Another year in the books (or the cloud, or wherever we store history these days). In 2015, we worked with executives in oil and gas (up/mid/down-stream), healthcare, construction, contact centers, financial and more, and we’ve helped them become better leaders who developed more leaders. Along the way, we had the privilege to help their organizations grow, transform and improve, and in doing so, we saw some noteworthy trends we thought we’d share with you. If any of these sound familiar, learn vicariously from the collective and use this as a catalyst for improvement. (more…)
Christmas is almost here! With that comes the end-of-year reflections on our development goals we set for this year and reconsider those planned for the coming year. I’d like to make your search for new development targets easy this year and do what a good coach normally wouldn’t: tell you what to do. (more…)
Disclaimer: there is actually a Steeler fan in our firm. Background checks and drug screens aren’t foolproof…
Showing vulnerability and admitting you need help are a couple of leadership traits that sound Pollyanna-ish, especially in the rough-and-tough, real world corporate arena. Certainly not something you’d expect to see in professional sports.
Say what you want about the Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, but by taking himself out of the Nov 29th game against Seattle for “concussion-like symptoms,” he took a stand that probably appeared weak to many who were watching. I’m sure there were certainly a lot of younger QBs paying attention.
As it turned out, he did have a concussion, and at least one of us is glad he’s better this week.
More remarkably, he admitted he needed help. Even though his reputation as the team’s leader might suffer, he knew the risk of continuing on a path that could have more severe consequences. If you can’t see a corporate leadership version of this lesson, you must be new to the C-level.
What Ben said to other – younger and less experienced – leaders who are in trouble but hate to let their teams down: it’s okay to admit you’re only human. What more senior corporate leaders need to share with their younger and less experienced leaders: sometimes you have to ask for help.
Showing vulnerability to your team builds trust. It’s not the same as showing a lack of confidence; it means you’re paying attention to your team’s needs, and you recognize you need help in meeting them.
Thanks for the reminder, Ben. You’re this month’s pick as our Leadership Leader.
Leadership Milquetoast
Mark Zuckerberg of facebook fame is receiving a lot of positive press for announcing his give-away… seems the birth of his daughter Max spurred him to tell the world that he’ll give away 99% of his facebook wealth—some $40+ BILLION.
Making such an announcement was impressive, and he could have been a philanthropic standard-bearer of epic proportions. Could have been.
The reality is, he’s simply transferring that money to a for-profit LLC, where he’ll have complete control of how every nickel is spent. Further, he’s made no commitment that the money will even go to non-profits; in fact, he included a statement that any profits made will be funneled back into the LLC for future investments. So, there will be potential profits. Doesn’t sound charitable to me.
Look, it’s his money, he can do whatever he likes. I mean that sincerely. But to publish this letter to his child, saying “We will give 99% of our Facebook shares… during our lives to advance this mission,” implies clearly that he will be giving. In reality, he’s actually keeping, and intends to invest entirely as he sees fit.
Again, his money, his decision. He owes no one anything. But if you say “give,” you should give. Investment bankers don’t give, they invest. Private equity firms don’t give, they buy. Words matter, and Zuckerberg’s words don’t match up. It’s not a bad thing, just not necessarily a good thing.
Congratulations for the giving-that-isn’t, Mark. It won you this month’s Leadership Milquetoast.
Leadership Laggard
I’m a veteran. As are the others working with me at Triangle Performance. As such, we have a special place in our hearts for veterans. You would think that an agency named “Veterans Affairs” would feel the same way.
These performance-driven bonuses were paid to such superstars as:
The execs leading the Denver construction goat-rope, more than $1B over budget (just a rounding error, eh?), including $5 grand to the manager specifically named in the investigation;
The doc in Wisconsin, dubbed the “Candy Man” because of his prolific over-prescribing, received a bonus, as did his pharmacy supervisor.
In Augusta, Georgia, the VA awarded some bonus bucks to a dude who quit after drinking and driving a government vehicle (one fatality), but was rehired a year later.
Accountability is one-deep; VA Secretary dafsRobert McDonald (perhaps RONALD McDonald would be more appropriate?) says the VA is all better, fixed, and would improve even more if he could just get a bigger budget with fewer restrictions on how to spend it. Wait… what??
Congratulations to you, Ronald Robert, as this month’s Leadership Laggard.
That’s a big deal, to be sure, but acquisition size alone can’t earn you a spot on our Leadership Leader board. No, it’s how Sorenson did it that matters.
Originally, he declined to pursue Starwood (they were publicly seeking a suitor). His reasons? One, Marriott was doing really well. Why mess with success? But as importantly, it was inconsistent with their proven acquisition strategy of $100-$200M deals, earnings accretive by second year.
Why the change? It wasn’t simply opportunistic, it was a change in thinking. Given the opportunity to become the largest hotelier in the cosmos, Sorenson reconsidered their acquisition strategy. In the face of new and material information, he changed his mind.And he still lives. Whouldathunkit? Other CEOs should give it a try…
Congrats, Mr. Sorenson; you are our Leadership Leader for November.
Twitter does a better job than most at diversity initiatives (the real ones). Roetter, unfortunately, didn’t get the memo. His statement about “not lowering the bar” means that he supports diversity as long as it takes no more effort than the current approaches to hiring and advancement.
It’s like people who say “I support the troops” when they’ve neither served nor done anything other than make that comment to show their support. It’s simply rhetoric, used to demonstrate support to others while taking no real action of your own.
In other words, it’s meaningless crap, much like Roetter’s statement.
But this month’s Leadership Milquetoast goes to Roetter for a different reason. You see, he later “apologized” for his meaningless-crap comment above. Without actually apologizing. He said the words, but blew the opportunity to actually apologize. He said:
“The comments attributed to me aren’t an accurate or complete facsimile, but they
conveyed a meaning that was very far from what I intended, which means I did a poor job communicating. That resulted in unnecessary pain and confusion, for which I am truly sorry.”So, he basically says the quotes attributed to me aren’t verbatim, but whatever I said wasn’t what I meant. I’m sorry for your pain and confusion, not for my dumber-than-dirt meaningless-crap comments.
Congratulations for that apology-that-isn’t, Alex. It won you this month’s Leadership Milquetoast.
Leadership Laggard
Bah Humbug!
As tempting as it was to choose a laggard from the parade of presidential debate participants, I didn’t want to go down a road that could alienate some of you. OK, that’s not the real reason (there were just too many laggards to choose from), but it sounded good.
So I picked a Christmas controversy. No, not a holiday controversy; a Christmas one. As far as I know, Santa Claus isn’t associated with any other holiday.
Get this, a New Jersey mall is charging at least $35 to sit on Santa’s lap this year.
Cherry Hill Mall’s management, the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT), claims the experience will be worth the money, and says if you don’t want to pay, you can go to one of the six other malls it owns in the Philadelphia area.
In fact, at Cherry Hill Mall, you can’t even get a glimpse of Santa without paying your money. He’s wholly contained in an elaborate North Pole scene erected without windows inside the mall’s atrium. Parents are naturally in an uproar about the reverse lap dance scheme that sounds more like a bad made-for-TV movie than a suburban holiday tradition.
Really? What marketing genius thought that was a good idea?
Or better yet, what kind of groupthink culture could have come up with the plan without ever considering the consumer blowback – not to mention the ridiculing in the press.
Accountability is one-deep, so I’m going to lay this debacle squarely at the feet of the man who owns the culture. Congratulations to PREIT’s CEO, Joe Coradino, as this month’s Leadership Laggard.
Far too many organizations spend too much of their time and money trying to figure out why their employees are leaving. Maybe the question they should be asking themselves is “why would they want to stay?”
Turnover costs are a fact of life, and some are harder to quantify than others – like losing a great employee that was really starting to make a difference in the business. I think the best way to start reducing turnover is to look at some of the causes. (more…)
