Where's Our Boy Donny Q. When We Need Him?

I need some help! Probably not the best way to start this post as it begs the question of "so tell me something I don't know."

Anyone who knows me would probably say this isn't a question of Dave needing help, we have known him long enough to know that he is well beyond that at this stage!

As true as I know that is, at least at this point, that’s not the kind of help I had in mind.

My need comes from something that has been bothering me for a long time, indeed it was something I had thought about even well before ExecuNet's founding some 23 years ago, but for now, I'll just stick to recent history.

If you follow ExecuNet at all, then you might be aware that around this time every year for the past 19 we have published the results of a survey we do called The Executive Job Market Intelligence Report (EJMIR). 

This year's report is, as they say, coming off the presses as we speak, and if there is any "perk" that comes with being the founder of something it is that you get a "sneak peek" at stuff before it goes public.

So I had my "sneak peek" and there is some really interesting stuff as there always is, and given that we are coming out of a very tough couple of years, the data for 2011 will be gone over with a fine tooth comb for sure, so stay tuned.

I am under penalty of being cut off from my latte lite for a month if I reveal anything before our members get their copies next week, but when I read the report, I felt I could raise this issue since it is something that has been part of EJMIR every year and has bugged me for so long.

So, here's the deal: One of the questions that the survey has posed every year to both the recruiting as well as the HR communities is for them to rank what they feel are the most sought-after executive characteristics.

Each year three things have always topped the list: industry specific experience; functional expertise, and leadership skills, and while there were a number of other things on the list, these three were always way ahead of everything else.

So, when you have 19 straight years of the same result it is kind of hard to argue with the notion that obviously companies think these are pretty important, and if the employers thought these important, then it’s no surprise that the recruiters followed suit. It all seemed to make reasonable sense.

If I was going to hire someone for sure I would want them to be competent in their functional area, understand the industry segment and to have "leadership skills."

But here's what bothers me and where I need someone, as Rachel Maddow says, to "talk me down."

Functional expertise I get, and leadership skills are a whole other ballgame.

My hang up is on industry specific experience. If it is so damn important then why do we keep trying to back fill openings that become vacant because the last incumbent was carried out on his shield with another person who "must have" industry specific experience?

Point being, if this characteristic was so critical to success, then one would think that we should not experience the turnover that we do.

All of which leads me to the feeling that while the survey data show the three characteristics I have mentioned here as being so closely aligned that there is no statistical difference between them - in other words they are essentially equally important in the eyes of the more than 3,100+ who responded - that the real "make or break" characteristic is leadership skills or as many respondents put it this year "...the ability to build and lead high performance teams."

So my convoluted logic says I really don't think that functional expertise or industry specific experience are the "show stoppers" - sure they play a role, but they don't hold the proverbial candle to leadership skills, and I just don't understand how the three can be seen as equally important.

So, if the real deal is around leadership skills, then through the wonders of modern technology we’ve got it made. All we have to do is ID "leadership skills" and we’re golden on the hiring front, right?

With that in mind and as a public service to my fellow travellers on the leadership quest, you’ll be relieved to know the answer lies somewhere in the 37,500,000 hits I got on Bing when I asked for "leadership skills" or to make it less time intensive since we all have other things to do as well, the same ask on Google narrowed things down to only 17,200,000.

Now that we have that "solved" we can move on to the next problem - once we have found the leaders, how do we keep 'em because as this year's EJMIR will show, if this an issue that you think has gone away, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn that's on sale and that you are going to have a hard time passing up!

The Data-Driven Life

They don't call it the digital age for nothing I guess and further proof showed up recently on the NY Times site with the publiation of an article written by Gary Wolf who, if you read the print article in the May 2nd Sunday Times magazine, you will already know writes about science and social issues for Wired, where he is a contributing editor. The article is called The Data-Driven Life. I found it a fascinating read.

Among other things it made me stop and think much more carefully about the degree to which data plays a role in our lives, both business and personal. If you believe what Wolf has to say in terms of the impact data has, you haven't, as the saying goes "seen nothin' yet."

From a business perspective it made me wonder if those executives who suffer from what back in the day was called analysis paralysis would soon become extinct or whether as data gathering becomes more and more sophisticated if those same executives would all of a sudden become the super heros of the corporate universe not to mention cyberspace.

Seemed to me one could make the argument on both sides and have an equal chance of making the right call.

On the other hand, as we all know data is just data until someone interprets and draws from it conclusions as to how it can most effectively be used to make decisions for the organization.

It was when I reminded myself of this last thought that I started to feel a bit better that maybe we were not all destined to be replaced by R2 D2 and/or C-3PO.

I found myself thinking that while technology continues to move at a pace that is harder to follow than re-runs of trauma cases arriving on ER, that at the end of day no matter how much data we are able to draw from the system value judgements will have to be made and so long as that holds true, people not machines will continue to manage the systems not the other way around.

And before you start sending in cards and letters that remind me that while all this may be true, given our track record as a species we would not likely get too many Oscar nominations for the decisions made to date, hopefully the advances about which Mr. Wolf has written will help us to do a better job.

Those who work with us and for us are probably hoping the same thing.

The Humble Hound

I know there are lots (i.e. millions) around the country who think that the New York Times is so liberal that when you even mention the name Bill O'Reilly breaks out in hives, but that is not what this post is about nor is this about trying to make a case for the Times in general.

It is, however, to suggest that anyone who either doesn't have the time to get their TV news from the News Hour or haven't got the time to read BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes or The Economist either in hard copy, on a Kindle or the new iPad that you stayed up all night to get, you might find reading the Op Ed columns in the Times very wothwhile.

It makes no difference what your political persuasion might be as they have a nice mix of both liberal and conservative viewpoints. More importantly, whether you agree with what folks like Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman, Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich or David Brooks have to say, the writing is usually both provocative, not infrequently eye-opening and often very funny.

Not surprisingly these writers often are commenting on the issues of the day, but from time to time they also have some interesting perspectives on leadership, and it was a piece by David Brooks which he called The Humble Hound that caught my attention over coffee on a recent Sunday morning.

In short Brooks helps the reader to both think about and understand that the sterotypical vision most of us have in our heads of how leaders lead isn't the only game in town.

Living as we do in a time that seems to push everyone toward faster and faster responses, taking the time to think things through is not a bad way to go either.

Point being there is a fair amount of middle ground between intuitive instant knee-jerk reaction and "analysis paralysis."

Said differently, when it comes to leadership we sure don't live in a WYSIWYG world. All one need do is look at the turnover at the leadership levels across the corporate spectrum for all the data you need.

Successful Leaders List

HSM is an organization that has a richly deserved reputation for putting together conferences that rank among the very top tier of executive education for C-Level leadership.

Last year's World Innovation Forum held in New York featured any number of A-List names, one of which was Andrew Zolli who was the closing keynote. Zolli is the founder of Z + Partners, a futures research and strategy consultancy. He also is the force behind an annual conference called Pop!Tech whose focus is on thinking, science, and technology.

To say that the business world has been searching for the Holy Grail of leadership traits, chacteristics or themes is an understatement of the first order, so when someone of Zolli's stature is willing to share some of his thoughts of the subject, it is a list worth sharing.

In his remarks, he offered up the following as the most common behaviors of successful leaders:

• Making the top of the organization accountable
• Embracing user-centered design everywhere
• Treating employees and consumers the same
• Constantly placing a lot of small bets in small increments, then managing and collapsing them
• Leveraging ambient, unused architecture
• Finding and embracing lead users
• Investing and incenting with cash
• Investing in employees before consultants and customers
• Copying existing best practices, but sparingly
• Leveraging innovations outside the company
• Embracing a portfolio management approach
• Systematically scanning for weak signals – the fringe things today that are important tomorrow

Certainly is as good as any list I've seen lately. How does it stack up against your own feelings and experience?

Semper Fi & The Challenge of Leadership

Over the past few weeks at ExecuNet we have been having a lot of fun with an event called the Bill George Challenge.

Reading that sentence again, it occurs to me that beginning a post by saying something about "fun" in light of the current environment is probably not the best choice of words, so let me rephrase it by saying over the past few weeks we have been both fascinated with and excited by the response to an event called the Bill George Challenge.

If you are a member of ExecuNet you are probably familiar with what's been going on, but for those who aren't, Bill George is he former Medtronic CEO, Harvard professor, and best-selling author and someone who is very interested one of today's thought-provoking leadership topics — "leading from behind."

With that in mind, ExecuNet, together with Bill and the World Business Forum, the largest business event in the United States, partnered to offer our members the opportunity...to connect with the world's influential business leaders by participating in the following:

Background: During his inauguration address, President Obama ushered in a "new era of responsibility" suggesting that every citizen should accept responsibility and be held accountable for his or her role in ensuring America's recovery and renewed prosperity. With a "leading from behind" style, Obama is solidifying his position as a leader for the "we" generation (also known as the Millennials).

The Challenge: Tell Bill what you would have to change about your leadership style to adapt to a more participatory management practice. What role models would you reference? How would you measure the result to assess whether the effort to make such a change was worthwhile for you and your organization — would specific behaviors or aspects of the culture also change?

The prize: The ExecuNet member with the best response (to be chosen by Bill himself) will be invited as our guest to the World Business Forum 2009, to be held October 6-7 at Radio City Music Hall® in New York City.

Having read a number of the submissions over the past couple of weeks, I'm glad I am not Bill. It is going to be a very tough call and I know that those members of our Roundtable discussion groups who have been following the responses would agree.

All that said, I came across one response that particularly touched a chord with me, and I thought it worth sharing. If you take the time to read it too, maybe it will resonate with you as well. It needs no further setup from me other than to thank Lynn for allowing me to use it. The rest speaks for itself.

Mr. George,

In regards to your Bill George Challenge, I have put together a few notes which I would like to submit for your review and consideration.

I have had the unique opportunity to have been taught by the best leaders in the world, the United States Marine Corps. I learned as a young Private that a true leader leads from the rear. A true leader can lead from the right or left, but never from the front. Having one's employees/subordinates/whatever you call your employees, have them empowered enough to want to lead with you no matter where you lead from.

I spent 14 years in the USMC, and then entered the civilian lifestyle and work in the Human Resources field by choice. I train, focus, teach and lead from where ever necessary, but never out front like I have to be in seen to be in charge. The best leaders look just like you or I, we blend in and just lead.

I have found in my years since the military that civilian leaders without that military background feel they always have to be upfront and noticed. They have problems when everyone is not looking or paying attention to them in a group situation. I have kept my moral grounding from all the years of experience during my tours of duty, and I lead as my leaders lead....from any place necessary. Please remember, when a platoon or group of individuals are running in a formation, the leader runs on the side leading cadence/chants, not in the front, but on the side. The same way one marches into battle....

When I was a Drill Instructor in the USMC, I told my recruits that once they leave basic training, they will always hear my voice. I may not be there in the building, location, state or even country, but the good things I have taught you will always be in your head and I will be whispering direction from afar. Leading from afar.

So I guess in short, leading from anywhere but the front, is not new. It is the way of our Nation's leaders in the Military. Great to see someone is really interested in showing our civilian leaders that there really is another way.

I am fortunate to work in manufacturing in Southern California and have a great team of 17 in 4 states. I have to lead from afar, I can't be in PA, FL, TX and CA all at once. It is just good solid leadership.

Thank you for your time,

Lynn M. Gomez, SPHR

Well said, Lynn, well said.

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.

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

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.

The Worse Than Enron Sweepstakes

The piece below is something that I stumbled across back in March when the sub-prime mess was really beginning to build up steam. Now, as we sit here some three months later and the layers of the onion have revealed even more greed-filled headlines, what Mr. Donlon had to say seems even more appropriate.

Even on a topic about which I feel as strongly as I do on this one, I wouldn't normally post another source's entire article, but in this case I decided to make an exception because (a) I couldn't figure out what to leave out because it all seemed to fit together so well, and (b) I thought it important to expose readers to Donlon's intellect if he was someone about whom they had not heard. See if you don't agree that he is voice we could use more of.

Déjà Review

By J.P. Donlon

Here we go again. The fallout from the subprime mortgage mess has led to another burst asset bubble. Led by Citigroup and Merrill Lynch we have seen the financing of real estate get ahead of itself to the point where the banking system has come face to face with a heady balance sheet problem. There is $900 billion (out of a total of $9 trillion in mortgage debt) in subprime paper on the balance sheets of the world’s banks, investment houses, hedge funds, and mutual funds. In total there are 2,500 different subprime bond issues. Not all these have gone bad. But we may not know for some time the extent of the mess. The extent of miscalculated risks has already seen almost $100 billion in shareholder assets disappear. The fear is that falling housing prices will only make credit troubles worse as it reduces any incentive to keep paying the mortgage.

All of this will take time to work out. But in the meantime the finger pointing has begun. Why in a post Sarbanes-Oxley world has this been allowed to happen? Writing the City Journal, former financial analyst Nicole Gelinas, and a past contributor to Chief Executive, asks whether additional regulation makes us any safer or perversely lulls investors into a false sense of security about their investments.

“In the end, Sarbanes-Oxley has just made it easier for ambitious government attorneys to criminalize bad business judgment and complex accounting in hindsight,” she writes. “Further, in their focus on strengthening legal enforcement, the feds have passed up opportunities to create commonsense protections for investors. Worse still, the government has instilled investors with false confidence by implying that they can rely on prosecutors, not prudence, to protect their market holdings. Now the housing and mortgage meltdown—which could hurt the economy far worse than Enron did—is reminding investors that no law or regulation can protect them from economic disruption.”

Just as the bond rating agencies awarded Enron high ratings suggesting that investors could safely lend to the doomed company, critics today believe that the same culprits are likely at fault in today’s credit mess. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office is looking into how the ratings agencies assigned top triple-A ratings to many bonds backed by risky subprime home loans. He wants to know if the firms asked for and received information that would have warned them about specific risks associated with home mortgages. At this point the AG hasn’t filed any charges against the ratings firms.

But the larger question looming over the subprime mortgage mess is this: Will government throw more regulation at the problem in an effort to be seen as “doing something” when the evidence strongly suggests that this will do little or nothing to stave off the next debacle? Despite decades of bitter experiences - from Mexico in 1982 to Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998 - financial institutions still bow to fads and fashions. They act herd-like in conformity with "lending trends". They shift assets to garner the highest yields in the shortest possible period of time.

The government treated the implosion of Enron as though it were somehow unique when in fact it was fairly routine. When one strips away the Fastow spin, the company overstated the value of its assets and understated the extent of its liabilities. The only difference is that the investment community was only too eager to go along with the scheme because it was in their interests to do so or at least not to look under too many rocks. But as Gelinas points out investors began deserting Enron before the regulators took notice, proving that the market effectively weeds out bad companies and ultimately bad investments.

This begs another question: What is normal business practice in the midst of a bubble? When a company hits an air pocket does it tell its shareholders about the risk of failure or does one say one is merely going through a bad patch and things will right themselves soon enough? If one is a CEO one should have one’s defense attorney close to one’s elbow. The SEC has several investigations into the lending practices at Countrywide Financial, which has become the poster child for the current mortgage crisis. If any charges are filed one can be certain that prejudices will run higher. An Enron juror was quoted as saying, “pure greed motivates all CEOs. Some get caught; most don’t.” Enron was just a flashy energy company. Multiply by 10 the outrage and sense of “payback” at a mortgage crisis trial

Difference Makers

I think all of us can remember that someone who put us on track for a successful career. Whether it was a college professor who taught the economics class that inspired you to become a financial analyst or the store manager whose words of wisdom sparked your interest in becoming a business owner; someone’s words and actions played a strong role in where we are today.

That’s why I read a recent Harvard Business Review article with such interest. In the piece, Kris Gopalakrishnan, the co-founder and CEO of Infosys Technologies, recalled the influence a physics professor had on his career. At the time, Gopalakrishnan wasn’t sure what direction he wanted to take. But some motivating words by the teacher gave him the confidence to excel and begin a successful career in the IT arena.

“Do what you love, work hard at it, and all will go well.” That’s the message Gopalakrishnan says he received from the professor. But it is a larger piece of that message that truly sticks with Gopalakrishnan today; one that he strives to share with others — and that is the importance of motivating people.

Gopalakrishnan says he uses the words and actions of his professor to inspire greatness in his own employees. In essence, he tries to translate his energy for the business to his employees, explain the importance of their roles and how they can mold the future. “My job remains the same as in 1981: to motivate one individual at a time,” says Gopalakrishnan.

Motivating individuals never goes out of style. Return the favor and help someone else find his way.

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?

The "Joys" of Leadership - NOT

Here's something that probably falls very much into the category of "so tell me something that I don't know." Being a manager is no easy deal. Indeed, anyone who has ever had to manage a staff knows exactly what I am talking about. Over the years I, like thousands if not millions of others, have read all sorts of articles and books on the topic of managing, not to mention hearing more speeches than I can remember.

What brought all this to mind was a discussion that I had been following in our online GM Roundtable. Members were exchanging views on various aspects of running a business and dealing with the myriad issues that arise be they involving people or products or both.

As you might expect, there were a number of comments surrounding how people felt about and made tough decisions, especially when it came to having to fire people. Adding to this discussion was Kevin Cronin who posted the following:

Early in my career, I heard an accomplished turn-around CEO respond to a question about whether or not he ever lost sleep over people that he had to fire. He said that he had not because there was always some justification for the action. He went on to say that the only times he had lost sleep was when he kept someone on too
long who should have been let go earlier because it caused poor performance
and significant stress to the organization. I have found this a helpful
reflection when dealing with these situations.

I thought this was a very telling remark and one with which I supected many would agree.

As I continued to reflect on what Kevin had to say (and I very much appreciate his allowing me to use his real name) it reminded me of what I have always thought made the role of a manager so challenging.

Simply put I think what makes it so hard for so many of us is that all three of the things that a manager (read: leader) is really asked to do are things that are subjective, not objective.

The three magic "joys" of managing - hiring, firing, and evaluating.

Anybody want to add to the list?

The "Q" Generation

I don't know if everyone in the country knows who Tom Friedman is or not, but if they don't, I wish they did. I have written posts on any number of things he has written about any number of times. I can't help it. I think he is one of the most brilliant thinkers of our times and, at least to my mind, the gift he has in terms of how he communicates in writing is enough to take one's breath away.

If you didn't catch his op-ed piece in the NY Times today, check it out. He is talking about the need for what he has labeled the "Q" generation (college students) to be much more active in terms of trying to make, what we laughingly refer to these days as political leadership in America, really accountable and focused on critical issues - e.g. global warming.

There are a number of great lines in this piece, but two paragraphs in particular stuck me:

"Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall. Virtual politics is just that — virtual." and his closing paragraph :

"Maybe that’s why what impressed me most on my brief college swing was actually a statue — the life-size statue of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. Meredith was the first African-American to be admitted to Ole Miss in 1962. The Meredith bronze is posed as if he is striding toward a tall limestone archway, re-enacting his fateful step onto the then-segregated campus — defying a violent, angry mob and protected by the National Guard."

"Above the archway, carved into the stone, is the word “Courage.” That is what real activism looks like. There is no substitute."

There's not much to say after that.

Is Sorry a Strategy

Robyn Greenspan is our Senior Editor who among the many things she does is the engine that drives our Executive Insider newsletter, a complimentary publication on senior executive career related issues which is published every two weeks via email.

In the edition that hit my desktop today, Robyn's Letter from the Editor immmediately caught my attention. First because I so much admire the way she writes, but also because of the subject matter which had to do with executive leadership or lack thereof, and readers of this blog will know that this is a subject on which I have focused a good deal such as:

The Qualities of a Successful Leader/Manager

Visting Day Leadership

Things to Think About on the Way Home

The Price of Leadership

I know there are lots of folks who, like myself, look forward to getting the Insider every two weeks. Indeed, the number is deep into six figures at this point, but there are also lots of folks who may not have seen it, and I could not help myself from sharing Robyn's letter in this issue.

Is Sorry a Strategy?

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, is the latest apologist for his role as an anonymous Internet user who posted negative messages about competitor Wild Oats on financial stock forums. It may seem like a MySpace prank at first — an impulsive action from a high schooler who didn't get a prom date — but Mackey routinely posted on these message boards for eight years.

Mackey's actions were certainly opaque, and his apology seems to represent transparency. But with a recent wave of public "sorries" from visible figures — Paris Hilton, David Neeleman, Don Imus, Mel Gibson and a growing list of politicians — these megawatt mea culpas may no longer suffice. In many cases, the apology seems less about reprehensible actions and more about "I'm sorry I got caught."

While the antics of drunken celebrities, corrupt politicians and greedy corporate executives (Enron, Tyco, etc.) may not surprise us — and may sometimes be expected — Mackey's actions are more disappointing. Whole Foods, like Neeleman's JetBlue, are supposed to be the good guys — socially conscious, friendly, customer-centric companies that care about their employees, the earth and doing what's right.

They both issued very public apologies, but Neeleman's and Mackey's downfalls are decidedly different. The former faced a customer service debacle while the latter deliberately deceived stakeholders; Neeleman absorbed the blame for issues where he may not have been directly responsible and Mackey's consistently poor judgment put his company and — especially its brand — in jeopardy. There are many lessons in Mackey's story: the myth of Internet anonymity, the economic influence of user-generated content, managing bad PR and repairing brand reputation, the psychology of forgiveness, etc. But the most important is about the interrelationship between leadership and trust.

The "learnings" she draws from the likes of Messrs. Mackey and Neeleman among others should serve as reminders to any businessperson large or small.

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.

WEDDLEs Research Factoid

Most of the staffing world would instantly recognize Pete Weddle's picture from his most recent appearence on America's Most Wanted. (Just kidding Pete, but the part about recognition I think would be true.) Pete has been operating in the staffing space since before it bacame a "space" which also might say something about where his hair went.

Okay seriously, his newsletter (which is not just interesting but is also free) is something I look forward to and actually read. The "factoid" piece in a recent isssue, the opening portion of which I have pasted below, immediately caught both my eye and attention I guess because it touched one of my biggest "worry nerves" in terms of not just the future of business in a global economy, but the future of our country in general. Here's part of what Pete said:

WEDDLE’s continuously conducts both primary and secondary research on Best Practices in employment excellence and HR leadership. Among the documents we recently reviewed was a 2006 Towers Perrin survey conducted among HR executives at 250 large and midsized North American organizations. Towers Perrin asked the executives a very simple question: What is talent?.

The data below indicate the percentage of respondents that selected a specific workforce group as talent.

86% identified senior leaders

82% identified employees with leadership potential

76% identified key contributors/technical experts

48% identified entry level employees with leadership potential.
The groups are, by no means, exhaustive or even meaningfully structured, but they do provide an interesting perspective on our work as recruiters.

The article goes on to discuss and more importantly define what Pete feels employers really mean when they use the word "talent" and/or "leadership."
I have no idea if how these terms are described will finally put an end to the eternal debate over these most sought after attributes that continues to support the multi billion dollar industries that produce and sell all sorts of products and services that promise they can help us identify the DNA that produces the talented leaders every business so desparately needss and craves, but they are a good as any I've seen in a while.

We are currently putting the finishing touches on our annual Executive Job Market Intelligence Report, a survey now in its 15th year. While it has changed and expanded over the years as most surveys do, one question that has been there since day 1 has been to ask the recruiters who participate what are the top characteristics or attributes they are asked to find. The top three, by far and away have always been leadership, industry specific experience, and functional expertise.

It is always an area that causes a fair amount of discussion whenever I have presented the survey results to varioius groups over the years. Actually, in that presentation, there is a slide we use to try and drive home the point that while we all keep trying, for sure we have along way to go:

Support From The Field

There was one of those cute graphs in the recent USA Today "Snapshots" space that caught my eye even though my own kids are, chronologically at least, well past adulthood.

The subject of the chart was to show the percentage of children who are praised at least three times a day by their mother or father, and as Richard Dawson would say "and the survey said":

Under age 6 - 72%
6-11 - 51%
12-17 - 37%

There were a couple of things that struck me about this when I saw it other than my initial reaction of hoping that it wasn't my tax dollars that helped to fund the study, however, those hopes were dashed when I read the fine print and discovered that the source of the data came via the Census Bureau's "A Child's Day" report.

Okay, so I lost that one, but I could not help thinking as I kept looking over the stats that I would have felt much better had the numbers been reversed. Don't we all care more about positive reinforcement as we get older? Don't we feel the need more as we go through life, or is it the macho thing that since we're "grown up" we don't need that "stuff" that is really for kids?

I certainly don't mean to make a federal case out of this (no pun intended) but it just seems to me that most of the management gurus tell us as senior executives to "try and find something good" even though most of the time it feels like we're being paid to manage the "bad." Yet, if you look down he lists of the "to do's" in terms of what they say a manager should be doing, recognition is always very high on the list.

Kent Blumberg whose blog is almost totally devoted to the subject of leadership, recently had a post in which he suggested readers check out the story that Michael McKinney used on his blog to drive home the importance of providing support and encouragement rather than always feeling like the job is to point out how something could or should be better.

We talk a great deal in this country about our ability to compete on the global stage going forward as well as the fact that technology will only continue to drive productivity for so long. I wonder how much we lose in productivity, creativity, and motivation because of what seems to be a focus on pointing out mistakes.

I would guess that we have all seen the commercial featuring Peyton Manning in which one person after another is making a mistake or has some accident befall them, yet he just keeps trying to find a positive. The last scene shows him standing in front of his house with a cup of coffee in his hand as the paper boy comes roaring by on his bike and lets fly with the morning paper which promptly goes through the window with a crash. Peyton says something like "It's okay Jimmy, you still have the strongest arm in the neighborhood!"

We need to keep encouraging our Jimmies and well beyond when they are 17.

The Price of Leadership

By now, and given the speed of "life" and the Internet it could be that lots of others have seen this by now, but when it came to me it gave me an uncomfortable pause.

The letter of resignation below from Shutterfly's Bd. Chairman was posted on the blog written by Jupiter Media's CEO Alan Meckler.

Dear Jeff,

Please forward this to the other board members, as I do not have their addresses with me.

After considerable thought over the holidays, I've decided effective today, January 1, 2007, to resign from the Board of Directors of Shutterfly. My reasons are twofold: 1) as a technologist, I feel there is little that I can offer to guide what has become a manufacturing company, and 2) because of the constraints imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley on my having any significant role on the board.

As I understand it, Sarbox dictates that I not Chair any committee due to the size of my holdings, not be on the compensation committee because of the loan I once made to the company, not be on the governance committee, and it even dictates that some other board member must carry out the perfunctory duties of the Chairman. What's left is liability and constraints on stock transactions, neither of which excite me.
It seems pretty clear to me that lawmakers have gone too far in considering a large shareholder to be inappropriate in the roles, but it is equally clear that I have no ability to change this in the near term. My only solution is to become an outsider. I wish to be treated as such effective immediately.

I want to congratulate you and the team for what you have accomplished. You are doing a great job in a very competitive market, and I have no doubt that Shutterfly will continue to do well under your leadership. I will continue to recommend your service to all.

Sincerely,
Jim Clark
Chairman of the Board
Shutterfly

For many of us Sarbanes Oxley is a name we've heard but unless we are at a certain level in the organization about all we know is that most of those who are involved with it do not exactly look upon it as a "perk" of being a senior corporate officer.

Since ExecuNet is privately held, I am happy to say we are still looking upon SarBox as something we hope and pray will never befall us.

So why did reading Mr. Clark's letter give me such pause? Because it sounded to me like the words from a very decent man who had reached the point where he felt he had to give up. That the law written to manage the few had made Board participation so painful, unrewarding, and frustrating that it just wasn't worth it any more. Life is too short.

It is no secret that we constantly hear from almost any segment you can name the cry for leadership, and how it is in such short supply. Our surveys talk about it, the talking heads on TV talk about it, OpEd pieces from coast to coast talk about it.

Sure we need laws, even I know that, but when I read stuff like this it really does make me sad to think that we continue to invest such time, energy and our tax dollars into trying to legislate ethics.