John Thain was lauded as a brilliant leader for years. but he fascinates me as an example of the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that is so ingrained and prevalent in a large portion of executives, especially in the financial sector.
Thain became Merrill Lynch’s CEO December 1, 2007. One of his first acts in 2008 was to renovate his office to the tune of $1.2 million. The redecoration included “$87,000 for area rugs, $35,115 for a commode on legs, $25,000 for a pedestal table and $68,000 for a 19th-Century credenza.”
Fired one year later Thain said, “They were a mistake in the light of the world we live in today,” Thain said in a memo to top executives dated yesterday. “I will therefore reimburse the company for all of the costs incurred.”
Search as I might I can’t think of any past world or circumstances that would make those purchases using corporate money acceptable. Ignored, but not acceptable.
Another example of Wall Street MAP comes from the wife of a securities executive who explained how an after dinner game called “credit card lottery” worked, “Each man would take a credit card out of his wallet and toss it onto the table. Then someone — usually their server — would be asked to pick a card and bellow the owner’s name so everyone in the restaurant could hear. The “winner” would pay the bill, which often tallied $1,000 or more.”
There are many more examples, but can’t you hear the echoes from the playground of “My dad can whoop your dad” and as they got older the locker room “Mine’s bigger than yours.”
The problem is they never stopped.
Lay and Skilling; Bernard Ebbers; Dennis Kowalski; Richard Fuld; Bernard Maydoff; to name only a few.
One or two could be put down to insecurity, but this is more like an epidemic of arrested development.
But it’s Thain’s words “in the light of the world we live in today” that are truly appalling.
They seem to mean that nothing has changed. The excess was OK before the meltdown and will be OK again when the economy is back on its feet.
This is just a minor setback—we are still entitled.
How much longer do you think it will take corporate Earth to get off their terrified, or comfortable, collective asses and embrace a real, live, authentic, proven solution to most of their problems?
“But businesses bold enough to develop a forward-looking, risk-taking corporate culture and brave enough to cannibalise existing successful products, in order to commercialise radically new ones, are more likely to dominate world markets and increase the competitiveness of their national economies.”
Bold and forward-looking, aren’t those the traits that every over-paid CEO on the planet claims to be their expertise along with how they will ‘lead’ their company into a bright new world…blah, blah, blah.
Are you as tired of hearing them as I am? They talk and talk…and talk.
Or they’re replaced by an impatient Board running from Wall Street’s demand for short-term profits.
Prabhu, along with a host of other experts, says his research shows that “Innovative companies appear to have a similar corporate culture, wherever they may be located in the world.”
“We have identified three specific attitudes and three practices within innovative firms that make them special and drive radical innovation. These are
risk tolerance,
a willingness to cannibalise existing products,
future market orientation,
empowering product champions,
fostering internal competition and
providing incentives for enterprise.”
Attention Wall Street, this stuff is not implemented overnight—or in a quarter.
Whoa. Do you think it’s possible that the silver lining in the current mess that was started and facilitated by Wall Street denizens might be a return to long(er) term thinking?
That CEOs will get canned for embracing quarterly numbers a la Jack Welch in place of radical innovation.
That investors will actually take Warren Buffet’s philosophy to heart and quit putting their faith in hedge funds, day trading and fast profits?
Another day, another leadership book. I sometimes wonder how far around the earth they would stretch if laid end to end. Most have viable lessons, useable by everyone, not just the person running the show.
Many of the attitudes, actions and lessons learned and offered are similar, but each seeks a teaching mechanism that will catch and hold your interest.
Not an easy task in a time of information abundance.
Chris Warner and Don Schmincke manage to do it in High Altitude Leadership.
It’s not that their leadership guidance is new, but the presentation is riveting.
I like it because it directly addresses MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and offers examples from a world where screwing up easily results in death—real death as in gone from the world, not the company.
Amazing how different the advice feels when viewed through the lens of the “death zone,” i.e., the top altitude of the planet’s tallest mountains where mistakes are usually fatal.
“In achieving peak performance as a high-altitude leader, you also risk death. It could be the death of a career, project, team or company, or in extreme situations, someone’s physical death. Learning the best way to succeed comes from studying the death zone.”
Chris Warner is founder of Earth Treks (indoor climbing centers) and has led more than 150 international expeditions.
Don Schmincke started as a scientist and engineer who became a management consultant after realizing that most management theories fail to work.
There are eight dangers in the death zone and, although the authors stress that it’s the high altitude leaders that face the same eight dangers, I think that everybody faces them every day and in all facets of their lives.
The dangers are
Fear of Death
Selfishness
Tool Seduction
Arrogance
Lone Heroism
Cowardice
Comfort
Gravity
Not really new information, but when seen in the light of the death zone they have a very different impact.
High Altitude Leadership is an exciting, sometimes hair-raising read (even when the transference to business doesn’t work well) that will get you thinking whether you’re heading a Fortune 50 or trying to raise your kids. It’s a book that helps you see the problems in your own MAP.
What the book doesn’t offer are easy, paste on solutions—changing how you think means changing your MAP which is doable, but not easy.
Just one quote today—one that’s depressing and sad and makes me very angry.
In a speech in 1962 then-President John F. Kennedy said
“The American people will find it hard to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans.”
I’m angry because 47 years later it’s déjà vu, all you need to do is change “steel” to “bank.”
But the real question is whether whoever is elected in 2056 will face yet another set of executives who also hold the American people in such total contempt.
Greed, like water, just keeps flowing along, flooding the land and leaving destruction and misery in it’s wake. The current flood, which dwarfs Katrina, makes greed a timely subject for our quotes today.
“Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, – one begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause: it is the Gospel of Despair!” –Thomas Carlyle (Said way back in the 1800s, seems nothing has changed—not encouraging.)
“It always seemed strange to me that the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second.” –John Steinbeck (Good grief! You don’t confuse talk with actions, do you?)
“New York City is a great monument to the power of money and greed… a race for rent.” –Frank Lloyd Wright (Definitely living up to it’s reputation!)
“If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed [and] if we are not willing [to change], we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect.” –Jacques Cousteau (Long hail the mighty cockroach [see above].)
“No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” –P. J. O’Rourke (Whoever invents the test will wind up the richest person in the world without any need to be greedy!)
A couple of weeks ago, Steven Pearlstein said, “Their leadership failure was a big part of the story of how we got into this mess…a number of executives have complained that this indictment is both too broad and too harsh. Given what was known at the time and the competitive and legal pressures that come to bear in these situations, they believe their actions and judgments were reasonable.”
“I didn’t know…” is America’s favorite excuse, although it won’t hold up in a court of law; ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of the law excuses no one) dates back to Roman times.
The operative word is ‘know’ and, unfortunately, there’s a lot of latitude in what one chooses to know.
People don’t know anything that
disagrees with their ideology or world-view;
is presented by the opposition or those with whom they disagree;
conflicts with their personal goals/agenda; or is
inconvenient or annoying.
The irony is that Wall Street’s leaders really didn’t know—for all the above reasons.
If you truly want to lead—yourself, your family, a company or any other organization—than it’s your responsibility to not just listen, but also to hear past all those reasons.
We’ll talk more about how to do this in tomorrow’s Ducks In A Row post.
The end of the year is all about wrap-ups, so why fight the trend? So here are two detailing the best and the worst leaders and one fun one about you.
First is John Baldoni’s Awards for Poor Leadership along with his reasoning. Hopefully Baldoni doesn’t consider this list complete when it barely scratches the surface, but it’s an interesting sampling from several different arenas.
Then comes glassdoor.com’s employee-generated top 10 list of “naughty and nice” CEOs—naughty having the highest disapproval ratings while nice had the opposite.
It’s always nice when egg is faces other than business, so my third offering is from the sports world, plus, I found a Best & Worst 2008: The Weird Wide Web link at the bottom—and they really are pretty weird.
Finally, here are 50 Ways to Improve Your World in 2009 from US News & World Reports. Interesting, useful and quirky if you take a few minutes to click around.
One of the most important things to keep in mind as you study and work to develop your personal leadership abilities, the ones you’ll use throughout your life, whatever you’re doing and no matter the position, is that they’re neutral.
That’s right, leadership skills and abilities are without prejudice, neither good nor bad—you might say they swing both ways.
According to Warren Bennis, a leader innovates, develops, focuses on people, inspires trust, has a long-range perspective, keeps an eye on the horizon, originates, and is his own person.
Does that sound like someone you’d like to emulate? Because it’s a perfect description of Bernie Madoff.
Leadership actions are a MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) function. In other words, it’s not the actions that are worth emulating, but the MAP.
Notice I said emulating, not copying.
Consider those people you respect, as well as those lower on your list. Even when you disagree with parts of their MAP, you may agree with others, which means you can draw from many sources, but in the end it’s your MAP and that makes it absolutely unique to you.
During this holiday season, think about it. The economic mess with which the world is dealing was created by people with great skills and, to be polite, challenged MAP.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
John Thain was lauded as a brilliant leader for years. but he fascinates me as an example of the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that is so ingrained and prevalent in a large portion of executives, especially in the financial sector.
How much longer do you think it will take corporate Earth to get off their terrified, or comfortable, collective asses and embrace a real, live, authentic, proven solution to most of their problems?
In a speech in 1962 then-President John F. Kennedy said
Greed, like water, just keeps flowing along, flooding the land and leaving destruction and misery in it’s wake. The current flood, which dwarfs Katrina, makes greed a timely subject for our quotes today.
A couple of weeks ago, 
The end of the year is all about wrap-ups, so why fight the trend? So here are two detailing the best and the worst leaders and one fun one about you.
One of the most important things to keep in mind as you study and work to develop your personal leadership abilities, the ones you’ll use throughout your life, whatever you’re doing and no matter the position, is that they’re neutral.
