One For The Old And Jaded

This is probably another case of "Dave, where the hell have you been" but I only recently got turned on to a site called 1.00 FTE whose tag line is Impressions of a Corporate Life, and man are they!

If you are looking for at least one smile a day from your current or fomer life, I suggest you check out the site here, and if some of what you see doesn't remind of places you've been (or are) then you may well have a flat EGK.  Very cool, at least in this writer's opinion.

Once you get done laughing it will likely also serve to remind that we  laugh because we know it is (sad to say) based on truth and often it is those truths that can destroy what many have worked so hard to build.

I would give more credit where it is due, but I can't even tell  you who the clever and imaginative person is who comes up with this stuff on a a daily basis, other than he goes by Stuart - that's him up there to your left.

No reason to hide Stuart, you should be out there taking a bow!

It's About the Values Stupid

One of the real drawbacks of modern communications and technology is that it makes you realize more quickly than you otherwise might just how little you know about so much.

But just when you're feeling really bad realizing that you'll never catch up, there turns out to be a real plus side.

Here's the plus: while it is crystal clear that the world is chock full of people who are ten times smarter than you'll ever be, it's okay because and doesn't matter because (dream of dreams) every now and then you stumble on one of those super smart folks and discover they agree with something you already felt, just have never been able to express it as well. Now you're pumped!

So it was for me when I discovered Stan Slap and read the excerpt from his upcoming book Bury My Heart at Conference Room B: Sweat Time at Microsoft in the August issue of Fast Company.

Heck, with a title like that I would have read it just out of curiosity alone. [Copyblogger take note.]

If you didn't happen to catch the article and you ever wondered how important personal values really are both individually and collectively, then I would urge you to simply click here.

See if you don't agree that the time spent was well invested.

Easy Come Easy Go?

Easy come, easy go - a phrase most of us have heard all our lives, and there are a number of situations where I suppose it might apply, but when it comes to hiring and retaining talent these days, it is not something most companies want and certainly don't want to encourage.

Yet, if you look at the numbers from any number of sources, including ExecuNet's, the time that employees remain at the same company keeps dropping. Last year in our Executive Job Market Intelligence Report respondents reported they were with their last company an average of 3.4 years. This year's survey dropped to 3.2, and when we asked about industry, this year they said it was 4.2 and that is down from 5.0 in 2005.

The point being that when you come across companies that are doing really innovative stuff that goes well beyond the lip service paid by all too many organizations, it gets your attention for sure.

Bill Taylor is probably a name that is known to many readers, especially if you are a fan of FastCompany. He was a co-founder of the magazine along with Alan Webber. Bill is also the author of a business must read called Mavericks at Work. Taylor also blogs for Harvard Business Publishing.

In a recent post, he waxes ecstatic (as well he should have) over what he found when he went to visit the online shoe superpower Zappos. I am not going to spoil the article for you by parroting back all of the neat stuff they do there, besides, Taylor says it far better than I could anyway.

I will, however, share one tid bit that will give you some idea of the degree to which the company works to make sure that those they hire really want to stay and are as customer service obsessive as the company culture dictates.

The company like many others has an extensive training program for new employees, but about a week into theirs, Zappos offers any new employee $1,000 if they wish to leave the program. Some do, but the company feels that by offering this sort of "bribe" it helps them to retain those who really do "get it." Cool move.

This practice also, I think, does something else. It helps to deliver the message that they want their employees to really feel they are not just a part of the enterprise, but a really important part, and while obviously loyalty to any organization is an accumulation of many factors, including old standbys like compensation and benefits, but step #1 is people need to feel valued.

New Rules - Old Rules - Our Rules

It is always nice to get a call from a major news network asking you to appear on one of their programs and to comment on a subject about which they apprently think you have some level of expertise. The one this past week however, turned into an unexpected and very interesting experience.

I should quickly add however that having to get there for a live interview at 7:00 in the morning which translated into getting up at 4:00 added nothing to enhance the experience, although it does give one much more respect for those folks like Matt, Merideth, et al who do it every day. Not something I would look forward to for sure.

Anyway, the program is called Money for Breakfast and the segment is what Fox calls The C-Suite Sit Down which is a regular feature on the show.

The unexpected experience came about when I discovered they have a particular question that they always use to close these interviews. They call it Three Rules. I had never heard of it before, but once they told me about it, it reminded me of the monologue that Bill Maher does at the end of his show each week and calls "New Rules as well what they do to close James Lipton's wonderful show Inside the Actors Studio when they ask each guest the same set of questions at the end like "what's your favorite word" etc.

Fox's variation on this theme is to ask the guest to share what they feel are three things that are really important to them when it comes to their business. I have to say, it gives you a funny feeling in your stomach when someone asks you something that important and you are limited in both time and number in terms of responding. The fact that it is on national television doesn't add much to your comfort level either.

Since all of this came up late in the day before the show, it gave me essentially the night before the interview to think about it, something which I can tell you is definitely not conducive to a good night's sleep, especially when you have to get up at 4:00 in the bargain.

The point of the exercise, of course, is to get their guests to share with the audience what at ExecuNet we sometimes characterize as "key learnings" in the hope that they might be of some help or interest to others.

I have no idea if what follows will or won't be of some help or interest to others, but I offer it in spirit of sharing; not the sharing of advice, but of one person's perspective. What I came up were not "rules" so much as they are beliefs:

1. Any relationship that we have, either inside or outside of our business, is based on TRUST.

2. An organization's culture should be about a feeling of working "WITH" not "FOR."

3. Everything that we say or do reflects on us all both individually and collectively.

If others have "three rules" of their own, I would love to see them and others probably would too.

If you wanted to see the entire interview you can click here. It runs around five minutes.

Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio?

I guess with the title of this post I am showing my age, but what the heck, if you didn't see the movie (i.e. The Graduate for those who might not recognize the line) , it's well worth it no matter what your age.

I picked the line from the Simon and Garfunkel song because it is a line that laments the loss of ideals and values and seeks guideance from a "leader." Even in the context of the movie, it isn't that much of a stretch to translate the message to the corporate and/or political arena and the headlines we unfortunately see all too often.

If you asked around our office here at ExecuNet, anyone will tell you that I am not a Yankee fan, but when our days become as filled with Bear Stearns and Spitizer as they have recently, it is understandable that there are indeed lots of folks who are wondering where Joe D went.

With all that in mind, maybe that is part of the reason I was so struck by a quote attributed to Jeff Immelt of GE that I have had tacked up on my bulletin board ever since I found it.

When I see it, especially after hearing about some other CEO taking a "perp" walk, it helps to remind me that as disappointing as all that stuff is, there are far more leaders who understand what Immelt is saying and do all they can to build organizations where what he suggests represents the cultures they believe in.

If you have not seen this quote before, if it resonates with your value system, maybe you'll find a spot for it on your bulletin board too.

Manage by setting boundaries with freedom in the middle.

“The boundaries are commitment, passion, trust and teamwork. Within those guidelines, there’s plenty of freedom. But no one can cross those four boundaries.”
Jeff Immelt, CEO, General Electric

Realizing an Organization's Potential

One of the most gratifying things for me in being a part of ExecuNet is the chance I have every day to learn from other members. You can say what you want to about "senior managers" but the fact is that experience is indeed the best teacher and when you get a lot of people willing to share those experiences with their peers, it can be very powerful stuff. It is not only intellectually very stimulating, but on a practical level "learnings" that we all can use as we manage on a day to day basis.

We get these "learnings" from members in a number of different ways but one of the most potent is the online roundtable discussion groups. In the past week or two, we have had a fascinating discussion going on amongt our General Management group on the subject of what one can do to help an organization realize its potential. Pretty important topic since that is usually the charge when management changes are made.

Andy Kankula is one of our members who has been participating in this discussion and in adding his two cents he shared a list of 12 "learnings" that he felt were the keys his succeding. In his case, it was in turning around a major business unit in South America.

If you were looking for a one page list of how to go about managing the kind of change it takes to move an organizaiton forward, what you see below is as good a list as I had seen for a long time. I asked Andy if I could share it here, and I hope that readers here will be as grateful to him as I am for his willingness to let me use it. In doing so, he was quick to point out that his list was not original to him but rather his summary of things that he "learned" from others over the years, all of which just makes me all the more gratified to be part of a group where helping each other is what the roundtable groups are all about in the first place.

Andy's List

1. Brutal honesty and identification of the problems and why the problem exists. This needs to be done without blaming anyone.

2. Simple messages that create a vision and path forward. These messages should define the discipline and should be easy for people to remember.

3. Consistent metrics that relate to tasks that need to be achieved and the goals of the business.

4. Continual feedback about performance expectations.

5. As a leader be confident in your direction and your communication of expectations.

6. Recoginize where and what your peoples capabilities are; define their strengths and exploit them, identify their weaknesses and minimize them. Develop and improve competencies right down to the production floor.

7. Understand your customer and why they buy from you; position your products and services to maximize profitability.

8. Keep asking questions about why we do things the way we do until you get to the point no one can give you a good logical answer. It is at this time people are ready to ask the question " what's the best way to do this...?"

9. Once the discipline is established stick to it and do not waiver unless someone can demonstrate logically why we should detour.

10. At every milestone poor on the praise for the successes and identify what we could have done differently for future revision. And always keep the expectations high.

11. Create good succession plans so that people understand the possible rewards for good performance and development of their capabilities.

12. Plan your own departure to give those that have contributed to the success the opportunity to lead in the future.

Andy closed out his remarks to the other members of the roundtable with this:

After reading all the excellent input its appears very easy to write what makes each of us successful in our own situations. Living it and fighting your doubts and or the doubts of others as they wait for the results of your efforts is the hard part. You always have to ask yourself " am I doing all the right things for the right reasons?..." I think that if you can answer yes to that question you can trust your own direction through many Shakespearean "dark nights".

Any executive knows exactly what he means!

The Straight Poop

When you ask leaders where they actually learned their leadership style, a typical response is “from other leaders.” We have been taught to emulate the qualities and styles of those we wish to resemble. If that is called role modeling, I'm on board with that, but I think sometimes many of us stop there rather than realizing that other input is pretty important too. To that end, in recent times, attention is turning toward employees as individuals from which leaders can learn a lot.

I recently read an article in The Wall Street Journal that suggested that leaders turn to their organizations’ lower-level employees — or followers — for guidance. The article notes how such a strategy has worked for well-known businesses as Best Buy, United Parcel Service and Hewlett-Packard. It also cites two recent books on this subject: Followership by Barbara Kellerman and The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom.

The authors suggest that companies turn to these employees and listen to their ideas to create new ways to drive growth and continued organizational success. They should know what’s happening within the company and be allowed to make solid contributions.

The argument of course is because these individuals typically work in the trenches, they can be more knowledgeable about day-to-day operations. They likely know much more about customers since they have more direct contact. They probably also know what the competition is doing. I sign up for that too, and have to say that this has been my experience as well.

I have always thought it important to gain a fresh perspective, especially when faced with a challenge.

When you are faced with a need for answers, where do you turn?

Visiting Day Leadership

So I sit down to breakfast, and on page one above the fold is the headline

Narcotic Maker Guilty of Deceit Over Marketing ~ Producer of OxyContin to Pay $600 Million.

The story went on to report that three of Purdue Pharma's current or former execs had plead guilty to criminal charges of misleading doctors and patients, and I'm thinking that my only option is to go back to herbs and witch doctors except I'd be worried about pesticides in the herbs and Medicare rejecting the witch doctors.

About the only positive thing I got from the story was that the nausea it caused helped to curb my appetite which is always a good thing.

It also made me think about an ExecuNet FastTrack Webinar that world class consultant and author Judith Glaser presented for our members in April. It was based on her award-winning books Creating We and The DNA of Leadership. Fascinating stuff!

Anyway, in discussing cultures with the audience, Judith took them through a couple of polls, one of which asked them to select the attribute or quality that they felt was most important in a relationship. There were ten from which to choose, such as caring, honesty, candor, etc., but the winner by far was "trust." Surprise, surprise.

I know it is an over-simplification, but in our seemingly never-ending quest to identify the qualities of leadership, I still believe that it all starts with trust, and the more I think about, also ends with trust.