SillyGoneValley

LEADERS, LEADERSHIP AND OTHER SHIPS OFF COURSE

As I sit here and watch the CNBC talking heads prognosticate as the Dow slips below 8000 again it is easy to get overwhelmed and trapped into despair, fear and even depression. For me two thoughts come to mind that keep my spirits up. First, no one really knows what's going on but people ( for that matter all organic matter) will prevail. Here are some examples; Donny and Marie Osmond are on TV again, I saw a tree growing out of the side of the 59th St. bridge in Manhattan, Barack Obama is President-elect, a small white dude was MVP of the NBA twice, Keith Richards is still alive, a legally blind man is Governor of NY, there was a dog on TV born with no front legs that walked upright. My dog just sits by my feet waiting for his share of my meal. In any case the list of survival and overcoming adversity goes on and on and on.

The second thought I have is that you can never predict who will step up and when, but someone always does, it is our nature. We do our best work when the shit hits the fan and our back is up against the wall. We love a disaster just so we can make the shoe string catch and be heroes. Let's face it if planning and execution were our trump suit we wouldn't be holding the economic hand we have. Without even a blink Paulsen and Bernanke are ready to go all in on the river card! We as a people love disaster so much so I think we unconsciously put ourselves into problems just for the chance to be heroes. Arsonist by night firefighter by day. Give me a medal! Why not it's what we reward. The biggest bonuses and accolades go publicly to the hero of the day. "We would like to acknowledge the heroic efforts of the systems operations team to restore our systems back to normal operating status. The problematic change that left all our customers unable to access their funds for two days was solved by Joe and his team of engineers that worked for 82 hours straight through the weekend! Here is a check for $1000 each for a job well done". Never mind that Joe's change control team applied the server patches incorrectly due to lack of planning, but by God he got us back to normal! Why not Joe the Systems Engineer, Sarah gave us Joe the Plumber. Gotcha. (wink)

But let's not confuse leaders of purpose or predicament with the less compelling professional leaders like CEO's, business line presidents or elitist CIO's. I'll just classify them synthetic or manufactured leaders. These people are not evil or of malicious intent. OK maybe a small percentage are but I believe most started out as human beings. Then they started B-school and read books and scored pretty high on tests or at least said they did. They found that by taking the obvious and labeling it as unique and their own they could create a brand beyond reproach. Look at Jack Welch, the world's greatest leader! It's just a damn shame he and GE left all those PCB's in the Hudson River. I saw it on a public television broadcast so I guess it's true. It looks so clean now if only the poor bastards fishing off the bank of the river didn't get cancer from eating the fish. It should be fine in about 80 years.

There is nothing wrong with creating new thought and process to be tested and applied against the real world in the hopes of greater productivity and profits. It's just that they are so damn smug about their thought and apply it with religious sanctimony. It becomes their hammer and everything is a nail. If you don't blindly adopt it as your leadership mantra you are segregated as a weak leader, a nay say er, a Judas with a large scarlet letter on your forehead as in "L" for loser. You don't get it. Other leaders disassociate from you and tell the other Believers that they knew you were never really one of them. Who hired that person anyway? Maybe they should be punished too? Oblivious to the fact that they participated in the 42 interviews and stressed the company values of honesty and entrepreneurial stuff. As one must chafe the wheat from the husk you must also remove the non-Believers. If you check the sign on the door of the Executive VP of Human Resources, now often referred to as Chief of People , so they too can be C level execs there is teeny, tiny print below the title that says "Eliminator of Non-Believers"! The COP calls you into, almost always, her office. I guess women have been telling guys to get lost for so long and defending their man from loose women that they got good at getting rid of others? Just a theory. Anyhow, she explains how strongly she appreciates your individuality and accomplishments, but the other leaders, your peers, have confided to her that they, not her, have lost confidence in you. Why? Well, it seems to be that your communication style is weak. Who new? You wonder why didn't they pick that up during the 42 interviews? As the brain matter begins to pour out your ear she says softly let's stay in touch, look me up on FaceBook and we'll be friends....I'll just walk you out for your own good. In the hall out of view of the security cameras she frisks you and does a cavity search for your id, cell phone, VPN stick, corporate purchasing card, PDA, magnetic security card and laptop. Feel free to keep all the useless shit with the companies logo emblazoned on them. Like you will ever wear them to remind you how you got canned?

So getting back to the Leadership I was watching the heads of the three major, that's a euphemism if ever there was one, American automobile companies with their hats out looking for a senator to throw in $25Billion dollars in to start or else the whole freaking economy and free society as we know it will be destroyed. "I am new in the job", they said, "only two years, so don't blame me. I'm part of the solution". Luckily they each had a private Jet to bring them to Washington. You would think these jokers would have at least Jet-Pooled if for no other reason to use the HOJ (high occupancy jet) lane given the traffic over DC from the financial guys. It sadly reminds me of the joke where a guy is in the airport, goes to by a ticket to Europe and finds himself $0.25 cents short. He asks person after person in line for a quarter to get to Europe. Everyone ignores him until finally one kind person says, " here's a buck buddy take a trip around the world". What trip and how far will our buck go with these leaders?

There is so much-packaged leader lingo to go around you forget it's not new. For instance, what is that leader's "say/do ratio"? If you don't do what you say your are going to do it is less than 1 and that sucks. You learned that in basic algebra? You learned that from your parents when you were 5 for Christ's sake. When did being straightforward and honest become a fucking ratio. When was less then 1 OK? Probably the same time oral sex didn't constitute an extramarital relationship. As long as I find my personal "true north" then I will be empowered to live my life well and lead well. Only in California can this crap fly. When did I have to become spiritually cleansed by my whore mongering CEO to do a great job? It's probably because I didn't have the right 'what' therefore my 'hows' were all misaligned. And you wonder why employees don't feel connected? Corporate America told most of us non-union types that we are now responsible for our careers and they will fire you in a heart beat to meet quarterly analyst expectations you dumb-ass employee at will! That was 1985 after the last recession. Leaders now are trying to extract loyalty by manipulating social thinking and have employees believe in their dogma. Thanks Jerry Jones! Fill 'er up I'm thirsty as hell! They are pitching self actualization while everyone is fighting for shelter and food. Mazlow's model has been around for decades....read it leaders! Leaders have become so disconnected from mainstream thought and needs. It shouldn't be surprising. If you made $80 million last year and stress over $75k curtains for your living room how can you appreciate that saving for college is hard or paying for medical care is costly. The average person is only a few paychecks from homelessness. Back when the bubble burst I heard a leader who made millions and had to lead through the first round of employee cuts attempt to relate to the little people. To her defense she made the effort and went online and took questions openly. To show her compassion she described the anxiety one might be feeling from a loss of a job to the stress she had trying to get her child into the right school. OK I thought getting accepted to the right college is hard and a concern for any parent and she is trying to connect. I found out later the child was 4 years old and it was pre-school! Good person that had lost all connectivity to the mundane world we all live in. She probably got it after the subsequent 10 rounds of lay-offs she said wouldn't come.

We need to think differently, 'out of the box', OK, just teasing. Really we need to remember to be genuine, considerate for what is truly happening around us and remember that everyone is impacted by current events. Speak in simple and straight forward language. Not everything has to be rah, rah and immediate. By setting clear aspirations and goals we can focus on doing our jobs and finding new ways to do things better. By being determined to deliver value each day we can achieve great things over time as a whole, not as heroes. A person may dissappoint but people will always surpass our expectations given the opportunity to do so.

I'm jumping off my soap box. That's all I got for today...this was draining but I feel better like after a long run, just stinky and wet. Time for a shower. Next time I think I will get into fun stuff like performance reviews as the year end approaches or maybe innovation as we embrace change with our new President...we'll see how I'm feeling. Stay well. Later..