It’s amazing to me, but looking back over the last decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

I wrote this back in 2007. When I first started working I learned that a quarter was three months and  that the companies I worked for, and later with, did everything based on that quarter. I thought it was stupid, because very little of real significance can be accomplished in just three months. Over the years I saw how much damage Wall Street’s short-term attitude did to companies, people and the economy. I certainly don’t claim any expertise, but recognition of that damage has really come to the fore, first BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and now Hillary Clinton. Read other Golden Oldies here.

Although I haven’t read The Taboos of Leadership, it supposedly “reveals the rarely discussed realities of leadership–the secrets that leaders just cannot admit to publicly for fear of losing power, self-respect, or even their jobs.” However, the author, Dr. Anthony F. Smith, makes a cogent observation when he says in an essay,

Well, unfortunately, there are no magic pills to becoming a Leader, just like there are no magic pills to losing weight, getting fit, making a million dollars, or shaving 10 strokes off your handicap in golf. Simply stated, becoming a Leader occurs when one exercises the arduous process of effective Leadership, day after day, week after week, and year after year….

What I have observed in my years of studying leaders, is that very few have all the gifts and talents themselves; what many of the great ones do have, is a self awareness of what talents they do have, and the self confidence and security to surround themselves with others who can compliment them, and compensate for their own lack of skills.

I have no idea whether Dr. Smith has all the answers, but he sure defines the biggest problem (red) and (unfortunately) the least likely solution (blue) in the second paragraph.

I don’t believe that any person has all the talents, skills, gifts, abilities, etc., to successfully lead across the board in today’s ultra complex world and even if they do have the awareness and self confidence fewer and fewer have the external security to hire the right people to compensate—by external, I mean enough secure time to create a team that can DO it.

We live in a ridiculous world where Boards, in fear of investors, give CEOs six months to turn around multi-billion dollar companies that have been drifting, if not actually plunging, downwards for years; expect them to do it no matter what the situation or economy; where the slightest miss is considered grounds for firing; and long-term is a quarter.

Even when Wall Street recognizes the need to change a deeply entrenched culture they still demand that it be done in a quarter and analysts not only want perfect visions of future direction, but also exact execution plans, preferably grounded in heavy cost-cutting (read layoffs).

So, like the politicians who once elected spend much of their time fund-raising, CEOs and the senior managers below them spend much of their time focused on immediate numbers, which they must produce quarterly by hook or, more and more frequently, by crook.

Under these circumstances, the real practice of leadership becomes a very iffy proposition.

“Troy,” a CEO I work with off and on, sent me a link to an article referencing Netflix Chief Talent Officer Patty McCord’s explanation of why you should immediately fire underperformers to explain (justify) his own actions.

McCord’s core advice is to think six months in advance, about what the company can and should do better, which will highlight the people who don’t have the skill set or drive to get there. (…) “I tell an employee I’m going to put you on a performance improvement plan, but the truth is they don’t actually know how to do what I need someone in their job to do. I did my six months out thing and realized she wasn’t qualified, and I put her on a plan even though it’s not an issue of performance, it’s an issue of skill set.”

This was the latest salvo in our ongoing disagreement on managerial responsibility when it comes to people—a subject we vehemently disagree on.

Troy says that young, fast-growth companies have no time to develop their people and when you have a lot of capital and very stringent targets to achieve [Wall Street quarterly reports, ed], you have to think differently.

I say that it’s mostly management’s fault, especially in larger companies like Netflix because they should be growing their people all the time so their skill-set is ready for the challenge; obviously, I’m not referring to those employees who need to be dragged kicking and screaming into their future.

Startups, fast growing and established companies all need to add the right talent to get where they are going.

Good managers assess the situation, current and future, and inform employees regarding their promotional opportunities.

Further, good managers keep them informed of what new skills they will need in the future, as well as the best way to acquire them.

I read about and know personally thousands of good managers who work hard to grow their people, so they are ready for the new challenges coming down the road.

There are also plenty of companies with good programs in place that bad managers won’t use.

Yes, people deserve to know the truth regarding their opportunities and McCord’s approach when termination is the right course is extremely humane—but few companies would spend the resources.

“Instead, I could have told the employee, ‘here’s what I’m going to need six months from now, and here’s the talent and skills I’ll need. Then you tell her, ‘It’s not you. I don’t want you to fail. I don’t want to publicly humiliate you.’”

However, if that person’s actual manager had been doing his/her job the situation McCord describes might never have happened.

That’s the part that Troy doesn’t get.

Upgrading employee skills and adding new ones is an ongoing process that requires better and stronger management skills and more work than McCord’s approach—hers is the easy way out.

During my 40+ years around the workforce there have always been managers who build their people and those who don’t.

• Those who do build understand that people are holistic and it takes more effort to instill cultural understanding and rebuild group morale after someone is terminated than it does to keep upgrading skills.
• Those who don’t build believe that it’s easier to replace than train/build employees.

But demographics are against them. Replacing people will only become harder as the economy improves and the number of working people and their experience continues to go down.

stock.xchng image credit: arte_ram

By Wes Ball, author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success. Read all of Wes’ posts here.

OK, here’s the deal.

• We all know that short-term, tactical management is killing American business, right?

• We all recognize that top-level managers in publicly-held corporations are being driven crazy with external pressures from investors and stock analysts so they can’t do the “visionary leadership” job they need to do.

• Most of us have experienced the destructive effects of this corporate ADD as it filters down to the ranks of “worker bees” who are really keeping the company going, yet feel unappreciated.

• We have all seen the exodus of good people who wanted to make a difference for their employer, yet felt they were just wasting their time.

So why does it go on and on?  I even see it in privately-held companies, and it frightens me that they would want to embrace this self-destructive behavior.

I’m beginning to believe it’s an impossible problem.  So…

I’m throwing out a challenge today for anyone who can show me a publicly-held company that doesn’t have this problem.  I want to see that someone has figured out how to overcome this and has been successful at it.  I want to believe that it is possible, because I was certainly able to do it in my company – but mine was a privately-held business, so I could ignore people on the outside of my company.

Please, show me that I’m wrong.

Your comments—priceless

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