Treadmill Thoughts

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." H.L. Mencken

I suppose I am not unlike most other Americans in that I undoubtedly take the freedoms that I have pretty much for granted. Not that I'm proud of it, but when I look in the mirror I have to admit that it isn't something that I go to bed at night or wake up in the morning thinking about.

That said, as I was on the treadmill at the gym this morning and watching the news and listening to the commentary surrounding our latest poster children for ego driven greed (i.e. Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford) two thoughts kept surfacing in my mind and as they did, I kept getting madder, going faster and sweating more.

The first thought as I've already said was the anger I felt at listening yet once again to the how these two guys had betrayed the trust of others.

The second, however, was about how they had thrown away the opportunity that living in this country had given to them.

Maybe the second thought came because the 4th is this weekend when we are all reminded of just how fortunate we are to live in this country. It was this second thought that led me to the Mencken quote up top of this post.

Since I have spent my entire career in the business world, and most of that interacting with senior level business leaders, I have had my share of experience in dealing with the "scoundrels" on a personal level as well as reading and hearing about the all too many others (i.e. Ebbers, Lay et al.)

But as I was "cooling down" from my workout, and thinking about these SOBs and what they had elected to do with the freedom and opportunities that living here had given them, I thought to myself that as bad as they were and are, in terms of those who lead businesses in this country (both large and small) the over-whelming majority of them don't really need to be "regulated."

As I think the Mencken quote suggests, laws are written to try and protect the rest of us from the few who choose to use the freedom we enjoy to satisfy their own greed as opposed to using the opportunity they have been given to give back in a way that helps us to grow as a society and country.

Maybe all this sounds rediculously idealistic, however, I have certainly been around long enough to know that like it or not, we actually do need the laws and regs to protect us from the preditors. Caveat emptor hasn't been around as long as it has just because back in the day someone thought it was a clever phrase.

But even with all this "evil" surrounding us why am I optimistic? Because I really do believe that there are far more leaders out there (even lots whose first name might be Bernie or Ken) who lead their departments, divisions, SBUs and companies who have taken advantage of the freedoms we enjoy to lead in a way that make us proud to not just be part of their organization but proud as well to be a citizen of the greatest country on earth.

Enjoy your holiday.

The Light of Day Test

"Perceptions are real to those who hold them."

I don't remember where I first heard this phrase or even if it was a quote from someone, but in my experience I have found there is great truth in it.

How one measures the "value" of someone to an enterprise is like talking about "quality." It is a subjective term, and obviously means different things to different people.

It has also been my experience that if someone is judged to have significant "value" to a business and is recognized for this by way of title, compensation or otherwise, the real test for those who have made the judgment comes when the decision is made public.

When I was in the corporate world we used to call this "the light of day test" and on more than one occasion it was a good notion to apply to actions before deciding whether or not to take them be they personnel moves or otherwise because once made public, it didn't take long to see and sense if the person's peers as well as the rest of the organization agreed or disagreed with the action.
We still seeem to live and work in a world where "score" is kept on lots of different criteria and AIG, etc. notwithstanding I doubt this sort of score keeping is going to go away anytime soon, and as speechless as I am at what we have all heard and read over past few weeks, I am not even arguing that it should.

At the end of day, if the decisions that senior leaders make in terms of handing out kudos (monatary or otherwise) pass the light of day test first, they are probably not going to find themselves the lead story on the 24/7 news cycles for weeks at a time.

Someone much smarter than I am taught me a long time ago that as managers we really get paid to do just three things: hire, fire, and evaluate.

Translation: We are paid to exercise judgement and what makes that so uncomfortable at times is that subjective judgement is just that. I can't defend it other than to say "after considering all the factors, this is what I feel is the right thing to do (i.e. this is my belief).

Beliefs come from personal value systems and where value systems are absent or broken we get the Madoffs of the world.

Defining Worth II

Last week I posted some thoughts which for lack of something more clever I labeled Defining Worth. The point I was trying to make was that for every executive whose DNA is made up totally of greed, there remains the vast majority of others whose approach to life is actually based on value systems that most would admire.

That said, along come $400,000 boondoggles for the "heroes" of a company which clearly should have spent that amount and lots more on management education programs with an emphasis on risk management was just one other piece of news that kept me thinking about this subject.

At the same time I was still digesting the fact that my 401(k) was finishing up the week gasping for air when as you might expect through the wonders of modern telecommunications comes another post from What Would Dad Say called “The Greatest Fraud in American History”: Uncovered Last Week in Minneapolis.

The story by itself comes under the heading of "you can't make this stuff up" and is told as only can tell it. It is one of those stories about a crook that defies belief. Were it not for the mother of all market meltdowns plus an election, as the piece reports, we all would likely have heard much more about it.

Be all that as it may, when I read it, "Dad's" closing comment struck me yet once again with the thought of "Boy I wish I had said that because it really says a lot of what I was trying to say when I posted Defining Worth in the first place.

"...Nearly every top executive I have ever met sets unbelievably high standards for themselves, maybe just because they know down deep that if it is fuzzy in the pulpit it is foggy in the pews. Plus they just know right from wrong. I believe customers as well as employees can tell if a company is being built on the right ’stuff.’"

Wishful thinking?

Deciding Who Leads

With all the kudos that I have seen surrounding my colleague Joe McCool's book Deciding Who Leads, I keep having the feeling that in a few years I'll be one of those guys who walks around at cocktail parties when they are discussing books that made a difference in specific industry segments and telling my friends that "I knew Joe when..."

I was reminded of this feeling just a day or two ago when I saw an email from the managing director of a UK based search firm you simply said:

"This morning I read through some of the key passages in Deciding Who Leads! superb book - should be on every hiring manager's desk and every recruiter's desk and perhaps every MBA course syllabus!"

The Brits, as we all know are not exactly known for going overboard when it comes to suggesting that something has real merit, so even though I had seen other comments on the book, this one made me feel a good deal of pride yet once again.

Way to go Joe!