A client called and during the conversation he complained about his receptionist. He said he was close to firing her, but would prefer a different outcome; he thought a third party could help resolve the problems.
When I asked “Jack” what the problem was he said that “Judy” was disrupting the culture and refused to do her work as expected. For example, she insisted on having two pencil cups on her desk; he preferred organizing his desk based on Feng Shui principles and that two cups were nothing but clutter. He had explained this to Judy to no avail.
This is an extreme example of the puppetmaster mentality, but not counting the micromanager who really believes her’s is the only way, I’m willing to bet you have been on the giving or receiving end of this attitude, if not both, at some point—most of us have.
Whether you consider yourself a leader, a manager or leadager, yours is not the only way—or even the best.
There are many ways to approach a task or goal. Some may seem more efficient, but, in fact, will lower productivity if they are counter-intuitive for a particular worker.
As long as the task is done or the goal achieved ethically, on time and in budget the route to accomplishment doesn’t matter.
Forcing your approach on your team forces them to become puppets.
That makes them dependent on you for all creativity, innovation and productivity—at least until they resign.
It is reality that bloggers, coaches, academics, and other gurus write about how to engage the workforce, build cultures, develop leaders, motivate, and increase retention; companies pay substantial amounts to coaches and consultants to develop and implement programs; management agonizes on how to increase productivity through better use of its human resources.
It is reality that many companies are moving to “just in time” workforces; using temps and contractors at all levels with no health insurance, no vacation, no benefits—hire when you need them and dump when the project is done.
Business Week offers a comprehensive overview of this trend in a cover story entitled The Disposable Worker.
The forecast for the next five to 10 years: more of the same, with paltry pay gains, worsening working conditions, and little job security. Right on up to the C-suite, more jobs will be freelance and temporary, and even seemingly permanent positions will be at greater risk.
Obviously, there are people, especially at more senior levels, who have no problem with this approach; they relish the movement, change and challenge.
But they are the minority.
Everything described in the first paragraph is geared for companies that actually hire their workforce.
Typically, it’s a different set of experts who advise companies on outsourcing and temp workforces.
I ask you:
What will motivate workers to contribute at the level needed in today’s competitive global enviornment when they have nothing vested in the company?
Why should people who may not be there tomorrow put forth the initiative that underlays all leadership today?
How do you engage people when they have no idea how long they’ll be around?
In short, how do you get people to care when they know without a doubt that the company doesn’t care about them?
I have 5 stories for you today about CEOs, two who don’t and four that do.
Pundits (consultants, academics, bloggers) are fond of lauding CEOs for their vision and skill at imparting it to their followers—Richard Fuld, Bob Nardelli, Jeff Skilling, Bernard Ebbers, Dennis Kowalski, the list is long—but after their meltdown you hear only from the Monday morning quarterback crowd.
But if you want to sort the true stars from the others, you need to take a long-term look—not Wall Street’s typical quarter or even a decade—at more than the stock price.
Moreover, you need to look at the down times; the times when the economy sucks, yet the CEO still finds ways to foster a great culture and stoke innovation—not just cut staff and threaten execs with termination if they don’t make their numbers.
For better or worse, it’s not in the vision or the leading, it’s the doing.
Our first story is should be a familiar name to all of you. Remember Sandy Weill? The man who drove the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 and whose deal making built CITI, the colossus that never really jelled. He was named “C.E.O. of the Year” in 2002 by Chief Executive Magazine, but that was then and this is now.
In today’s cutthroat business world how many CEOs would lift a finger to save their competition? Ted Baseler, CEO of Chateau Ste. Michelle did exactly that when freezing temperatures wiped out the grape harvest in 2004. He didn’t just save his competition; he’s credited with saving the entire Washington state wine industry. Baseler is the quintessential big picture guy.
“We want Washington known. All of it. We’re not about to fight over whose bottle of wine gets sold. We’re competing with Napa, with France. We’re not competing with Washington wineries.”
My last offering is an interview with Pete Peterson, co-founder of Blackstone Group, looks back on s storied career and offers his insights as to what’s needed to “rebuild the American dream.” There’s a video (that refuses to embed) and a PDF of the interview (requires free registration). I think you’ll find it interesting.
First, I had reason to contact CrystalTech (my host) and had another great experience. In spite of being acquired over the years (twice, I think) tech support has always been fabulous. The reps spend as much time as necessary on the phone with me until this tech dummy understands.
Second, I came across an old video that, along with being hilarious, is a graphic answer to what customer service is NOT.
When you’ve coached or written a blog for years you can find yourself answering the same questions over and over, but that’s OK. I’d rather have you drop me a line or use the chat box in the right frame than search for something and become frustrated.
And that’s what happened last night about 10:30.
“Ken” pinged me and asked if I remembered a post that talked about compensation and used a stool as an analogy for the company. He said he’d read it a few years ago and wanted it as part of a presentation for his boss.
No Problem. I’ve used that analogy with clients for years and in posts three times. After I gave Ken the URL he said I should post it again.
I agreed, but added a bit to cover the current situation.
Success is like a 3-legged stool—
Customers / equity-holders / employees
If one leg becomes too long, the stool tips over!
Taking care of the first two is a given, whereas taking care of employees seems to be based on the labor market.
If the market is hot, people are showered with money and perks, as the market cools, so does employee care.
Yes, you can buy people and you can replace people, but it’s very expensive.
In the kind of tough economic times we’re going through people understand when there are no raises and even when their compensation is cut to avoid a layoff.
But if that treatment extends only to workers and lower management, while executive compensation and perks continue, you can count on a steady exodus as business improves.
When the market is tight and companies are throwing cash, stock and perks right and left it’s the wise manager who remembers that people who join for money/stock/perks will leave for more money/stock/perks.
Today’s Odd Bits are kind of a hodgepodge, but in the twisty corridors of my mind they do fit together.
First the potatoes.
Do you believe all the experts, academicians, pundits and just-plain-people who keep talking about how the so-called Great Recession is permanently changing America’s stuff fixation? I don’t, I just think people will find a way to do the same thing covertly—call it inconspicuous consumption.
On the other side, have high-end retailers really changed their attitude towards customer service? An exec from Saks Fifth Avenue said, “Every customer is valuable and they’re even more valuable today because there are fewer of them.” Does that mean they will revert to form when there are more of them? Another little gem buried in this article shows that consumers haven’t changed all that much, after all, who really needs an $18 bottle of nail polish?
Microsoft, the company people love or hate. Since I’m in the latter camp I was delighted to see that they lost on appeal and the $290 million judgment for violating a patent stands. Their reaction is typical of today’s worst corporate MAP, since “…new versions [of Word], with the computer code in question removed, would be ready for sale when the injunction begins Jan. 11.” They stole, but that’s OK because getting caught won’t interfere with business and apparently the money is no big deal. Still more intriguing is an article at CNN wondering if Steve Ballmer will be out in 2010, “Ballmer has shepherded Microsoft to vanishing mobile market share (now just 7.9 percent of the market), a hesitant tiptoe into software as a service, and a general sense of retreat in emerging markets.” (Be sure to check the two links at the end of the story.)
And then there is Facebook, which is one of the top two time-wasters since time began (the other is Twitter). Besides providing you with a whole new set of virus to worry about, it’s obsessive (in case you hadn’t noticed) and the best defense seems to be defriending.
Enough with the potatoes, you need meat to balance your last meal here. And for that kind of substance you can’t beat Harvard.
Specifically, you can’t beat Michael C. Jensen, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus’ fascinating paper on integrity.
“Integrity in our model is honoring your word. As such integrity is a purely positive phenomenon. It has nothing to do with good vs. bad, right vs. wrong behavior.”
Therefore the worst villain has the same integrity as your favorite saint. Interesting premise, well worth reading.
Christopher Hill, then 20, told the police he was so distracted by a cellphone call that he ran a red light at 45 miles an hour, hitting Ms. Doyle’s car as it crossed in front of him.
Doyle died and Jennifer Smith, her daughter, is suing Samsung and Sprint.
Ms. Smith argues that the industry’s success in marketing to drivers is the reason people like Mr. Hill do not change their behavior or pay attention to what she characterizes as faint warnings by the industry.
A previous suit in 2003 was thrown out of court.
Now anyone who follows the tobacco lawsuits knows how difficult it is to prove that companies knew their product had risks even when testimony and exhibits are overwhelming.
So it seems a no-brainer to assume that there is no smoking gun for plaintiffs to find.
Bob Lucky, an executive director at Bell Labs from 1982-92, said he knew that drivers talking on cellphones were not focused fully on the road. But he did not think much about it or discuss it and supposed others did not, either, given the industry’s booming fortunes.
“If you’re an engineer, you don’t want to outlaw the great technology you’ve been working on,” said Mr. Lucky, now 73. “If you’re a marketing person, you don’t want to outlaw the thing you’ve been trying to sell. If you’re a C.E.O., you don’t want to outlaw the thing that’s been making a lot of money.”
Not everybody felt that way.
In 1990, David Strayer, a junior researcher at GTE, which later became part of Verizon, noticed more drivers who seemed to be distracted by their phones, and it scared him. He asked a supervisor if the company should research the risks.
“Why would we want to know that?” Mr. Strayer recalled being told.
Bell Labs is gone and many of those involved are retired and, like Lucky, have no real incentive to lie about what went on (if they were even inclined that way)—in other words, no actively vested interest.
Where does corporate responsibility lie in situations such as this?
It’s a lengthy article, but one well worth reading.
And you might ask yourself how many of your calls from behind the wheel are really so critical they couldn’t wait; and those that really achieve critical status. And of those that truly meet the critical test, how many would take so long that you couldn’t pull off the road?
As to texting, I can only hope that when you’re busy looking at the screen and hitting the keys that you run into an inanimate object as opposed to one with humans involved.
Either way, the next time you start getting involved in anything while driving ask yourself this: how well would you sleep for the rest of your life if you were Christopher Hill.
Image credit: Mike “Dakinewavamon” Kline on flickr
Back around 1998, I was at a VC/entrepreneur event and in the course of a conversation I commented that I’d been working with startups for 20 years. A young idiot (as opposed to an old idiot) scornfully informed me that I couldn’t have been since startups were a result of the Internet and the web.
I guess idiocy still flourishes since I was recently informed by a thirty-something idiot that startups and innovation are a function of the web.
But innovation is actually the provenance of minds that think outside of conventional parameters, with or without tech.
They are minds that see beyond what’s being done now to what could be done, sometimes with a new product, but just as often with a new process.
Brothers John and Brendan Ready are two such minds. Their lobster fishing profession may be hundreds of years old, but that hasn’t stopped them from innovating not the catching, but the sales process.
They created Catch a Piece of Maine where you can buy an annual partnership for $2,995 per season to all kinds of variations from live lobsters to just the meat.
The Ready brothers have been lobstering since they were 16, started their seafood business around 2004 ago (at ages 22 and 25) and thought up this great value-add in 2007.
To my mind it’s the best of an all-around win, the Ready’s grow their business, the lobstermen earn more in a very hard profession, and the buyers have something totally unique to share among friends, clients and business associates.
I must say that although I write about it and disagree vehemently with it, leadership is a growth industry, even going so far as to offer PhDs in Leadership.
Those of you who also read Leadership Turn know my thoughts on the subject, but the profile has gotten so high that it reminded me of an article I read last year called Leadership Malpractice.
It’s not a media product or authored by some external pundit, but comes from Harvard Public Leadership Lecturer Barbara Kellerman, author of Bad Leadership and Followership.
Kellerman says that since “leadership is increasingly considered a profession,” leaders should be subject to the same punishments as other professionals, such as doctors and lawyers.
Doesn’t that sound like an idea whose time has come? Especially if schools are going to offer advanced degrees in it.
Kellerman points out that business leaders are appointed; “in the first nine months of this year [2008] a record 1,132 CEOs quit or were shown the door.”
They were let go due to poor corporate performance, but even truly rotten performance carried no serious consequences, in fact, “most left with their financial futures handsomely secured.” Sure, a few are behind bars, but when they emerge they will bear no serious financial hardships.
“No insignificant number of top executives have been culpable of negligence, failures that caused injury to others. To take only a few glaring examples, top executives at A.I.G., Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, or for that matter at General Motors, all failed abysmally to protect employees and stockholders alike.”
Leadership has become a profession in and of itself.
“It is taught in professional schools, in schools of government and public administration, and in nearly all business schools. There are countless books on how to exercise good leadership, and countless courses and seminars, both in and out of the academy, in which leadership is taught. It’s time then to apply to leadership the same standard that we apply to other professions. Similarly, when this standard is not met, even minimally, it’s time to hold leaders accountable by suing them for malpractice.”
Once someone is on the ‘leadership track’ they move forward with amazing speed—and less and less scrutiny the higher they go. When they foul up, they are often eased out, rather than being fired—an action that would make the person or board that hired/promoted them look bad.
By the time they’re appointed to the corner office they are practically untouchable; with few exceptions this applies to the entire C suite. Oh, they can be fired, and they often are, but that rarely impacts their career.
There is much talk of accountability, but most is empty.
Perhaps leadership malpractice would finally bring some serious accountability to the guys out front—the same guys whose monster egos and Teflon finishes keep them walking away unscathed while the rest of us are strung up and left to twist in the economic winds.
A post by Elliot Ross led me to a story that, as the author says, should provide a cautionary tale for all managers.
It’s the story of a company that set out to change its way of doing business from the top down—not a good approach these days with either customers or employees.
Written by Jon Nitto, President of The RetroTechs Inc., it’s a blunt, honest account of how not to change the way your company does business.
Because it wasn’t just the business approach that changed, it was a giant cultural shift that was devised by a few executives and presented to the stakeholders as a done deal under the banner of ‘this is good for you’.
Granted you’ve heard stories of similar things happening in all sizes of companies every day, but Nitto’s honesty and clear hindsight as to what they did vs. what they should have done is a valuable lesson no matter what you’re trying to change.
The big take always are that
top down doesn’t save time or money, even when it’s with the best intentions;
involve all stakeholders from the beginning; and
until the changes are understood they won’t be embraced.
Read the story; compare it to how you do change; adjust; repeat as needed.
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,
A client called and during the conversation he complained about his receptionist. He said he was close to firing her, but would prefer a different outcome; he thought a third party could help resolve the problems.
It is reality that bloggers, coaches, academics, and other gurus write about how to engage the workforce, build cultures, develop leaders, motivate, and increase retention; companies pay substantial amounts to coaches and consultants to develop and implement programs; management agonizes on how to increase productivity through better use of its human resources.
When you’ve coached or written a blog for years you can find yourself answering the same questions over and over, but that’s OK. I’d rather have you drop me a line or use the chat box in the right frame than search for something and become frustrated.
Are you one of the millions who talk on your cell phone when driving?
I must say that although I write about it and disagree vehemently with it, leadership is a growth industry, even going so far as to offer PhDs in Leadership.
It’s the story of a company that set out to 
