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 Is the business and management advice we're bombarded with
every day better or changed in significant ways?
Only a few people that know me and knew Peter Bennett may
relate to the sense of yesteryear that overcame me as a 1963 Volkswagen 'Bug'
with that classic sea-foam green paint job rumbled past me while heading home
from my bike ride today.
Peter owned more than one of these iconic roadsters but it
was that sea-foam convertible that takes me back on the highway of time. Stuart
Cook had one too but his was white. Monique Mendoza's folks let her use their
red hard-top until we got broad-sided in the middle of the intersection of
Masonic & Oak at the Panhandle in San Francisco one dark, late night. The
guy that hit us came from the Haight-Ashbury at a much faster speed than we had
figured. No one was seriously injured even though the 'Bug' flipped on its side.
Mendoza's 'Bug' died that night but
Bennett's rolled on.
Bennett was the most creative writer, lovable, moody,
out-right hilarious guy I had ever met. This time with Bennett and Mendoza, et
al, was San Francisco at its best, circa 1970. Bennett though turned dark and
Mendoza moved on, as we all did. No one really knows what pushed Peter to the
edge of curiosity or despair when we learned that he took his own life just few
short years later.
This isn't about morbidity. This is about a question that
has been dogging me for the past month or so.
"Is the business and management advice we're bombarded
with these days better or changed in significant ways?"
The sight and sound today that reminded me of Bennett's
'Bug' provided the kick in the pants I needed to sit down and deal with it.
My business 'teeth' were cut on the writings of Peter
Drucker and Benjamin Graham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Graham). My
dad's oldest brother, the financier in the family who is still alive today,
presented me with Graham & Dodd's Security Analysis [Graham and Dodd. 1934. Security Analysis: Principles
and Technique, 1E. New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
] when I embarked on my career in the securities industry in early 1981.
Notable investors alive today, Buffett, Gabelli and untold
others are listed among the many that were influenced by Graham & Dodd.
While the underlying principles providing support for Graham's understanding
and shared insights remain largely intact, few dispute that the nanosecond-type
speed with which markets move today has altered the once revered approach to
long-term, asset value investing that Warren Buffett would credit most of his
success to. That time-honored strategy is being challenged in ways Buffett
could not have imagined just a few short years ago.
Peter Drucker was (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker)
a notorious management guru of sorts. His 1971 book, Drucker on Management is
probably the first of his books I read. Drucker's first was published in 1939
and he continued to influence managers until his death at age 95 in 2005 at his
home in Claremont, CA, the same neighborhood Mendoza's 'Bug' lived in before it
met its demise.
Not everyone agreed with the positions Drucker took and he
out-and-out managed to irritate and sometimes anger those companies he
critiqued as case studies from the "how-not-to-do-things"
perspective.
Recently Stephen Covey left the scene but think of those
whose thoughts and management insights led many of us through the past 25 or 30
years; the likes of Maxwell, McKay, Peters, Autry, Welch, to name only a very
few. In many respects I've found the insight and advice that come from the 'old
school' timeless. The professors, if you will, from Graham to Covey are among
them. Dust off one of the old books and take a ride in Bennett's 'Bug'.
This is not to criticize the abundance of useful thought and
leadership techniques that have required re-tooling these days. My mornings
begin with a rapid walk down Twitter and LinkedIn Avenues. The traffic is fast;
coming and going at speeds difficult to judge. Few of us keep up. Not a day
goes by that something very new, very fresh and very fast, gives me the
sensation that I might have read something like it before. It's merely the
difference between Bennett's 'Bug' and a turbo-charged Passat - seat belts
required.
One can't help but be impressed with all this knowledge
flyin' around and the ease with which a question can be answered or a desired
executive skill set can be found. It's a fascinating time. I tell those I have
an opportunity to influence to read, apply, and share their abundance but in
the midst of all of this, take trip back now and then. The ride in Bennett's
'Bug' may be as classic now as it was then.
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid & Associates
and Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimnaleid
The
other night my wife, two other colleagues and me had the privilege of dining
with 82-years young, #PeterSchutz, retired CEO of Porsche AG Worldwide following
fascinating rides through both Caterpillar and Cummins Engine.
A graduate
of the Illinois Institute of Technology, the German-born Schutz returned to
Germany to lead Porsche from 1980 until 1988. The company was in the midst of
its first money-losing year in 1980. During the Schutz tenure, Porsche's
worldwide sales grew from 28,000 units in 1980-81 to a peak of 53,000 units in
1986.
Peter is one of those individuals that you expect to learn
something from and I may as well add, he works his audience like you'd expect
- as a demanding but congenial educator would. Finishing his salad, he
posed this question; "Who would you say a college or university's customer
is?"
That "deer in the headlight" look came over all four of
us who sensed we had been sucked into the vortex of a trick question. What
seemed to be the obvious answer swung between either the parents, the students
or whoever was actually paying the tuition bill. The restaurant was noisy but
even so, when Schutz blared, "No, of course not! The customer is industry,
it's business and commerce - the folks that use the "product" these
schools are supposed to be manufacturing!" One sensed we weren't the only
ones on the receiving end of this hearty proclamation.
Schutz puts forth a convincing argument based on the premise that
schools of higher learning don't get it. He used this example for the purpose
of creating the analogy that correlates to many businesses that don't really
know who their customers are.
Once introduced to the notion that many schools and educators, (some
of my best friends are educators) misdirect their good intentions toward their
perceived customers, the students or their parents, you have to think about
that for a minute. In context, the manufacturing analogy is also fair.
Institutions of higher learning that misdirect the shaping of curriculum to
meet the demands of the "raw materials," their students, rather than
those that will need and be willing to pay handsomely for the finished product
are likely turning out goods with a very short shelf-life, if at all.
We're aware of the labor statistics today and while many
businesses are reluctant to hire, given the pervasive economic and regulatory
uncertainty, there are also millions of job postings and opening all across the
country.
The morning after our dinner with Mr. Schutz, I spent four hours
with thirty executives, business owners and CEOs who were asked what their
greatest challenge at the moment happens to be. I'm guessing you've been in
similar company lately and you know what the vast majority of them say.
"We cannot find the talent and experience coupled with the requisite work
ethic to fill the openings we have. If we could, we'd be hiring." I've
heard this mantra for several years now. I spend more time reading the job
postings in the local classified ads than I do the sports page or comics. I'm
fascinated with this paradox.
I listen to those who say, "I can't find a job" and have
come to appreciate that in as many cases as not, it is often a lack of proper
training or of course, a lack of willingness to either work or be
"re-tooled."
This brings us back to the big question. Do institutions of higher
learning really know who their customers are? If the charge that schools are
not turning out good "products" is at all true, then wouldn't it
stand to reason that the folks running these schools ought to be thinking
seriously about what their mission and purpose is; just as any business must do
in order to survive and succeed?
Peter Schutz learned this lesson earlier in his career when the
company that employed him as an engineer perceived that the customer that paid
for the trucks and engines they built was the company that wrote the check.
They were wrong. The real customer was the person who drove the truck that sat
on top of those powerful engines. It wasn't until they came to understand that
reality that they were able to separate themselves from the pack of
competitors, who, for any number of reasons, had almost put them out of
business.
There are great schools in this country, some of the best in the
world. However, Schutz likely is not the only one in the room who is asking the
question of these great schools and perhaps your business too... "Do You
Really Know Who Your Customers
Are?"
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid & Associates
and Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimnaleid
...The Path to a Better Network
Years ago my face became recognizable to folks in the region
due to weekly guest appearances on the local "News at 5" hour with
the station's anchor. It was a great
time, a lot of fun but also a commitment that I was unable to continue after several
years.
After a while though, one thing about it that un-nerved me,
from time to time, was that frequently walking through airports, be that
Chicago, Minneapolis or Atlanta, someone from the 'Hometown' would recognize me
and approach as if we were best of friends. The same thing would happen in the
local hardware store. Admittedly, at times this just out-and-out spooked me!
THE LEARNING CURVE
As we all work at trying to adapt to this worldwide
networking experience, we find ourselves wondering about the up and downside as
we learn. My LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook pages all include a personal photo.
With the former experience in mind this was something that didn't come easy.
Then again, it was obvious that if there was any possibility of turning these
virtual relationships into meaningful, trusted relationships as one LinkedIn
'guru', Wayne Breitbarth www.linkedin.com/in/waynebreitbarth suggests,
those I hadn't yet met, but intended to, would have to be able to put a face to
the name.
Breitbarth has a good amount of advice relative to building a
network of folks you know and carefully selecting those you don't really know
as those you may or may not decide to have in your network. His book, The
Power Formula for LinkedIn Success, is on my recommended reading list.
Bear with me for a moment, I'll connect some of these dots
in a bit.
CONNECT THE DOTS - WITH PURPOSE
Joe Sweeney, the author of Networking Is a Contact Sport,
http://www.allstarnetworkinggym.com/, among a great many other things he
lives by and teaches as a basic tenet is that networking must be an exercise in
giving rather than receiving. Of all the insightful things Joe shares in this
book and his webinars, this idea turns the old notion of attending Chamber of
Commerce 'After-5 Meet 'n Greets' to
build a professional network on end.
This morning, as I decided to do every morning of late, is
to spend "A Minute with Maxwell." John Maxwell just gets a minute of
the sixty I spend perusing the latest from a vast network of great thinkers,
friends, and those connecting with one another. Today's "AMWM" inspired this blog, for a number of reasons. http://johnmaxwellteam.com/connection-2/
WHY SHOULD I?
Some time ago, it occurred to me that in order to really be
able to create value for others along this networking path, it wouldn't make
the most sense to send a bunch of people I may not know the default "I'd
like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn." The primary
reason why was that being the recipient of such left me asking the question,
"Why should I?"
Two things came to mind that would be incorporated in my
efforts, 1.) When I came across someone I did not know but would like to get to
know, if only by way of LinkedIn for instance, the default available was
abandoned and a personal note of some sort was attached to the request instead,
and 2.) When an invitation to join someone's network came my way, particularly
if I didn't know the person, my choice was to send them back a note and in so
many words, ask the question, "Why should I?" It was my desire to
know why they sought me out, who may have suggested they get in touch and most
importantly, what could we do to be of mutual assistance to one another? Those
that came back with a response have come into my network, those that did not,
have not.
Where it has been practical, say within a 60-mile radius, my
invitation or response has included the notion that it would be a great idea if
we, the human beings attempting to initiate a new relationship, would agree to
meet for a cup of coffee, a mid-afternoon lemonade or ham 'n eggs. I'm telling
you, this is what has changed my world as dramatically as anything. Take the
virtual to reality trip yourself. I guarantee that it will enrich your life!
Returning to my concern about being recognized and thought
of as a friend; it happened to me the other day on my way into an Office Depot.
Someone in my network, that I hadn't had that cup of coffee with yet, greeted
me as if we'd known each other for some time. The experience was gratifying
this time and it reminded me that I've plenty of work to do in continuing on
the path the turning this virtual world we've welcomed in many ways, into an
ongoing adventure of connecting with one another for all of the reasons we'd
like to think are good, very good.
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid & Associates
and
Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimnaleid
A company that is large enough to have a full corporate
board, or at a minimum an advisory board of sorts, also has an Owner/Operator
or CEO that tends overlook the need to think out in front of board members who
may ask that one big question that wasn’t anticipated - asked appropriately at
a moment that it was least expected.
A good board member is going to do just that; not for the
sake of being troublesome but for the sake of making sure that the operator is,
indeed, having all of their answers questioned. The operator is accountable and
should welcome such probing questions and yet, in my experience, many leaders live
in a “vacuum of hope.”
They hope the question that needs to be asked is not, or
they haven’t bothered to take the time to think out front and honestly assess
whatever weak link may exist in the performance, plan or objective being
discussed
An exercise that my client CEOs are asked to complete is the
“Five Questions - Either Way” below:
A.
Create 5 Questions you, as a board member, would
ask a CEO that could be used to make sure all of her/his Answers were being
Questioned;
1.)
2.)
3.)
4.)
5.)
B.
Create 5 questions you would not particularly
want to be asked if you were the CEO.
1.)
2.)
3.)
4.)
5.)
How did you do? It wouldn’t hurt to keep this challenge out
in front of you as a tool to prepare for every board meeting.
Board members are there for the purpose you’ve asked them to
participate in and they have a responsibility, should have the intellectual
curiosity and the desire to assist you in making better decisions, with better
results.
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid & Associates
and
Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimnaleid
Do you suppose
Michael Phelps’ 4x200 freestyle relay teammates shared his purpose, his pursuit of that 19th
Olympic medal?
One way or
another, they did. The most recent, a gold medal followed on the heels of a
silver. By most accounts that silver medal should have been a gold - had he not fallen back on an old habit of
gliding rather than pushing for those last few milliseconds, losing by 0.05 of
a second in the ‘200 butterfly.’
The USA team
took the relay in what appeared to be an effortless manner.
The press reported it this way, “The relay wasn’t close.”
Quoting Phelps, “I told those guys I wanted a big lead…You better give me a big
lead (grinning widely) and they gave it to me…I just wanted to hold on and I
thanked them for being able to allow me to have this moment.
It may go
without saying that, as individuals, each member of that team had their own
reasons for meeting the challenge but, at the same time, all had a shared
purpose and shared fate. The met it head-on in London.
John
Langhorne, in his book, Beyond Luck, enumerates certain characteristics
that successful leaders share and in his words, “They create a purpose.” Of course
that’s not profound as many have spoken and written on the topic in a variety
of ways. Add to this statement, Langhorne wrote, “Leaders build motivation by
communicating a mission, a sense of direction or even a small set of explicit
goals” and the thought process comes full-circle.
Phelps did
that. Successful leaders do it as well.
Clarity of
purpose and clarity of fate go hand-in-hand. “Here’s what we have to gain and
here’s how we’re going to get it,” is the charge that must, at the same,
include an understanding and clearly communicated, “This is what it will look
like if we lose or fail to execute the plan.” Obviously, a well thought out
plan has to exist along with the clearly defined shared purpose and shared
fate.
At the Saga
Institute, Don Schmincke has spent years researching shared purposes and shared
fates both of peace-time and war exercises. High Altitude Leadership
puts his findings in the context of what it means to business and how leaders
frequently fail to communicate and clarify this notion of shared purpose and
shared fate.
Gliding along
to a well-defined finish line doesn’t cut it. Phelps can attest to that.
First Coast
News
John E.
Langhorne
Don Schmincke
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid & Associates
and Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimnaleid
“We
hired attitude and trained aptitude,” is what Bob Kierlin, founder of the
Fastenal Company, shared with Keith McFarland www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGjkTJj295s in an interview while doing research for his
book, The Breakthrough Company, published in 2008. [Crown Publishing Group]
Those
familiar with the Fastenal story and who have known or have had the pleasure of
listening to Kierlin talk about the extraordinary success of the company and
its people understand what Kierlin meant. The company has enjoyed tremendous
growth since its IPO in 1987 and few will disagree that is in large part due to
the insight of its leaders but then they will credit the folks they hired with an
attitude and aptitude to learn and be trained. But what of the mistakes – those
who appeared to have the right attitude but in reality, did not?
McFarland
studied 7 thousand companies and chose 9 to highlight as case studies in his
book. Most shared Kierlin’s philosophy in one form or another. On this topic the
author noted that, “There are times when this filter fails and people who just
don’t fit join the organization.”
The
Staubach Company (founded by former Hall of Fame quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys)
happened to be one of the other eight case studies McFarland undertook. A
Staubach official told McFarland that the moment it is clear that an attitude
judgment was incorrect on the front-end, leaders must recognize that “If
someone pollutes the organization and compromises its values and character, you
have to have the courage to make those hard decisions even if, in the short
term, it costs the company money. In the end, the organization is better off
for it.”
No
startling revelation here and yet, making such a move tends to be more
difficult than it sounds for many. No one likes to admit the mistake to begin
with but you wouldn’t be surprised to learn many find it painfully difficult to
expel “the contagion” as soon as they should.
Visiting
with Steven Blue, CEO of the Miller Felpax company in Winona the other day, we
spent a few minutes on this subject, one dear to Steve’s heart. He’s written
about it in his recent book, The $10 Million Dollar Employee.
The
book’s cover lead reads, “When you most toxic liability meets your most
important customer…”
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid & Associates
and
Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results.
If it’s not obvious,
you may want to find out who they are.
It most cases, it goes without saying that CEOs, C-Level
Leaders and Owner Operators give credence to the general idea that they would
like to have at least one other Big-Thinker on their team. The “general idea”
is only that because there are just as many business leaders who, quite
frankly, may not be willing to admit that they really aren’t all that comfortable
with Thinkers Bigger than they are.
Recently, in an exercise with a group of leaders like those
mentioned above, the question that we first put to them was, “If you had the
authority, the resources and all of your answers questioned; what direction
would you take this company?”
Read and think about that question again. Perhaps like many
of those we asked, the first thing they did was question the question. Others
wanted to re-word or re-structure it. Convinced we had juxtaposed some of the
words, most wondered about having “all of [their] answers questioned” and
inappropriately concluded the question needed fixing. It didn’t and that is the
way it was meant to be asked.
You may have the authority to decide whatever it is that
confronts you, but you may not have the resources. You may have the resources
at your disposal, but you may not really have the final say. Perhaps there’s a
board, advisers, bankers, a partner equal or otherwise. The point is; have you
had all of your answers questioned? Let’s face it, you are smart. You are a
risk-taker. You hold a position that calls for leadership and decision-making and
you are willing to accept the responsibility and ultimately, the accountability
for the results. Even so, there is that lingering apprehension that ought to be
present for the purpose of making sure you’ve had all of your answers
questioned. There may be a number of methods at your disposal to get that
accomplished and yet, far more leaders than yourself frequently overlook the
need to do so.
Back to the other Big-Thinkers in your organization – do you
know who they are? Do you want to? Let’s assume you do.
[If you are not having regularly scheduled One-to-One
sessions with your direct reports, it could very well be that this isn’t going
to be an effective exercise.]
We asked our group of leaders to pose the question, exactly
the way it is worded; ““If you had the authority, the resources and all of your
answers questioned; what direction would you take this company?”
Most gave their direct reports an opportunity to give some
thought to the question either by setting it up as an agenda item for their
next One-to-One or by memo as a separate item for discussion. As suspected, few
of those asked were Big-Thinkers in the context of what is being sought by the
question. Most were unwilling to breakout and go Big - go fearless in the quest
of leading the company down a path that simply had not been considered. The
majority patronized the so-called Mission Statement or framed up previous management
topics with new words and colors, but nothing really new or innovative.
The results were as expected. Big-Thinkers are hard to find
but they are there. Don’t kid yourself. There are Big-Thinkers all around you
but it takes time and effort to encourage Big-Thinking. You’re the only one
that can make that happen and if, to this point in time, you haven’t embedded
that objective in your corporate culture, the only hope you have of mining the
Big-thinkers ideas is to start with yourself and answer the question. Then go
mining for the Big-Thinkers in your organization. You’ll find them.
The link to a recent Ron Ashkenas blog posted at the Harvard
Business Review online addresses the subject well.
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid &
Associates and a Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results.
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