David Zinger’s post Friday (marvelous wordplay and puns) was all about freedom—freedom from clothes.
It seems that a Dave Taylor, a business shrink in the UK, recommends “Naked Friday” to boost team spirit—taking casual Friday to a whole new level.
“Inviting an organisation to go naked is the most extreme technique I’ve used. It may seem weird but it works. It’s the ultimate expression of trust in yourself and each other.”
Seems like naked is the rage among folks with those great accents.
Air New Zealand has made both an ad and a safety video using its own employees, including CEO Rob Fyfe, fully dressed—in body paint. (It’s probably the first time anyone paid attention to a safety video.)
“Each clip took one day to shoot and cost about 10 to 15 per cent of the cost of a major brand commercial.”
But don’t look for anything similar in the US any time soon.
Can you imagine the harassment lawsuits? Even if the staff agreed, someone would accuse someone else of staring and the simplest action would border on inappropriate.
The same with the commercial.
Can you imagine the lawsuits if an airline crew walked through a major airport here clad only in body paint?
The awards for developmental damage to children, the pain and suffering of the adults and the general flouting of public decency could pay off the TARP loans.
Perhaps this is where the US went wrong.
Our Puritanical roots are very close to the surface and we’ve lost our national sense of humor—if we ever had one.
There is nothing like laughter to take the hot air out of the leading windbags who dominate all viewpoints in our national news, whether business, religion or politics.
(Today continues a conversation initiated last Thursday and added to yesterday.)
Everybody lies about sex. Those who aren’t getting any say they are and those who are getting it where they shouldn’t deny it.
Governor Mark Sanford followed the same path of Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Rudy Giuliani, John Ensign, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Helen Chenoweth (the first woman) and many more.
But you know what?
I don’t care. At least, not about the sex—or even the lies. Even the lies under oath, because I don’t believe that an oath is going to change someone’s attitude about admitting something they don’t want to admit, it just adds another layer to the lie.
As Becky Robinson pointed out in her comment I could have just as easily used the Evangelical community—Jimmy Swaggart, Marvin Gorman, Jim Bakker, Lonnie Latham, Earl Paulk, Paul Crouch, Douglas Goodman, Frank Houston, etc., etc., etc. and, of course, the Catholic Church.
In his first comment he said, “If you reframe the context from leader to bureaucrat, then the ethical expectations change.”
Amen, Dan. To assume that an elected official or any person-out-front automatically possesses all the sterling qualities of a “leader” as defined by the media, pundits and leadership industry has no basis in fact.
The second point that hit me was, “The notion of “standards” etc. is often a set-up for failure.”
This is getting closer to what angers me so much.
Not the sex, not the lies, but the standards.
Standards that they defined, preached and worked so hard to shove down everyone’s throat—standards that not one of them has even come close to practicing.
Mark Sanford voted for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment citing a need for “moral legitimacy” as his reason. Now he cites the Bible and the story of David and Bathsheba as his reason for not resigning.
As to the apologies, are they for the action or for getting caught? Americans are so focused on the sex and accept the apologies so readily that the hypocrisy becomes mere background noise.
It’s the Richard Nixon mentality all over again. As Nixon said in 1977, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,”
The reigning slogan these days for too many “leaders” seems to be “do as I say, not as I do,” which both angers and confuses their followers.
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Dan also said, “No question but what they’re hypocrites…of the worst kind. They made claims they didn’t follow through on. However, the issue parents (and grandparents, too) have to deal with is the education of your children.”
We’ll explore Dan’s thoughts and personal example of this in the next Leadership’s Future on Thursday. Please join us.
“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His [Livingston] situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.”
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him [Livingston] personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.”
“What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily—fell in very, very significant ways, but then picked up the pieces and built from there.” (King David, who slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, had the husband killed, married the widow, but continued to ‘lead’.)
“Too many people in government seem to think they are above regular folks, and I said I would expect humility in the way each member of my team served—that they would recognize that the taxpayer is boss.”
“We as a party want to hold ourselves to high standards, period,”
I hope you’ll come back tomorrow as this conversation continues.
There are very few places where politicos are in favor with the exception of purely ideological grounds.
An exception seems to be Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, Canada.
It was incorporated in 1974, has had astounding growth over the last three decades and is now the 6th largest city in Canada; located on the Great Lakes it larger than either Milwaukee or Cleveland.
What’s interesting is that the mayor, Hazel McCallion, is 88 years old and has held her office for the last 30 years.
Everyone is buzzing about the town being debt free, but in an interview in the Mississauga News she says, “I think we have to talk in strong terms about subsidized social housing. I don’t think we’re doing a very good job. Quite honestly, the City of Mississauga is debt free, the City of Brampton is debt free and the Region of Peel is debt free—and still we have more than 13,000 families on the wait list. We lead the pack where wait times are concerned.”
I find it sadly amusing that few people anywhere want to understand that you get what you pay for and that includes government services at every level.
Taxes and revenues are directly connected and just because you don’t use a particular service doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.
It doesn’t seem that the financial crisis is really changing things all that much.
The exodus of Wall Street bankers is mostly smoke and mirrors, not change, as many of the so-called disgraced leave for banks that didn’t accept bailout money, taking their clients and attitudes with them.
“Banks paid out some $18 billion in bonuses last year, down 44 percent compared with a year earlier, and many workers viewed them as paltry payouts… Sensing a shifting tide, talented bankers who fear a dimmer future at banks that have taken taxpayer money are migrating to brash boutique firms like Aladdin, which are intent on proving their critics wrong by chasing fast profits and growth in hopes of one day rising up as challengers to the old guard.”
Wall Street forces companies to focus on short-term profits, often at the expense of long-term corporate success and innovation, primarily to add more zeros to their own paychecks.
State politicians solve their budget shortfalls by trashing those least likely to vote and completely incapable of donating to their campaigns—the poor, elderly and children.
According to Arizona’s Linda J. Blessing “There’s no question that we’re getting short-term savings that will result in greater long-term human and financial costs,” expressing the concerns of officials and community agencies around the country. “There are no good options, just less bad options.” Ohio’s proposed budget “will dramatically decrease our ability to investigate reports of abuse and neglect,” with some counties losing 75 percent of their investigators The Illinois governor’s budget proposal would scale back home visits to ill-equipped first-time mothers, who are given advice over 18 months that experts say is repaid many times over in reduced child abuse and better school preparation.”
Politicians implement short-term fixes at the cost of long-term social solutions, because (a) they have little negative impact on their re-election and (b) they won’t be around to deal with the mess anyway.
I have an acquaintance who isn’t wealthy, probably midway between middle and upper-middle class. She constantly talks about how she and her husband do everything they can to avoid taxes and would never vote in favor of them no matter what.
During the same conversations she gripes that the unincorporated county where she lives doesn’t plow the road near her house quickly enough when it snows; the ambulance didn’t arrive fast enough when her husband had trouble breathing; her grandchildren’s schools keep reducing enrichment programs and the classes are too large.
Here lies Wall Street’s short-term thinking
That trashed our lives without blinking
Ethics and honesty it disrespected
Let’s hope it’s never resurrected!
I was delighted when I was sent a free copy of Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign to review. Not just because I voted for him, but because this is a book about how to sell change, major change, to strangers and in doing so turn them into a community of supporters.
That’s what Apple did with the iPod and that’s what every CEO recognizes as being of paramount importance.
But it’s not just about managing change; it’s about creating a desire for it. It’s about creating an environment where changes are being driven by your workers, not just by you and your execs.”
That’s what Obama and his team did brilliantly and that’s why you should read the book.
Forget politics, think about the challenges your company faces. Survival isn’t enough.
The business world and consumer landscapes are changing—industries that downplay or ignore innovation to focus on survival and the status quo out of fear of upsetting their current business model are likely to be swept away by the transformation rocking the global economy.
To thrive, you need to engage your current stakeholders (investors, employees, vendors, current customers)—just as Obama did.
His success turned on three main points, he
kept his cool under all provocations,
applied social technologies, including blogs, texting, and viral videos, and
made himself synonymous with what he was selling—change.
Obama allowed nothing to be set in stone and moved swiftly when the landscape changed.
One of my favorite examples was his choice to reject funding limitations, although he had previously said he would accept them. Why?
Because he realized that the amount of money he would raise via the Net more than compensated for McCain’s bashing him for the switch.
Now substitute ‘innovation’ for money and ‘quarterly results’ for bashing and give it some hard thought.
Read the book; adopt/tweak/adjust its lessons and tools for your company’s situation and then execute, because all the theory and examples won’t help unless you have the courage to use them.
What can I say? There is no way to skip Rod Blagojevich in a weekly post called Quotable Quotes.
But I found a couple of others that add a lot to the picture.
“I appreciate anybody who wants to tape me openly and notoriously, and those who feel like they want to sneakily and wear taping devices, I would remind them that it kind of smells like Nixon and Watergate.” (Interesting choice to link himself to considering…)
“When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.” –Richard Nixon (Sense a connection?.)
(Soul mates. Sweet…)
“You want to know my philosophy? One day a peacock. The next day a feather duster.” –Pat Quinn, Illinois Governor (Wow! Do you think he’s authentic?)
“The city of Alexandria, Virginia has hired a professional ethicist to help decide how budget cuts should be made.
The Washington Post reports the ethicists has helped with decisions that include turning apartments built for the mentally ill to temporary housing for the disabled.
Hiring ethicists is not unusual for public hospitals, but seldom has been a practice for local officials who are grappling with difficult budget choices.
When difficult choices have to be made, many see using an ethicist as a moral compass in an effort to do the least harm.”
A friend of Jean’s said, “It sounds to me like a failure in leadership. These people were elected by the citizens of Alexandria to make the tough decisions, and they want someone else to get them off the hook.”
Do you agree? Should the politicians have made the decision or was it a wiser choice to get input from someone who makes a living being ethical?
Please cast your vote in comments, whether you choose add something else or not.
If I had spent the entire year scouring for business quotes to fit this title I probably wouldn’t find as perfect a selection as the ten offered up by Business Week in the Worst Predictions About 2008.
Here are my favorites, which do you like?
The Bad
“I’m not an economist, but I do believe that we’re growing.” —President George W. Bush, July 15, 2008 Nope. GDP shrank at a 0.5% annual rate in the July-September quarter. On Dec. 1, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that a recession had begun in December 2007. (I thought that’s why presidents have advisers, so they didn’t have to be an expert in everything.)
The Worse
“A very powerful and durable rally is in the works. But it may need another couple of days to lift off. Hold the fort and keep the faith!” —Richard Band, editor, Profitable Investing Letter, Mar. 27, 2008 (This is not the guy you want editing your investment advice.)
“I think Bob Steel’s the one guy I trust to turn this bank around, which is why I’ve told you on weakness to buy Wachovia.” —Jim Cramer, CNBC commentator, Sept. 15, 2008 Two weeks later, Wachovia shares lost half their value from Sept. 15 to Dec. 29. nearly failed as depositors fled. CEO Steel eventually agreed to a takeover by Wells Fargo. (Can you imagine who he distrusts?)
The Ugly
“I expect there will be some failures…. I don’t anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large internationally active banks.” —Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, Feb. 28, 2008 In September, Washington Mutual became the largest financial institution in U.S. history to fail. Citigroup needed an even bigger rescue in November. (Come on. If you’re gonna head the Fed you need to prognosticate at least as well as you obfuscate!)
“In today’s regulatory environment, it’s virtually impossible to violate rules.”—Bernard Madoff, money manager, Oct. 20, 2007 On Dec. 11, Madoff was arrested for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme that may have cost investors $50 billion. (Unless your name is Bernie and you’ve been doing it for a decade.)
OK, your turn now. Click the link and choose your favorites or supply your own in comments.
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,
As to the apologies, are they for the action or for getting caught? Americans are so focused on the sex and accept the apologies so readily that the hypocrisy becomes mere background noise.
“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His [Livingston] situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.”
It doesn’t seem that the financial crisis is really changing things all that much.
I was delighted when I was sent a free copy of 
I have a question for you.
If I had spent the entire year scouring for business quotes to fit this title I probably wouldn’t find as perfect a selection as the ten offered up by Business Week in the 
