsuited to the corporate culture of the Fifties, he was fired three times in his first ten years.

Here’s what others thought of him.

A personal interaction with Alex was an event not soon forgotten.

Alex d’Arbeloff was a force of nature. We all experienced his laser-like intellect, his wry wit, his insatiable curiosity, his amazing ability to engage, cajole, persuade, educate and enlighten those with whom he came in contact.

…we will remember Alex d’Arbeloff and his remarkable leadership, deep devotion and magnificent generosity…

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Or is it a pyramid?“A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns (“profits”) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business.”

“A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, without any product or service being delivered.”

This is what came to mind after reading CandidProf’s post yesterday; I finally decided that’s it’s both, making is a pyra-Ponzi scheme.

As CP described the situation it’s definitely a pyramid, his college is funded based on how many students are enrolled as are most K-12 schools in this country. Further, lowering standards and focusing only on retaining students in order to continue funding certainly fits the no service being delivered description of a pyramid.

The Ponzi element is seen in high promises from such initiatives as No Child Left Behind, which has done nothing to stem the downward spiral of learning—in fact, it has made it worse.

NY Times Op-Ed Columnist Bob Herbert quotes from a study published in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society that states, “The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.”

He ends by quoting “An article in Monday’s Times spotlighted some of the serious problems that have emerged in the No Child Left Behind law. Among the law’s unintended consequences, as Sam Dillon reported, has been its tendency to “punish” states that “have high academic standards and rigorous tests, which have contributed to an increasing pileup of failed schools.”

After reading CandidProf’s post, my Russian business partner, Nick Mikhailovsky, commented,

“Actually, the average education quality has significantly degraded over here as well. Although the reasons are different the outcome is the same and applies to both basic and higher education.

Our reason is simpler—low salaries in education.

Everyone who needed money or couldn’t bear living in poverty has left education. After 15 years of that, there are almost no good teachers or college professors left.  The old ones retired, and young people aren’t willing to live in poverty when they have plenty of other opportunities and all their life in front of them.”

Hmmm, Russia seems to be dumbing down by salary, but considering the salaries we pay our teachers we’re trashing US education from the top down and the bottom up.

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By CandidProf, who teaches physics and astronomy at a state university, shares his thoughts and experiences teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can be truly candid. Read all of CandidProf here.It’s all about the numbers.  Sadly, that is how many college administrators see the students: as numbers.

The college has an enrollment figure.  In my state, one of the key measures that they are now implementing to rate college performance is the increase in enrollment figures.

For a long time, as a public institution, we have been funded by how many students are enrolled, so the administration has been actively recruiting students.  It has not mattered whether or not the students are ready for college.  That was not important.  It did not matter if they had the skills to succeed.  That was not important.   Whether or not they enrolled was important, not whether or not they learned anything while here, nor even if they passed any of their classes.

Another key measure for the state is in access of college to minorities and Hispanics.  We are advertising in Spanish.  The college’s web site can be viewed in Spanish.  The registration can be done in Spanish.  But all of the classes are in English.

Students who don’t know English are up a creek.  They have little hope of passing the classes once they get here.  No matter.  They enrolled, they were counted by the state, and that was all that mattered.

Going hand-in-hand with enrollment is retention.  College administrators go to conferences with other college administrators, and they all talk about retention policies.

The idea is that getting students to enroll is not sufficient.  They want them to enroll again next semester.  So, if they flunk out, then they won’t be enrolling again.

The first strategy used by many colleges is to simply change the rules on what constitutes flunking out. When I was a student, a single F or D, or too many C’s, was sufficient to get a student put on academic probation.  If you repeated a bad semester, then you were placed on academic suspension.  That wasn’t meant so much as punishment, but rather to give you time to reassess your educational goals and strategies.  I never had to go through that, but I knew some students who did.

Now, you can fail a class every semester, and have a whole semester of D’s and C’s, and keep that up for semester after semester.  A depressing number of our students graduate with a GPA of less than 2.0.  But the students keep signing up for classes and that is all that counts.

The next step in retention is to put pressure on faculty to give higher grades.  After all, the administrators reason that if students get too many poor grades, they might get discouraged and drop out.  If they drop out, then they won’t be registering for classes and that means, of course, that there will be less state funding for the college.  So faculty are encouraged not to grade too harshly and to give higher grades.

This has been going on in the K-12 education for years, but it is now becoming more common in colleges. I have a number of colleagues who are teaching in a climate of that sort.  Many faculty just give up and quit upholding standards.  They just give out grades.  The students don’t learn. We have a few part time faculty here who do that, too, because that is expected at other places in the area where they teach part time.

But students who take the classes of a faculty member who just gives out grades without the students learning seldom do well in the follow-up classes.

Worse, this strategy makes a college degree pretty much worthless.

Holding to standards is hard, particularly when others don’t hold to those standards.

Holding to standards is hard when funding is tied to numbers that can be improved by relaxing those standards.

But an effective leader will hold standards, even if it is the hard thing to do.

I see this getting worse.  My state is now looking to change the funding formula for its public colleges and universities.  Rather than giving money for the number of students enrolled at the beginning of the semester, they are looking to fund the number of students enrolled at the end of the semester.

That changes things.  It means that simply getting students to sign up is not enough.  Now, we need to keep them in the class all semester. It is pretty obvious that there will be extreme pressure on faculty to limit the students dropping.

That means making the classes easier.

That means giving up on tough and difficult standards and setting the bar as low as possible to make it easy for students to pass without ever having to do anything.

That means giving up on teaching.

And this is what is coming down the pike from state legislatures all over the country.  They have done this sort of thing in K-12 education, making a high school diploma pretty much worthless.

Now they are working to make an undergraduate college degree worthless as well.

A lot of faculty are planning on retiring when these changes are made.  I have a few years to go until retirement, and I am not looking forward to what I see in our future.

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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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Wednesday Phil Gerbyshak over at Slacker Manager shared his application of Edward Brown’s description of the two dominant leadership models, Charismatic Leadership (often described as arousing the emotions of the populous through imagery and poetic prose) and Traditional Leadership (Often described as operations-centric and unilateral while courting consensus building) and analyzed Obama and McCain in that light.

I thought I’d add to that with a guest post from Korn/Ferry International’s Kevin Cashman and Ken Brousseau (detailed bios at end of post), in which they apply their CEO assessment, expertise and constructs to the Presidential candidates.

Note: The candidates are discussed in random order and reflects no preference by the authors.

An Expert Analysis Of Our Presidential Candidates’ Executive Leadership

Voters commonly cast their ballots based on the critical issues and policies, but what about the equally crucial assessment of a candidate’s leadership strengths and approaches?

• Who is the leader beneath the speeches, policies and ads?
• How would experts describe the unique leadership styles of Barrack Obama and John McCain if they were being assessed for a global CEO position?

Two leadership authorities from one of the world’s largest talent management firms, Korn/Ferry International, point to four critical and differentiating facets of Obama and McCain’s leadership:

• decision-making styles;
• emotional temperaments;
• learning agility; and
• power-of-voice versus power-of-connection.

Overall, Cashman and Brousseau say that

• McCain’s strengths appear to be action-orientation, adherence to principle and a fiery tenacity to achieving results, whereas

• Obama tends to demonstrate exceptional learning agility, collaboration and is calmer under pressure.

1. Decision-Making Styles – Cashman and Brousseau assert that both candidates are principled decision-makers, but differ in their propensities to quickly or analytically make decisions and hone in on single versus multiple courses of action. Korn/Ferry’s research (see this Harvard Business Review article) at  shows that those unable to lead in a “complex style” have low likelihoods of succeeding in their positions, yet once they’ve risen to a top level, it’s possible to succeed with multiple approaches.  They observe:

• McCain is a more uni-focused thinker who focuses on one key principle or goal and tenaciously holds to a particular action rather than changing positions. When not in action-mode, he shifts to a more complex style that’s both analytic and uni-focused, efficiently studying the facts, and making and sticking to what he senses is the best decision.

• Obama also operates in the complex mode, but more often uses a creative and integrative style that is analytic and more open to alternate possibilities.  Before making a judgment, he studies an extensive array of information and options, then gradually forms a strategy combining multiple objectives, actions and viewpoints.

2. Emotional Temperaments – The ability to manage the emotions of one’s self and those around them is a defining aspect of leadership at any level.

• When principles are challenged or threatened, McCain seems to be more emotive and combative to win the day. Achieving high performance works best for him in a high-octane pace where things are very active.

• Obama tends to maintain equanimity and gets introspective to sort out the best solutions to win, asking his staff to provide him with some reflective time each day.  His high performance is achieved by reflecting, synthesizing and collaborating.

3. Leadership Agility and Ability to Deal with Ambiguity -The key leadership competency in shortest supply is the ability to deal with ambiguity, according to the research of Korn/Ferry and others and supported by past Presidents who’ve described the job as “everything happening all at once.” Though we often dub political leaders who change their positions as wishy-washy, Cashman and Brousseau say that can be a sign of agility, as good leaders summon past lessons and observations to reframe thinking in first-time contexts or changing global environments. Agility – found to be much more predictive of potential and success than raw intelligence – has components related to mental, people, results and change.

• Obama demonstrates exceptional mental agility and has proclivity for dealing with change and people, but critics may question if his results agility on a large-scale have been sufficiently demonstrated.

• McCain, in contrast, shows a strong results orientation and a measure of mental agility, but his history of working amid volatility and commitment to tradition may call his agility with people and change into question.

4. Exerting Power-of-Voice or Power-of-Connection – Cashman and Brousseau say that many leaders can be understood as either heroic leaders who assert their power-of-voice or more interpersonally inclined leaders who employ power-of-connection. The key is being able to exercise the weaker, non-default area.  According to research by Zenger and Folkman, leaders who excel in people or results only, reach the 90th percentile of leadership effectiveness nine or 13 percent of the time, but those who possess both reach that level of success in two-thirds of instances.

• McCain, as someone who forcefully asserts for results, best typifies the heroic “I” type of leader, who leverages personal influence to impact results.  The downside can be too much drive and not enough relational connection.

• Obama and his collaborative approach characterize “We” leaders, who leverage collaboration, relationship and synergy to get results. In crisis situations, however, sometimes more “I” is required.

The leadership experts say Obama fits the overall archetype of a “magician” leader, someone who blends ideas and people to produce new solutions to unsolved problems.

McCain, on the other hand, is more of the traditional “warrior” leader, bringing about results through force of will or assertion with little fear of adversarial relationships or situations.

I’m no expert, but it seems to me that we’re more in need of a magician who “blends ideas to produce new solutions” than a warrior who applies “force of will.”

It seems to me that most of the “leaders” who crashed their companies on the rocks, as well as the current Administration, either are, or have a strong leaning towards, the warrior model.

I’m tired of “I” leaders proclaiming their visions, unwilling to brook any kind of disagreement.

I (we?) can only hope that the calamities we’re facing foster a stronger application of “we”—in both politics and business

About the authors:
Kevin Cashman, author of the newly expanded book Leadership from the Inside Out, founded LeaderSource, a Minneapolis-based international leadership development, executive coaching and team effectiveness consultancy that joined with Korn/Ferry International in 2006. Leadership from the Inside Out, available in second edition in September, was named the #1 best-selling business book of 2000 by CEO-READ and one of the top 20 best-selling business books of the decade.  Over the past 25+ years, Cashman and his team have coached thousands of senior executives and teams to enhance performance.

Kenneth Brousseau, Ph.D., is CEO and co-founder of Decision Dynamics LLC, a firm specializing in behavior profiling and human resource systems design. Prior to forming Decision Dynamics, he served as a management and organization professor at the University of Southern California Graduate School of Business Administration.  Dr. Brousseau specializes in behavioral assessment systems for purposes of employee selection, organizational development and career management.  He is coauthor of The Dynamic Decision Maker, and he has authored articles on career development, work system design, team development and organizational design in publications such as Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Academy of Management Executive.

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Everybody is looking to innovation survive the current downturn, although for some it’s just talk. And when I say everybody I do mean everybody—including the bad guys. According to Chris Harrison, chief illicit laboratory chemist at the Arkansas lab, “The drug cartels operate just like any other corporation would — if they want to increase their market share, then they’re going to have to change something about it. This is just an evolution. They’ve saturated the heavy users, now they are moving onto some other people.”

Meth may be extraordinarily profitable, but it tastes horrible—bitter, not particularly enticing and illegal—which makes expanding your customer base difficult.

So the innovative crowd has turned to common marketing approaches, including adding color to emulate rock candy and fine-tuning the taste to increase the market.

These are classic approaches used by consumer products companies for decades to attract new customers—prunes became dried plums and the market exploded.

Dried plums are far more consumer friendly—as is meth that is sweet and tastes like strawberries or chocolate.

The innovations are only in a small test market, Idaho, Nevada, Missouri, Texas, Wisconsin, California, New Mexico, Minnesota and Washington state (where I live—oh joy), but thanks to a stupid hoax email are likely to spread.

The hoax email says that bags of “Strawberry Quick,” a type of meth that looks like rock candy, are being tossed into school playgrounds to hook the kids.

No, that’s not being done—yet.

But I have to wonder if the people who created the hoax cared that today’s hoax could become tomorrow’s drug marketing phenomenon.

After all,

• consumer marketing has been using give-a-ways to introduce people to their products for decades; and
• drug dealers have email, too.

CandidProf will return next week.

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“You don’t report to your BlackBerry.

Schedule inviolate white space.” — Jim Collins

This is the fastest, simplest way to juice innovation, productivity and have a better life—I guarantee it.

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Dan McCarthy, a very cool guy who is head of leadership and management development at Paychex and writes a great blog on leadership issues, included me in his current edition of the Leadership Development Carnival. It’s not just about leadership, but includes management and the content can be applied to all parts of life.

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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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