Feedback from the Real World

Even when you have been around as long as ExecuNet has (21 years and counting) and over that time have gotten more than your fair share of kudos for whatever, it still makes you feel good when they keep coming. If nothing else, it reminds the organization that consistency is critical.

I am happy to say that we were reminded of this yet once again when we got notice that we were once again a WEDDLE's User's Choice winner. What WEDDLE's does is to post a ballot of 114 sites (not counting write ins) and allows "users" roughly a year to vote for their favorites.

Scientific? Probably not, but when you end up on a list that includes scores of sites that spend beaucoup bucks on advertising it gives you a David vs. Goliath kind of feeling. Even more comforting is knowing that it probably isn't a fluke if your company has been there each and every year since the inception of the awards.

So, are we pleased? For sure. Are we aware that reputations are hard to earn? For sure. Are we aware that reputations can be easily lost? For sure. Are we incented to continue to merit this sort of recognition? You bet.

Hot, Flat & Crowded

I am a Tom Friedman groupie which to understate the case, hardly makes me unique.

He has millions of them for lots of good reasons not the least of which is that he speaks in terms that most of us can understand, relate to, and most importantly are thoughtful. So whether you happen to agree with his point of view or not, it's hard to say that he doesn't make for logical arguments. At the very least he makes you think.

I am sure that many of us have read scores of his columns and many more his books. What I am not so sure of other than catching him from time to time on Meet the Press, The News Hour on PBS or maybe short segments on TODAY or GMA is how many have had the chance to hear him at a speaking engagement.

If you are like me and have not had that opportunity, here is the link to a talk that he gave on his newest book Hot, Flat, and Crowded which he gave at an organization called Sixth&I in Washington.

If you are a Friedman fan, you might want to check it out, and even if you are not a fan, you still might want to check it out.

Shape Up Or Be Shipped Out?

If you are anything like me, if someone asked you how you would describe how you have approached the management of your professional work life, you answer would be something like "well, best case I would put me under the banner of the happenstance method of career planning." In other words I pretty much have found myself in the position of the world happening to me rather than vice versa. Not something I am particularly proud of for sure, but that doesn't change the fact that it's true.

I was reminded of this yet once again when I got my copy of Peter Weddle's newest book Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System.

I have to admit that this got my attention for a couple of reasons. First, about the only thing I do outside of work is to try and get myself into the gym 3-4 days a week. It obviously is both something that has become a priority in my life (I have been doing it for more than 30 years) as well as something that I felt was important to my physical well-being. As I have already indicated, however, trying to bring the same sense of priority and commitment to my professional life is a different story for sure.

That said, when I stopped to think about it, the investment that I have in what I do for a living you would think ought to get at least something that approximates similar importance to my trying to be reasonably physically fit. For sure it is something in which I invest far more time and emotional energy than I do in trying to wear out a treadmill.

I guess this same thought must have crossed Pete Weddle's mind as well, but in Pete's case he actually did something about it not only for himself but for others as well.

Knowing Pete as I have for many years, I guess I should not be surprised, and if you knew his background, especially the part that talks about the fact that he is "... an avid athlete, (who) successfully completed both the Airborne and Ranger programs while on active duty with the U.S. Army. He also led an expedition which scaled the Cervino (Italian) face of the Matterhorn, one of Europe's highest mountains, and a team which represented the United States in international long distance marching competition." a reader would not be surprised either.

The man clearly knows something about fitness in the physical sense and anyone who follows the experts in the career management and recruiting space knows that he clearly understands career fitness as well.

If you can relate to physical fitness you will relate to career fitness as well. Pete says the book won't hit the book stores until May, so if you don't want to wait, you can click here and it is available on his site.

In Search of the Holy Grail of Leadership

If you type in the word leadership into Google (at least today) you get 163,000,000 hits. Refine that to "business leadership" and you can narrow it down to 2,570,000.

I sort of wanted to see if somewhere I could find how many books or articles had been written on the subject but (a) I had no clue as to how to do that and (b) figured anyone reading this post would already know the same thing I do which is that this one word is the single most sought after characteristic in business and there is probably a strong case to be made for saying "on earth."

I write about this topic a lot, and I am not really sure why. Maybe it is because I have now lived long enough to realize just how critical it is on so many levels.

I certainly would not be so presumptuous as to try and define all the elements that come together to give us a leader. First of all I couldn't prove it and secondly I know from my own experience that what inspires me may or may not do the same for someone else.

But this much I feel very strongly, no matter what your political persuasion or biases might be, when you see and hear our new president you know that you are in the presence of a leader. Agree or not with what he plans to do or how he plans to do it, he absolutely projects the courage and commitment to lead.

I think we owe it to him and our country to follow.

Recruiting & Technology In Today's Market

Bill Vick is a name that is known to almost anyone who is involved in the world of recruiting. He has been a pioneer in any number of ways with the creation of XtremeRecuiting.tv being the most recent.

One of his recent interviews was with our Vice President and Executive Editor Lauryn Franzoni. Knowing the degree to which ExecuNet is in the somewhat unique position as a resource to both executive leaders as well as recruiting firms, he wanted to talk with Lauryn about the impact of technology on both.

While I have a bias to be sure, I found it to be a very interesting dialogue. I hope you do too.

Will Rogers, Still the Best

I wish that GL Hoffman the keyboard and voice behind a blog called What Would Dad Say aka WWDS would stop (or at least slow down) posting such thoughtful and/or wonderfully humorous stuff. But what I wish seems to make no difference, he just keeps doing it.

Aside from the "wisdom" he shares, I really think he has missed his calling and should simply start to market himself as the greatest time management expert on the planet. I mean I realize that he is in Minneapolis and therefore is locked indoors from September to June, but still knowing everything else that he is involved in it is beyond my comprehension where he finds the time. But, I digress.

If you want to start the year with some smiles, check out his recent post Will Rogers, Still the Best. I won't spoil your fun other than to say that of all the comments Rogers offered up on getting older, my favorite was:

"Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf."

I am sure you will find one of your own.

Enjoy.

Making a "To Don't" List

As we all know, it is that time of year again when whether we like it or not, thoughts start running through our heads like "this really is going to be the year that I lose those 25 pounds, stop smoking, start seriously exercising, will swear off karaoke or will stop trying to over-think my football picks."

It's an easy list to remember because for most of us it's same list as last year.

So when I got my issue of The Executive Insider today I started to laugh when I read the subject line: Making a "to don't" list. I was chuckling for two reasons; first because knowing the wonderful sense of humor that our Editor-in-Chief Robyn Greenspan has I figured this was only something that would come from her quirky creative mind and second, I couldn't imagine where she was going with it which, of course, like any accomplished writer, was exactly what she wanted my reaction to be. As usual, she scored on both counts.

As I read through her "list" however my smile became more like the kind of look one gets when you read or hear something that resonates within and you say to yourself "wow, I wish I had thought of that because everything that's there applies to me and if I were smart enough and as thoughtful as Robyn, I could have and should have thought about these things myself." It's a heck of a list.

So it is in the spirit of sharing something I found both useful and thought provoking that I pass along Robyn's "to don't" list in case, like me, you had not yet moved beyond the weight loss and exercise stuff.

While everyone is compiling their resolutions and focusing on all the things to do in 2009, I am putting together my "to don’t" list — behaviors and actions I will hopefully stay away from in the new year. So, in 2009 I will NOT:

Set unrealistic or unfair expectations of myself.

Say, "yes" to everything without first assessing the emotional, professional, personal, karmic ROI.

Neglect to quickly give credit to the team.

Solely focus on short-term benefits unless it is a pathway to accomplishing long-term goals.

Get complacent.

Count on anything before it is a reality.

Forget to network because it often benefits someone other than myself.

Stop critically thinking, but refrain from always shooting holes in others’ ideas.

Always eat the goodies in the ExecuNet kitchen without bringing some to share too.

Lose sight of the fact that I can replace my job but not my family.

Stress!

Global Trends Pressure Innovative Thinking

HSM is an organization which produces more than 60 events a year for senior executive leaders. Their events can and often are described as "must-attend" for CEOs and a gander at the agendas for their World Innovation Forum in May or the World Business Forum in October will quickly demonstrate what I mean.

One of their recent speakers was Andrew Zolli who is the founder of Z + Partners, a futures research and strategy consultancy, and curator of Pop!Tech, an annual conference devoted to thinking, science and technology.

If you are interested to discover how gifted this guy is, check out Global Trends Pressure Innovative Thinking.

With the economy in the shape it's in (if it even has a "shape" at this point, feels more like a blur at the moment)the insights of a thought leader such as Zolli make for very interesting reading.

If you are among those executives who currently find yourself "at liberty" as they used to say and are thinking of heading out on your own, you would do well to read Mr. Zolli's piece in its entirety. It won't take long, but there are some powerful "learnings" presented for those who are thinking they have an idea "whose time has come."

As a small business owner, and one who wanted to head out on my own some 20+ years ago when the notion of ExecuNet was playing out in my mind, Zolli's principles for building organizations that work came as a very impactful reminder in terms of the stars by which you want to guide your enterprise.

His belief is that such organizations must have missions that are "personal, tangible, present-focused and desirable." And he goes on to say:

The personal trumps the impersonal.
The tangible trumps the intangible.
The present trumps the past and future.
Desirability trumps responsibility.

Pretty good track to run on if you ask me.

What Dad Said

Anyone who reads this blog can guess by the title of this post that yet once again I am "borrowing" someting from GL Hoffman better known as the "Dad" who blogs under the title of What Would Dad Say.

Well, believe it or not, I am not really "borrowing" this time around, but rather trying to add my voice to those of any number of other folks (e.g. Marshall Goldsmith, Penelope Trunk, Nick Corcodilos, et al ) who like myself were asked to review "Dad's" PDF book that officially comes out today.

The title of the book is Dig Your Job: Keep It or Find a New One and if you are a fan of Hoffman as I am, you will know that what he has put into this effort is time-tested wisdom sandwiched within layers of sophisticated wit.

Given the jobs numbers that came out over the weekend, and the forecast for '09, if there was ever a time we needed to be both thinking and doing when it comes to our careers this feels like it.

You can buy the eBook (PDF) for $9.99 or via Amazon for $7.99. Talk about a useful stocking stuffer.

Lets Say Thanks

If you were looking for a way to do a bit of "giving" during this holiday season, here's something you might want to think about:

Xerox (full disclosure: I am an ex-Xeroid) is sponsoring a site that will print and send a holiday card to servicemen and women. You can just pick out the card that most appeals to you (they are desgined by school kids and are wonderful) and pick one of the draft messages or create your own, and they will print the card and send it.

You have no control over who will get it but then that's not really the point. The idea is to let the kids who are out there know that those of us who go to bed each night in comfort that they can only dream about (a) know they are there and (b) appreciate their service.

This site isn't about the politics, it's about the people.

Just click on www.letssaythanks.com and you are on your way.

P.S. And if you like the idea, there is nothing to stop you from sharing it with your network.

The Best Email of the Day Award

...Goes to Peter Clayton, producer/host of Total Picture Radio. It needs no further commentary from me as it eloquently speaks for itself. Good on 'ya Peter.

"Capital goes where it's welcome and stays where it's well treated." Walter B. WristonDecember 9, 2008

Dear Dave,

When "The Citi Never Sleeps" ad campaign was first launched in 1978, Walter Wriston was running the place, and the motto had real meaning. Wriston was highly regarded, as was the institution he lead. Citibank / Citicorp was a cherished brand by its employees and a respected competitor in the financial services industry. Citibank had a unique, authentic, brand identity

Cut to today.

Although the current leadership of the company has recycled "The Citi Never Sleeps" slogan, it has completely lost its meaning and aspirational message. The image that comes to mind today of The Citi That Never Sleeps is a demoralized, poorly run behemoth losing billions of dollars chasing subprime riches, cutting thousands of jobs while trying to stay afloat.

In my opinion, the following excerpt from Bloomberg News is a typical move by a company with uninspired leaders disconnected from their employees:Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., the bank that's eliminating 52,000 jobs after getting a $45 billion government bailout, canceled its sponsorship of a New York holiday toy-train exhibit visited by more than 125,000 people a year. Dunham Studios, the Pottersville, New York-based operator of the 750-square-foot model railroad, was notified of Citigroup's decision last month, co-owner Clarke Dunham said in an interview. That means the free show that first went on display in 1987 at the Citigroup Center lobby may reach the end of the line on Jan. 2 unless another sponsor steps up or the bank reconsiders, he said. It also means Citigroup will save about $240,000.

"The difficult decision to discontinue this sponsorship was part of Citi's ongoing expense-reduction efforts," Citigroup said in an e-mailed statement. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit, 51, announced on Nov. 21 that he wants to cut costs by about $2 billion per quarter starting next year." (You can read the complete text of Bradley Keoun's reporting here.)

Blah blah blah, Vikram. I've been engaged in a number of interviews focused on the importance of brands. Two recent examples -- John Gerzema, author of The Brand Bubble; and David Henderson, whose book, The Media Savvy Leader was just released.

According to David, "82% of shareholder value is intangible." According to John, one-third of all shareholder value is attributed to "brand.

"So here's an idea I'd like your help with: If we could find 24,000 Citibank employees willing to donate $10 each into a fund to "keep the trains running," it might give the employees of this beleaguered institution something to be proud of, and smile about. I bet through Twitter, LinkedIn, Xing, and Facebook we could mobilize enough Citibankers to take up the cause. Next year, the Holiday Trains at Citigroup Center exhibit could be "In memory of Walter B. Wriston." The fund could be set-up as an old-fashioned "Christmas Savings Account." What do you think

The Holiday Toy Train exhibit is operating this year at Citicorp Center. If you're in the City and have young children, its well worth a visit. Disclosure: From 1984 until 2000 I made a number of marketing, corporate image and employee motivation films for Citi, and produced an internal sales radio show "The Citibanking News Network" for twelve years.

Happy Holidays,

Peter ClaytonProducer/HostTotal Picture Radio

So What Else Is New?

At some point last year I saw a report on a study that was conducted by Towers Perrin and which was reported by a Canadian newspaper. I thought it was pretty interesting despite the paper's understandable focus on the the study's stats as they related to Canada.

As I sometimes do, I saved the article and put it in what my wife likes to call "a nice safe place" which translated means I forgot about it and when I remembered it, I couldn't find it or remember where I put it.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend I stumbled across it again, and while the world economy today is vastly different than when this study was done (over a year ago) the basic "learnings" as they relate to employee retention still I think remain on very solid ground. Indeed, with the layoffs, etc., that we are seeing in the current environment, the retention of "A" players is even more important.

No matter what the environment, there is great truth to the notion that people (read employers) will always be willing to pay a premium for quality.

Here are some headlines in terms of what the study had to say:

Despite people's strong desire to become 'engaged' in their work, meaning they're willing to go the extra mile to help their company succeed, only 23% in Canada (vs 21% globally) are currently engaged at work. Of serious concern for management and investors, 32% of Canadian employees are partly to fully 'disengaged'. This highlights a significant gap - which Towers Perrin has dubbed the "engagement gap" - between the discretionary effort that people actually want to invest and companies' effectiveness at tapping into this effort to enhance business performance.

The study found that companies with the highest levels of employee engagement achieve better financial results and are more successful in retaining their most valued employees than companies with lower levels of engagement.

The study clearly demonstrates that the engagement gap poses an array of business risks. For instance, more than 80% of engaged employees believe they can and do contribute to the quality of products and services and to customer satisfaction. But only half as many of the disengaged share that view. Interestingly, the study reveals that Canadians embrace a more optimistic approach to their working life, with a slightly higher learning orientation compared to the global norms. For instance, 69% (versus 58% globally) stated they tend to invest time and effort beyond what is required, and 90% (versus 84% globally) said they enjoy challenging work that allows them to learn new skills.

"You can't hire or buy an engaged workforce - only leadership can build it," concludes Aselstine. "While employees want to invest more of themselves to help their employers, our study clearly concludes the onus to tap into this productivity reservoir lies with management's ability to cultivate an engaged and fully productive workforce. However, there is no 'one size fits all' solution.

So what else is new?

Additional detail about the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study is available at www.towersperrin.com/gws.

Feedback? Thanks but No Thanks

If you had to pick one word that strikes fear into the hearts of both the boss and the subordinate or the candidate and recruiter, "feedback" just has to somewhere near the top of the list.

Sure, all the books talk about how great getting feedback is, how important it is for our development, how much candidates want it so that they can learn from it going forward, and how much the recruiter wants to share it in order to try and help those involved in the interview process. Yada, yada, yada.

That, of course, is the ideal world. In the real world if you talk to most people, no matter what side of the feedback desk they are on, giver or receiver, most would tell you that they would rather have a root canal without Novocain.

All that said, the fact remains that no one has yet to come up with a reasonable substitute inside corporations for the performance appraisal process. To be sure, there are scores of different models both alpha and numeric most of which have ranges that go from 1-5, 1-10, and with all sorts of wonderfully descriptive terminology that goes from "walks on water" to "is drowning," to "should be drowned." Okay, usually much more diplomatic than that, but I am sure you get the point.

What got me on this kick recently was a post by Gerry Crispin one of the co-founders of CareerXRoads. The title of Gerry's rant was: Who is responsible for feedback? Certainly not the Lawyers. Gerry, among his many talents, has a gift for expressing things in writing, and it doesn't diminish when he's ticked off as he was here.

Of course Gerry has been around as long or longer than I have, and so he is very much aware of the "feedback" dilemma. We all want it, we all need, and most of us hate it. On the other hand, I think there are a lot of us who are much better at what we do and how we do because somewhere along the way someone had the courage to tell some stuff that we really weren't all that excited to hear.

If we work in organizations of any size, then most of us get some formal feedback because, as I say, no one has come up with a better system to try and distinguish between levels of performance in a formal fashion. We all also know, of course, that the informal systems have been doing stack rankings of their own long before there were more structured ways.

My point in all of this is simply this: Given the degree of difficulty that any organization I have ever been associated with has had in providing feedback when there is a structured system in place, expecting the recruiting world to provide it to people they basically don't know is a dream that is not likely to come true any time soon.

At the very least, it makes the giver of feedback uncomfortable trying to share what at the end of the day is their subjective opinion and at worst, they don't want to do it because they are worried about law suits or God forbid someone going postal.

Generation A

It might seem a bit weird to be writing about hiring talent at a time when the numbers of announced job reductions seem to rise about as fast as the clock that tracks the national debt, but as bad as the employment landscape is likely to be for the next year or two, the fact of the matter is that organizations will still be looking for talent. Indeed in the current environment one could easily make the argument that the need for "A" level talent and leadership is more important than ever.

If you are like me, the alphabet soup of X's, Y's, Millennials, Boomers, etc. about which we read almost daily can get fairly confusing in very short order, and when you couple the definitions of these generational cohorts with what turns one on and the other off, it often feels like you need to do a DNA analysis before you dare start an interview.

As is so often true with subjects that tend to take on a "flavor of the month" feel, it usually takes someone who not only is steeped in the industry but as importantly can translate his knowledge in a way that value adds to the discourse in order to make really telling points. Based on such a description, those who roam around the staffing space would immediately think of Pete Weddle.

A recent article in Pete's newsletter which he called Generation A got me to thinking yet once again about the challenges of hiring at any time irrespective of what the economy was doing. What is a Generation A you ask? Pete describes them as:

Gen As never, ever look for a job. In fact, they can't even conceive of themselves as job seekers. Why? Because every job change they've made in their career was initiated by someone else.

and the point he goes on to make in this piece is this:

So, here's the bottom line. If you want to win the War for Any Talent, tailor your recruiting to the age differences among generations. If you want to win the War for the Best Talent, focus, instead, on the talent differences within generations. Why? Because the best talent-Generation A-was born in 1947, 1976 and in 1990, as well.

As I finished reading his article, it reminded me of something that we at ExecuNet have found to be true during the twenty years that we have been roaming around the staffing world for senior level talent - the search for "A" players is never in a recession.

Mike for President

When I say Mike for president I am not talking about Jordan. Actually I'm just expressing the thought that a lot of sports fans do when they are passing accolades along about one of their idols.

In this case however I am not talking sports, I am talking about America's ability to compete in the world economy - a game I think most of us would agree we cannot afford to lose and yet if you read Michael E. Porter's recent article in the October 30th issue of BusinessWeek it feels like a game which while it may not be out of reach (yet) it is one where we need to put some points on the board in a big way.

Porter is, as most know, one of the leading gurus on competitiveness. In this most recent piece called Why America Needs an Economic Strategy (talk about an understatement!) Porter lays out in words that even I could understand both the need and some proposed solutions.

I should say as an aside that it is really nice to see someone do more than just write about "the problem" (as if we didn't know!) but also take the time to try and show the reader a "way out." This is also one of the reasons that I am such a fan of Tom Friedman who often does the same thing.

Anyway, what caught my eye was not just the subject which I found of immediate interest, but after reading it, I was pleased to see that he too was pounding the drum on one of the subjects about which readers of this blog will recognize as one about which I have pretty strong feelings - read public education. Here's what Porter had to say on the subject:

"A final strategic failure is in many ways the most disconcerting. All Americans know that the public education system is a serious weakness. Fewer may realize that citizens retiring today are better educated than the young people entering the workforce. In the global economy, just being an American is no longer enough to guarantee a good job at a good wage. Without world-class education and skills, Americans must compete with workers in other countries for jobs that could be moved anywhere. Unless we significantly improve the performance of our public schools, there is no scenario in which many Americans will escape continued pressure on their standard of living. And legal and illegal immigration of low-skilled workers cannot help but make the problem worse for less-skilled Americans."

This is not to say that there are not other strategic failure factors that Porter brings to the reader's attention, but for sure this one is super critical.

Presidential elections remind me of the sort of hopeful feeling that many of us feel on New Year's eve. A new beginning and a chance to make move forward with a "clean slate." An over simplification to be sure, but it is still hard to not feel some of that even though we know that the issues that we there on the 31st don't go away on the 1st.

All that said, and since we by this time tomorrow we will have a new President elect, and since I am a bit of an idealist anyway, I hope that the president and members of both houses will have read this article and will take it to heart, especially the closing paragraph which says:

"The new Administration will have an historic opportunity to adopt a strategic approach to the U.S.'s economic future, something that would bring the parties together. America is at its best when it recognizes problems and accepts collective responsibility for dealing with them. All Americans should hope that the next President and Congress rise to the challenge."

Yeah, I know, but somewhere in the past I must have been related to Don Quixote.

The Current Economic Crisis: A Translation for the Rest of Us

There is an organization called HSM Global, maybe you have heard of them. They have been around for more than 20 years and among other things, produce some of the most well respected world-class business conferences on the planet.

On October 16th, they hosted a conference in New York called the World Finance and Economy Summit - talk about timing!

The conference featured speakers such as: Martin Feldstein, Jeremy Siegel, Barton Biggs, and Alan Greenspan as well as Carly Fiorina.

Since the audiences we serve are similar, HSM came to ExecuNet and asked us if we would prepare an executive summary of the conference for their attendees. We were happy to do it.

The summary was written by ExecuNet Vice President & Executive Editor Lauryn Franzoni. After I had read it and despite the fact that she is an over-the-top Redskins fan I was blown away at how she was able to take the comments of these icons and turn them into a document that someone like me could easily understand (and we are talking here about someone whose last math course was in the 8th grade.)

In any case, we shared this document with our membership as we felt it would provide much needed clarity to a situation of interest to us all, and since we spend a lot of time telling members that the currency of networking is information and that truly effective networking is about giving and not getting, we wanted to try and continue to lead by example.

The title of the executive summary is Understanding the Current Economic Crisis and What to do About it.

If you are interested in reading it, you need only click here.

Some Purchases May Still Be Worth the Price

We continue to wade through an economic outlook that feels like trying to run through hip deep molasses and with little if any encouragement finding its way to the surface it makes neither going to sleep very easy nor waking up with a smile much of a probability.

Even as this is written, out comes the Conference Board's consumer confidence index for October at 38.0 - the lowest ever. Cool. It's always nice to be part of a record breaking performance.

So where is there some perspective? Read on:

A couple of Sunday's ago I think I found at least some in the form of the Your Money column in the NY Times. It is written each week by a guy named Ron Leiber.

In this particular piece he did what I thought was an especially good job of helping readers to look at this mess in a somewhat different, and I felt, very intelligent and positive way.

In short, the article is about a family in Ann Arbor, Michigan who have two kids (both of whom are just a couple of years away from heading off to college) and who in the middle of a "sky is falling" environment went out and dropped 55 large on a boat.

If you decide to read the article in full you might be inclined to say well hell, they could afford it! Maybe yes and maybe no which is really the point to start with.

These are super uncertain times whether you are working or not, and just because you are doesn't mean you will be at the end of next week.

They bought the boat anyway.

The Best of Times - The Worst of Times

Be it in print or electronic, the events and the "spin" being put on the events of the past month or so are anything but uplifting.

Not that the news is good by any means or that for sure we are faced with challenges from one end of the business horizon to the other. All that is true, but there is also the concept of perspective, and I have to say that is one of the things that is nice about having a partner who may be our President and COO in terms of his day job, but he also brings to that role the under pinning’s of an economist.

I am talking about Mark Anderson who has indeed led all of us at ExecuNet through the best of times and worst of times for the past 15 years.

While it is a brief segment (under two minutes) I thought what Mark had to say when he appeared on Fox News last week might help to bring some perspective to the current goings on.

This isn't to say by any means that we are not all in for a rough go of it, I think everyone knows that by now, but even in recessions there are pockets of opportunity both for businesses and the individuals who lead them. Indeed, maybe even more so for the individuals, because when it comes to the need for leadership, there is no such thing as a recession.

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?

Defining Worth

When I talk about the quality of our Roundtable discussions, those who read this blog who are ExecuNet members will understand immediately when I say that given the financial and economic turmoil boiling around us it is both educational and comforting to be able to listen to and learn from an audience that, while deeply concerned, continues to bring much needed perspective, and dare I say it - hope.

When confronted with the headlines that blind us with one disaster after another in 60 point font and right underneath one reads about the unconscionable compensation connected to the "leadership" of these organizations, it is easy to understand the profound disappointment and anger that millions of us feel at the betrayal of leadership.

Over the past couple of weeks we have seen discussions ranging from members sharing their thoughts with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal who wanted to get their reactions to the impact of all this chaos on a manager's ability to support and motivate staff through such uneasy times to, as you might guess, executive compensation packages that to any rational being seem to be a total disconnect between reward for performance and anything else.

I wish there were space here to share all of the dialogue that went back and forth on this issue, but 21st century attention spans being what they are (even ones that might actually have an interest in the subject) would clearly make that prohibitive.

In following the thread of this discussion, there was, however, one response in particular that stuck with me and which I am happy to say its author Greg Davall graciously gave me his permission to share here.

Executive Compensation For High-Flying Executives - Excessive or Not?

I have been on the Board of Directors of a publically held company, worked for a closely held privately owned company and owned my own manufacturing company. I agree that the majority of compensation should be based on performance; but is stock performance the best measure? It is relatively easy to slash and burn for near term profit at the cost of sacrificing the long term competitive position and future value of the company. CEO spin doctors can convince their shareholders and sometimes even themselves that the near term unrealistic gains that are achieved by non-sustainable practices are what is "best" for everyone; only to cash out and leave it to others to pick up the pieces.

IMHO treating the company as if it were your own, communicating with clarity at all levels and accomplishing what you say you are going to for the reasons that you publically stand behind reinforces the values and integrity that will sustain American industries into the future and longer term continue to differentiate us from others with less transparent agendas. The correct compensation in this scenario is the true long term value added by the management team and should be able to stand the public scrutiny of all stakeholders... Being able to look employees, owners, suppliers and customers in the eye and tell them what you are worth because of the value you have brought to the table. If one can honestly apply this test and still sleep at night without praying for forgiveness then chances are good that you are worth what you are getting paid!

Point? At the end of the day, "worth" and how one defines it is among those subjective subjects that will always surround a lot of things in our lives and as Charlie Brown says "Happiness is different things to different people." All true to be sure.

Did you get far enough to digest Greg's last sentence? It speaks volumes on behalf of the thousands of those working as hard as they know how to lead organizations where all those associated with the enterprise can both make a living and, as Greg put it so well, sleep at night.