The leadership industry dotes on the idea that visions are what make leaders, since they influence people, and that visionaries aren’t like you and me and require special handling.
It’s CEO visions—those rosy predictions, high hopes and self-deluding prophesies—that fill annual reports that sway analysts.
From Business Week: Are stock analysts swayed by an annual report’s CEO letter to stockholders? Yes, concludes a forthcoming study in Organization Science. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and other schools looked at 367 shareholder letters written by new CEOs from 1990 to 1999—giving each leader a “charismatic vision” score. To assign ratings, they scrutinized the texts for moral, ideological, and emotional characterizations of future plans and past mistakes. They also counted the number of times such words as “believe” and “commitment” appeared—along with team-oriented terms like “we” and “our.” Their finding: the more charismatic the text, defined in this way, the more likely analysts were to issue a “buy” for the company. Such language also led to off-the-mark earnings forecasts from analysts. While the decade studied coincided with the dot-com era, when analysts often said “buy,” Penn State management professor and co-author Vilmos Misangyi believes the findings also apply to the current economy, as uncertainties may prompt a strong reliance on a business leaders’ words. “If anything,” he says, “I would expect stronger effects today.”
Keep that in mind when you invest the paltry amount you have left after the most recent Wall Street vision decimated the economy.
Why is it that we accept as intelligent gospel visions of credit default swaps and derivatives from guys in $3000 suits, but would consider the same ideas as ravings if they came from a smelly guy wearing dirty clothes?
How much of so-called leadership vision is form and how much substance (or the result of a substance)?
And even when the substance is there, what is it worth when it’s left as a vision with no operational plan?
Read this post from Steve Roesler for a great example of vision sans plan.
Did you know that six out of ten of the boys who could help build our future drop out of school and end up in jail?
That’s a full 60% and that is one scary number.
These boys are just like your sons—only without the same opportunities.
These boys are black.
The M3 Foundation is changing that one small step at a time.
M3 was started three years ago by KG Charles-Harris, CEO of Emanio, who I met first as a client and now count as a good friend.
The following is from this year’s M3 year-end report.
“M3 has had tremendous success during the past 3 years. We started with 10 underperforming boys at King Middle School in Berkeley in 2006 and expanded to all three middle schools in Berkeley with more than 30 students in the program during the past school year.
The boys achieved an average GPA of 3.0 during the past school year, some starting as low as 0.6 GPA. The average GPA was raised from 2.7 to 3.0 during the last semester.
All our boys are from low-income families, many with single parent or guardian backgrounds. Since 54 percent of black boys drop out of school on a national level, and 73 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area, these results are a tremendous boost. We expect to improve these further during the coming year.”
Take a good look at the numbers. That’s the kind of improvement that No Child Left Behind was supposed to achieve—but didn’t.
M3 accomplished it by working directly with the boys, not by teaching them to take tests or drumming rote memorization into their heads, but by showing them the value of education and providing the attention needed to appeal to their pride.
Instead of being told they could not they were told that they could.
Not just told, but supported and encouraged.
And they succeeded.
Finally, M3 packs a lot more bang for the buck than most programs do—check it out.
Come back next week for an interview with KG Charles-Harris.
I became a thinking adult watching him deliver the news starting in 1962 and when he stepped down in 1981 I stopped watching TV news—I wanted intelligence and objectivity, not image and opinions.
How can those of us who are familiar with Cronkite convey what he did for us? How do we explain to a generation that thinks bloggers, Howard Stern and morning TV are viable news sources what Walter Cronkite gave us?
Walter Cronkite understood the meaning behind Lao Tzu’s words, “To lead the people, walk behind them.”
Here are a few of his comments that I especially like…
“I feel no compulsion to be a pundit.”
“In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.”
“I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.”
“We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.”
“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”
“I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since.”
I hope all of you will click the link and read more about this truly unique man; our country would be different without him.
I know of no better words with which to end today then as Cronkite ended each of his news shows—
What do you do with a slightly-below-mediocre company that keeps its business going by staying in small markets where its dominance is assured by an almost total lack of competition; a company with little regard for its employees and less for the communities in which it operates?
You bring in a CEO who has a passionate belief that the interaction between customers and frontline associates has the greatest influence on success and that the greatest impact on that is the way their leaders/managers treat them.
In other words, employees at every level do unto customers as their bosses do unto them.
Jack Rooney is as far from a rock star CEO as you can get, but he understands that real leadership must permeate the entire company and knows that while true cultural change is neither fast nor cheap it works and therefore is worth the effort.
Rooney calls his approach the Dynamic Organization; he developed it under challenging conditions at Ameritech and brought it to full fruition at US Cellular, which he joined in 1999.
The Pursuit of Something Better tells both stories, Rooney’s and US Cellular’s; they are told by Dave Esler and Myra Kruger, the culture consultants who worked with him at USC and his previous company.
Both stories are the culmination of a man who believed in doing the right thing and a company that was changed accordingly.
“Jack Rooney and his slowly-expanding team of believers challenged the long-prevailing assumptions that business is a blood sport, that the advantage inevitably goes to the ruthless and the greed, that the only way to win is to hold your nose and leave your values at the door. He has proved beyond question, once and for all, regardless of what happens from her on, that a values-based model works, that it can raids both a company and the individuals who are part of it to undreamed-of-heights, to peak experiences that will last a lifetime and change the way those lives are lived.”
And while the authors do a great job of telling the story, the real leadership that Rooney provided, along with his concept of the Dynamic Organization, aren’t broken down or spelled out as a set of lessons and how-to’s separated for you to memorize.
It’s your responsibility to learn from what was done, drawing out those lessons that are most in synch with your MAP, because if they aren’t in synch there’s no way you’ll be able to implement them.
And in case you’re tempted to shrug it off as a fluke, I suggest that you give some long hard thought to Zappos and its ilk.
I highly recommend The Pursuit of Something Better. It’s fun, it’s fascinating. You might even start to believe that you don’t have to leave your ethics at the door; at the very least you’ll know what to look for in your next interview.
Executive compensation is in the limelight these days—not that it’s ever out. People have always been fascinated by the lavish paychecks of high profile players, whether business leaders or Hollywood icons.
The list of executives paid for non-performance in 2006 pales in comparison to CEO pay in 2008.
We’re all taught the value of hard work, exceeding goals, giving our all, but some have found a better way—a loving Board.
Non-performance bonus money isn’t new; in 2007 Coke had a $2.9 billion noncash charge in the fourth quarter, so they cut 3500 workers and their execs missed their performance bonus targets, but the Board stepped in, giving “…millions of dollars in “discretionary cash awards.”
And no matter how good a leader is, does any performance warrant an average of $144,573 a day for 13 years?
The explanation (excuse?) for these giant pay packages is the same one that kids have been using for generations—peer pressure.
Boards claim they can’t hire the best (AKA biggest name; best negotiator) without these outsize pay packages, but there are hundreds of skilled executives that could be had for less and who would probably do more.
For all the public outcry against outrageous pay there is none against the directors who don’t just approve it, but spend their effort outbidding the other Board.
When are they going to show some real leadership instead of whining and complaining about government interference?
And when will the washed and unwashed start putting the blame where it really belongs?
Little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice;” little boys are made of “snakes and snails, and puppy dog tails;” and many (not all) “leaders” are made of ego and greed and the skill to mislead.
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.
Last Thursday the John Ensign (US Senator) scandal triggered a post about the hypocrisy kids see these days in so-called leaders; not their lies, but their over the top do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do attitudes and actions.
In response, Dan Erwin commented that rather than standards, i.e., set rules, he preferred to teach his kids about covenants, because “Legalism, in all its forms, is really death-giving stuff. I go back to covenant…covenants get renegotiated.”
By definition, a covenant is “an agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.”
But Ensign’s hypocrisy was pushed off the hot seat by the same day when South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was caught in an affair.
While I think Ensign’s worst hypocrisy ties to his position in Promise Keepers, it pales in comparison to Sanford’s when you consider his historical stances.
I agree with Dan’s covenant approach because I’ve always believed that humans and absolutes aren’t a working or winning combination.
But to renegotiate a covenant, whether with a spouse or constituency, requires at least a modicum of rationality and Sanford’s own words put that in question.
Over a 20-year period, ”There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn’t have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line.”
Shades of President Clinton, whom Sanford roundly condemned during the same period.
Those times “took place during trips outside the country to ”blow off steam” with male friends.”
All the while preaching and campaigning based on a “family values” persona.
“…he would die ”knowing that I had met my soul mate.”
Isn’t that what his wife is supposed to be?
”I owe it too much to my boys and to the last 20 years with Jenny to not try this larger walk of faith.”
Owe it to what? The last 20 years of lies? Can you find anything rational in this statement?
Out of curiosity I did a completely unscientific poll of young people I know ranging in age from mid teens to mid twenties.
Much to some of their parents surprise they were fairly well informed on the subject.
None seemed either shocked or surprised and most said that the bad part was the stupidity of getting caught.
They said they saw getting caught as the real error in most of the stuff about which they’d read or heard during their lives.
And that is what’s truly sad.
While the destruction and disillusionment caused by leaders such as Madoff, Skilling, Sanford and all their act-alikes is terrible, the level of cynicism bred by this kind of hypocrisy is the truly tragic damage being done to our future.
(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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
Oh what great examples are presented to kids these days.
Some of the worst types of hypocrites are thriving.
The first are all the ‘leaders’ who turn out to be crooks—Dennis Kowalski, Jeffrey Skilling, Bernie Madoff and a host of other hedge fund managers—to name a very few.
Then there are those who don’t practice what they preach; worse, they preach from very high profiles and at very loud levels.
I hate using political examples, but they’re the most prevalent.
One such is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who acknowledged having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky fiasco—which was also hypocritical.
But the bottom of the barrel are folks such as Senator John Ensign, a ‘leader’ of Promise Keepers, an organization which, among other things, promotes a teenage abstinence policy of education, who chose to screw around (pun intended).
Gone are the days when kids listened wide-eyed and respectful to the words flowing from political, business and parental lips.
These days the kids listen, and then check out the actions of the bodies attached to those lips, either directly or by Google.
It’s not about the sex; sex and power having gone together since time immemorial. And it’s not even about who lied when caught. Almost every human lies about sex, including the kids.
A few centuries ago when I was young there was a saying, “People in glass housed shouldn’t throw stones.”
So before you become a ‘leader’ for any cause or attitude, do make sure that your own actions conform to what’s expected of those who follow you.
But be warned; reasons, excuses and apologies don’t cut it with today’s cynical youth.
And if you’re thinking of following, Google the person and make sure that their actions conform to your own standards of ‘acceptable’.
(Be sure to check out Biz Levity’s irreverent look at the Ensign scandal.)
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,
It’s CEO visions—those rosy predictions, high hopes and self-deluding prophesies—that fill annual reports that sway analysts.
The 
What do you do with a slightly-below-mediocre company that keeps its business going by staying in small markets where its dominance is assured by an almost total lack of competition; a company with little regard for its employees and less for the communities in which it operates?
Little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice;” little boys are made of “snakes and snails, and puppy dog tails;” and many (not all) “leaders” are made of ego and greed and the skill to mislead.
In response, 
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.”
The first are all the ‘leaders’ who turn out to be crooks—Dennis Kowalski, Jeffrey Skilling, Bernie Madoff and a host of other hedge fund managers—to name a very few.
