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.
Dan Wolterman, CEO for Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston, announced his retirement, scheduled for just over a year from now.
Now, a retirement is seldom cause for accolades. This one, however, bears further mention, and is our clear choice for October’s Leadership Leader.
Full disclosure: Memorial Hermann is a client of ours.
You see, though Mr. Wolterman has been an incredibly successful CEO, his departure has been long-planned, and even then he’s announced it a full year in advance. Not only that, but this outfit has serious bench strength; if I were a betting man, I’d wager chances are good that an internal candidate could be selected as his successor.
But even if an outsider is hired (they have retained Spencer Stuart for the search), the point is this: They (the Board) have choices. They get to consider internal candidates seriously, along with some of the best available external executives in the country. Wolterman takes developing leaders seriously, and he’s got serious talent in his HR/OD shops to support that objective.
There’s some real lessons for succession here:
Go out at the top of your game,
Always be developing leaders for advancement, and
Make sure you have choices when identifying successors (at any level).
Wow, Captain Obvious, did you come up with that on your own? That landmark understatement earned you this month’s Leadership Milquetoast accolades…
He followed with “Our focus now is really on finishing the projects we have under construction, getting our costs down and becoming more balanced.”
I’m curious—isn’t that what we should be doing all the time? Follow through on projects, manage costs appropriately, and make sure our business is on track? History is replete with skeletons of companies thinking their business model would never be altered. Did the Production side of the industry believe that $100 oil was forever, like the post office stamp? In the history of the oil business, when have oil prices not fluctuated wildly and cyclically?
Worldwide demand is significantly lower than anticipated, reducing overcapacity is an expensive game of chicken, and today’s oil price is just under $50, almost 60% less than last summer’s $120. Rig counts are at the lowest since we began tracking them (almost 30 years).
Over 200,000 employees cut, mostly from oilfield service companies. Producers’ employees will likely be next. Balance sheets have been decimated, or at the least damaged, making borrowing nonexistent or damned expensive. No less than 20 publicly-traded companies have filed bankruptcy (either reorg or liquidation), along with dozens of smaller, privately-held outfits. And when banks reevaluate reserves this quarter, those filings will undoubtedly increase.
So, yes, Watson… I believe maybe “we” did get a little sloppy over the past few years.
Leadership Laggard
Another easy one this month. Too many to choose from, so we called it a split-decision. A tie.
And believe it or not, I’m not even talking about ex-CEO Marty Winterkorn’s resignation over the successful multi-year VW conspiracy to cheat at emissions testing. After all (if we believe him), he was not personally aware of any wrongdoing and “was stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group.” Nor does the fact that he’s going to make upwards of $48M this year for it necessarily make him a bad person.
What I’m talking about is the fact that Winterkorn is still CEO of VW’s largest shareholder (holding company Porsche SE) and Chairman of VW’s luxury brand Audi, and Porche’s CEO is coming over to be VW’s CEO “to change the culture”. I could confuse myself again by describing the Porche and VW cronies (like Hans Dieter Pötsch who is the CFO for both VW and Porsche) that are still in senior leadership roles, but that would mean I have an opinion other than:
Ethical breaches like this start at the top. This was not borne out of some lower-level manager, supervisor, or individual contributor. The senior leadership knew – through specific words, approval of resources to commit the fraud, or indirectly through a win-at-all-costs culture – but, unless that leadership team has wicked personal software skills, this ethics breach goes way down through the Porsche-VW organization.
CEOs own ethical behavior, pure and simple, and this is a leadership fail.
And this month’s Co-Loser: since we featured Jeff Smisek’s operating failures at United AIrlines, we should include him this month as a failure… again. This time, he abruptly resigned after allegedly (used tongue-in-cheek) conspiring with David Samson of the NY/NJ Port Authority. Seems Jeffie-boy wanted a reduction in United’s lease for their facilities in Newark, and Samson needed a direct flight to Columbia where he had a vacation home. Smisek gets his costs savings, Samson gets his flights. A match made in heaven. Or maybe that other, more asbestos-friendly place.Dead-last in J.D. Power’s 2014 survey of customer satisfaction, still no labor agreement for 30,000 some-odd flight attendants and mechanics, Smisek failed at every single turn that mattered to customers and employees. I’m a diehard capitalist, but shareholders cannot be the only ones happy with a company’s leadership, and they have only been reasonably satisfied for the last few months.
Of course, his resignation means he pulls in another $5M in severance, plus another $15-20M in miscellaneous consideration. Plus free first-class seats for life. United did, however, cancel his gym membership. Apparently Smisek’s Pilates was their Maginot Line…
Good riddance, Jeff Smisek. I’d wish you well, but you’ve left such a trail of carnage in your wake that I’m just not feeling the love. How about we simply say “good bye,” and leave it at that?
If we aren’t careful, we buy into the malarkey that says we can’t motivate without dinero. Hard cash. Moolah. Wampum.
It just ain’t so.
Money has its place. Zig Ziglar was fond of saying that “Anyone who says money doesn’t matter… well, they’ll lie about other things as well.” It does matter. It doesn’t motivate. Except in rare instances of some sales compensation or specific activities fully controllable by the employee. Rare instances.
The rest of the time–it’s all you. So, what to do then? How do I do the motivation-stuff? Simple–use your leadership skills and lead.
Some simple tips to consider…
Be honest and become really trustworthy. Do what you say you’ll do.
Remember always: You are not responsible for a person’s happiness.
Give praise promptly and specifically when it is due.
Root out poor management; it’s a huge drain on staff morale, adversely affecting business performance.
Address poor/non-performance quickly, fairly and unemotionally.
Give your team flexibility, and the room to do their work. Not many people work better with micro-management…
Create a compelling, energizing vision of your future.
Send handwritten notes. Thank yous, Birthdays, Company Anniversaries, or simply for motivation and/or encouragement.
Remind people that you — their leader — are there, and there for them.
Don’t complicate this stuff. It really is this easy.
And the standards were so high, that none could abide them.
And the standards were lowered…
Terrible way to begin the Good Book of Talent Management, don’t you think? We start out knowing the sort of candidate/employee we are seeking. Of course, since we didn’t plan adequately, though, we really need them right now!
So, as we review, interview, and assess available and interested candidates, sourced through the fastest, easiest means possible, we begin making relative comparisons between them, instead of measuring each candidate against our requirements.
You’ll recognize this trap when you catch yourself saying, “Well, she’s certainly the best we’ve seen so far,” or “He’s got more experience in our industry than the last guy we interviewed.” And it is, in fact, a trap.
Don’t fall for it.
If you are looking for a cat, and all you are offered is dogs, remember that even if you get the pick-of-the-litter, you’re still getting a dog. And that’s not what you were looking for when you started.
Plan ahead, stay focused, and realize that — usually — we’re better off when we hold out for the “cat” we need than settling for the best “dog” available…
When I was growing up in Luling, Texas (population ~4,500), my next-door neighbor and best friend was Randy Moore. We did everything together — played baseball together, went swimming together, even worked in his dad’s watermelon patch together. His dad’s name was Marlin.
Marlin passed away recently, and at his funeral service, the pastor described his life as chapters in a book. The Book of Marlin.
Now, working in that watermelon patch all those years, I had the opportunity to hear many chapters and pages of that book played out in real-time. Things like: Boy, that’s a good ‘un. Both sides got to get a horse to make a horse trade. …and many more.
Most of you will recognize the latter comment as the precursor to modern-day “win-win negotiations,” before being named such by some consultant selling a book. The first comment, however, bears a reminder due to its timeless simplicity. Boy, that’s a good ‘un.
Now for those who don’t know about farming watermelons, here’s a lesson: You tell how ripe they are — whether they are ready to eat at just the perfect time — by thumping on them and listening to the sound that comes from the melon. Marlin would walk that watermelon patch (earlier lesson continued — watermelons are raised in ‘patches,’ not fields or farms), thumping every third or fourth melon, listening for that special sound that would have him say… Boy, that’s a good ‘un.
Then, Randy and I would pick it up, load it into the bed of the pickup, and move on. Believe it or not, there’s a lesson for senior leadership here. It was the right time of the year for picking watermelons since we always picked them at roughly the same time. They all “looked” ready on the outside, and seemed mostly identical to each other, except for slight variations in size or appearance. Digging deeper, however… really looking inside the watermelon, told us things we couldn’t tell through simple appearance and timing. Digging deeper, we could tell if they were truly ready.
The same holds true when evaluating and assessing management talent for your organization. They may have been in the right place, at the right time. They may even have the obvious characteristics that we feel will make them successful. But if we don’t dig deeper — really analyze the person from the inside, determining motivation, propensity for future growth, and ability to manage real accountabilities — then we may miss the true indicators of readiness. The thump that tells us, not just with visual and intuitive senses, but with analytical and logical reasoning, that this person is ready.
Only then can we say, Boy, that’s a good ‘un.
Don’t just rely on appearances, tenure, or career sound-bites; assess future leaders by really getting inside them to test their ability to wear the future mantle of leadership for your organization.
Seems we can still learn things from The Book of Marlin.
Executive Leadership Consulting That Works
Triangle Performance, LLC is a solutions-focused management consulting firm specializing in executive improvement, leadership development, and organizational effectiveness. Contact us today to get started on your journey to improving your leadership skills.
Fair. noun \ˈfer\ Comes to town each year with ferris wheels and bumper cars, serving cotton candy, snow cones and, if you’re lucky, beer.
One thing I find myself telling newer managers (and almost all newer HR professionals) is this: It’s not about being fair. It’s about equity and being consistent.
In other words, we are under no compunction to treat each employee the same. In fact, I would strongly advise against anything that looked like “identical treatment for all.”
Why? Your “A” players would hate it, and your “mediocre” employees would love it. Whom would you rather satisfy??
Consistent, equitable treatment means that identical circumstances, with identical people, track records, etc., should be treated similarly. For instance: “A” employee with 10 years employment, who’s never missed a day of work for illness, is out for 4 days due to pneumonia. Your policy says anything over 3 days, they should file for short-term disability, since paid-time-off is unavailable. What do you do?
If you want a retained, loyal, hard-working “A” player to know you “give a heck,” you pay him or her as if nothing ever happened. They tell you “thank you,” you say “you’re welcome,” and we all go back to work.
Do that with a mediocre performer? Not on your life. It wouldn’t be equitable, though the mediocre performer would feel that would be “fair.” Frankly, I don’t care what they think.
Don’t let anyone convince you that we must treat all employees the same. Nothing could be further from the truth.
e who says money doesn’t matter… well, they’ll lie about other things as well.” It does matter. It doesn’t motivate. Except in rare instances of some sales compensation or specific activities fully controllable by the employee. Rare instances.
