March 19, 2007
Memo To Journalists: Move From Reporting Ideology to Reporting On Problem Solving
There are many explanations for the flight over the past decade or so of journalists toward reporting about ideology. Among them, of course, is the chicken-and-egg spiral whereby political discourse shifts to 'either/or', 'on/off', 'my way or the highway' presentation and appeal that, in turn, influences journalists to report about the horse race of 'which ideology is winning' that, then, encourages and reinforces the thread bare 'either/or-ism' of the political discourse. In addition, though, are many, many other factors too numerous to list in this post. But, just to illustrate; there's also the incredible, geometric expansion of subject matter, the traumatic shifts in the economic and other realities of journalism and news businesses in this new information/web age of ours, and the rapid drift toward celebrity as a means of competition both for journalists' own careers and for the businesses that employ them. In response to all of these are some clear patterns of how journalists now practice their craft. One, for example, is what I call 'press release' journalism: simply printing the press releases of others and calling it reporting. (My far too subtle intended irony here has to do with the interpretation where journalists 'press the release button --that is, release themselves from their best values and aspirations to actually inform us -- which would take some work -- instead of merely being parrots.)
It's been years now since we've all learned to expect and experience the 'he said, she said' form of what passes for jounalistic balance in this new world of press release journalism. No matter how outrageous any ideological position, the minimal obligation of journalists seems to be met by merely including any comment from anyone who opposes that position. Among the many ways this hollows out journalism, much like termites eat away at a house, is that it eliminates any threshold of accuracy. So long as someone can be quoted, it matters not that the quoted statement is devoid of any fact. We've seen this time and again with regard to Valerie Plame's job status as a covert agent. We see it time and again with regard to creationism, the WMD lies that led to the Iraq disaster, the either/or journalism about No Child Left Behind and more.
Put differently, in a world and culture that spins out of control toward politicizing everything into a black-and-white loyalty test regarding ideology and identity, there becomes no room left for actual problem solving -- for actually trying to do anything about anything. Karl Rove triumphs. All journalists are branded as right v left or, more likely, supporters of Bush and the Republicans versus supporters of the 'left', the 'Democrats, of 'Satan' and of our 'enemies'.
Note again, please, how easy this makes the job of a journalist. The articles basically write themselves. And, the obligation to actually think for one self and to learn about the issues disappears.
None of which is to say that this description matches the best aspirations, the real concerns, the private lives or the truly professional best efforts of most journalists. From my experience, most journalists I know would prefer a better, more constructive way of moving forward into the 21st century. And, I'm guessing, most journalists I don't know would too.
We're dealing with issues of profound change. And, among them, are the challenges of shifting course within the context of jobs and organizations. That's very hard. At a minimum it entails taking risks to do things differently -- risks that affect job security, friendships within the organization, and sense of self. In most organizations, the 'either/or' aspects of our culture can rapidly become 'either/or' loyalty tests or career risks -- perhaps because they really are; or, more likely, perhaps because there is a perception that the "CEO" will come down hard on any risk takers. (Such perceptions, by the way, are as often mistaken as they are correct.)
Changing 'the way we do things around here' within any organization is very difficult. It is one explanation for why new entrants often take market share away from existing players -- at least until the existing players get the message and begin to recast themselves accordingly.
This is now happening in journalism. New players -- blogs, crowdsourcing journalism, citizen journalism, user generated content and more -- are moving quickly and independently toward taking advantage of a core new reality: the essential 'many-to-many' nature of our webbified world.
News organizations that, over the decades stretching from the 1970s to early 2000s, adjusted and grew based on a 'one-to-many' world, today have decades of skills, instincts, processes and economics that don't fit a 'many-to-many' world. This was shocking news to most of these organizations -- and, for the most part, even a year or so ago, most were in denial. Now, across this country, news businesses are rapidly moving from denial to doing something about it.
As they do, I've got a recommendation. Put a stop to 'press release' journalism. Put a stop to reporting about the horse race between a well defined ideology (Rovian Republicanism) and the assumed ideology in opposition (which, by the way, as every single one of us knows is and has also been defined by Rove).
Put a stop to this. And, instead, start to explore and learn journalism oriented to reporting about 'problem solving' -- that is, journalism that seeks to report on and inform people about options worth considering for how to move forward against the many challenges we face as a people.
In this 'problem solving' journalism, there will be no 'totally right answers'. Rather, there will be approaches that 'work sometimes'. And the job of journalists will be to help us figure out when various solutions work and when they don't. (And, yes, also what those promoting any solution have to gain personally -- that is, sources of self-interest that might or might not reach beyond objectivity.)
To take just one example, consider charter schools. Charter schools really do work sometimes. And, at other times they do not work. And, yet still in other situations, charter schools can exacerbate and make worse various ills. In a world where journalists report on education, they'll help us distinguish among the three cases -- unlike today where far too many articles one reads basically present a 'balance' between those who claim, "Charter schools are right!' and "Charter schools are wrong!"
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:41 PM | PermalinkMarch 17, 2007
What Does The Republican Party Brand Really Stand For?
What can we tell from how we experience the actual behavior of the Republican Party about the values Republicans really stand for? We are aware of a series of beliefs that the Republican Party wishes to include in the brand it markets and sells to Americans (and the world). And, let's be clear, political parties -- like companies -- need to have clear brands in our new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families. The issue we're putting on the table is about how actual behavior matches those branded beliefs.
In this regard, let's review how the best organizations think about and use brand. There are three phases:
Brand Promise: Using a set of clear beliefs, the best organizations promise behavior that matches those beliefs
Brand Delivery: How the best organizations go forward with products, services, information, distribution, customer service, technology, and more to deliver against the promises made.
Brand Experience: How the customers, investors and others experience what gets delivered -- that is, whether the promise, the delivery and the actual experience match up and reinforce one another.
Recently, for example, Howard Schultz, the brand mastermind who runs Starbucks, sent a memo to his senior executives asking aloud about whether Starbucks efforts to streamline stores (and increase revenues and profits) had damaged certain key aspects of the brand promise: 'romance' and 'theater'.
By stocking prepackaged coffee and using automated machines, Schultz worried that the brand delivery shifted from the promise of 'romance' and 'theater' to the experience of -- my words -- your basic retail grocery store-like assembly line.
"Romance" and 'theater' may be difficult to deliver on in ways that create the intended customer experiences. But, if Starbucks chooses those beliefs and promises to be core to their brand promise, then, as Schultz alerts the executives, it's incumbent on Starbucks employees up and down the company and all across the world to take steps that do the best job possible of delivering against those promises.
The Republican Party has a set of core beliefs with which it has branded what it promises America. These include small government, efficient government, fiscal responsibility, family values, defending America, prosperity through individual opportunity, low taxes and so on.
But, all Americans of all political stripes -- and especially Americans who belong to the Republican Party - need to ask whether the brand delivery and brand experience match up with these brand promises.
What happens to companies can also happen to political parties -- indeed, any organization in this new world of ours. At some point, if the brand delivery and brand experience radically contradict the brand promise, then the customers (in this case, voters), the investors (in this case, contributors) and even the employees (in this case those who work and volunteer for the Republican Party) will actually look at the delivery and the experience to define the brand of the Party and not to the promises themselves.
If, for example, Starbucks fulfills Howard Schultz's worst fears and focuses so much on efficiency and profits that it's coffee -- and the experience of being in one of it's stores -- has zero to do with romance and zero to do with theater, then Starbucks will be branded by customers, investors and, again, even employees as 'just another coffee company'.
This is the reality of managing brands in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families.
And this reality applies to the Repubican Party.
Many news organizations, pollsters, political professionals and other insiders can (and will) continue to monitor the Republican Party's brand solely at the level of promise. In this sense, they can report on and talk about promises, promises, promises -- as if those were -- as in the now ancient days of marketing the only thing that mattered.
But, while they are essentially just talking to themselves about tautologies ("The Republican Party stands for family values because The Republican Party stands for family values!"), an ever increasing number of voters, contributors, volunteers and employees who live in the rest of this new 'real world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and famliies' will persistently -- that is daily and weekly -- bump up against the actual delivery and experience that -- if they radically contradict the promises-- reach a tipping point that then brands the Repubican Party in ways that will be extraordinarily difficult to reverse because -- well, because promises of reversing them will sound like 'promises, promises'.
All of which is to say: Take a moment and reflect on the brand promises of the Republican Party and then ask, what do you observe about how the Party delivers on those promises as well as how you and people you know experience what the Republican Party really stands for.
Do this and, if you can put aside partisanship of any kind (pro or con) -- if you are capable of that -- then try to objectively observe: What's the current real brand of the Republican Party?
November 25, 2006
Day Of Reckoning
The United States remains one of the rare -- and certainly the largest -- pharmacuetical markets where government has refused to step in to curb pricing and other practices. Defenders of these practices point to the ideological instruction of shareholder value extremism: we must have free markets in which companies use profits and capital to innovate through research and development that, in turn, bring us ever new and more effective pharmaceuticals. The problem, of course, is when any single answer -- in this case profits and shareholder value -- is repeatedly used like a catechism without reference to it's actual, fact based effects, even the constructive aspects become emptied of all reason, all possibility.
Should we construct our affairs so that pharmaceutical companies make profits and offer an attractive return to those who provide them capital?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Should we construct our affairs so that pharmaceutical companies drive profitability through kick-back like rewards to doctors who promote their high priced drugs, research and development trials conducted without oversight by independent agencies with sufficient resources to maintain objectivity, campaign funding provided to politicians (who declare themselves anti-science) in exchange for extending legalized monopolies needed to support high prices, product development processes that favor marginal advances on existing drugs over fundamentally new drugs (including life-style drugs instead of life-saving drugs), marketing and advertising campaigns that draw attention toward life-style and away from real need, and, finally, legislation that sets up complexly regulated distribution of drugs to older folks who neither themselves (nor their adult children) can even ever hope to understand -- and all because each and every one of these practices and more help pharmaceutical companies do in the United States what they cannot do elsewhere: make unsustainable profits?
Should we continue to allow all of these usurious and unethical practices?
No.
The free market crowd of zealots have become so detached from the facts on the ground about how markets actually operate that it comes as no surprise that Big Pharma is gearing up to fight against allowing for the free market importation of lower priced drugs from Canada.
Here's the problem. If you're an executive in a Big Pharma company, you know that the United States market is your last, best hope for sustaining unethcially high prices and shareholder value. Why? Because other markets are now 'off limits' to such practices because the governments in those marekts have chosen to blend their concern for Big Pharma profitability with their concern for the health and well being of all of their citizens (not just the top 10%).
For the red meat eating ideologues out there, please re-read: these governments blend their concern for profits and people. Blend. They do not prevent or advocate or wish that Big Pharma become indigent groups operating at unsustainable losses.
No. They wish for and hope and listen to reason to help Big Pharma and all private sector companies make profits -- reasonable and sustainable profits. Because that's how markets work.
But, these other governments -- unlike the government of the United States -- have said "No" to single answer, shareholder value extremisim. They know that this form of extortion is no more sustainable than continual, persistent losses.
So, if you're a Big Pharma exec and you look at the markets around the world and you see that, for the most part, your profits will be hemmed in except for one -- the US -- then what do you do?
You put the peddle to the metal in the US and do whatever it takes to drive as much profitablity as possible out of this last 'frontier'. Do the math! If you have 10 markets and 9 of them -- at best -- would produce, say, 10% return on investment while your financial markets are 'demanding' you maintain 25% in total -- then you better get a heckuva lot higher profitability out of that 10th market if you hope to make the total performance meet these expectations.
So, when a mid-term election shifts Congress from R to D, and the D group knows there's not much reality left to what we used to refer to as 'middle class' -- quick fact: the top 1% in this nation have 40% of the assets and they can definitely afford the high prices of Big Pharma's US market drugs while the lowest 60% of families have 1% of the assets and cannot -- and this D group identifies the free market idea of importing lower priced drugs -- well then the 'free market' Rs and their Big Pharma paymasters are going to go to work quickly to ensure that free market thinking like the D's offer do not imperil the 'free market' profits of the status quo.
November 11, 2006
Note To Joe Nocera: Almost There
Joe Nocera of the The NY Times visited the annual Corporate Social Responsibility conference this past week and came away dazzled by the paradoxes. The contradictions would have been hard to miss. For example, what must Joe have wondered as he spoke to Exxon Mobil's and Chevron's corporate social responsibility representative the week following the Stern Report catalogue of the catastrophic risks of continuing to treat environmental damage as an externality. Ditto for Pfizer's 'do-gooder' who, as a person undoubtedly seeks to better human kind and cannot be held individually accountable for his company's maniacal focus on bottom line practices such as kick-back like rewards for doctors who push Pfizer products, research and development trials conducted without objective oversight, campaign funding to politicians who support extending legalized monopoly, product development efforts aimed at minor improvements over fundamental innovation, and marketing campaigns that draw attention away from health risks while misleading consumers about the actual costs of new drugs.
Ditto for Ford Motor Company -- whose advertising mantras for years and years (e.g. "No Boundaries") use the imagery of pristine environmental experiences to push gas guzzling SUVs. Or, how about General Electric? Having fouled the Hudson River for decades, GE poured tens millions of dollars into delaying court-ordered cleanup and miselading the public about it's actions because, from a shareholder point of view, the costs incurred in delay outweighed the costs of the clean up. McDonalds? The same week it's representative chatted about the company's sense of social responsibilty at the NY City confab, McDonalds was also funding the effort to fight a NY City ordinance banning transfats.
The list could go on. Joe could not avoid the paradoxes. When, for example, the McDonald's rep claimed corporate social responsibility is "core to the way we do business", Joe noted: "You could wonder about that."
Nocera picked up this theme again in his conclusion. Having ceaselessly breathed in paradox and contradiction, Joe opined that for companies to become substantively responsible -- as opposed to PR-oriented "responsible" -- would demand all responsible values become core to those companies' business models.
Hurrah for Joe! He is dead on correct. Now, Joe, go back, re-read and re-think this declarative statement you make earlier in the article:
"Do shareholders come first -- above other stakeholders (another favorite buzzword at the conference... encompassing customers, employees, activists and so on)? Of course."
Joe, Joe, Joe. There can never -- never -- be fundamental change to the core business models if shareholders come first and their concerns are the trump card of any discussion. Never.
But, Joe, listen up carefully. This last comment does not reflect today's either/or orthodoxy. The orthodoxy embedded in your all-too-facile "of course". The orthodoxy that insists that either the shareholder comes first. Or the shareholder comes last.
No. The shareholder cannot come last. We saw a long run of the poor consequences from the 1950s through the 1980s of what happens when the shareholder came last. We must pursue shareholder value. We must celebrate shareholder value.
But we must not make shareholder value the trump card of all human affairs conducted by business -- especially if we, as I think we should, choose capitalism as an essential philosophy for the well being of the planet.
Joe, if you are to help us change the core business models then you've got to erase your robocall "Of course" about the primacy of shareholder value. You've got to think again and somehow, some way discover the more profound declaration that the shareholder, like other core constituencies, must abide in equivalency of importance. The shareholder does not come first. Nor does the customer come first. Nor does the employee come first.
The shareholder does not come last. Nor does the customer come last. Nor does the employee come last.
Sustainable and ethical corporations must shift their core business models to this formulation: "Shareholders provide opportunities to the people of the enterprise and their partners to deliver both value and values to customers who generate returns to shareholders who provide opportunities to the people of the enterprise and their partners to deliver both value and values to customers who generate returns to shareholders who..... and on and on."
That is an ethical and sustainable scorecard. And it reflects this unprecedented and undeniable fact of the 21st century human condition: we live in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families in which our organizations are the new communities that determine the fate of our planet. Our primary ethical challenge can only be met when organizations reintegrate our legitimate concern for value with our equally legitimate concern for other values. Failing this, our most dominant organizations -- for-profit enterprises -- will continue putting value first and, thereby, continue propelling our global society toward social, environmental, political and economic disasters.
Joe, consider only this illogical aspect of your all-too-easy-and-orthodox "of course": Who are these shareholders who come first? I'm imagining you are a shareholder. But, let me ask this, are you a customer? Are you an employee?
Put differently, does Joe Nocera the human being come first? Or, do your concerns only matter to the extent that you happen to own stock in one more enterprises?
Should we put one of our dominant shared roles (investor) above the other dominant shared roles of our new age of human kind (employee, customer, family member, friend)? And where does that leave the extraordinary number of folks on this planet who are not investors?
Joe, if we wish to take your constructive insight about changing core business models as an essential condition to the fate of this planet, then we must move beyond either/or-ism to both/and. We must not elevate any role to trump card status while also avoiding subordinating any role as a last concern.
We must learn to practice the new golden rule: "As employees do unto others as customers, investors, family members and friends what we would have them do as employees to us as customers, investors, family members and friends."
When the employees and executives of Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, Ford, General Electric and McDonalds begin practicing this golden rule in earnest, we'll all witness social responsibility (as well as environmental, medical, legal, political, technical, family, spiritual and economic responsibility) blended into the daily lives of those who make, sell, distribute and service the many good things we depend on for leading our lives.
We will experience and have good things to have that are truly 'good'.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:44 PM | PermalinkNovember 08, 2006
Moving The Foul Lines
This past Sunday, the local newspaper endorsed the incumbent Congressman John Sweeney against his challenger Kirsten Gillibrand. Throughout his career in politics, Sweeney has repeatedly behaved in ways that raise questions about his character -- incidents suggestive of problems with alcohol, a variety of questionable fundraising and lobbying practices, and violent behavior -- including a report of domestic violence in December 2005. He has never, however, been charged with any specific crime.
He did, though, rise within the Republican-controlled Congress. As the endorsing editorial noted, he held a position of power that could benefit bringing home the bacon to his district. And, with regard to Iraq, the endorsing editors noted that, while Sweeney has voted with Bush, he had recently questioned the wisdom of some of the choices made by the Bush Administration.
On the other hand, the endorsing editors went on to point out Ms. Gillibrand had lived much of her adult life outside the Congressional district and had failed to run for a more local office.
The day after the endorsement, a group of leaders met with the endorsing editors to criticize their choice -- mostly because of Sweeney's domestic violence incident -- an incident that Sweeney first denied, then acknowledged, then denied, then acknowledged, then refused to cooperate with.
The endorsing editors told their visitors that, while they appreciated their concern, they believed they had made the correct endorsement because Sweeney has not been charged with any crime.
So, there we have it. The foul lines on what is permissable to consider about questions of character -- at least for sitting members of Congress who have power to bring home the bacon -- has moved. If you are a challenger, you can be judged not ready for office because you've lived most of your adult life outside the district and you haven't earned higher office by holding more local office. If, however, you are a powerful, sitting member of Congress, you deserve re-election so long as you haven't been charged with any crime.
October 01, 2006
Value versus Values
From Der Spiegel in Germany:
"In its report on Afghanistan, CorpWatch - a U.S.-based corporate watchdog - concluded that the companies were more interested in making money than helping the people. Thousands of foreign experts have been dispatched to Afghanistan.
The consulting firms in Kabul have been given multi-million-dollar budgets from their governments to establish a central bank and three ministries: Finance, Justice and Commerce. They have also been tasked with slowing poppy cultivation and finding alternative sources of income for the farmers. Their remit further extends to building schools, roads and hospitals.
{snip}
American taxpayers would be stunned to hear where their tax dollars were actually going, the CorpWatch report says: beyond being wasted on failed projects, it helped pay for "contractors' prostitutes and imported cheeses." The CorpWatch investigators spent months monitoring the flow of international funds and concluded that business-savvy representatives of donor nations rather than Afghans were the real beneficiaries.
The U.S. government lavished $150 million on the private security firm DynCorp. Its mission: to close down Afghanistan's poppy fields. Ninety Americans and 550 Afghans set about the task. The result: thousands of extremely irate farmers who - despite having their crops destroyed - were denied realistic compensation.
The Rendon Group from Washington, D.C. was charged with winning public support for the United States and its military in Afghanistan. According to CorpWatch, the PR firm - which reportedly has close ties to the Bush administration - has received contracts worth more than $56 million since September 11, 2001. It has failed miserably in Afghanistan: never before have the Americans and their allies been as unpopular as they are today.
The euphoria that greeted Americans in Kabul on Nov. 13, 2001 has long been replaced by suspicion. Today many Afghans regard the erstwhile liberators as occupiers."
All of which begs these questions:
What do the people who work at these companies really stand for?
What do the people who work in the government organizations that hire these companies really stand for?
September 02, 2006
The Size Of The Pie And The Share Of The Pie
For those who have the courage and wisdom to pay attention, among the most important contributions of the now decades-old quality movement in the contemporary business world is it's demonstration of 'both/and' thinking and acting. When people adopt and pursue shared purposes built on 'both/and' principles, they identify and articulate two or more objectives that are in constant tension with one another. For example, within the broader field of quality, an organization might pursue both fewer errors or defects and faster speed of delivery. These two objectives struggle with one another. A group pursuing only speed has an easier, less constrained set of solutions than the group pursuing both speed and fewer defects because the former can simply speed things up and accept more errors.
The benefits of both/and approaches, though, go far deeper than the stated objectives themselves because they support and promote effort that is more fully human -- more challenging and, therefore, more creative and more fulfilling. While elitists might disdain the deeper meaning within the work of a team of folks at the front lines of a company pursuing both speed and fewer defects, the people on the team itself will and do report that with success comes the experience of both deeper affiliation and deeper meaning. No, such folks do not equate either the affiliation or meaning with the poet's truth or beauty -- but they do know and sense the importance of collaborating with other human beings on something that matters. As Marlow in The Heart of Darkness admiringly, respectfully says of the man who helps him guide the boat up the river, these folks do work, they do something.
And they do it together, fully challenged by both/and realities of human existence.
Our planet is beset by powerful men and women who ignore the way of both/and humanity in favor of single goals and single answers. In this, they pursue self-interest over shared interest and personal power and wealth over shared purpose and the rule of law. In contemporary geopolitics, we see this abhorrent, destructive self-interestedness in the form of powerful governmental, corporate and media officials who claim truth stripped of reason as a shield to their own pitiful failure to embrace the opportunity for a more fully human experience given to them at birth. They love single answers because they are the easy road to self-enrichment. They eschew both/and because, down that road, lies shared struggle and shared responsibility.
In economics and business, we see this single answer extremism primarily in the form of our age's deep and widespread acceptance of shareholder value as the trump card for business performance. The primacy of shareholder value is today as widely shared as the belief in motherhood. And, yet, unlike motherhood, the beliefs and behaviors of shareholder value extremism march us toward and over the cliff of despair and destruction every single day. Whether it is exploding mortgages, layoffs, deteriorating benefits, moves to privatize social security, ongoing environmental destruction, decades-old erosion of real wages, poverty that is hidden by false statistics, rising obesity and eating disorders, failure to equate energy policy with national security -- etc, etc, etc -- the either/or thinking and action of single answers have now endangered our planet and put the futures of our children and their children at grave risk.
The Philistine plutocrats admonish us to either accept the primacy of shareholder value or destroy our markets, our business prospects, our jobs and our country. That is the 'either/or' proposition that has an iron grip on our society today.
And, it is the either/or proposition that has propped up the irresponsible, self-interested officials in government, corporations and media who have spent the last three decades promoting the false notion that the 'size of the pie' -- the size and growth of GDP -- somehow exists in isolation from the 'share of the pie' -- the distribution of income and wealth. Both matter.
Both matter to the aspiration embedded in our national heritage known as 'liberty and justice for all'.
Not for some. For all.
Not just for the top 1% who now control more than 40% of our wealth.
For all.
Not just for the top 20% who control more than 80% of wealth.
For all.
"For all" includes the bottom 40% who actually have less than 2% of our society's wealth.
For all.
Just like the quality team who challenge themselves to be more fully human by tackling both speed and fewer errors, all of us -- every day we wake up -- have the choice to demand of ourselves and those who would claim to lead us that we commit our resources, our capabilities, our hearts, our minds and our guts to building a society that aspires to both a larger pie and a just distribution of that pie.
We cannot and will not find our way to this 'both/and' pursuit of happiness, though, until we once again adopt belief and behavior that demonstrably care about people beyond ourselves. Nor until we -- and especially the 'we's' of organizations -- explicitly evict shareholder value extremism from our midst. We must not condemn shareholder value itself -- only the tenets by which it is made a golden idol, a trump card of either/or-ism whose shininess blinds us to the corrosive reality with which it destroys our common humanity -- including, importantly, the humanity of those who practice and espouse it.
Let us now -- right this moment -- turn our eyes toward both the size of the pie and the share of the pie. And let us do that work together.
Because the clock is ticking. And our children our crying out for us -- their elders -- to take shared responsibility for creating a safer, saner and more sustainable future.
For all.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:30 PM | PermalinkAugust 19, 2006
Planning For The 20th Century
Evidently, officials at Ford -- the company that yesterday announced drastic cuts in auto production -- have been working hard over the past several years planning for success in the 20th century through betting on cheap interest rates and low gasoline prices to support a product line featuring SUVs. We are, of course, smack in the middle of 2006. But, on Friday, Ford officials contended that "no one in the industry could have anticipated that gasoline prices would remain so high".
No one.
In the industry.
Or, did they mean, "No one at Ford"?
Actually, no one ought to be surprised by the Ford production cuts. They are a natural consequence of me too, inside the boxplanning aimed squarely at solving strategic problems defined through the rear view mirror.
The auto industry has been aware of the core dimensions of the shifting strategic landscape for well over a decade -- arguably two decades. These shifts are profound. They inevitably call for a fundamentally different business model -- one that demands innovation and deep, behavior and skill change. Those, in turn, have always -- always -- meant that the solutions would require trading off today's profits, shareholder value, jobs, benefits and salaries (both union and executives) for tomorrow's sustainability.
Those at Ford, GM and elsewhere have confronted the question, "Are we willing to take real risks -- risks that might upset the financial markets, the unions and our executives?"
"Or, can we somehow find a way toward a viable future through luck and incremental, deck-chair (I mean, parking spot) rearranging?"
These are not easy questions. The executives, unions and other decision makers deserve our sympathy for the difficulty they find themselves in. But in choosing the incrementalist approach, those involved have wreaked real world damage on tens of thousands of families and, in part, they have done so out of obeisance to shareholder value fundamentalism.
They have picked short term value over a blended values approach that includes, but does not worship as false idol, value itself.
August 13, 2006
Up Close And Personal
One of the recurring themes over the nearly five years of war in Afghanistan and nearly three-and-a-half in Iraq has been the Bush admiinstration policy to discourage photographs and video of the coffins returning home. In our new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families, a relentless stream of coffin imagery would risk conveying one element of the human cost of war -- and do so in a way that might personalize that cost to folks beyond the freinds and families of the brave men and women who make the ultimate sacrifice. Moral philosophers -- indeed, any human being who would like to consider him or herself moral -- would argue that personalizing the costs of war is a necessary element in making war moral and justifiable. Such folks might or might not continue to support the war; but, the point is that mere abstractions (e.g. a number of dead and injured) do not bear the weight of intense, real information and meaning. Indeed, even pictures of coffins would be less real than the visit families receive from military officials bearing the bad news. Still, in our world of markets, networks and organizations, there is a premium on ensuring that our democracy is strengthened through information that matters to making choices.
Having said all that, a recent set of experiments cast an additional and unexpected perspective on the morality of choices like war that put human beings in harm's way for larger purposes. The experiments have to do with time frame and raise a profound point about the value of information before another human being is put in danger rather than after that person has been injured or died.
In the first of these two experiments, participants are told that they are standing on a train platform watching the immenent approach of a runaway train. There are five people who have fallen on the tracks and are helpless to get out of the way. Next to the participant on the platform stands a very large man.
Question: Would you push the large man onto the tracks to absorb the impact of the train and save the five people?
85% of respondents say, "No."
Second experiment. Same situation. Only this time, instead of a large man standing next to the participant, there's a switch that, if pulled, will send the on rushing train to another track out of sight on which, the participant is told, stands one person.
Question: Would you pull the switch?
The majority of respondents say, "Yes."
Among the many interpretations about how reason and emotion battle to explain this difference is what one might call the 'eye contact' factor. In the first experiment, the large man is more real than is the person standing on the tracks in the second experiment. A second and critical explanation also points to the difference between specifically using a human being as an instrument in the first experiment versus the sense that the death in the second experiment is a 'by product'.
When the United States attacked Afghanistan one month after September 11th, the facts known at the time and subsequently verified on the ground were that the Taliban government housed Osama bin Ladin, Osama bin Ladin had ordered the September 11th attacks, and the attack on Afghanistan would give U.S. forces a reasonable chance of capturing Osama bin Ladin.
In light of this, it's worth asking if you were the decision maker, whether and how much it would have changed your decision had you personally met the men and women of the U.S. armed forces who would be put in harm's way in Afghanistan versus not having met them but knowing that some would die and be injured as a consequence of a choice to go after bin Ladin?
When the United States attacked Iraq a year-and-a-half after September 11th, the stated reasons for doing so included charges that Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, had the delivery capability to use them on the United States, had direct contacts with Osama bin Ladin and actively supported the September 11th attacks. Subsequent to the invasion, each of these stated facts turned out to be false -- and that those making the decisions knew or should have known they were false.
It's worth asking if you were the decision maker (and you knew or should have known the stated reasons were false), whether and how much it would have changed your decision to invade Iraq had you personally met the men and women of the U.S. armed forces who would be put in harm's way in Afghanistan versus not having met them but knowing that some would die and be injured as a consequence of a choice to go after bin Ladin?
Now, over five years after invading Afghanistan (and failing to capture bin Ladin) and over three-and-a-half years after invading Iraq (and failing to achieve the security and stability that Donald Rumsfeld names as conditions to a military victory -- let alone the many conditions he describes as critical to overall success), it continues to be worth asking yourself -- as a moral person -- if it would make any difference to you in continuing to 'stay the course' in either or both of these theaters of war were you required to meet every man and women sent to their possible death or injury as a precondition to your choice to use them as instruments for your policy? And, would you answer differently if you were not required to meet them; but, rather, only thought of them as abstractions on a different track?
July 07, 2006
The Shared Idea Of Citizen
Dan Gillmor is a highly respected commentator on the subject of citizen journalism and, among other things, how citizen journalism will/might affect the ongoing shifts in the world of news organizations. This week, he responded to the proposed shift in language from citizen journalism to networked journalism by acknowledging the usefulness of the distinction and also sticking to his phrase. As he writes:
Not a bad distinction. But the most vital part of this is the fact that it leads us to a better informed citizenry. That is the ultimate goal, at least in my thinking.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines “citizen” in four ways:
1. A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation.
2. A resident of a city or town, especially one entitled to vote and enjoy other privileges there.
3. A civilian.
4. A native, inhabitant, or denizen of a particular place: “We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community” (Franklin D. Roosevelt).
I’m a proud American (even when I’m not proud of my nation’s official actions or its political leaders). I am a citizen, for sure, in the first definition.
But in this context I use the word more to reflect the other definitions, not just as one who is a formal citizen of a nation-state. In a globalizing world, the distinction is less important than it used to be — not unimportant, by any means, but no longer necessarily the defining status of a human being. Before this radical evolution is over, in a few decades, formal citizenship may seem almost quaint.
The citizens I refer to are members of communities, large and small, geographic and interest-based. We inform each other, using networks and other tools.
Citizenship carries responsibility in any community. Indeed, the idea of being responsible to one’s self and one’s neighbors (virtual or otherwise) is an essential part of what I’m trying to accomplish.
Look closely at the dictionary definitions. With the exception of 'civilian', citizen is strictly defined with regard to place: nation, state, town and so forth. This is not surprising. Our parents and grandparents and all ancestors who came before them lived in places. They connected to other people and they shared values and shared fates with other people because they lived together with those people in places. Our shared idea of citizen is, therefore, replete with place-based content. So is our shared idea of community.
But our actual experience of what it means to owe loyalty to a group, or enjoy protections and privileges of participation in a group have dramatically shifted from the context of place to the context of organization -- whether that organization is formal or informal, for-profit, non-profit or governmental, or large or small. The same goes for our actual experience of the non-place specific meaning of community. In our new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families, 'community' happens when we share purposes that we pursue with others -- not because of the addresses where we happen to reside.
All of which means that Gillmor and the rest of us need much greater clarity about the variety of issues Gillmor raises:
Do we wish to save the meaning of citizenship from becoming quaint?
If so, how do we strip it of place-requirements while simultaneously shifting the responsibilities of citizenship to contexts of organization and shared purpose?
Is 'interest-based' participation sufficient to support the meaning of citizenship? Are the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship contingent only on shared interest? Or, must there be shared purpose and the obligation to pursue those purposes together?
And. then, there is also this question:
Is the overarching objective of citizen journalism or networked journalism -- or, for that matter, any potentially powerful new idea related to the safety, sanity and sustainability of the planet -- to foster a better informed place-denominated citizenry? Or, however important that might be, would the more potent objective be to foster much better informed folks who can take responsibility to be the best possible employees/executives, customers/voters, investors, networkers, family members and friends -- that is, responsibilities in the core roles that define life in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families?
July 04, 2006
Threshold Of Decency
Dear Mr. Durrett,
In your column about Ann Coulter, you write:
The line we walk is to try and ensure our opinion pages embrace a wide array of viewpoints and style. As I recently wrote one of our longtime readers, we pay attention to the political balance of our syndicated columnists. When you see conservative Cal Thomas on a page, you usually can count on the more liberal Leonard Pitts Jr. in close proximity.
I believe this stated standard is incomplete. Regardless of where any writer might sit on a spectrum, there should be an additional requirement for publication in a newspaper claiming readership from any community of adults, children and families: a threshold of decency.
Decency, of course, like any standard -- even the standard of 'spectrum of political opinion' -- demands judgment. And, in the news business, one would expect those judgments to be broad ones. Still, it is difficult to understand how Ann Coulter sits above any threshold of decency. Any single one at all.
Instead of decency, however, you cite 'taste' as the standard to accompany 'array'. And, it seems the 'tastes' you heed are those of your readers: If any reader (enough readers) enjoy Coulter's barbs and one liners, then the standard of taste is satisfied.
This, in turn, suggests that you seek to appeal to a market segment of readers who might buy your paper in order to enjoy Coulter. It means that your concern for value -- for building circulation and profits -- governs any concern you might have for other values such as decency.
You and your colleagues at The Shreveport Times make a choice about your values -- about what you really stand for -- every time you publish. Today, your 'brand' -- "what you really stand for" -- includes giving voice to a kind of hatred that, as you write, is motivated largely by self-promotion on the grounds of political spectrum and taste.
This, in turn, means that should any of your, say, 6 or 8 year-old children ask any of you, "Daddy/Mommy, why do you publicize Ann Coulter's views in Shreveport?", you can explain to them, "Well, we do it because it is important for people in Shreveport with these sorts of tastes to read well-known celebrities who express extreme views so that we can publish other well known celebrities with opposite extreme views."
And this, in turn means, that when your 6 year-olds become, say, 14 or 17 year-olds and, say, take on an editorial role in their high school paper and give voice to a popular kid who espouses hatred and violence, you'll be okay with it.
Or, maybe you won't be okay with it. Maybe you and your colleagues will wonder, "What's happening to our community?"
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:33 PM | PermalinkJune 28, 2006
The Courage To Act As Employees
In the 21st century, the most powerful venue for principled action -- for voice and dissent -- has shifted from the places we reside to the organizations in which we meaningfully participate and especially the organizations where we work. Most of us no longer live out our lives in places. Instead, our most meaningful interactions with other people happen in markets, networks, and organizations; and, among family and friends. Of these five contexts, organizations are the main one where meaningful aspects of our fates -- jobs, status, daily affiliation, opportunities to pursue meaning -- depend on other people who are not necessarily friends or family yet we know by name and interact with daily. Beyond friends and family, these are our 'thick we's' and, therefore, if any of us wishes to act on and perpetuate the democratic heritage of our nation, we had best learn to do so in these new thick we's in our lives.
Among the most claimed aspects of that heritage are voice and dissent. From the late 18th to late 20th centuries, our traditions for voice and dissent happened in places where we lived with other people -- towns, neighborhoods and so forth. The prime context for this may have always been elections. Today, however, elections are market phenomena -- they are far more subject to the markets, networks, and organizations of electioneering -- including the distribution channel popularly called 'mainstream media' -- than the daily, persistent and intensive action of citizens in local places. As noted in Bowling Alone, such place-based citizen action - complete with reasonable percentages of participation -- still happen in very small towns as well as some places where the traditions are extremely strong. New Hampshire and Vermont fit both criteria and, as you'll see from a careful reading of Bowling Alone, these towns continue the traditions of a world of places as opposed to markets and so forth. Robert Putnam's 'warning signs' of the deterioration in civil society do not apply to these places -- they are the exceptions.
This is confirmed by other observations. For example, analysis of get out the vote efforts in the 2004 election indicated a much easier challenge in Vermont and New Hampshire than, say, New Mexico where that lack the two centuries old traditions or California where the world of markets, networks, and organizations is more firmly rooted.
Practicing voice and dissent within thick we's is essential to democracy. But, in our new world, that means doing so in our organizations. A 19th century American risked much in his or her town by having the courage to dissent from a popular view. For tens of millions of us, this is not the case in the 21st century. We can, of course, attend town meetings and raise our concerns. And, we should. But, the personal risk and exposure in doing so bears no relationship to taking the same action in our organizations. In our towns, most of us most of the time -- if we act or speak at all -- do so in the role of 'customer' and are treated accordingly. In our organizations, by contrast, if we have the courage to act and speak out and dissent, we do so as employees and we risk making a lasting impression -- especially if our voice extends beyond the water cooler.
Go ahead, Try this out. Even if only as a thought experiment. Imagine going to a town council meeting and voicing your concern about some current topic in a manner opposed to popular opinion. Say, for example, you would like to encourage the town council to raise property taxes or give teachers more benefits -- or, the reverse if that's counter to prevailing winds. Or, to test this more precisely in an emotional context, speak in favor or against teaching evolution or intelligent design. If you live in a town or city of greater than 10,000 people (let alone ten times that), the absolute worst reaction you might imagine is getting shouted at that evening and, perhaps, attracting the attention of some press person who hopes to get some attention by writing about you. If you have friends and family who seriously disagree with you, they probably already know about, and have formed their responses, to your position. Again, worst, worst case, you might risk some 'nut job' from the other side screaming at you in the blogosphere or a letter to the editor.
In contrast, imagine for a moment that you choose to voice dissent -- real, challenging dissent -- about matters of real importance to the organization where you work. Ah. What a difference! In this case you must consider beforehand the risks to your job, to your friendships and acquaintances, to your relationship with your boss, to your career prospects and more. Unlike the town context, here you are far more likely to risk some persistent and enduring response. Some memory -- near as well as medium and even long term -- of your action.
Acting as an employee takes far more courage than acting as a citizen. In saying this, I do not mean to trivialize in any way the efforts of citizens who actively participate in local, regional and national affairs. Clearly, the more who participate -- and vote -- the better. But I do mean to point out that courage itself is best tested in the actual thick we's of our lives.
Consider, then, this comment:
Stand Up
As treason charges against the New York Times (but not, oddly, the Wall Street Journal) are getting thrown around on various "respectable" news outlets by people working in "journalism" I think it's probably time for the serious reporters at those outlets to inform management that their resignations will be forthcoming if it doesn't stop.
Silly people like me have been trying to warn you for years - you created, cultivated, nourished, and promoted these people. They're one of you. Take a stand, because pretty soon it's going to be too late.
The mainstream media are a crucial distribution channel that determine the nature, content and opinion bias upon which folks in our new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and family depend. If you or anyone wishes to dissent from how the mainstream media handle their responsibility, you can do so as a consumer (purchase or not purchase; provide feedback positive or negative), as a competitor (offer a different or the same product), as a litigant (sue them), as a family member and friend (speak up at the dinner table) -- or as an employee of mainstream media corporations.
Of these, there is simply no question that the most courageous -- and the most pragmatic, near term and impactful -- choice belongs to employees who ask and answer the question, "What do we, the people of this enterprise, really stand for?
If you want to 'make a difference' -- if you want to pass along to your children and their children -- a world that is safer, saner and more sustainable, then you must act as an employee in the thick we of your organization because organizations are the driving crucible for the markets and networks that determine the fate of the planet.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:31 PM | PermalinkJune 18, 2006
Blind Ambition
Pharmaceutical companies invest a lot of money in the research and development of new drugs. That's true. And, it is also true that the past decade or so has seen a dramatic rise in the dollars they spend on marketing drugs, making small tweaks to existing drugs in order to extend their patents, contributing money to officials who have legislative oversight of patent laws, developing relationships with doctors who are in a position to review and promote drugs, and instituting legal action to protect patents and other measures needed to protect their drugs.
Unfortunately, Big Pharma too often also report money spent on these latter efforts as part of the 'investment needed for new drugs' -- thereby, overstating such investments. Meanwhile, company after company have also drunk deeply from the well of shareholder value extremism -- the ideology that dictates that the single, maniacal objective of all the people who work in these companies is the creation of shareholder value, mainly through making profits their singular obsession.
Do people who work in Big Pharma care about the health and well being of others? Yes, of course. Do those values hold equivalent concern and weight as the pursuit of profits and shareholder value? No. Not if we look to the actual behavior of Big Pharma companies -- of which, this latest effort from Genentech to block the use of one of it's existting drugs that can help prevent blindness by substituting that cure with one that is one hundred times higher in price in order to insure profits is but the latest example. One hundred times. Not ten times higher. One hundred.
One imagines there are debates among the thick we's who work at companies like Genentech. It's frankly unimaginabe that 100% of the executives and employees agree with the extortionate policy that seems to be emerging here.
Still, when every single one of those executives and employees sit down to dinner tonight, they will need to explain to their families and friends why, at Genentech, the pursuit of value trumps the pursuit of all values -- including but not limited to profits -- in how they -- the thick we of Genentech -- define and pursue their common good.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:49 PM | PermalinkJune 09, 2006
Lux et Veritas
From a letter to a fellow Yale graduate:
This week the media revealed that a political scientist named Juan Cole was denied a professorship at Yale in what sounds like unusual circumstances. Cole (currently tenured prof at Michigan) is evidently very highly regarded as a scholar. He was specifically recruited by Yale and was approved by the two committees that, if I understand it, are most often the most critical for such hirings. His name was then passed up to a higher committee for, again, what is described as typically a formality. But, in between the approvals and what turned out to be a rejection by this higher committee, a concerted effort was mounted against Cole, an effort marked in part by deceit and lies about him.
The higher committee has now rejected Cole and there is a strong appearance that the result happened through some combination of fear of lost alumni money and acquiescence in accusations that Cole is an anti-Semite.
Yale folks knew from the beginning about Cole's scholarly excellence as well as his controversial role in public affairs as related to Iraq, Israel etc. If he was 'too hot', he never should have been recruited let alone approved by the two usually determinative committees.
Here's an article about the affair in The Jewish Week Of New York -- which, of course, is an interesting source given the accusation against Cole of anti-Semitism.
I read Cole's blog regularly. There are times when I disagree with him. But, I read him mostly because of his scholarly as well as contemporary grasp of what's happening in Iraq and while he sometimes is thin skinned about the beating he takes in the press, he's assiduously fair about other points of view. It's disappointing that Yale students will not have the opportunity to study Middle Eastern affairs with someone of his depth and expertise.
The tragic Red/Blue nature of our troubled country, of course, makes choices about folks like Cole particularly fraught. And yet, the ideal of the university includes, in part, the commitment to academic freedom. That commitment, in turn, is mightily tested when pressured by concerns for money as well as concerns about prejudicial aspects of cultural differences (e.g. anti-Semitism). Still, as you know, it is in these toughest and most fraught circumstances that a university's depth of commitment to academic and learning values is most truthfully revealed.
June 05, 2006
Value Madness
The fixed and seemingly inviolate obsession with shareholder value might -- might -- now deny government agencies the information needed to prepare for hurricanes. Again, I say might. According to this article, a supercomputer's forecasting methodology created by government funded scientists at Florida State University (I repeat: State university - as in a government entity) has been licensed by that State university to a private company, Weather Predict. According to the licensing agreement, Florida State scientists are not permitted -- yet -- to provide forecasts to any agency without permission from Weather Predict.
The article points out that the supercomputer has among the best track records in accurately forecasting hurricanes.
The article also mentions that Weather Predict's CEO assures one and all that, of course, nothing will get in the way of helping out government agencies during the hurricane season; and, that his company is currently working on making sure such arrangements are in place.
So, let's recount:
Government money funds employees of a government institution (Florida State) to create a supercomputer that accurately forecasts hurricanes.
The institution sells this know how to a private sector company.
The private sector company now sits between the use of the computer and the well being of folks who live in the United States of America.
Those folks are citizens and taxpayers -- whose money funded the invention.
Weather Predict's CEO promises 'to work it all out".
One can imagine a State University licensing technology to the private sector - both to take advantage of it's own advancements as well as to encourage market-based uses of weather prediction. No problem.
But, it's absurd that the licensing agreement fails to limit the license itself to a range of uses that are free and clear of any need of the forecasts for the public good.
And, having failed at incorporating such language in the contract, it is absurd that the issue of protecting the public use of forecasts made by a supercomputer created out of public money is still up for negotiation.
Weather Predict is now endangering millions of lives as it tinkers with how best to make a profit.
This all might work out. Let us hope so. But it is absurd -- it is immoral -- that the situation even exists.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:30 PM | PermalinkMay 19, 2006
Exploding Mortgages, III
Recently, the National Association of Realtors has run a series of TV ads promoting their brokers' ethics. The ads portray a series of sociodemographically diverse folks giving heart felt testimonials describing how lucky and fortunate and, well, down right life saving was the help and assistance they received from their real estate brokers whose -- well, golly, -- whose ethics saved the homeowners from any number of traps, illusions and pitfalls.
The brand promise here, of course, bears only a random relationship to the brand delivery, at least as experienced by millions of folks who now have exploding mortgages and homes they cannot and never could afford. Are there ethical real estate brokers to be found in the United States? Of course there are. But, have this nation's housing markets experienced the depradations of 'make a buck for me' real estate brokers, mortgage borkers, housing developers, predatory lenders and -- even so-called non-profit financial counselors?
Yes. For example, see this, this and this. And, for the latest update see this.
Beyond the contexts of friends and family, we live our lives in markets, networks and organizations. The organizations in those markets -- like the National Association of Realtors, the local realtor down the block, the bank, the mortgage company, the credit card company, the US Congress (see Bankruptcy Act), Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup, Ameriquest and on and on and on and on -- choose how to position what they really stand for in terms of brand promise as well as the extent to which the products and services they deliver match those promises.
That our life experiences with the gap between brand promise and brand delivery have taught us to be skeptical is not a surprise. Some exaggeration is a built-in corollary of the constraints posed by 30 second ads, billboards and banners. Of course there is exaggeration because companies must choose what to emphasize.
But, exaggeration need not be immoral, unethical and damaging to others. Exaggeration -- even the need to competitively exaggerate in markets -- need not be a mandated corollary of societal suicide.
The horse of unethical, sharp practices has long since left the barn of the last half decade in the housing markets. Tens of millions of folks -- of families with children, of the elderly, of young individuals and couples struggling to live what used to pass in reality not just commercials as the American Dream -- confront serious housing affordability problems -- and far too many realtors who are members of the National Association of Realtors responded to the real, human needs of these people by pushing them into higher priced homes with exploding mortgages so that the realtors could make more and higher commisions. Me. Not both me and we.
It's a sickness. A sickness infecting souls that have lost the capacity to blend concern for money and profits with concern for other values -- and to do so in real time, not hindsight; in today's real estate transaction, not on TV in some commercial.
Hey, the pursuit of profits in markets has showered humanity with untold benefits. Let us rightly celebrate the power of markets to make lives better. But, let's stop killing the life enhancing, life giving power of markets by deluding ourselves that self-interest starts and stops with profits. It does not. Adam Smith's famous butcher, baker and candlesttick maker were also interested in -- and guided by -- the values they shared with other folks with whom they were fated to live their lives. Were there butchers who sold rotten meat? Yes. But, did a majority, even a plurality, of butchers as a matter of policy and routine harm their customers -- their neighbors -- by selling hurtful products at unaffordable prices? No. And there's nothing in The Wealth of Nations -- or any economic theory or practice since then -- that suggests this is a desirable characteristic if it dominates and dictates the course and conduct of commerce. This sort of unethical conduct is meant to be a regrettable, if predictable, by product. An exception. Not the rule.
Over the past five to ten years, sharp practices in the over heated housing markets, though, have become more than exceptions. And, no amount of after-the-fact horse pucky from the National Association of Realtors waxing on about the wonderfulness of their members can hide the consequences of financial rape perpetrated by realtors who, in turn, have been abetted by other 'thick we's' known as financial service institutions, law firms, Congress, housing devleopers and so on.
The widespread habit of showing up to work from 9-to-5 and allowing our legitimate concern for value to trump our equally legitmate concern for other values (e.g. shared prosperity, family, liberty and justice for all) has infected not only the body economic -- but also the body politic. It must stop. Not by turning our backs on profits, money, wealth building and winning. But, rather, by each and every one of our thick we's -- especially the thick we's of organizations where we work -- asking and answering how the organization's particular vision, strategy and common good contributes to the greater good of our society and our planet. And, then translating the answers into performance -- into a blended, ethical scorecard that converts promise into results.
Yes, we must turn away from those, like Grover Norquist, Karl Rove and their cabal, who -- in their own maniacal pursuit of winning and value -- have fostered a popular culture that hates government and, thereby puts folks in charge of governmental organizations -- governmental thick we's -- who, it logically follows, cause those thick we's to be self-hating.
We must restore a proper and legitimate role for governmental thick we's. And that means we must learn all over again that there are situations and contexts in which government regulation -- yes regulation -- is proper and needed.
But, in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families, law and regulation are necessary but not sufficient. We cannot foster a safe, sane and sustainable planet for our children and their children if we don't take shared responsibility for doing so. And, yes, that means acting individually as friends, family members, customers and investors in ways that account for more than 'me'. But, again, such is necessary, not sufficient.
The critical crucible in our new world in which we can and must take shared responsibility is the organization. Unless and until we act there to ensure a sustainable blend of value and values -- unless and until we act to ensure that our brand promise as well as our brand delivery -- honor all that is right and just including but not limited to profits, we will continue to march in darkness toward the precipice.
And, our shame will mount and we will occasionally be so shocked when we look back over our shoulders at the wreckage of human lives in our wake that, in mock preservation of our souls, we'll hire writers, directors, camera folks and actors to create the image of what can only be best described as nostalgia for our better selves.
The time has arrived for before-the-fact vision, strategies, products and services that blend all values.
And those who must -- indeed, the only ones who can -- make this happen are ourselves in our shared roles as employees and executives in the thick we's we call companies, agencies, firms and organizations that have the whip hand of the planet.
If you think for one second that what you and your colleagues at work do is "just business", then you are continuing to sleep walk toward the destruction of the planet by missing the opportunity every single day of your working lives to make a difference with others by creating and implementing businesses that are just.
And, you can start today.
May 13, 2006
Letter To Billmon About Leviathan
Dear Billmon,
Thank you for Leviathan. The picture painted of an already-happening police state is a dark one -- yet one I fear millions of us might sleep walk to and through unless we wake up to the new realities and responsibilities of living in the world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families described in On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We In An Age Of Me.
We can save our nation and the world from the nightmare of Leviathan. But, first, we need to identify who 'we' are -- or, rather, when we are a 'thick we' versus a 'thin we'. The fate of our nation lies with choices made by 'thick we's' as well as 'thin we's". But right now, the choices discussed in popular culture's democracy topic lie mainly with the 'thin we's' -- the we's such as NASCAR dads et al shaped by common interests expressed in markets as opposed to thick we's shaped by actual shared fates and shared purposes for which those in the 'thick we' must hold themselves mutually accountable for implementation. "Thin we's" elect folks (e.g. Bush v. Kerry); 'thin we's' consume things (e.g. hybrids v. Hummers); 'thin we's' -- in roles as consumers and voters and investors -- are courted by thick we's competing in markets and networks.
'Thin we's' matter -- a lot. We cannot shift and evolve without shifts and evolution in thin we's. But, thin we's are not in some sense real we's. Unlike organizations, friends and families, thin we's are more like collectivities of me's. Thin we's never hold themselves accountable as we's for choices. Rather, and this is key, thin we's look to thick we's -- to organizations -- to implement the choices for them and to deal with the consequences of those choices. Thin we's elect officials; thin we's buy cars or computers or cereal; thin we's invest in companies. But it's thick we's who must implement the full range of implications of those choices.
Today, our most powerful thick we's are organizations, not towns or neighborhoods. That is different from the time of Hobbes, from the time of Jefferson.... indeed, from the time of Eisenhower when he warned of the military-industrial complex -- when he foreshadowed a powerful and scary upshot of the transition from a world of place-based thick we's (towns, neighborhoods) to organization-based thick we's in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families.
Even Ike could not have had more than a foreshadowing about what happens when networks are thrown into the mix with markets and organizations -- when the strategies of organizations seeking to grow/thrive in the context of markets (including, what Schumpeter described as our political markets) get wired up in networks. Perhaps, the picture you paint in Leviathan would not have surprised Ike -- but he would not have conceived that the reality might have happened in quite this way or with what a friend describes as quite this 'gradual suddenness'.
Today, the most powerful and dangerous thick we's in our nation -- those private sector corporations led by shareholder value fundamentalists, government organizations led by Bush Administration power fundamentalists, and those fundamentalist Christian churches being led by satanists instead of Christians -- are indeed making choices that can lead to the Leviathan nightmare. But, note that such choices are being made far more hierarchically then democratically within the thick we's themselves. The choices jeopardizing our society are coming from the top of such thick we's and they are being made in secret.
That, however, is neither fated nor required by how organizations should or must work. All organizations -- just like all societies -- even Hobbesian ones -- blend hierarchy and democracy. Always. Hobbes' blend was 99.9 parts hierarchy and .1 democracy. But, let's remember that even the fearful Hobbes permitted people to undo the government through revolt.
If you look at choices that matter where you work -- where ever that may be -- the blend is not 99.9 hieararchy to .1 democracy. It may, in your view balance more toward hierarchy. However, having advised/consulted to hundreds of organizations in close to fifty different industries over more than a quarter of century, I observe that the blend has shifted toward more democracy. The challenges of competition demand it. Indeed, the challenges of implementation and performance demand it.
One of the great failures of the Bush Administration comes from the shared beliefs and behaviors of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and others who simply and stunningly have not had executive experience in this new world where organizations cannot succeed with 99H/1D approaches. While I personally believe far too many critical choices in organizations are still made far too hierarchically and secretly, I cannot from personal experience or observation point to a single top management group of a successful company on the planet who continue to use 1970s H/D mixes to meet the needs of 21st century performance. Not one. Instead, what I read/observe daily about the Bush administration and, consequently, what we all read daily about the trail of failure and incompetence that follows in the wake of their outdated 99H/1D bet on hierarchy. (Indeed, I believe we can bet that the only effective part of the Bush Administration -- the part run by Rove for the past many years -- uses a different blend of H and D. Why? Because that Rovian part is focused on actually solving real problems against which they have to hold themselves accountable for actual -- not made-up -- performance.)
The shift in corporations, non-profits and the hinterlands of government enterprises not yet infected with the Bush approach has not gone to .1 H/99.9D. I'm not saying that. Nor do I believe such an extreme imbalance in the direction of democracy is more promising than Hobbes. Not even the Athenians had 99.9D/.1H. But, the shift is on -- especially with regard to issues such as quality, customer orientation, front-line problem solving and so forth. What has not happened, however, is a shift toward a more blended approach on issues that cut to the heart of what a corporation stands for and how the vision/mission/strategy of the corporation -- the common good of that particular thick we - contributes to the greater good of the planet. There we continue to see hierarchy and secrecy -- we see after the fact attempts at 'buy in' instead of before the fact inclusiveness and shared problem solving. One can be dead certain, for example, that the phone companies did not widely discuss and debate within their respective thick we's the choice about whether to hand over the phone records to NSA. (And, no surprise, we may now see that those executives have condemned their employees, their investors and their customers in ways that a more open, better blended democratic and hierarchical process would have avoided.)
You rightly worry in Leviathan about the profound effects of habits formed in organizations where, in our roles as executives and employees, we make assumptions about the values and purposes associated with nanny networks, security cameras, political speech and so forth. OnVVS points out that our most predictable beliefs and behaviors (which I equate with our actual values as opposed to just abstract ones) derive from a blend of relationships, roles and ideas. All these sources of shared values most powerfully reinforce each other when we are part of a thick we who share meaningful parts of fates and purposes together -- friends and family to be sure -- but, in our 21st century, the context beyond friend and family most present in our lives is that of organization.
Organizations -- again, not limited to work organizations and not limited to private sector either -- are where we interact persistently with other folks beyond friends and family. The habits of belief and behavior we form in organizations are reinforced by relationships there, roles there (e.g. boss/subordinate; marketing v. engineering; team problem solving vs boss/subordinate problem solving) and ideas there (vision, mission, strategy, brand... things like 'shareholder value' and 'the customer is always right' .... indeed, the entire concept of 'corporate values'). What you note as your greatest worry -- point five in Leviathan at the bottom of the section 'Mining Disaster' about the replication of behavior and values found in corporate America -- is one of the core pivot points and generative experience bases in our lives in markets, networks, organizations, friends and families. DeTocqueville reported on the power and potential of replication of behavior and values found in small towns. OnVVs argues that, for tens upon tens of millions of us, small towns are not our thick we's. Organizations are. And, only when we learn to take responsibility together for the choices of our organizations and how those choices contribute to the greater good, will we move and evolve forward. Only then will we revitalize how best to use the inheritance and legacy of the Founders in our dramatically differently structured lives and world. Only then will we migrate and revitalize our democracy where we actually live together with other folks (organizations) instead of only where we make consumption choices (markets).
Yes, we might stumble forward. We might continue our deep seated beliefs and behaviors that have us act as if what happens at work is 'only business' and that somehow we can offset the consequences we cause in pursuit of profits and shareholder value as the obsessive, singular trump card concern by somehow acting righteously as consumers or investors .... that we can somehow in our individual roles oppose our actions as 'me's' and thin we's in ways that effectively counter the unbelievably stronger array of resources and power of our thick we's.
But, we cannot leave a safe, sane and sustainable planet for our kids and their kids if we continue to travel down this path and confuse the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of value over values. We cannot solve the problems of, say, rampant obesity, unaffordable housing, predatory lending, gasoline/oil addictions, environmental depredation, the attack on science -- or government spying -- unless we take a stand inside the organizations where we work that have something to say and do on these matters.
Nor can we sustainably respond to these challenges if we abandon value. Value matters. But, until our brands, strategies, missions, products and services bake equivalent concern for all values, including value, into the common good of our thick we's, we will continue to walk the dark path forward. If we fail to take responsibility for the thick we's in our lives and mindlessly perpetuate allowing secretive, overly hierarchical approaches to reinforce a path we seemingly are on today, then surely the Leviathan follows.
But there's nothing written by Hobbes or anyone else for that matter that says or mandates, "This must be so."
We can act differently. We must. As Gandhi said, 'We must be the change we wish to bring about." In part, that means let's do what we can as "me's" and "thin we's" to elect a president -- and a Senator and a Congressperson and a Governor and a state, county or local legislator -- who have the vision and courage to see this new world we live in and lead us to a more promising future for our children and grandchildren. But, as per Gandhi, we cannot hope to find that path through merely replacing Bush and friends with different and competent leaders who, while benevolent, continue to bet on unsustainable blends of hierarchy and democracy -- or on a concern for value that remains dis-integrated from a concern for values. I can imagine a president who is the leader needed. When I do, I also imagine that she or he reminds us that we are responsible for the future of this planet -- and that our responsibility exists both in choices we make as consumers, voters, investors and other "me or I" roles -- but, especially in and as part of our thick we's. For it's in those we's that the resources, knowledge, information and motivation is most powerful. A president or any leader can show us this path forward. But, we -- as thick we's -- must walk it -- must make and implement and take full responsibility for choices together. It is in our real, every day thick we's -- the thick we's of where we work, learn, play and pray - that we face the choices that will determine the fate of the planet.
And, it's there we can turn things around. The thick we's of auto companies can drop Hummers in favor of hybrids -- if they have the courage to blend concern for value with concern for values. The thick we's of food companies can reverse how their products and advertising and marketing contribute to obesity and other eating disorders. The thick we's of Homeland Security, the FBI, the IRS and others can stand up and say, "Our job is to govern, not to rule with the iron grip demanded to reelect Bush and the ideologues of Bush forever more."
All this is possible -- if thick we's learn and even demand healthier blends of hierarchy and democracy in how they govern themselves.
But, that is most likely to happen when we learn first to 'think differently about we' and about our responsibility to blend our legitimate concern for value with our equally legitimate concern for values.
Posted by Doug Smith at 04:36 PM | PermalinkApril 16, 2006
The New Golden Rule
Over the past 36 years, the prevalence of obesity among 12 to 19 year old Americans has doubled -- among children 6 to 11 it has tripled. Today, the percentage of kids who are either obese or overweight ranges from a low of 21% in Utah to 40% in Washington DC -- and the average across the US is 31%. Meanwhile, government officials report that poor diet and exercise will help push obesity-related diseases past tobacco as the #1 killer in the US.
This epidemic in eating disorders presents a classic case for how our culture of individualism conspires to darken the prospects ahead. The policy battle will rage between those who hold parents and kids individually accountable versus those who look to government regulation for answers. Meanwhile, the food companies who produce, distribute, market and advertise the diets and foods that are killing Americans in growing numbers will sit on their hands, happily making profits while claiming to be 'socially responsible." In reality, as this recent BBC item notes, the food companies don't 'care a jot'.
In the real world, though, the food companies -- and the employees and executives who work in them -- are the best positioned to do something about this crisis. They have the resources, the know how, the data, and the motivation -- if only they would replace shareholder value fundamentalism with blended values strategies for growth and prosperity. If only they would act to make capitalism sustainable instead of suicidal. Our culture of individualism will rant and rave about consumer and investor boycotts. Fine ideas. But, the real power to do something without waiting for governments to force action lies with the food companies and the thick we's who work there.
It's classic. The executives and employees of the food companies spend their working hours sitting on their hands - then spend their nonworking hours in the midst of kids who, because of food company products and marketing, are seriously overweight or obese.
Eventually, we'll find we have a 'red vs. blue' kind of split with regard to food companies -- one that already exists with tobacco companies. When this happens, those who work in food companies will be vilified. Why are they waiting? Why not act now -- and do so according to the new golden rule in our age of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families:
"As employees, do unto others who are consumers what you would have them as employees do unto you as a consumer."
Posted by Doug Smith at 02:02 PM | PermalinkApril 13, 2006
The Dangerous Union
Today's most dangerous union has no meeting or hiring hall, no dues, no plans for strikes and no formal organization or name. There are no workers in this union. There are folks who work. But neither their self image nor the image of them held by others would translate through the word 'workers'.
Today's most dangerous union is small relative to population as a whole. Only one in ten families have full-fledged membership -- although another ten to fifteen percent of families hope that one day they'll gain admission.
Today's most dangerous union embraces all faiths, ethnic groups, genders and sexual orientations. It welcomes those who detest as well as love their fellow human beings, those who are hard headed and hard hearted as well as softies.
Today's most dangerous union dominates every industry and sector. They rule and control markets and governments. They need not issue threats or decrees or five year plans. Their shared ideas and shared values are as predictable as night following day. They are the orthodoxy of our times.
Today's most dangerous union includes folks from all walks of life, all kind of jobs and titles, all manner of hobbies and skills and predilections.
Today's most dangerous union has all manner of diversity and, at the same time, one unyielding answer to all of life's most pressing questions: Shareholder value fundamentalism.
The single answer now destroying our nation and our planet -- not to mention sustainable shareholder value itself.
Posted by Doug Smith at 04:27 PM | PermalinkApril 12, 2006
The WMD Doctrine
By now, all but the ideological zealots know that the Bush Administration 'fixed the intelligence to fit the war'. Laying deeply flawed claims to being a "CEO presidency", they also famously commented that they would roll out the war much like a product. And, so we might call this the WMD Doctrine: Words of Mass Deception -- spin and exaggerate in order to build market share for your product (including your 'ideas' as products).
It seems to have spread. For example, having raked in unprecedented profits, big oil companies run ads that present themselves as nearly impoverished while, of course, prices at the pump get ready to rise with summer temperatures. The US military admits it's hyped Zarqawi for the benefit of "the home audience in the US." A few years ago, Royal Dutch Shell falsified oir reserve information to run a number on investors. But, then that's a form of accounting subtrefuge that exploded well before the appearance of the WMD Docrine. Ameriquest celebrates the American Dream in its TV ads while bilking folks in its boiler rooms by providing exploding mortgages. On a small scale, NBC news tries to provoke the creation of news by asking folks to dress as Muslims and attend NASCAR races.
And, now we read that major pharmaceutical companies hype diseases in order to sell drugs that folks actually do not need.
Posted by Doug Smith at 02:14 PM | PermalinkApril 09, 2006
The Shared Idea Of Transparency
All values, including financial and economic value, reflect patterns of belief and behavior. Think, for example, about pricing. Yes, pricing derives from some balancing of costs incurred, competition and some sense of what the item in question is worth to those who might buy it. All three, though: cost, competition, worth to the customer --- mirror belief and behavior, both rational and irrational.
So, what makes for predictable patterns of belief and behavior? Some of this is found in our DNA. In addition, though, we learn or pattern our belief and behavior through how each of us individually respond to what happens in our relationships with others, the roles we play in our lives (e.g. employee or parent), and in the ideas we absorb and act on. My guess, for example, is that the other day when audience members booed a man who told President Bush he was ashamed of Bush and Bush's policies, those audience members responded through some mix of shared ideas having to do with respect for the office of president -- as well as the ideas that undoubtedly helped select them for audience participation -- that is, the ideas the Bush Administration has used for more than five years to ensure that the president only speaks to supporters so that the television images portray unified enthusiasm.
The shared idea of Truth -- with a capital T -- has done much damage the American body politic ever since the Republican Party embraced Truth Seekers in it's big tent. Like most aspects of contemporary Republicanism, this has gone from bad to worse during the Bush years. Bush himself is said to have the 'black vs. white' world view of many recovering alcoholics -- the predictable belief and behavior to cast all issues and questions and policy choices in stark contrasts. That, of course, fits the shared idea of Truth strongly held by Truth Seekers. And, it means that Truth Seekers will vote disproportionately for a Truth Seeking Republican Party.
It also means that folks angered or dispirited by the the dangerous and already incurred consequences of a government of Truth Seekers (e.g. preemptive wars, the Unitary Executive, Terry Schiavo.... the Rule of Truth instead of the Rule of Law) pattern their belief and behavior around being anti-Truth Seekers. The stark contrasts becomes us v. them. And so, our nation's culture wars slip into a Cold Civil War.
Finding our way out from this suicidal pattern will rest on many things, including luck. But one sure part of any sane path forward will be to drop the shared idea of Truth in favor of shared ideas of accuracy and transparency. Enough with whether every single thing said or done is the Truth. How about putting serious resources behind making sure folks know whether X or Y or Z is accurately described and are transparent.
Consider, say, the federal budget. Is it transparent? No. The full cost of the Bush wars are not included in the budget. Tens of billions are provided under additional appropriations. How about the number of troops and other personnel in Iraq? Not transparent. Tens of thousands of defense contractors have folks in Iraq. They are not counted. Neither of these are about the Truth. As Joe Friday said on Dragnet: "Just the facts, maam."
How about executive compensation? Is it transparent? No. How about net pension liabilities? No. How about unemployment figures? No. How about poverty? No. How about the information we need to judge the future of Social Security? No. Do we get to see and read legislation in any kind of remotely reasonable time frame before it is voted on by legislative bodies? No.
Do our elected representatives even get to see such legislation? No. It is now standard practice for the ruling party to schedule votes past midnight while actually making the legislation -- often hundreds, even thousand of pages -- available for perusal only hours before the vote. This, for example, was what happened with the disastrous prescription drug law.
Speaking of which. Were the projected costs of that law accurate or transparent? No. And the Bush official who hoped to fix that got fired.
Why? Why the lack of dedication to accuracy and transparency?
Because our popular culture has a much stronger, more predictable set of beliefs and behaviors dedicated to the shared idea of Truth and Truth Seeking.
And, it is destroying us.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:33 PM | PermalinkApril 04, 2006
Blended Values Strategies in Food
Shareholder value fundamentalists maintain that a maniacal focus on profits is and should be the central focus of all private sector enterprise. Their credo trumps all questions of family, social, political, environmental, technological, medical, legal and other issues of values with the single question: will it promote or detract from financial/economic value?
Theirs is a fundamentalism every bit as destructive of the planet as any religious or other form of 'single answer' ideology.
Not only does this extremisim hollow out and threaten the sustainability of humane society, it also inevitably undercuts shareholder value itself. Only blended values strategies can save shareholder value from these extremists -- whose ideology, unfortunately, pervades executive suites and boardrooms across the globe.
The absurdity of shareholder value fundamentalism is well captured in this item from the BBC. Here's the sub-headline: "Many of the world's 25 biggest food firms only pay lip service to their duty to help fight the global diet crisis, a report on the issue says."
Obesity and other eating disorders are at crisis proportions in many areas and among many groups. Ought food companies care about the health of customers? All of us -- and them -- would quickly agree that food companies ought not put poison in their product. But in our shareholder value fundamentalist culture, the only thing food companies ought not do is 'break a law' (and, it's fair to report that even then, the too often ruling ethic is 'don't get caught breaking a law'). Anything goes so long as it adds to the bottom line.
All private sector enterprises must have a positive bottom line. All private sector enterprises MUST generate returns for those who provide capital. Shareholder value is essential. But shareholder value fundamentalism is a sociopathic ideology that ought not be confused with the necessary idea that return on capital provided is critical.
Laws prohibit poison in food. But only ethics embraced by executives and employees of food companies -- that are strong, predictable shared values about 'how we do things around here' -- can ever turn around this situation where major food companies endanger the health of us and our children through 'poison by other means'.
If you work at a food company -- or if you know anyone who does -- ask yourself or them, "Is this what you stand for? Selling food that is unhealthy? Are those the predictable beliefs and behaviors -- shared values -- that you want your children to remember you stood for?"
Posted by Doug Smith at 02:15 PM | PermalinkMarch 27, 2006
Secretary Snow's Star System
As noted last week, Secretary of the Treasury John Snow is out on the circuit hawking his boss's wares. Just ask him and he'll pull open one side of his tailored overcoat and show just how great the economy is doing as a direct result of tax cuts, unprecedented spending and deficits, and federal subsidies-and-rule-making for oil and energy companies, pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, financial service companies, communications and media companies -- pretty much any private sector company..... and, of course, nonprofit organizations that promote Christianity of the 'complete faith, no works' kind. You know, the kind with a litmus test of being reborn in biblical literalism while staying as far as possible from Christ's message of acts of forgiveness, tolerance and charity.
One of the latest steps taken by the Rebulican right wing employing Snow is to throw gasoline onto the already raging fire known as the pension fund crisis. Several decades ago, millions of workers in the U.S. depended on pensions that were funded by the companies for whom they worked. It was part of the 'deal'. In the bubble years, many companies' pensions soared because of the stock market -- and, a number of questionable practices sprung up like putting all of the pension assets in the company's own stock (violation of Rule #1 -- diversification -- that every single one of those pension managers would advise their parents and children to follow). With the growth-on-paper of pension assets, companies also got lazy about actually funding future pension liabilities with cash and other hard assets.
Then, the bubble burst. And, the Bush Administration came into office. By the middle of Bush's first term, nearly all private sector pensions were underfunded. That means, they did not have the assets to meet liabilities. The federal agency responsible for monitoring and serving as insurer -- the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation -- was also underfunded, especially after it got hit by the airline bankruptcies.
A competent group of federal officials from the executive, legislative and agency parts of the government would have looked at the balance sheets and taken steps to restore -- well -- balance. But the Bush Administration -- and their handmaidens and sponsors that rule the Republican Party -- have instead chosen the novel approach of inviting companies to decrease -- not increase -- how and if they fund pensions.
This is very good news for shareholders. At least in the short term. Of course, like all policies of shareholder value fundamentalism -- the ideology that makes "what does this do for next quarter's earnings?" the single test for every question, large and small -- this latest piece of incompetence will, soon enough, destroy shareholder value along with, of course, the security of tens of millions of workers who thought they could depend on funded pensions to see them through the years ahead.
It is a travesty of incompetence. Put ideals to one side. My father was a Republican. I learned from him the ideals -- the values -- of fiscal responsibility and of the responsibilities in a free market economy that must be exercised by owners. Those are values. Those are ideals. And, those are evidently now viewed by these Republican rulers -- well, to paraphrase what the Attorney General once said about the Geneva Conventions -- they are evidently 'quaint'.
It's not that Snow will be without a pitch. The ideology, we know and hear daily, is all about individualism and individual risk taking in free and open markets. Bracing stuff. Every single one of us is out there on our own to make or break it -- that's freedom. Stop the "Nanny State". Stop the "Nanny corporation." It's all about an ideological view of "me" and "I". The value of living in completely free and competitive markets and having the opportunity to make it on your own. That's what America is. Of course, we should permit corporations to stop funding pensions. If millions of individualists out there cut a deal with their employers that, in part, were based on pension expectations, then, well, then let's correct for those individuals' misunderstanding of what individualism and true freedom are all about. Let's set them free from the freedom-killing possibility that they might have income disconnected from any current labor. True freedom is the right to go out there, compete, and make money based on the labor you put in each day. Pensions? Sure, make that an investment choice for yourself. But, grow up and get free. Don't expect any free lunch from others who are working hard just to make it on their own. Really, a company should not even be allowed to promise future income streams for past work. It ought to be against the law if we want to have a competely free marketplance!
Unless, of course, the company is dealing with senior executives. Then the idea of providing future money -- in rather large amounts -- for past as opposed to current effort is an effective form of executive compensation in John Snow's star system.
The blend of arrogance and incompetence in folks like the affable John Snow leads, of course, to stories like this -- only one of zillions of similar stories that are part of our economy's -- of our society's -- overall narrative by and in which folks who do not do their jobs get million dollar send offs while folks who have and/or continue to do their jobs get stripped of financial security -- all in the name of 'shareholder value fundamentalism'.
In the slick Snow sales pitch, the stars in the star system take no individual risk on actually being paid for real performance yet get plenty of individual reward while the 'non-stars' risking their financial security every single day on performance receive little actual reward for their effort. No wonder 80% of the workforce still makes basically the same pay they did when Bush took office. And, job insecurity being what it has been, it's also no surprise that the average family income is less now than in January 2001. Meanwhile, with dramatic increases in consumer debt (both credit card and home equity related), American families face precarious financial futures. To all of which, we can now add increasingly value-less pension promises under the individual-risk-loving-for-all-individuals-except-CEOs policies, practices and, again, sheer incompetence of the Bush Administration.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:00 PM | PermalinkMarch 20, 2006
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Today's Slate asks, "Is Whole Foods Wholesome?" and follows up with this subtitle: "The Dark Secrets Of The Organic-Food Movement."
Here's what the article tells us about Whole Foods:
Pluses:
"There's plenty that's praiseworthy."
The chairman of the company is dedicated to proving business can be ethical, socially responsible and profitable. One way the company achieves this objective is through marketing organic food to better off folks and charging premium prices.
Whole Foods is dedicated to environmental sustainability.
Whole Foods pays employees living wages, provides good benefits and has a rule that the top executive cannot make more than 14 times the wages of front line workers (Note: The vast majority of companies pay top executives more than 300-to-1 -- and, thereby, reinforce and widen the already Grand Canyon gap separating the bottom 60 percent of households from the top 1%).
Whole Foods is purchasing wind energy.
Whole Foods provides information to customers inside the store with regard to energy cost savings of farming organically.
Whole Foods provides information to customers inside the store that says purchasing organic foods is supportive of small, family farms.
Through the growth of it's business (and related steps), Whole Foods and others have caused a growth in the number of large agribusinesses who now grow organic food. (Note: And, thereby, the share of organic versus non-organic food in the total market.)
Negatives:
During the summer season when locally grown tomatoes are availabe in New York, the Manhattan based Whole Food Stores sells organically grown tomatoes from Chile. The total energy costs of the Chile tomatoes during that season would be greater than the total energy costs from the New York area.
Whole Foods deals mostly with large agribusinesses that grow organic food. Whole Foods does not give the majority -- or even a large minority -- of it's business to small, family farms. Nonetheless, Whole Foods misleadingly places pictures of small, family farmers next to produce grown by larger, organic agribusinesses.
Whole Foods premium pricing puts organic food out of reach for many customers from lower economic brackets.
Following this last point, Slate points out that now Wal-Mart is considering getting into organic food -- a step that would increase the benefits of organic farming to many more people and the planet as a whole. That would be terrific. An innovation started at the 'high end' of the market makes it's way down and, thereby, increases the total 'share of market' for organic farming.
Now, if Wal-Mart would also mimic Whole Foods' policies on living wages, benefits and the ratio of top exectuive pay to front line worker pay, the vision of Whole Foods' chairman would have made an even bigger and positive difference to the world. What a great thing that would be!
And, not coincidentlly, Whole Foods should also revisit it's commitment to small, family farms and stop misleading consumers about the source of its produce. That, too, would be great!
Of course, the odds that the Slate article will induce either Wal-Mart or Whole Foods to take such steps is made smaller by the article itself. "Dark Secrets"? Not Wholesome? It's the kind of overheated, immature journalism that fails to enlighten while only retarding lofty aspirations more than advancing them. (Indeed, a friend who read the Slate piece emailed me that he was now quite worried about the integrity of Whole Foods -- probably just the kind of reaction that Slate hoped for. Namely, one that bred anxiety toward Whole Foods rather than anything remotely constructive in continuing the 'organic food movement.")
It also betrays some ignorance. Should Whole Foods take steps to work with local organic farmers in New York? Yes!! But, the author of the article seems wholly ignorant of the minimum demands of commercial relationships as well as 'apples to apples' accounting. To induce large (or small) farmers to switch to organic, Whole Foods must promise to purchase in volume. It cannot 'just show up' on various days in various parts of the year and say, "Hey if you have organic, I'd like to buy it from you!" Both buyer and seller must focus on the entire economic package -- and the larger the package -- the more comprehensive and continuous it is - the more likely each will commit to the necessary shifts required to move toward organic.
Cherry-picking a part of the year, as the author does in making the energy cost comparison of summer tomatoes from New Jersey versus summer tomatoes from Chile is, as the author likes to write, 'technically correct". Fine. But, perhaps it would have been more enlightening for the author to also share the 'full year' energy audit. That is, the energy costs for Chile tomatoes versus local only. A problem of course is that local New Jersey tomatoes are only availabe in summer -- unless grown in greenhouses -- and then, if greenhouse grown, the full energy audit would be higher.
Should Whole Foods find ways to support New Jersey small farmers and also tap into local, in season tomatoes? Yes! By all means. But the current facts as presented in this overheated piece from Slate are, well, overheated.
Dark secrets?
Hardly.
A more accurate title for the article might have been this: "Whole Foods Is Not Perfect."
And, the subtitle might have been: "One Store In Manhattan Has Misleading Posters."
Of course, the 'dark secret' of this kind of journalism is that such headlines don't attract many readers. Much better to have misleading headlines.
March 09, 2006
Knight-Ridder And Sustainable Strategy
Knight-Ridder and it's chain of newspaper and media businesses is up for sale. Here are three stories about the finalists in the bidding -- one story from Editor & Publisher, one from the NY Times, and one from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
I recommend reading all three. Before you do, however, let's review some basics of business strategy and performance.
First, among the various strategic choices that businesses must make are those that determine what blend of cost versus customer value will sit beneath the strategy. Put in it's extreme, will the strategy be cost based? Or, grounded in the value delivered to customers? All businesses must deliver both of course: cost and value. But, often the blend tips in favor of one or the other. So, read about the three bidders for KR and reach your own conclusion about the degree to which the strategy of each will ground itself in cost versus value.
Second, it is commonly accepted that busineses have multiple stakeholders -- most particularly, customers, shareholders and employees. The best, most sustainable businesses balance and blend concern for each in the strategies pursued. Still, many businesses run on the extremist creed of shareholder value fundamentalism -- a creed that goes beyond a healthy concern for delivering shareholder value to an obsession about shareholders that crowds out concern for customers and employees.
Read the three articles. And reflect for yourself on the relative concern each bidder has for shareholders , employees and customers.
Posted by Doug Smith at 03:13 PM | PermalinkMarch 03, 2006
Viral Bankruptcy Update
Dana Corp, the huge auto and truck part maker, has filed for Chapter 11 in the latest spread of the viral bankruptcy begun by Delphi last autumn.
Posted by Doug Smith at 04:57 PM | PermalinkMarch 02, 2006
Carnival Puts Profits First In Katrina Response
comes today that Jeb Bush helped Carnival Cruise Lines grab a lucrative contract to send three of its ships to New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Carnival executive Ric Cooper has given tens of thousands of dollars to Jeb Bush's Florida Republicans and George W. Bush's GOP too. Jeb, of course, has high level access. He can, and did, email directly to Mike Brown of FEMA to seal the deal.
Corruption? Or, a corporation reaching out to help those in need in a crisis and a 'can do' Governor and FEMA director cutting through read tape?
Those are the red vs. blue political questions. Let's focus, though, on the first part of the second question: a corporation reaching out to help those in need.
Here's what a Carnival spokeswoman says about Carnival's civic spirit in a time of crisis: "The ships have played an effective and critical role in housing and feeding thousands of people who desparately needed help and we are extremely gratified to have been there for them."
My hunch is that this description is not far from accurate. People did need help. Those who work for Carnival must feel good about having provided it.
So, is this a case of a corporation putting the needs of the nation above profits -- of reaching out in a time of crisis to do the 'right thing'?
Well, the article goes on to mention "Carnival officials have defended the deal, saying the company will not make extra profit because the $236 million price covers the revenue it would normally receive for up to 120,000 passengers it could book."
Let's look at the fine print and the facts. A catastrophe of Category 5 proportions hits the Gulf Coast and cripples it. How many passengers who had already booked cruises canceled? How many of the 'up to 120,000' who would normally book postponed such plans? Put differently, what would Carnival's actual cruise revenues have been had they not sent the ships to New Orleans?
Next, note the phrase "will not make extra profit". As just suggested, actually Carnival probably did make extra profit when the comparison is between the actual revenues if they had kept the ships for cruise use versus the actual revenues gained by sending them to the Gulf.
Morever, there is a qualitative issue raised by 'will not make extra profit'. A devastating hurricane strikes and hundreds of thousands of people's lives are put at risk. Tens of thousands of other Americans reach into their pockets to provide money and other assistance. That is charity. Stories also circulated about businesses providing support without compensation. That is charity.
A business that provides support at it's normal profit margin is not charity. It's an exercise in putting profits first.
Let's replay the tape. Katrina hits. Jeb Bush contacts Carnival or the reverse. Carnival immediately volunteers three cruise ships -- at cost. Red tape is cut. The ships get there and people are helped.
Okay, let's replay it this way. Ditto on the contact. But this time Carnival says, "We'll send the ships and cut our normal profit margin by X%."
Either way, Carnival does 'the right thing'.
What Carnival did, though, was to extract maximum value from a revenue generating opportunity. Values in the sense of reaching out and doing the right thing were merely a by-product. They played no determinative role in this decision. Carnival probably reaped extra profit because they would not have had 120,000 normal passengers. They charged the Government full price. And, the bonus was, they were able to make 'we were there to help" claims for their brand.
Any way you look at it, Carnival did not do the fully right thing.
And, among other things, here's why it matters -- profoundly. An effective and efficient government should have competitive bidding. Indeed, effective and efficient private sector companies have competitive bidding. It just makes sense. However, in a time of crisis, bidding processes that make routine sense might impede responsiveness. Moving quick counts. Any effort consistent with speed that captures the spirit of competitive bidding is great. But, with Katrina-like disasters, all of us would hope that speed of response rises in importance -- and we would expect people who care enough to send help would move quickly and do the right thing in abiding by the spirit of effective and efficient decision making.
Put differently, we must rely on the good judgement and the values of those in a position to act.
When such players abuse that trust -- when they line their pockets and take full financial advantage -- the reaction will likely include this: further government restrictions on such decisions, even in a time of crisis.
And that means when the next crisis hits, our collective response will be worse, not better because players like Carnival and their executive Ric Cooper who undoubtedly have spent decades decrying government red tape and bureaucracy got a golden opportunity to demonstrate the power of the spirit of the rules instead of the letter of the rules and saw and seized the 'gold' by putting their self interest above interest in others.
February 28, 2006
Blended Values Strategies
Blended values strategies are choices about all the usual aspects of strategy -- but with a twist: neither the pursuit of value (money, profits, winning, wealth) nor the pursuit of other values (social, family, political, technological, environmental, spiritual, creative, legal or medical) is the trump card for all critical (or even non critical) decisions. In blended values strategies, the organization -- the business -- constructs a narrative of successful performance by and through which all key stakeholders both gain from and contribute to the success and happiness of the other stakeholders.
Blended values strategies do not put the interests of any constituency first. Businesses that identify and pursue blended values strategies do not allow 'shareholder value' to trump all other concerns. Nor do such strategies make 'the customer king', or operate to the exclusive benefit of executives and employees.
Rather, the narrative of sustainable success is an interative one that stretches out into the foreseeable future -- telling a story by which shareholders provide opportunities to the people of the enterprise and their partners to provide value and values to customers who generate returns to shareholders who provide opportunities to the people of the enterprise and their partners.... and on and on and on.
Each link in this story is ornamented with SMART outcome-based goals by which those involved know the answer to this key question: "How would we or anyone know we had succeeded with this blended values strategy?"
For shareholders, yes, those SMART outcomes will include share price, profits, market share, brand equity and more. For customers or beneficiaries, those SMART outcomes would speak to quality, speed, loyalty, share, innovation and more. And, for the people of the enterprise and their partners, the SMART outcomes would reflect success at skills, opportunities, and values as well as dollars -- whether direct or in terms of benefits.
Blended values strategies are intentionally win/win for all stakeholders. They are not 'put up' jobs that talk the talk about how 'employees are our most important assets' and 'the customer comes first', but, in the end, only walk the walk of 'shareholder value and executive compensation'.
Posted by Doug Smith at 08:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)February 24, 2006
Thresholds Of Decency
In our complex 21st century, tens of millions of us experience what has traditionally been meant by the word community in the organizations where we work. It is in that context that we depend on other people we know for critical aspects of our lives: security, affiliation, meaning, and more. Each day we go to work, there are co-workers who will do much to influence our health, well being and future. And, these co-workers are not limited to close friends or family. They have little relationship to us other than the purposes we share with them that are related to the purposes of the organization where we work with them.
In too many organizations, the shared purposes reflect a bias toward value (profits, money, winning) over other values (family, social, environmental, spiritual, political and so forth). Value is the trump card. If a decision will increase profits and shareholder wealth, the odds are that decision will get made. Indeed, this is a profoundly powerful description of the shared beliefs and behaviors in our organizations -- of the 'way we do things around here'.
Consequently, news that employees calling themselves scientists doctored information about health risks in order to gain profit making opportunities for their companies come as no surprise. In our world of value trumping values, this is 'dog bites man' -- not the reverse. It's common place. It's not really news in the sense of surprise. It's predictable.
Tomorrow, though, when you go to work, ask yourself: In this community you know as your organization, is there any threshold of decency below which you -- the thick we of your organization who share fates -- will not allow value to trump values? For example, if sickness and death of some of your co-workers are a potential consequence of profit making choices, does that sit above or below the threshold of decency?
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:02 PM | PermalinkFebruary 19, 2006
Rearranging Parking Spots At Ford
A few weeks back, on the heels of announcing the loss of tens of thousands of jobs, Ford Motor Company sought to build enthusiasm for it's future by announcing that only Ford-driving employees would be permitted to park near the plants where they work. Hey, you might not have much job security. But, if you buy our products, we'll give you preferential parking.
Now we learn that employees making the Ford choice will also need to trade off the great parking benefit with the potential that, should they become paraplegiacs in a rollover accident, they will be barred from suing Ford by a new federal regulation prohibiting such lawsuits -- an anti-consumer regulation their employer supports.
Earlier posts have pointed out that American auto executives seem transfixed by cost-obsessed strategies for success. Problem is that customers respond to both costs and value. It's no surprise that Ford and GM are smiling at the new regulation. It promises more cost reductions. It may leave customers in wheelchairs; but, it seems, when given a choice between cost and value, the automakers pick cost regardless of the ethical, legal, and -- get this: competitive - concerns that all demand opposition to this atrocious regulation, not support for it.
There is an alternative. A strategy grounded in attending to both cost and value. A strategy that works. Just ask Toyota. For it to work, though, the necessary practices -- including the values demanded -- must characterize all the employees of an auto company as well as their suppliers and dealers. The focus on an integrated concern for both cost and value must permeate the executives -- not just the employees in selected departments -- regardless of where they are allowed to park.
Posted by Doug Smith at 02:11 PM | PermalinkFebruary 08, 2006
Freedom of the Press At The Tribune Company
In our new age of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families, the organizations in which we actively participate are the closest contexts to what we have traditionally meant by the words community and town -- to the experience of sharing meaningful aspects of our fates (political, economic, social and more) with people who are not necessarily friends or family. Organizations can be work-based or volunteer, for profit, not-for-profit, governmental, formal, informal, large, small or otherwise sized. Of these, though, organizations where we work stand out for their importance to our character, our values and our fates. We have much on the line in organizations where we work. And, we have it on the line with others upon whom we depend for our livelihoods, our well being and our actual and not just professed values.
If we wish to understand our actual beliefs and behaviors with regard to any particular value, we need to look at how and whether that value is practiced in the organizations where we work more than the towns and neighborhoods where we happen to reside. In our towns and neighborhoods we are mostly consumers and friends and neighbors. Yes, the shared idea of citizen is powerful and important. We should vote and otherwise participate in local affairs. But democratic practices designed for a world of places require retuning to fit our new 21st century of markets, networks and organizations.
Just do a time and motion study of your life. You do not have time to actively participate in the role of citizen in all the many aspects of local government. Instead, you do have time to be an informed voter -- an informed consumer of local government policy and services. Do that. Be an informaed voter, an informed consumer. But don't kid yourself that somehow you can stop 'bowling alone' if by 'bowling together', you mean governing together some place-based community of folks with whom you actively share fates.
Stop dreaming about places your ancestors used to live with other people. And start taking responsibility for the values of the organizations -- the 21st century 'towns' and 'communities' -- where you actually do share fates with others beyond freinds and family.
Of course, to be an informed voter and an informed consumer, you rely on organizations -- and the people who share fates because they work together in those organizations -- to provide the information you need. That is more likely to happen if there is free speech and free press within those organizations. For decades, for example, there was not free speech or free press within tobacco companies. And, as millions of uninformed consumers died as a result.
All values are hardest to live by when self-interest is vulnerable. For decades, undoubtedly executives and employees of tobacco companies must have worried that information about links between disease and tobacco would hurt their self-interest. So, instead of pay and jobs and wealth, they sacrificed free speech. And that's just a fact. That's just the way it was.
Beyond our own organizations, of all others where we -- as consumers, voters, shareholders, networkers, family members and friends -- ought most to pay attention to free speech and freedom of the press, news-based organizaitons should be high on the list. For example, if you'd like to understand the real values that folks stand for in media companies, look at the values they actually practice where they work. For the folks who work at the Tribune Company in Chicago, the actual and real shared beliefs and behaviors regarding free press and free speech says much more about their character and their values than does their participation as customers in local, state or federal governmental markets.
And so, it's interesting to note what one former Tribune reporter says about the fate of an article on executive pay in a newspaper owned by the Tribune Company -- it was edited to exclude the pay of the top executive at the Tribune Company:
"It started as an assignment to analyze some executive compensation data for the paper’s annual CEO pay section. As I crunched the numbers, it became apparent that FitzSimons’ pay would figure prominently in the article. It seemed like an article we needed to publish, even if it would reflect negatively on the Tribune’s top exec. So I wrote it. My editor signed off on it. The copy desk cleared it and slated it for publication last May. And then, 36 hours before the article was to appear, it was killed. Tribune editors ducked questions about why they hadn’t run the article, and declined to schedule it for publication. As a member of the Trib’s investigative reporting team, I’d often been in the position of demanding answers from public and corporate officials about their conduct. When it became apparent to me, after months of evasive corporate-speak on the FitzSimons article, that the Tribune wasn’t willing to subject itself to the same kind of scrutiny, I resigned."
So, let us ask, "What do the people who work at the Tribune Company really stand for when it comes to freedom of the press and freedom of speech?"
Removing The Deck Chairs From The Titanic
That's what is happening at General Motors. Having cast tens of thousands of families into financial jeopardy, eliminated tens of thousands of jobs, shuttered plants across the country, and reduced health and other benefits for current and prior employess, the weakened auto giant yesterday announced a cut in dividends for shareholders as well as reductions in pay for senior executives and board members. All of which keeps GM steadily on course for disaster. Yes, they've gone beyond rearranging the deck chairs. But, tossing chairs off the sinking ship won't save this ship from sinking.
GM sells cars to customers. That means the company must attend to both the price of those cars and their value. For any market segment -- young people, folks interested in saving the planet, muscle-boys who love power, and so forth -- the prospective auto buyers and leasers weigh feature and function and image against price. Low prices are critically important and lowered costs provide the chance to sustain them. But, value matters too.
Consider Toyota, rapidly overtaking GM as the number 1 auto maker in the world. Toyota moved aggressively several years ago to ensure they were not reliant on a product line up heavy with gas guzzling SUVs. GM didn't. Toyota invested in hybrids. GM didn't. Toyota created and put heft behind cars designed for young adults. GM didn't. Toyota also managed it's costs. Better than GM. But, the key here is that Toyota looked at both sides of the consumer value proposition. GM stayed strictly inside the box on value -- SUV, SUV, SUV, SUV -- and moved slowly on costs. Now, GM is betting strictly on costs.
It still doesn't 'get it' when it comes to the value side of it's products. As previously noted, GM invested heavily in product design and manufacturing flexibility -- that is, the capacity to move quicker to provide new products. It can now bring 15 new products to market quicker than ever before. And, what are the deck chair managers doing with this flexibility. 13 of the new products will be re-designs of full size SUVS.
13 out of 15 are bets on the past.
It's no surprise then that Toyota made billions in 2005 while GM lost billions. Or, that Toyota's market capitalization -- the value shareholders put on the future health and well being of a company -- is $188 billion or 14 times higher than GM's.
If you were a bright, enthusiastic car designer, which company would you want to work for? If you had the talent and energy to have a choice in life about jobs and loved automobiles, where would you want to work?
To be sustainable, any company's performance must deliver value to targeted customers who generate returns to shareholders who provide opportunities to the people of the enterprise who deilver value to cusotmers.... and on and on and on. This cycle of reinforcing performance can be positive (like Toyota's). Or negative. At GM, the board of directors and the executives think they can cost cut their way to prosperity. It won't work. They might be able to toss some chairs off the ship. But, this ship -- the ship they captain -- is sinking.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)February 07, 2006
Best Super Bowl Ad
Kudos to Unilever and Dove soap for this year's best Super Bowl Ad. These ads run just under $90,000 a second. Unilever, a multibusiness unit company whose brands are known the world over, chose to spend it's millions on promoting self-esteem in young girls. It's all part of Unilever/Dove's and, no surprise, offered quite a contrast to the the GoDaddy girls and some other car company's knock off of the Peterbilt girl and the cheerleaders on the sidelines and.... well, just about every other female image offered to young girls before, during and after the game.
An earlier post pointed out Unilever's effort to restore the Ben & Jerry's brand to it's original blend of concern for value and values. Congratulations to Unilever for extending the effort to Dove.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)February 03, 2006
Accuracy and Truth
When we share an understanding about roles such as customer and employee (or parent and child), the values we share -- the predictability of our beliefs and behaviors -- rises. For example, when you walk into a clothing store, there are a variety of highly predictable beliefs and behaviors that you as customer and those who, as employees, serve you can count on. These are shared values. The shared roles of customer and employee influence those shared values. They help explain predictable belief and behavior and do so without comment on whether those values are 'good' or 'bad' or anything in between.
Shared relationships also are highly predictive of shared values (again, whether 'good' or 'bad'). When you persistently interact with others known to you by name in some open ended way, the values you and they share -- the pattern of belief and behavior -- become predictable. At home or work these values might explain who makes what kind of effort, how you respond to certain situations or opportunities, what your shared beliefs and behaviors are with respect to decision-making, faith, the environment and more.
Shared relationships and shared roles are two of the most powerful determinants of shared values. Another are shared ideas. Consider the shared idea of 'red state' and 'blue state'. This idea has spread across our new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families to fuel any number of beliefs and behaviors. For example, it is highly predictive of the way media employees approach a wide array of stories. You personally may not like that, or you may. You might think it 'good' or 'bad'. But as a predictor of some shared values, the shared idea of 'red state/blue state' exists and does explain much of what happens in the media.
Unlike the world of places in which our grandparents and their grandparents lived, shared ideas have much broader potential influence in our new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families. I say potential because, before any shared idea might shape shared values, there must be awareness. If the 'red state/blue state' idea had never been so widely aired in the media, it quite simply wouldn't have become so powerful a shaper of shared values.
Consider, for example, the idea of 'water ice in comets'. It is a shared idea that shapes certain behaviors and beliefs among some scientists. In all likelihood, however, it has zero influence on the shared values of you and folks you know because you've never really heard about and, if you have, you've pretty much forgotten it.
Now, imagine for a moment that people well set up to spread ideas through the media -- people who work with media companies that have large audiences, people in powerful positions in government and corporations, and so forth -- decided that water ice in comets was important. In making that choice, of course, they would need to have some explanation for its importance. All of us in this new world of markets, networks and organizations are quite busy. Our attention comes at a premium - and if folks in media, governmental and corporate organizations wish us to pay attention to water ice in comets, they'll need to explain why.
So, let us assume they do. Let us assume, for the moment, that the explanation is "X". "Water ice in comets is important to all of you because of X". And, let's assume these organizations and the people in them succeed. A concerted campaign is made over the next three to six weeks through media, governmental and corporate (and, perhaps also certain 'interest group' organizations such as the Heritage Foundation or MoveOn) and we all wake up this coming Spring sharing the idea that 'water ice in comets is important because of X'.
Now, let's talk about truth and accuracy. By the standards of strongly shared ideas, most of us who bought into this whole thing would believe "Water ice in comets is important" to be the truth-- especially in a culture in which shared ideas spread through markets, networks and organizations have become so powerfully oriented to ideology (compare 'red state/blue state'). "Truth" as a shared idea that influences shared values comes dressed more and more as ideology -- as repeated opportunities for us to affirm what we stand for, who we are, what we believe.
What about accuracy? Is the statement "Water ice in comets is important because of X" an accurate statement?
Well, you don't know, do you? Because I've written "X" as opposed to any specific content. You do not know whether the statement is accurate. But what you do know is that our shared experience in the world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and familes predicts that -- so long as X is not ridiculously inaccurate -- there would be widespread shared belief and behavior that 'water ice in comets is important' -- that the importance would be held as truth.
In light of this phenomenon, the standards for what might pass as 'accurate enough' to get believed become quite important. Consider, for example, this news item about a lawsuit against the former head of the Bush Admiinstation's Enivornmental Protection Agency who, immediately after September 11th, used all the power of government and media to assure people the air quality was safe enough for them to return to their homes and apartments in the areas affected by the terrorist attacks. That became a powerful shared idea -- both for the folks who lived in lower Manhattan and, probably for a brief time, for folks around the country. "The air quality is safe enough" became the 'truth'. But, it turns out it wasn't accurate.
Or, consider this. In his State of the Union address this week, the president declared his administration and his party were intent on reducing the nation's dependence on oil through, among other things, investing in alternative energy technologies. That is now a widely shared idea. It is the truth -- at least among people (in red states? 'red' people in 'blue states'? children?) who have a shared value -- a predictable pattern of belief and behavior -- to credit what a president of the United States announces in a State of the Union address.
Was it accurate? Well if behavior must match belief in order for accuracy to be claimed, perhaps not. A day after the speech, funding for key alternative energy efforts was cut.
Later in the week, the House of Representatives passed legislation reducing health, education and other spending aimed at alleviating difficulties faced by the poorest Americans. The shared idea here is "fiscal restraint". That is what is syndicated as 'truth' in our markets, networks and organizations.
But is it accurate? The fiscal savings involved here are but a tiny fraction of 1% of the budget deficit and an absolute dollar amount quickly canceled out by other spending increases in a government that has generated record-breaking deficits. In a language that values 'accuracy', it's hard to apply the description 'fiscal restraint' accurately to the Bush Adminstration. That's just 'what is' -- it's about predictable beliefs and behaviors -- about values shared by those in the federal government and elsewhere whether or not any of us think it is 'good', 'bad' or 'in between'.
Ideas cannot become shared ideas without some awareness of those ideas. You and others will not share beliefs and behaviors regarding water ice in comets without first having awareness. But, in an age of markets, networks and organizations, we all can and do become aware of ideas without regard to their accuracy. Our understanding --even if completely inaccurate and wrong -- can and does lead to shared ideas and shared values. When this happens, truth deviates from accuracy. We share ideas and accept them as truth even though they are inaccurate.
All of which suggests that our future and the future of our children and others around the globe will become more sustainable when our markets, networks, organizations, friends and families put more effort into the shared idea of accuracy than the shared idea of truth.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:26 PM | PermalinkFebruary 01, 2006
What Do People Who Work at CNN Really Stand For?
The employees and executives who work at CNN are a thick we -- a 21st century community whose shared purposes and goals, shared roles and relationships in the company and shared ideas shape and determine their character as human beings. During their workday, CNN employees and executives depend on one another for significant aspects of their fates as people -- from their material well-being in the form of wages and benefits to friendships and social affiliation to their pursuit of meaning and fulfillment. If they or anyone wishes to understand the values -- the character -- of what CNN employees and executives 'stand for', the best evidence lies in their collective beliefs and behaviors. A reliable guide can be found in what the CNN brand stands for -- what blend of the pursuit of value (money, profit, wealth) and the pursuit of values such as objectivity, accuracy, free inquiry, dialogue and so forth.
Like others in this new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families, people who work at CNN might think -- mistakenly -- that what happens at CNN is just 'a job'. That the decisions, actions, beliefs and behaviors on display from "9-to-5" are merely 'what happens at work" and bear little if any relationship to what they as human beings stand for and the nature of their character. This is a profound misunderstanding of the nature of being in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and family -- in a world where our core experience of sharing fates with folks other than friends and family happens in organizations -- not places.
When folks who work at CNN go home to their families, their kids and their friends, they must seek to integrate their work and home lives, not separate and isolate them if they are to avoid our unique form of 21st century schizophrenia. What happens at work speaks volumes about their character as people -- and speaks that to their kids and others, not just their co-workers.
With that in mind, let's ask the people who work at CNN about their values, about their belief and behavior in support of democracy, civility, the rule of law, family and tolerance as demonstrated in the recent choice to provide a talk show platform to a fellow named Glenn Beck. According to a spokesperson -- a person from CNN who speaks on behalf of you, the employees and executives of CNN, who speaks about what you really stand for, Beck was hired not because CNN 'wanted any political point of view or ideology', but rather because 'We set out to hire an entertaining, engaging talk show host, and his brand of humor and lighthearted approach was one we liked."
The 'we' here are you -- you, the people of CNN. This spokesperson is speaking on behalf of you and what you stand for. So, when you get home tonight, pull your kids together, invite over some good friends, and explain to them how thrilled you are to have Glenn Beck as a co-worker. In addition to his light humor and lack of any political ideology, go ahead and tell your kids about how, as a radio talk show host in Philadelphia, he "called victims of Hurricane Katrina "scumbags," said "It took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 families," called Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, "a pretty big prostitute," and said, "I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could."
Tell your kids the values you really stand for.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:24 PM | PermalinkJanuary 29, 2006
Beggar Is Better
The path to a growing, robust economy is through impoverishing workers, according to Eduardo Porter of the New York Times. You see, here's the skinny: Unions have been too successful. Private-sector union members, on average, make 23% more than non-union employees. This, in turn, means that unionized companies -- such as Ford and GM -- operate at a severe competitive disadvantage. Porter must believe this is the sole disadvantage explaining why these auto giants have announced layoffs of 60,000 workers in the past few months. Porter doesn't seem to think product strategy, distribution channels, shareholder value demands from the financial markets, executive compensation, or anything else is worth throwing into the mix of any explanation about the failures of these companies. Or, at least if he is thinking such things, his editors have deleted such musings.
You see it's that 23% advantage that's killing competitiveness. The path to business success, by this logic, lies in reducing the wages of workers (and, of course, it also lies in reducing health and other benefits). Beggar thy workers! That's the answer!
It's an answer and strategy that has characterized the US economy for decades. Real wages have steadily declined for more than thirty years. Meanwhile, folks at the top of the heap are doing better and better. Since we're looking at car companies, let's consider Michigan. In the past 20 years, families in the bottom 60% of the population have seen their incomes rise a total of, at most, 26% -- or at best just over 1% per year. Those in the top 5% in Michigan -- the auto executives and other well-to-do who guide the economy -- have seen their incomes double -- rise by a total of over 100%; or, straightlining for simplicity, by 5% per year. Put in dollar terms, the lowest sixty percent of families have gotten pay raises of between $165 and $2200 per year while the top folks have seen their incomes rise by over $4800 per year for 20 straight years.
The same pattern pertains in other states. And, according to a spokesperson for New York's Business Council, this is a great thing because the wealthy pay 'huge sums in taxes' enabling New York State to have generous social services for the poor.
So, here's the strategy: Beggar workers so that companies can be competitive so that the executives and shareholders of those companies can continue doubling their incomes every twenty years so that those folks can pay 'huge taxes' to support government social services needed to respond to poverty which, of course, will be rising rapidly as we make sure that workers continue to see their incomes remain flat to declining and any health and other benefits disappear.
To Eduardo Porter and the editors at The New York Times this is as good as a glory road to national health and prosperity. And, it's all down to the the success of the American Union movement.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:55 PM | PermalinkJanuary 24, 2006
Exploding Mortgages, II
Exploding mortgages are back in the news. Ameriquest, the huge finance company whose website comforts potential borrowers with promises of 'personal attention' needed to help with the 'lonely process' of getting a mortgage was evidently providing 'stalker-like' personal attention and has now agreed to roll back its aggressive practices -- practices that left many of its customers with exploding mortgages. Customers like 69-year old Carolyn Pittman, a widow with a heart problem who has difficulty reading and who, apparently, succumbed to Ameriquest's high pressure sales practices and took a mortgage that overvalued her home and was padded with illegal fees. Her Ameriquest mortgage exploded. She now faces foreclosure and the loss of her home and equity. Under the terms of this settlement, if she were to accept it, Ms. Pittman would get a few hundred bucks.
Showing some of that 'personal attention', an Ameriquest spokesperson said of Ms. Pittman, "Her story is unfortunate." The head of Ameriquest, in contrast, merely expressed 'regret' that thousands of customers got exploding mortgages because of the unethical sales practices that Ameriquest now promises to change. At a few hundred bucks per victim, it's a sweet deal for the company that has become a household brand name through it's TV and other advertising in support of the "American Dream". Through the predatory practices, fees and rates it has charged folks like Ms. Pittman, Ameriquest has made claims for values ("American Dream") while keeping its eye on value -- on profits, winning and generating wealth for it's executives and shareholders on the backs of 69-year old widows with heart problems and difficulties reading.
Indeed, one might ask all the employees of Ameriquest -- the thick we who share fates with one another and, thereby, whose character as human beings highly correlates with the character of Ameriquest's brand -- 'what do you stand for?" And, if you stand for helping all people achieve the American Dream, then why did you use predatory practices, fees and rates to provide folks with exploding mortgages? And, as the ill effects of these practices became more known to you, why did it take the efforts of 49 states to bring about the changes you've just announced with this settlement.
There's a word for the damage done in our new world of markets, networks and organizations by this kind of extreme, fundamental dedication to value without values (or, the reverse): terrorism.
Posted by Doug Smith at 08:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (3)January 21, 2006
ExxonMobil Explains Windfall Profits
Yesterday, a Vice President of ExxonMobil conducted a web-based news conference to preview both the company's windfall profits of over $30 billion in 2005 (from extraordinarily high energy prices) as well as ExxonMobil's proposed 'framing' for why the profits are no big deal. "Many people say that the energy industry is reaping unfair profits and that consumers are paying the price," Cohen said. "But one has to have a point of reference. The reason that energy industry earnings are so high is that our business is immense."
Hey, we're a big industry. So, we make big profits.
Only, according to Cohen, ExxonMobil is really not so big -- or, well, yes it is big, but it is a small player in the world of energy because it supplies only two percent of the world's energy.
So, if you're keeping score on the proposed 'point of reference' needed for framing and understanding the $30 billion in profits, ExxonMobil is very profitable because it is part of a big industry -- but it is not such a big part of that industry that it can really do much about the workings of the industry.
ExxonMobil might seem like a giant oil company to you. But, really, it is only a small player in a big industry -- and pretty much toothless to do anything about prices that threaten households of millions of people who, this winter, must make tradeoffs between gasoline to get to work and fuel oil to heat the home against food, medical and other necessities. Nor can or should this bit player in the big industry pay any more taxes that it already does because it needs the money to be able to afford the oil refineries and other activities required to supply 2 percent of the world's energy to -- well to whom?
For that answer, let's take a look at ExxonMobil's 2004 Corporate Citizenship Report, in the section entitled Economic Progress and Corporate Governance where the people of ExxonMobil commit themselves as follows: "ExxonMobil's primary benefit to society is providing affordable energy to people all over the world."
So, let's continue our search for the best 'point of reference' for understanding ExxonMobil's $30 plus billion in profits in 2005. The company makes big profits because it is in a big industry. But, it is a small player in a big industry and cannot do anything to affect price swings in that industry. However, it is committed to being a good corporate citizen, primarily by providing affordable energy.
It's just that, hey, we're a bit player and there's really not much we can do to make energy affordable because the industry is huge and, as explained yesterday by the Vice President of ExxonMobil, "Oil and gasoline are global commodities and are subject to price swings in the same way as agricultural products, minerals and steel, and it's a very competitive market."
So, how does ExxonMobil hold itself accountable for bringing affordable energy to the people of the world?
Well, according to the Corporate Citizenship Report section on Economic Progress and Corporate Governance, ExxonMobil does this by paying taxes and making community contributions. Yes, you've read this correctly. ExxonMobil doesn't actually do much about making energy affordable in what might seem the more obvious ways such as keeping prices as low as possible. Rather, it pays taxes and makes community contributions (although evidently not the kind of community contributions Citgo is making this winter -- the kind that bring energy to low income communities in danger of freezing.)
So, let's wrap up our search for the best point of reference to frame our understanding of ExxonMobil's $30 plus billion in profits from the high energy prices in 2005 that made energy unaffordable to tens of millions of people around the world:
- ExxonMobil has big profits because it's in a big industry
- However, ExxonMobil is a bit player in this big industry
- So, ExxonMobil cannot do much about prices that made energy unaffordable to tens of millions this winter
- As a result of it's bit player status, ExxonMobil chooses to fulfill it's commitment to providing affordable energy by paying taxes and making community contributions instead of attempting to work directly on affordability
- However, ExxonMobil's community contributions do not include Citgo-like programs that intervene in low income communities in some danger of freezing this winter because they cannot afford high fuel prices
- And, because ExxonMobil is a bit player that needs all the cash it can get to keep supplying affordable energy to the people of the world, ExxonMobil cannot pay any more taxes that it already does, which, by the way is a lot of taxes
Got that?
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)January 16, 2006
Martin Luther King Jr.
As we reflect on the birth, life and dream of Martin Luther King Jr., let's commit ourselves to having the courage to be the change we wish to bring about. Only adults can take responsibility for their own change. No one else can do it for us. If we wish to find leaders who care about building a better future for our children and the planet, then we must find a way to exert that leadership ourselves. If we wish to continue the great democratic project begun in 1776, then we must commit ourselves to democracy itself because it is simply not possible to build and support democracy with anti-democratic methods. If we wish to commit ourselves to the rule of law, then we must do so through respecting law above person because it is simply not possible to adhere to law without adhering to principles -- even when those principles require taking action against people whose self-interest and ideology seek to destroy the law instead of uphold it. If we wish to do well and do good at the same time, then we must act to heal the breach between our legitimate concern for value and our legitimate concern for values. We must cease forever our illusory notion that we can somehow make value (profits, wealth and winning) the trump card for all serious questions. We must stop the madness of shareholder value fundamentalism terrorizing our new world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families. We must not repeat the errors of radical, anti-value revolutionaries. We must not succumb to the temptation to destroy the value that has and can bestow material well being. But we must move past our obsession with value and reintegrate value the singular as a healthy, sane and sustainable conern in the house of values the plural. We must save value from itself by humanizing it with the better part of our natures. And, we must do this as employees, customers, investors, networkers, family members and friends. We must do this. No one else will do it for us.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:34 PM | PermalinkJanuary 14, 2006
Wal-Mart For NeoLibs
NeoLibs (or, if you prefer NeoProgressives) such as Matt Yglesias, Jonathan Cohn and Ezra Klein are troubled about this week's news that the Maryland legistlature shot down a veto by their Governor and passed legislation requiring Wal-Mart to pony up more health benefits for Wal-Mart employees. The NeoLibs argue workers would be much better off if liberals, progressives and others sought an alliance with Wal-Mart allowing Wal-Mart to continue its current meager benefits practices in exchange for Wal-Mart helping to get federal action for things like universal health care. Look, these NeoLIbs say, we live in a Darwinian world where corporations spend "98 percent of their effort maximizing profits and share prices". Let's be real, let's be tough guys and let's cut a pragmatic deal with the Wal-Marts that let them continue to profit maximize while they help us get federal legislation to overcome the effects of their profit maximizing ways (in this case, the effects of having workers with low wages and little to no benefits).
All of which qualifies Klein and pals for a Wolfowitz award for Naive Pragmatism -- those proposals in which reality exists only as a subset of fantasy.
The world we actually live in -- as opposed to the Naive Pragmatic world of Washington parlor policy -- is one of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families. In this world, organizations are the most powerful crucible for experiencing community (thick we's) whose common good for all involved contributes to the greater good of society -- for finding non-governmental approaches to fairness, justice and equity among other things. If we can find approaches that work inside organizations, we ought to be looking for them. But that begins with this: Shareholder value fundamentalism is as dangerous to the stability and sustainability of our new world of markets, networks and organizations as is any religious fundamentalism.
The NeoLibs like to sound tough with their acknowledgement and agreement about profit maximization. But, like Wolfowitz, they evidently have little real world experience in such organizations. They have a single answer to all problems: let the corporations profit maximize and turn to government to fix the problems created. This logic is profoundly flawed.
Start, for example, with this proposition: when seeking solutions to problems, identify and address the root causes of those problems. Extreme profit maximization -- single answer fundamentalism -- is a root cause of the lack of health care for folks who work at Wal-Mart. Proposing to solve this by reinforcing the practice of extreme profit maximization -- the root cause of the problem in the first place -- makes no sense. It's like trying to fix all manufacturing quality problems by inspecting finished products as opposed to building in quality at each step along the way. (Another root cause, of course, is a government policy grounded in extreme individualism, in putting all risks and rewards on an individualistic basis instead of blending in policy promoting shared risks and shared rewards. In criticizing the NeoLib recommendation to align themselves with extreme profit maximizers, I'm not suggesting that complex challenges such as fair and just access to health care is entirely solvable without a government willing to re-balance "me" and "we". But, even then, any effective government policy would acknowledge that, in our new world, the most real 'we's' beyond friends and family are found in organizations -- not places we call towns and neighborhoods.)
Solving problems by addressing root causes of problems ought to be a straightforward enough concept. At a more conceptual level is this: No corporation -- indeed no organization of any kind, whether for profit, non-profit or governmental -- can sustain performance without having that performance benefit all those who matter to the enterprise: supporters/shareholders, employees/exectuives, and customers/beneficiaries. "Performance" is the measurable evidence of an organization's common good -- the mission, vision, strategy and so forth by which the organization seeks and achieves what's needed by the organization's supporters/shareholders, employees/executives, and customers/beneficiaries.
In the NeoLib fantasy, there is only one constituency: shareholders. Which, of course, begs this question: "Hey, why stop at benefits? Why not encourage Wal-Mart to lower wages, convert all jobs to no more than two years in length, and, while we're at it, lock employees in at night and turn off the time clock?"
If profit maximization is the single answer to all important questions, then there are no limits to what we -- as a matter of public policy -- permit profit seeking firms.
Sustainable organization performance demands balancing and blending the interests and benefits of shareholders, employees and customers. That's pretty much standard among folks in the private sector who spend far less time in Washington DC cocktail parties than the Neo folks, whether NeoCons, NeoLibs or NeoProgressives.
That crowd, however, is comfortable with policy recommendations, like this instance, that leave the real human beings who work at Wal-Mart struggling in poverty and ill-health while (1) Wal-Mart continues to generate unsustainable profits for executives and shareholders; and, (2) some theoretical set of forces are working their way toward federal legislation and the implementation of that legislation that supposedly will -- in a very distant future -- bring relief to these workers and their families.
At it's core, the NeoLib fantasy suffers from the same phenomena as the NeoCon fantasy: utter disregard for real people, real facts and real time.
January 12, 2006
What Do People Who Work at IRS Stand For (Part 2)?
In an earlier post, I asked what values were shared at IRS among the people who work there with regard to their commitment to fairness as opposed to politically-motivated intimidation. The executives and employees of IRS -- like executives and employees of any organization -- are a thick we, a 21st century community of people who share purposes and share fates in more important, meaningful ways than do most folks who happen to reside in what we think of as 'communities' (towns, cities, neighborhoods).
Other than friends and family, organization-based thick we's are the most critical crucible in which our values -- our beliefs and behaviors -- get shaped and where our values most influence other people in our new world of markets, networks and organizations. All of which makes the question, "What do the people at IRS stand for?" of prime importance for them and for all they affect and influence.
Yesterday, for example, we learned that the people of the IRS have a practice of freezing claimed tax refunds of thousands of low-to-moderate income taxpayers, people who depend on those refunds for food, housing, heat, transportation and other basic necessities. The stated shared purpose of the people at the IRS for this practice is focused on catching (and reducing the number of) tax cheats. That is an important purpose and objective. However, the practice itself is evidently poorly designed and implemented because as many as 80% of its targets ultimately get their refunds (although sometimes it takes 3 years!).
Ought the people at the IRS care about and seek to reduce cheating? Of course. But, when employees at IRS go home at night and tell their family about 'what their shared values stand for", do they seek to say, "we believe so strongly in catching cheaters that we accept and indeed defend the need to make poor, innocent and law abiding people even poorer."
And, with regard to their values regarding tax cheaters, we might also ask them to explain to their family and friends the answer to this: "What have you been doing/are doing now with respect to Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and others who, by all evidence, seem to have controlled tens of millions of dollars over the last several years? Have you audited them? And, if not, why not?"
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)January 10, 2006
The Shadow Of The Leader
In one of Aesop's fables, a political leader accuses his shadow of bad values only to be confronted by the shadow about the leader's own failings. In short, the shadow wants nothing to do with the leader. The shadow is ashamed of the leader.
Leaders -- whether political leaders or organizational leaders -- cast shadows. "The shadow of the leader" is evocative language used to describe how a leader's choices, actions, style and values dramatically influence those same things in the organization -- or the nation -- as a whole. As the Aesop fable implies, though, the word 'shadow' is not pejorative. Because leaders are human, their choices and values inevitably bring a mix of good, bad and inbetween. The key question about what kind of shadow is cast by the leader has to do with the overall effects the leader has on the political body or the organization.
Consider, for example, MIke Brown, the recently departed head of FEMA. What shadow did he cast on FEMA? Hurricane Katrina cast Brown's shadow in dramatic relief -- and the incompetence surfaced suggests that Brown's shadow was far more destructive than constructive.
Consider, as another example, Tom DeLay and the Republican majority in the House of Representatives? What kind of shadow did DeLay cast? Based on recent legal indictments (among other things), it would seem DeLay's values were very dark and negative -- just the kind of effect that the 'shadow' in Aesop's fable is running away from. DeLay's leadership evokes yet another phrase often used to convey the effects and influence of bad leaders on those they lead: the fish rots from the head.
Now, consider leaders in your organization. What kind of shadow do they cast? How do their choices, actions, beliefs, behaviors, and values add up? Would their shadows, if given the chance, cut and run? Or, would the shadows - on balance -- gladly continue walking together with the leader toward some best future for the organization being led?
Posted by Doug Smith at 03:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)January 04, 2006
Cross Cultural Teams
Teaming is one of the two disciplines for achieving performance in small groups. In addition to keeping groups small, the team discipline revolves around needed skills, shared sense of purpose, goals and how to get along and work together, and mutual accountability -- all of which make the findings from Grovewell must reading for folks in cross cultural teams.
We are all human -- we bring with us beliefs and behaviors that reflect 'how we do things around here'. Increasingly, more and more of us absorb and practice such values in organizations. Still, the forces of national and ethnic culture remain the starting point because of family, because we 'grow up' in contexts heavily influenced by those cultural dimensions. The shift from place to organization going on around the globe holds both promise and peril -- but surely one potential advantage comes from blending the best of various cultures into 'how we do things around here' in our organizations. Teams are powerful crucibles for making this happen because they are small thick we's with an orientation toward performance -- toward some objective purpose that brings us together meaningfully.
As the Grovewell research shows, achieving performance requires small cross-cultural groups using the team discipline to grapple with how to get the best from values that are seemingly at odds, such as:
1. Individualism versus group orientation
2. Hierarchical versus democratic distribution of power
3. Content-focused versus context-focused communication style
4. Formality versus informality
5. Punctuality versus flexible sense of time
6. Task and goal orientation versus relationship orientation
7. Deductive versus inductive reasoning
8. Holistic versus linear thinking
9. Confrontation versus diplomacy/face-saving
10. Short-term versus long-term viewpoint
11. Competition versus cooperation
12. Loyalty to particular people versus obedience to universal rules
13. Self-determination versus acceptance of fate/circumstance
14. Religious versus secular worldview
15. Permissiveness versus strict rules/regulations
16. Pragmatic flexibility versus adherence to detailed plans
17. Achieved versus ascribed status
18. Change as positive versus tradition as revered
19. Youth orientation versus age veneration
20. Male dominance versus gender equality
21. Rigid class structure versus social mobility
22. Action/doing versus contentment with being
Much turns on the attitudes with which these questions are approached, especially how best to respect differences while finding a shared path to performance that matters. Folks who jump straight to 'good versus bad' step into unpromising territory. In contrast, those who take the time and make the effort to understand nonjudgementally will build the initial respect and trust required for more difficult choices about the best path to performance.
The Grovewell piece speaks specifically to cross-cultural teams. Over thirty years of experience with small groups, however, suggests to me that several of the items listed apply just as much to folks coming from different organizational cultures (e.g. in a post-merger integration team) and different functional/expertise cultures (e.g. marketing versus engineering).
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:04 PM | PermalinkJanuary 02, 2006
Blocking and Tackling Gone Sour
FedEx is currently running a series of TV commercials that take humorous aim at the overuse of football metaphors in business. So, let's quickly laugh at ourselves in commenting about blocking and tackling -- a descriptive phrase for what often separates entrepreneurial and/or innovative breakthroughs from disciplined organizations that can and do sustain success.
Any organization that has success eventually faces the transition from start-up, innovator and entrepreneur to disciplined enterprise. The key question is whether that transition will be successfully made, or will the organization fail as a 'flash in the pan'? Most commentary on the failure of making the transition focuses on founders (see this post as an example). But, organizations going through a transition from entreprenuerial to disciplined cultures also stumble at times because of a well known phenomenon at work in any organization of any size facing profound behavior-driven change: blocking and tacking each other instead of the problems and challenges at hand.
Change strikes fear and anxiety in most of us because it raises questions about our job security, our affiliations and even our sense of who we are and what we want to accomplish. These anxieties are very real. The question for all of us is how we can best respond to the anxiety (as opposed to how we might fool ourselves into thinking we can extinguish or ignore it). Put differently, the best question is how to respond to and channel anxiety into a constructive energy and effort aimed at getting the organization and ourselves through the transition at hand?
Too often, however, people -- and especially leaders -- choose to block and tackle the change at hand: to throw body blocks in the path of change. They claim all manner of 'principle'. But, their actions and words are transparent to nearly everyone as the work of people who do not want the change to happen. Indeed, much of the criticism of founders amounts to a subset of this larger pattern: people who prefer to stand in the way of change -- to prevent change. It's just that the person involved is a founder instead of some other executive or player.
When people inside organizations block and tackle change itself instead of blocking and tackling the challenges and obstacles needed to make change happen, the rest of the organization shudders and, eventually, loses heart. In addition to meaningful language, energy and effort are the scarcest resources needed to get through a period of profound change. And those who 'block and tackle change itself' are folks who destroy energy instead of create it. They are the change destroyers -- regardless of how high flung their stated reasons or explanations.
Blocking and tackling? Yes, it's a critical aspect of any organization's transition from entrepreneurial culture to the disciplined culture of sustainable growth and performance. But, make sure that it is the array of critical underlying challenges being blocked and tackled and not the overall change and those who are truly trying to lead it.
Posted by Doug Smith at 03:18 PM | PermalinkDecember 31, 2005
Recipe for Failure
Recently, I came across this evaluation of a post-acquisition effort to integrate managers of an acquired company into the culture of the buying company. The author has decades of experience in organizational development and training and, one imagines, has contributed to and participated in hundreds if not thousands of corporate culture and change exercises. This particular one caught his attention for being -- his word -- "sadistic".
Here's how the consultants spent the four days familiarizing the managers with 'the way we do things around here' in their new company:
- Provoking and pushing people to see how long it would take to break them, in front of their peers.
- Insulting and belittling people.
- Embarrassing people.
- Putting people on the spot repeatedly and uncomfortably.
- Telling people they did not have what it takes and would not make it in the new company.
In retrospect, the author believed the consultants had been sent in to "test us ... in such an aggressive manner that the weak would wash out and only the strong would survive."
If so, the consultants surely failed because an organizational culture that belittles, pushes, breaks, insults, embarrasses and destroys confidence is one in which only the weak survive. Strong people and strong leaders do not do these things. Bullies do. But not strong people.
Posted by Doug Smith at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)December 26, 2005
The Founder's Dilemma: Giving Life Twice
Whether a founder, an entrepreneur or even a later arriving star, men and women whose genius gives life to organizations regularly confront a profound choice: renewing that gift of life by letting go, or risking the death of the enterprise.
As challenging as it is to birth (or rebirth) an enterprise, the effort does have this reinforcing quality: both the founder/entrepreneur/renewer and the enterprise are at a beginning. The horizon is filled with unknowns giving energy and promise to each -- to the organization and to the founder. In creating the enterprise, the founder is also creating him or herself. This win/win phenomenon applies to for-profits and not-for-profits both. A dream pervades the scene to inspire all -- and especially the founder -- seeking to make that dream real.
None of which is to minimize the extraordinary array of difficulties, challenges and pitfalls. Indeed, that is why converting dreams into reality is the stuff of legend. It is why founders take on the mantle of the gods -- not literally -- but surely figuratively. Founders and entreprenuers are special in special ways.
This specialness, this legendary status is self-understood. Founders and entrepreneurs are aware of it -- they have to be because, in fact, they are not gods but human beings. They know what they have accomplished. And, it is not just pride that explains their faith in themselves. Founders and entrepreneurs sincerely and appropriately believe their guiding hand is a matter of special trust and mission.
Nor are they alone in any of this. Most who participate with them in the thick we -- employees, boards, advisors and others -- esteem and respect the specialness and honor of the founder and entrepreneur -- the life giver of the organization.
All of which makes the opportunity for the second gift of life the more extraordinary one. Founders are human. They age and tire. Or, circumstances and change outrun the founder's creative energy and fire. Or, both.
Consider, then, the Boys Choir of Harlem -- the magnificent dream brought to life by Walter Turnbull whose efforts were well described when he won the Heinz Award:
"Dr. Turnbull himself has traveled a long and difficult road. From the fields of the South where he chopped cotton as a child, to graduating with honors in classical music and vocal performance from Mississippi's Tougaloo College, Dr. Turnbull eventually settled in New York City where he hoped for a career as an opera tenor. But that professional ambition was sidetracked when he took a job teaching music in Harlem to support himself. There he discovered that despite the lure of the streets and unstable home lives, "music caused kids to focus." Thus, the idea for the Boys Choir of Harlem was born.
It began 30 years ago, when he gathered 20 youngsters in the basement of Ephesus Church.... Dr. Turnbull's infectious enthusiasm, his dedication, and his relentless enforcement of discipline paid handsome dividends.... By the end of 1979, both a touring choir and the Girls Choir of Harlem had been established.
The desire to prove that children from Harlem could succeed academically propelled Dr. Turnbull to create the Choir Academy of Harlem, opened in 1986 as an on-site school serving grades 4 through 8. The program was refined and expanded over the years, until today it is a co-educational, college preparatory school offering grades 4 through 12 to over 500 students. Similar choir academy programs are being established in Detroit, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Chicago, each with advisory support from New York.
Dr. Turnbull specializes in more than cultivating the love of music in children, he is equally dedicated to turning lives around. He and the Choir give at-risk youths a chance to succeed, an opportunity many of them might never have had without Dr. Turnbull's love and commitment. Most are from single-parent households receiving some type of government assistance. But the Choir teaches these youngsters to walk with pride and to hold their heads high, regardless of their circumstances. Dr. Turnbull has commented, "It's not just about the Choir. It's about discipline. It's about feeling good about yourself. That's hope."
Walter Turnbull received this honor in 1998 -- about the time, as the award describes, that the growth and future of the Boys Choir was filled with possibilities of expansion. That 'best future', though, was going to demand stepped up organizational and leadership skills ranging from development and fundraising to marketing, education, strategic alliances and finance.
All of which meant that even as Turnbull was being deservedly honored by Heinz, he confronted the second 'life-giving' moment. And, unlike the first, this moment for him -- like all founders and entreprenuers - was filled with contradictory instead of reinforcing energy. The "best future" for Boys Choir was not a future best led by Turnbull. This was not 'win/win' in that sense.
It was - and is for all founders and entrprenuers -- win/win in a very different sense. By letting go, by passing leadership onto others, the founder simultaneously gives second life to the organization and a very new and different kind of life to him or herself: the opportunity to seek new meaning and new possibilities unconnected and unconstrained by the organization. In giving second life to organizations by letting go, founders give second and new lives to themselves that are fresh and exciting because truly new.
Or, like Turnbull evidently chose, founders can turn their backs on new life for themselves and their organizations. Whether out fear of the unknown in their own life, or pride that will not let go, founders can condemn themselves and their organizations to the dead hand of grasping at a best past now gone by.
When this happens, things fall apart. None of which means the organization must die with the founder. But all of which means the founder's choice has cast the organization into a wilderness from which, quite often, only a new 'founder' with win/win energy, creativity and dreams might -- might -- save it.
December 16, 2005
Be A Global Capitalist For $25
Absent the nightmarish destruction of the Internet (which, according to Legal Affairs is a concern to take seriously), globalization is as much a condition -- a force at work -- in our 21st century world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and family as gravity. Such forces drive the good, the bad and all in between depending on our shared purposes and shared values -- as seen in the wikipedia entry on globalization. It describes manipulation by mass media, controlling governments and multi-national corporations as well as growing possibilities for mutual understanding and friendship.
As with so much in our battle of value against values, globalization seems inclined toward the negative when it comes to matters of capital and profits, inclined toward the positive when it comes to matters of family, friendship, shared understanding and shared fates.
All of which makes Kiva -- a peer-to-peer microfinance organization launched by Matthew and Jessica Flannery -- worth noting. The Flannerys have blended a concern for value with a concern for values by integrating the economic as well as the personal possibilities in globalization. Through Kiva, you -- yes, you -- can be a global capitalist. You can lend money to entrepreneurs living continents away and, through the wonders of the Net, stay in contact as they use your loan to make life better for themselves, their families and their communities.
And you can do this for as little as $25.
The Flannerys have brought microfinance to your home computer. Microfinance is a worldwide industry built on an ancient notion: commercial lending to business. Only, as the name suggests, the loans are tiny. Experts estimate that as many as 30 million 'microentrepreneurs' have launched and grown businesses with the help of tiny loans. In world of 6 billion people -- the vast majority of whom are poor -- 30 million, while impressive, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Moreover, microfinance is profitable. Given the huge size of the market as well as the attractive economics, it is no surprise that the number and size of microfinance loan funds is growing rapidly -- and that giants like Citibank are now in the field.
Neither Citibank nor large non-profit players, however, are likely to give you the chance to be a global capitalist. So, go sign up at Kiva. And the next time the International Monetary Fund or World Bank comes to town, get a seat inside the room instead of throwing rocks in the streets.
Globalizaiton is a force. How do you want to shape it?
December 14, 2005
Hope For The Holidays
Thomas Rice (who with his colleagues at the Interaction Institute for Social Change have brought hope to literally millions of people) sent along this reflection on HOPE by Vaclav Havel and suggested that it be shared with others:
HOPE
Either we have hope within us or we do not.
It is a dimension of the soul and is not essentailly dependent on some
particular observation of the world. HOPE is an orientation of the spirit, an
orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately
experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. HOPE in
this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well
or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for
early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good,
not because it stands a chance to succeed. HOPE is definitely not the same thing as optimism.
It is not the conviction that some thing will turn out well, but certainty that something makes sense
regardless of how it turns out. It is HOPE, above all. which gives the strength to live and continually
try new things.
Vaclav Havel
December 12, 2005
Visibly Poor Performance
Harrisineractive has just published it's 2005 Survey of the "Reputation Quotient" for the sixty most visible companies in America. The top company, Johnson&Johnson, received a "B" grade (albeit just barely: J&J got a numerical score of 80%).
Of the rest of the top 60:
27 got a "C"
24 got a "D"
8 got an "F"
Overall, not much movement when compared with the 2004 results
A Zero
B Zero
C 31
D 19
F 10
In today's irrational financial markets, 'intangible assets' such as brand often account for significant parts of a company's overall market value. The vast majority of these 'most visible 60' have large market capitalizations. Leaving us to ask, "Does reputation have anything -- anything -- to do with brand?"
We know that extreme reputational damage -- Enron -- can link to brand and market capitalization. But, it must really be only at the extremes. Because when not a single one of the most visible companies merits an "A" grade and, in fact, nearly all get "C's" and "D's", what Harrisinteractive is measuring must not have much to do with how folks pick and choose stocks.
Put differently, folks out there are deeply worried about the mediocre to lousy reputations of these visible companies. But, when it comes to their IRAs or other stock holdings, they must just be 'holding their noses".
Suggestion: next time your at the dinner table with your kids, explain this to them (and to yourselves).
Posted by Doug Smith at 06:51 PM | PermalinkPerformance, Problem Solving and Gender Stereotypes
Does the performance of your organization depend on excellent problem solving?
Does the performance of your organization depend on men and women solving problems?
What do you mean by 'problem solving'? What kind of problems does your organization need to solve?
What percentage of those problems are not really problems at all? That is, they are situations for which answers are readily available and simply in need of quick, crisp and efficient ways of 'taking charge'?
What percentage of those problems are actually problems -- that is, challenges for which no one in your organization has any current easy answer?
When you think about these real problems, how many of them are purely technical in nature? That is, how many are like jigsaw puzzles requiring that you figure out a set of technical, mechanical, or otherwise physical pieces and assemble them?
How many of your problems are purely social or are 'sociotechnical'? That is, how many are both about figuring out some objective set of pieces to a puzzle but then also figuring out how to get people within your organization (and possibly beyond -- alliances/customers/and so forth) to 'make it happen'? How much of getting folks to 'make it happen' demands figuring out how to take care of the interests, skills, readiness, reluctance and other human attributes that often spell the difference between a problem solved on paper and one solved in reality?
Think about these questions as you read the latest report from Catalyst about how organizations across the country continue to shoot themselves in the foot by using 'either/or' stereotypes about men and women who, truth and every day reality be told, are BOTH needed to move toward any organization's best future performance.
Or, perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you believe in your soul that your organization can best move forward to solve its most complicated and critical problems by relying disproportionately on male leaders or female leaders?
If so, go ahead and hang a sign on the door that says, "Here at XYZ Corporation, we know that our best future depends on male problem solvers." Or, if you answered with the other gender, "Here at ABC Corporation, we know that our best future depends on female problem solvers."
If, on the other hand, you believe your best future depends on men and women and women and men both leading and collaborating and collaborating and leading in finding and implementing the best solutions to your most critical problems, then perhaps you'd better start acting like you believe it.
December 05, 2005
The Values Bubble In Real Estate
Today's Los Angeles Times reports that the incidence and variety of mortgage fraud is increasing as rapidly as insurgencies in Iraq. It's a good introduction to what happens when an 'anything goes' profit motive is given a field day by political forces who claim the 'only good regulation is no regulation'.
Mid-way through the article, Eric Von der Porten, a Silicon valley mortgage banker laments, "Is it suddenly okay to hoodwink national banks and government-sponsored mortgage companies?"
Memo to Eric: There's nothing sudden about this at all!
For more than thirty years, our nation has embarked upon an all-or-nothing adventure in hating government. Starting with the Reagan administration, the governing philosophy has assumed that regulation and government are bad. That trend began rationally -- for too many decades those in power operated as if Total Regulation was the single answer. Now our dominant single answer is, No Regulation.
There is a lot of possibility, of course, between No Regulation versus Total Regulation. Most markets work best when there are some agreed upon rules. Often, those rules are easiest and most practicable to install and enforce if done by some third party. Sometimes, those third parties can be private sector, non-institutional government organizations (for example, professional sports leagues that set and adjust rules). More often in the history of human beings, though, the third parties have been governments.
When done well, rules and regulations set predictable behaviors -- values about fairness and approach -- that provide all who participate some predictability they can rely upon. That kind of predictability in values also arise among small numbers of people who persistently interact -- say in families or teams. When the context rises to zillions upon zillions of folks interacting over markets and networks, however, a government that sets, enforces and updates rules and regulations can spell the difference between orderly markets and Hobbesian, anything goes markets. (And, again, let's be clear: a regime of Total Regulation provides order but kills all vitality and innovation while simulataneously increasing costs to unsustainable levels).
So, here we are: We live in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families. We live in a world where the costs of 'either/or' approaches -- either No Regulation or Total Regulation - become increasingly unsustainable. And, we live in a world where our politics is currently dominated by a discourse of either/or-ism.
That we are experiencing a 'value' bubble in real estate is not new news. But, as this artlcle points out, we also are suffering through a 'values' bubble -- inflationary expectations that somehow, someway individuals and companies left entirely to their own devices will routinely do the 'right thing' because -- now listen carefully -- because it is in their self-interest. This is the governing orthodoxy. Markets are the only solution to every problem. Self-interest is what makes markets work. Therefore, sayeth Socrates, Self-interest is the only solution to every problem.
Evidently, unbridled self-interest is not a full solution to orderly real estate markets that produce the greater good.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:32 PM | PermalinkNovember 27, 2005
The Heart Of Darkness At Time Warner
A few weeks back, the employees of Teen People (a spin off of Time Warner's popular People magazine) told their 1.6 million young readers the February issue would feature two thirteen-year old girls hoping to become the next 'cute girl' singing celebrities.
The girls' mother has reared them to admire Adolf Hitler and, under her parental guidance, they sing in praise of Nazis, ethnic cleansing and the KKK.
After a protest last week, Time Warner initially indicated it would adhere to today's 'fair and balanced' news standard by making sure the article mentioned the girls' mother is a white supremacist. (Presumably, the editorial group behind the piece at Teen People had not intended to let their teenage readers -- or their parents -- in on this.)
Time Warner, though, had second thoughts and later announced they would cancel the article.
Why?
According to a Time Warner official, an investigation revealed that an employee at Teen People violated a procedural rule by promising the girls' mother the article would shield readers from 'certain words'. (I am reminded of Marlowe's decision in The Heart of Darkness not to mention 'certain practices' favored by the protagonist Kurtz to Kurtz's widowed 'intended'. Practices such as human sacrifice.)
What does this incident tell us about what the people who work for Time Warner stand for -- that is, how they mix concerns for value (profits, market share, winning) with concerns for values (social, political, religious, family and so forth)?
Thousands of people work in Time Warner's vast array of businesses. Each must rely on the character and values of their collegues every single day if they are to return home and feel good about telling their children, family and friends, "here's what we stand for at Time Warner." Last week's events gave Time Warner employees the chance to tell their kids about their company's shared values regarding racism, Nazism, and ethnic cleansing.
These thousands include an employee who 'made unauthorized assurances to the mother....regarding the prohibition of certain words in the story." Words such as 'hate', 'supremacist' and 'Nazi'.
It was this violation of proper procedures -- not the girls' intonations of hate -- that caused Time Warner to cancel the story - at least if we are to credit the explanation given.
In his book, , Michael Sandel laments the withering effects on politics of a drift toward proceduralism. If people do not make substantive choices about their common good -- about what they stand for substantively -- Sandel argues they lose interest in politics and 'self-government' becomes vacuous.
In On Value and Values, I argue that, in our 21st century world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families, organizations have become our 'towns' - our opportunity to define and pursue a common good with people with whom we share fates every day of our lives. And, echoing Sandel, I believe people who work together in organizations must blend both substance and process in defining their common good -- what they stand for and why.
This incident suggests proceduralism trumps substance at Time Warner (and the 'town' within Time Warner called Teen People) when it comes to racism. We all know that there is at least one dominant substantive aspect to the common good of folks at Time Warner: the pursuit of profits and shareholder value. Indeed, a highly probable interpretation of this event suggests that the executives at Time Warner pulled the story in order to avoid negative publicity that might adversely affect share price and profits.
In this alternative possibility, Time Warner used their real common good -- pursuit of profits and shareholder value -- as the standard by which to reject a story about two thirteen year old Nazis. They did not use any substantive posture about racism and ethnic cleansing. For those issues, evidently, the only standard is one of pure proceduralism.
Was this incident at Teen People an isolated aberration?
Put differently, if editors and writers at Time Warner follow the procedural rules and do not promise subjects to avoid 'certain words', are promoters of ethnic cleansing racists off limits?
Would, for example, Time Warner allow writers and editors who followed all the procedural rules at, say, their flagship Time Magazine to write about someone who promotes ethnic cleansing of Middle Eastern nations in this manner:
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Yes.
So, what do the people who work at Time Warner stand for?
Well, they stand for the pursuit of profits and shareholder value without any minimum threshold of substantive concern regarding race hatred and ethnic cleansing. So long as a subject is 'famous' enough to sell magazines and ad space, there is no substantive subject matter off limits to the pursuit of Time Warner's common good: profits.
Which makes one wonder what would happen at Time Warner if an employee showed up at work one day to croon about Adolf Hitler and the need for Time Warner to ethnically cleanse itself of 'mud' people (the word the girls mother has taught them to use to describe non-whites)?
Here's my guess: Time Warner would take whatever steps were necessary to fire that employee. And the folks who work at Time Warner would be mighty happy about it.
The people who work at Time Warner -- the 'thick we' who share fates with one another-- define their common good in terms of pursuing profits and shareholder value. No surprise there. But, if my guess about the fate of a Hitler-loving employee is right, then the thick we at Time Warner also have a minimum substantive standard with regard to ethnic cleansing and race hatred -- at least so far as it affects their lives together inside Time Warner.
However, that same standard does not apply to what Time Warner sells to the rest of us.
Ethnic cleansing is off limits in how the people who work at Time Warner wish to 'live with one another'.
Ethnic cleansing - so long as all procedural rules are followed -- is okay in what Time Warner finds acceptable for covering how the rest of us live together -- that is, so long as the promoter of ethnic cleansing is famous enough to ensure any negative effects of protest on sales and profits are outweighed by postive effects.
Would establishing a minimum threshold about how and when to cover racism and ethnic cleansing be difficult. Very. But then throughout history, people who really share a common good have had to make difficult choices about what is in -- and what is out. They've had to take responsibility for their actions.
Kurtz of The Heart of Darkness was -- belatedly -- doing that when he summed up his life with "The horror. The horror."
Or, as Marlowe might say about Time Warner, "Certain words. Certain practices."
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:47 PM | PermalinkNovember 21, 2005
Thinking Inside The Box At GM
Today, General Motors it would eliminate 30,000 manufacturing jobs through a series of plant closings. That's 9% of the people who work at GM (325,000) and a much higher percentage of manufacturing jobs. This is a tragic development for thousands of families and communities. And, yes, we know that it is also a move aimed at making GM more competitve over the long haul. Both statements are true.
The job cuts come on top of the recently announced deal with the United Auto Workers that reduced GM's health expenses. Together, the two actions will lighten GM's costs by billions a year -- a key to reversing the $4 billion GM has lost in the first nine months of 2005 as well as positioning the auto giant to be more competitve going forward.
All businesses attend to both cost and value in efforts to succeed. With today's announcement, GM has taken a radical step in reducing costs. With this and the health care deal, the attention should now shift to the revenue side of the equation.
What is GM doing to design, build, sell and service great cars that meet the needs of today's customers?
A quick look at the November 21st press release describing GM's turnaround plan fails to build much confidence. (Click here and then choose "Four Point Turnaround Plan"). According to this news release, GM claims to be pursuing an 'aggressive product assault on all vehicle segments', in part by investing the capital required to permit GM to bring '15 all new vehicles' to the market every year.
Let's assume for the moment that 15 is a satisfactory number of all-new vehicles. What's GM planning to do with that capacity as it moves to meet the shifting realities and tastes of customers, especially customers who are beginning to sour on gas guzzling SUVs and other large vehicles?
Well, according to the same news release, GM will unveil 'more than a dozen all new versions of its full size SUVS." Yes, GM indicates that in 'late 2007", it plans to add a new hybrid to the market. (And, oh by the way, GM will also in 2007 roll out an entire new line up of full size pickups).
In response to the radical job cuts, the UAW commented, "Workers have no control over GM's capital investment, product development, design, marketing and advertising decisions. But, unfortunately, it is workers, their families and our communities that are being forced to suffer because of the failures of others."
Yes, the UAW took advantage of its sweet heart deal with GM for decades -- and thereby added to the cost burdens currently disadvantaging all the human beings -- executives and union members alike -- who are involved. Still, there is an important point to the UAW remark: GM's non-unionized employees have much more say over product selection than do the union workers.
Unfortunately, it would appear that those making product choices at GM are stuck 'inside the box'. There's advantage to be gained with cost reductions, capital investment and manufacturing flexibility. It will be a shame if GM throws it all away by merely using the new found capacity to continue building giant, gas guzzling cars and trucks that fail to meet the needs of early 21st century consumers.
Today, GM has indicated it is willing to make tough, radical choices. Well, how about this: Challenge yourselves to radically increase both the number and the speed with which you bring hybrids to market. And, while you're doing that, be as willing to scrap big, gas guzzling SUV, large models and pickups as you are willing to scrap manufacturing jobs.
Posted by Doug Smith at 07:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (3)November 20, 2005
Edelman's Opportunity At Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has hired Richard Edelman's firm to lead the giant retailer's public relations response to the intensifying debate over Wal-Mart's values and practices. This is a wonderful opportunity for Edelman and those who work in his firm to put into practice Edelman's own values about the responsibilities of public relations professionals in our complex 21st century. According to an Edelman post in November 2004, , PR firms should avoid the 'anything goes' standard of lawyers of claiming that since all deserve representation, firms can take on any client regardless of that client's character and values. He believes PR firms should have a higher standard on who are represented and what is said on their behalf. In addition, he believes in full transparency of work methods. "It is more than what you say. It is how you say it that matters." Finally, Edelman writes of how important it is for PR firms to have a seat in the highest councils of companies in order to ensure that these high principles are adopted and applied.
His firm now has an extraordinay chance to live these values. As we know, Wal-Mart increasingly means controversy in a manner not unlike Iraq or tax cuts or Supreme Court nominees. What the Wal-Mart brand stands for -- every day low prices, low wages, employees with benefits, government subsidy of employees without sufficient benefits,local business erosion, keeping inflation low -- is subject to many claims.
Edelman must have decided that Wal-Mart was a worthy client deserving of the very best in PR help - that is, that Wal-Mart met his first principled test on 'whom to represent'. Now, on a daily basis, those who are working on the Wal-Mart account have the chance to apply the rule on what is said and how it is said.
One suggestion: In choosing how to counter various anti-Wal-Mart assertions, challenge Wal-Mart's highest executives to adopt a policy of acknowledging what is reasonable in those claims.
For example, avoid limiting yourself to writing only this on the Wal-Mart website:
"As of today, 620,000 associates have signed up for health insurance coverage in a Wal-Mart sponsored plan."
Why not present this information about the 620,000 associates while also explaining how many of them went beyond signing up for benefits to actually receiving them. Then note that hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart associates do not have health insurance. Go on to explain Wal-Mart's position regarding associate health insurance as well as government subsidy. Provide readers of the website an understanding of Wal-Mart's objectives in this area and what the company is doing to pursue these objectives. For example, in choosing how to say what steps Wal-Mart is taking, include the Susan Chambers' memo that has recently been completed regarding an approach to benefits at Wal-Mart being recommended to Wal-Mart's Board of Directors.
It is important and undertandable that a PR firm hired by Wal-Mart should present Wal-Mart's side of the story. It is also important -- both for Wal-Mart and for Richard Edelman - to insure that the public debate and discussion of the challenges Wal-Mart faces are conducted with high standards that Edelman would have all in the PR field apply. Bending over backwards to insure that Wal-Mart's side of the story is presented in a manner that encourages real debate, real discussion and real problem-solving will be the highest, best testimony to Edelman and his firm.
Let's wish him and his firm well as they move to the higher ground.
November 19, 2005
Market Based Discussion Doesn't Work Well
Figuring out the best approaches to difficult problems is hard work in any context. But, it is much harder in a market context than an organizational one. Take as an example Iraq. The problem solving effort does move forward in both contexts; that is, the political market for government direction and policy as well as any number of organizational contexts (e.g. the US Army). A major difference between these two contexts arises from objective and purpose. In organizations, purpose relates to the organization's reason for being. In the case of the US Army, that purpose has shifted in Iraq from winning a militery conflict toward assisting Iraq in the transition to stability. The second, we've come to learn, is much more complex than the first. Still, when those involved in the organization show up to work each day, they do their best to problem solve together toward the purpose at hand.
(Yes, I know, this is a simplification. Many will immediately recoil and get heated up -- but that has a lot to do with our perspective on context. How many of us 'react' because we are operating within a market perspective versus an organizational one? That is, we are commenting/promoting a point of view we wish would take hold of the political and governmental direction as opposed to contributing to a debate based on the purpose of the US Army and with an obligation to at least imagine we are part of the Army responsible for carrying out that purpose?)
I was reminded of this difference when I read of Representative Murtha's proposed resolution:
Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That:
Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.
Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines shall be deployed in the region.
Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy
Murtha is operating within an organization - Congress -- charged, among other things, with guiding the purposes of the US Army and others. Look closely at his three Sections. Re-read them. Are they a call for the abandonment of Iraq? Are they a call for the immediate withdrawal of troops? Do they suggest the United States should ignore Iraq?
No. Representative Murtha is proposing an alternative strategy -- an alternative approach to a phenomenally complex problem.
The market for political control and government policy, however, did not hear or interpret Murtha's proposal as strategy, however. The market quickly reduced the meaning to branding and product simplification. What the politicans, media and others who compete in that market did was deny the public any real, thoughtful problem-solving guidance by instantaneously transforming Murtha's strategic possibilities into 'up or down', 'you're in or you're out', "stay the course or cut and run', 'you're with us or against us', 'you're for Bin Ladin or you're for America', and so on.
Think about this. Only, for a second, pick any REAL problem or challenge you face at home, school, work, church or elsewhere. Is this the approach to problem-solving you'd like to bet on? Probably not. But then all of those contexts -- family, school, work, church -- are more like organizational contexts than giant, anonymous and abstract market contexts.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:34 PM | PermalinkNovember 16, 2005
The Rule Of Principle, Not Personality
Any widespread belief and practice of 'the rule of law' can be understood as a strong commitment to principle over personality. Consider, for example, a game such as Scrabble. The rule of law applied to Scrabble means that the players mutually accept a set of rules -- a set of laws -- for playing the game; and, that, while playing any particular game, the players abide by them.
There are occasions, as any regular Scrabble players knows, when words are spelled out that are not covered by existing rules; that is, particular plays that demand review under a set of agreed upon rules that leave the acceptability of the word unclear. Many Scrabble players agree on a rule that words must exist in dictionaries. Only by playing the game do they, in the heat of competition, come to agree on 'what particular dictionary or dictionaries". Then, at some point having specified dictionaries, they find themselves debating the acceptability of words such as 'app' in common usage that have yet to find themselves in those dicitonaries -- and so on.
The rule of law in Scrabble evolves during games and between games. Perhaps 'app' is not accepted during a particular game; but agreement is reached to find and accept a dictionary with more updated contents.
One phenomenon than any Scrabble player understands, however, is this: It is simply neither possible nor credible to claim 100% objectivity. Players are involved in these difficult moments and choices. What the players aspire to is the use of agreed upon principles to outweigh their individual subjectivity. But, subjectivity -- the potential for a rule of people not principle -- is always present. For example, one player may be more 'up' on current words than another. When the 'between game' rule making chooses whether to include newer, more conteporary dictionary, that is a reality that is undeniable. Each of the players -- each of the rule makers -- involved cannot credibly deny that their relative skills, knowledge, persoanal preferences and so forth are involved.
What they can credibly suggest is that, with all humility, they seek to continue playing Scrabble together with orderly expectations about the rules and an overall commitment to rules.
Humility in a regime of law, then, demands that we acknowledge the reality that our personal points of view are part of the reality within which we set and abide by rules. What we demand of those who very actively participate in rule making is that they both acknowledge this reality with humility and that, as part of their contributions to the rule of law, that they tell us when their personal beliefs are most at risk of influencing the game.
We ask them to be human beings, not machines -- and to be honest about that.
Thus, if a client seeks an advocate -- say, a corporation charged with sex discrimiination seeks a talented, accomplished female attorney to represent the corporation -- the client expects the attorney to avoid letting personal beliefs from getting in the way. But the client does not expect -- nor will the attorney find it possible -- to deny or ignore the existence of those beliefs. This is why some attorneys -- both men and women -- don't accept certain assignments and why others do.
Of course, the opposite is also evident; namely, that some lawyers actively seek assignments because those assignments are strongly in line with their personal views. Many lawyers, for example, actively volunteer for death penality cases because they so strongly oppose the death penality.
This, it would seem, is what must have motivated Sam Alito when he sought the Reagan Justice Department job in 1985. He strongly opposed a woman's right to choose and he wanted to work in a Justice Department that might do something to curtail or reverse that right. He evidently felt just as strongly about working for a Justice Department that might seek to disenfranchise voters by reversing the Constitutional right of 'one person, one vote'.
In other words, Sam Alito pursued the opportunity to change the world in a way he actively supported -- to make the United States a nation that reflected his strong personal beliefs -- to change the rules.
Suggesting that he would 'say anything just to get a job', it seems to me, fails to give Sam Alito credit for (1) his deep personal opposition to one person, one vote and a woman's right to choose; and, (2) his deep desire to use the skills and tools he had acquired to actively participate in a Repubican administration he believed would seek to change those principles.
Alito, though, went on to differentiate for Feinstein his sense of an advocate's job versus a judge's job. "I'm now a judge... I'm not an advocate. I don't give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law."
Well, let's first note that he fails the test of humility. It would be refreshing for a nominee to the Supreme Court to acknowledge that they have personal views and to explain what those views are. In doing so, the nominee can -- and indeed should -- explain what and how he works hard to limit the effect or influence of those personal views in matters at hand. But to suggest that judges somehow are not human beings - that they do not have subjectivity -- is neither credible nor, frankly, human.
Second, though, let's also acknowledge that Alito understands through his experience as a judge that he is expected to put his personal beliefs to one side. I simply cannot accept any other proposition.
But, third, let's go on to ask about the risks of personal points of view influencing the interpretation of law. Those are even larger in the world of courtrooms than they are in Scrabble. And, the stronger a personal point of view, the more likely that point of view will find it's way into law.
So, based on his comments to Feinstein, we know this:
Alito deeply opposes a woman's right to choose as well as one person, one vote.
Alito lacks the humility to acknowledge that he is a human being with deep personal views that are necessarily part of the reality of doing his job.
Alito understands that a judge is supposed to avoid having the rule of personality/subjectivity interfere with the rule of principle/law
And, finally, Alito is seeking a job for which he has been nominated by a Republican administration that itself deeply lacks humility and is just as deeply opposed to a woman's right to choose and works hard to discourage voters from exercising their franchise.
Values are best understood by looking at that combination of belief and behavior that is most predictable. Before jumping to 'good' versus 'bad', let's look hard at 'what is and why'. Alito's beliefs and behaviors are laid out across a life in which he has worked hard to reverse a woman's right to choose as well as one person, one vote. This is who he is; this is what he stands for.
And, in our rule of law, there is no current rule that makes anything he's done illegal. He's a person seeking to change the world and taking action in whatever sphere is available to him to do so. That is his right according to how we play 'Scrabble' in our nation today.
Another part of how we play 'Scrabble' is this: the Senate must decide whether or not to put Alito on the Supreme Court. As they make their decision, let's hope they will look at the nominee's deep personal beliefs and choose whether those beliefs best serve the rule of law in the United States. Put differently, the Senate must choose whether to put Sam Alito the human being -- not some fictitious Sam Alito as computer -- on the Supreme Court.
November 13, 2005
The Incompleteness of Hierarchy
Peter Drucker, the preeminent management thinker of the 20th century, died this week. Let's honor him, ourselves and our posterity by picking up on one of his central teachings; namely, that, while powerful and useful, hierarchy is incomplete. It is but one thread in the fabric of management and leadership -- albeit the thread most prominently displayed.
When matched to a division of effort that fits any challenge at hand, clear lines of hierarchical authority work efficently - even elegantly -- to deliver effective solutions. The big word in this, though, is 'fit'. Let's say we work in a restaurant and the chef is overseeing a group of folks who need to deliver a set menu of, say, 15 meals every evening. Assume also that the number of diners varies within a well understood range, there are steady, reliable relationships with vendors providing ingredients and so forth, and that the staff has worked with the chef for many, many months. In this context, the challenge of providing the diners the 15 meals is well served by a clear division of effort and hierarchical lines of authority. Would those in the kitchen also benefit from respectful, cordial and constructive working relationships? Yes. But, such is the case with all hierarchical arrangements. Indeed, it's a comment on our culture's bizarre obsession with the good vs. evil of hierarchy that one even has to write this additional sentence.
Yet, even in this orderly, well understood and predictable example there is a need for non-hierarchical aspects of management. How, for example, will those reporting to the chef learn? Through hierarchy? Yes, in part. But, not strictly through a chef giving orders.
Still, let us all praise hierarchy as a part of what makes our world work well. But, let us stop this unrelenting bad practice of assuming that hierarchy is ever enough by itself. It is not.
And, as Peter Drucker saw over the greater part of his life, pure, unalloyed hierarchical approaches are very dangerous -- indeed, they inevitably fail and, in their failures, cause misery to all affected. Put most simply, there is this: The vast, vast majority of challenges we face today do not lend themselves to purely hierarchical approaches. The challenges are too fast moving, too dynamic, too unpredictable, too chaotic. These challenges do not 'fit' a managerial and leadership approach grounded in order, clear division of labor, formally granted authority, stable working relationships, or futures that predictably extend routine pasts.
Whether the challenges have to do with restaurants -- or nations -- the 21st century will not yield either effectively or peacefully to strictly hierarchical approaches. There are many ways we can honor Peter Drucker for the gifts he bestowed upon us. But one powerful tribute would surely be to, as quickly and richly as possible, get our conversations beyond the all or nothing assumptions about hierarchy -- to dedicate ourselves to using non-hierarchical approaches to discussing how we can respond to so many challenges that now lie between us and our best future together. There is a word for such approaches. Democracy.
But, to blend democractic and hierarchical approaches in a best path forward, we must overcome the illusion that either is complete in and of itself.
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:53 PM | PermalinkNovember 11, 2005
Soul Searching At NY Times
If I'm understanding this correctly, the publisher of the NY Times has said the Judith Miller affair is minor when contrasted with the Jayson Blair affair. Among other things, Blair plagiarized his way through the ranks and, at some point along the way, did so without sufficient oversight from management. These failings put in question all that the Times -- and the thick we who work there -- stood for. Miller, in comparison, used her position to promote a war and the political careers of those who wanted it. Along the way, she lied to her colleagues, hoodwinked her publisher, reported fiction instead of facts, took the Times's honor to jail on false pretenses -- and did untold damage to her nation.
Both are disgraceful. And, while much worthwhile discussion might arise from contrasting the two for lessons learned, there is one unavoidable reason why I think the Miller affair is worse for the NY Times: it came second.
It came after folks at the Times spent untold resources and energy rooting out the causes of journalistic and management misbehavior and declared to the world not only what the NYTImes stood for - but any number of serious steps being taken to live up to those values.
And, all the while people at the Times were working hard to reform while also proclaiming revitalized virtue, Judith Miller -- acting as 'star' reporter without adequate management oversight -- was eating away and violating the soul and the heritage of the company.
November 09, 2005
What Do People Who Work at IRS Stand For?
More than 100,000 people work at the IRS. People like Frank, Jeff, Laurie and Linda. In our new world of market, networks, organizations, friends and families, these four and thousands of their colleagues depend on one another every single day for matters of great importance to each of them: job security, benefits, affiliation, shared purpose.
When Frank, Jeff, Laurie and Linda go home at night, they must be able to share with their families and friends, 'what they really stand for' -- that is, what blend of concern for value (job security) and values (the social, political, and other beliefs and behaviors) prevail at the IRS, whether they agree, and, if not, what they are doing about it. This fundamental reality -- what do the organizations we work for really stand for - applies as much to Frank, Jeff, Laurie, Linda and others at the IRS as it does to folks who work at organizations from the humongous (Wal-Mart) to the tiny (your local barbershop).
All of which raises this question for Frank, Jeff, Laurie, Linda and their thousands of colleagues:
If yes, will you demand that your colleagues now investigate and deny tax status to Baptist churches that promote opposite political results?
If no, what are you -- yes, you -- doing -- today -- to communicate and take other steps to stop the action against this Episcopal church?
Look, folks, we live in a complicated world. In this world, we must rely on employees and executives of organizations to hold themselves accountable for serving the rest of us well.
Should people beyond the IRS take action with regard to what appears to be a unilateral strike in favor of one side of the political process? Yes, of course.
But at the end of the day, efficiency, effectiveness and morality demand that the people best positioned to stop such uneven practices-- the employees and executives of organizations -- take those steps. They are better positioned, more involved, have more information, have the relationships and other means because they work together every day and -- critically -- have much more at stake including their character as human beings.
It's their job. And, it's their 21st century 'community' -- the 'community', the 'town' we call the IRS. We just learned, for example, that the folks who live in Dover, Pennsylvania debated and chose what Dover stood for on the issue of intelligent design. Well, most of us no longer live out our lives in the context of geographic towns like Dover. We live our lives in more complicated ways -- including in the 'towns' and 'communities' we call our organizations.
It's our responsibility -- as employees and executives -- in these organizations to both choose and follow through on what 'we really stand for'.
So, Frank, Jeff, Laurie and Linda: Which is it?
The even handed policy and practice of denying churches tax exempt status if they promote candidacies or political positions synonymous with candidacies?
Or, the even handed choice to leave churches alone and devote the IRS's limited resources in other ways?
What do you really stand for?
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)November 07, 2005
Focusing Energy At Chevron
Chevron has invited a handful of experts as well as the general public to join a discussion about the planet's energy future.
We should applaud this effort. Wherever the effort sits on the spectrum of 'toe in the water/public relations' to 'serious inquiry", it does allow for discussion -- perhaps most importantly among the employees and executives of Chevron (the 'thick we' so well positioned to do something about how Chevron's actual strategy creates a best future for the planet).
In saying, this, though we also need to pay attention to how Chevron sets up the dialogue because how a problem is defined contributes critically to the effectiveness of problem solving itself. As the old Yankee once said, "Well's begun is half done."
The current question is posed like this: Who should be primarily responsible for ensuring we conserve more energy -- governments, businesses or market forces?
Look, this is obviously an important question and can support a healthy debate. But it is also defective in a serious way because of the use of 'primarily'. That word -- indeed, even the question without that word -- sets up an 'either/or' debate. But, no one can solve the complicated energy challenges we face with either/or approaches. We need both/and thinking and problem solving.
The debate would be richer and more pragmatic if the question posed were this: "How can business, government and non-governemental organizations work together to ensure we conserve more energy? And, how would any of us know such efforts were successful?"
November 05, 2005
Thick We's
In his book , the contemporary philosopher Avishai Margalit differentiates between what he calls 'thick we's' and 'thin we's'. Thin we's have abstract, thin bonds -- all Americans, all human beings, all "20-somethings". Margalit is more interested in exploring ethical issues among people whose relationships are 'thicker'; who have shared experiences and shared memories that raise questions of caring and hatred.
There's much we can do with this distinction. Especially, if we expand and enrich the two concepts to fit how we actually lead our lives in the 21st century. In my book On Value and Values -- and in the posts to this website like my other writing -- a 'thick we' is made up of people who inescapably share one or more meaningful aspects of their fates with one another and who inevitably must together balance individual self-interest with the purposes they share as a 'we'. Because they share fates in various real, tangible and everyday ways, thick we's must both shape and implement some common good together.
Let's unpack this a bit. Your family is a thick we. You have friends who together with you make for a thick we. Those with whom you interact daily at work are a thick we. If you regularly play soccer or go bowling with others, that's a thick we. If you attend religious services with a persistent set of folks, that's another thick we.
In each of these illustrations, there is some meaningul and important aspect of your fate - of your health, wealth, well being, etc -- that is wrapped up with the same aspects for the other folks involved in your thick we.
In contrast, people who might identify themselves with 'thin we's' have simliar interests or concerns, but do not really share any aspect of their fates with one another in tangible, gritty and everyday ways. They do not even know one another by name. There's nothing requiring them to shape a common good or take action together -- to hold one another accountable -- for implementing their common good.
Consider, then, "red" versus "blue" Americans. Yes, these thin we's matter a heckuva lot to the future of the United States (and the world). But, 'red' and 'blue" Americans are better understood as market segments comprised of individuals who in their roles as voters and customers influence political and other markets. Importantly, the people in these 'thin we's' have no responsibility whatsoever to implement or hold themselves accountable for the actions of the candidates or the impact of the policies supported. Rather, as voters, consumers, family members and friends, people in thin we's look to the thick we's elected -- political parties, congresses, executive offices, governmental organizations -- to shape and implement the share purposes of those organizations - -of those 'thick we's'.
Thus, Congress is a thick we. Indeed, it's an excellent example of the following nuance: in differentiating thick from thin, I am not suggesting 'good vs. bad'. Thick we's have the strongest and most predictable shared values - but those values - that blend of belief, behavior, attitude and speech -- can be predictably bad, predictably good or predictably in-between. Congress is a thick we on whom the thin we's named 'red' versus 'blue' Americans depend. The question for Congress -- like any thick we -- is what constitutes Congress' common good, Congress' shared purposes, Congress' blend of concern for value ('reelection') with the concern for values ('governance'; 'liberty and justice for all")?
It is in thick we's -- not thin we's -- that our concern for value (money, profits, winning) is most tested against our concern for values (family, social, political, religious and so on). It is in thick we's -- not thin we's -- that our individual concerns about ourselves -- about 'me' -- are most tested against the concerns and purposes of the group, of the thick we.
In the early 21st century, most thick we's in which any of us participate tend to favor one of these concerns over the other. At work, our thick we's -- the organizations in which we are employed -- routinely use value as a trump card over values. The shared purposes -- the common good -- is denominated in terms of profits, winning, shareholder value and the like.
At home, in church or at play, our dominant concern is one or more values as opposed to value.
All of which contributes to the profound split between value and values in our culture. We lead dual lives -- pursuing value over values from 9 to 5 and the reverse during the remainder of each day.
This is not sustainable. Consider only resources and power. We live in a world of markets, networks, organizations, friends and families. The vast majority of power and resources lie in organizations and, therefore, shape where those organizations will take the markets and networks of our world -- indeed, the world itself.
Today, the vast majority of those organizations pursue value over values. Others -- and the less powerful ones -- pursue values over value. Neither of these strategies are sustainable. Churches, schools, non-profits and so forth cannot sustain themselves by ignoring and being blind to value. But -- and this is by far the more serious challenge -- neither can for-profit organizations (whether Wal-Mart or GM or Roche -- or a small bookstore or cleaners or barbershop) sustain itself if value -- if profits, wealth, shareholder value or winning -- is the trump card for every single serious issue and question on the table. Eventually, that approach eviscerates and hollows out the values -- social, political, spiritual, environmental, medical, legal and others -- on which the very value pursued rests.
Thick we's have become the central, most critical crucible in which our thin we's fates -- all six billion of us on the planet -- are now being shaped. If we can restore a healthy, blended concern for both value and values in our thick we's, we can and will pass along a healthier, saner and more sustainable planet to our children and grandchildren.
October 30, 2005
Mirror Mirror
According to recent census data, roughly 9.000 folks live in Spanish Springs, Nevada -- a bedroom community outside of Reno. Not surprisingly, the ever expanding gambling industry -- which, I would guess a majority of those 9,000 depend upon for their incomes -- has set its sights on building a high-end resort/casino in Spanish Springs. Given that so many Spanish Springs folks work directly or indirectly for the industry, one might have thought: no problem.
Wrong. According to this local news piece, "Spanish Springs Homeowners expressed their concerns against gaming in their neighborhoods....Reasons varying from crime to traffic to drunk driving are all a part of why many Spanish Springs residents do not want a casino near them. Many neighbors say they want gaming to stay in tourist areas and in downtown ... not near any neighborhoods."
This takes NIMBY-ism to a higher level. It's okay to make our living off a 'gaming' industry that generates crime, drunk driving and traffic -- not to mention gambling addictions, prostitution, spousal abuse, bankruptcies and more. Just keep our employers -- and those who pay our employers -- out of our 'family-oriented' neighborhoods.
We're for 'gaming' during 'our shift' -- but we oppose it the rest of our day.
Sounds confusing to me. Wonder how it sounds when the parents in Spanish Springs explain it to their 8 to 10 year olds.
Posted by Doug Smith at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)October 29, 2005
Brand Update: Red Cross
The Washington Post has an update on how the post-Katrina, post-Rita brand experience of the Red Cross matched the brand promise. As noted in an earlier post, the Red Cross crossed up its donor after 9/11 in failing to warn folks in advance that some of the funds would be stashed away for other purposes. The charity was so determined to avoid a repetition that they announced to the world post-Katrina they would be spending every single dollar received on Katrina. One concern, raised in the post, had to do with the effect of this overly literal reaction to the earlier difficulty on the full nature of Katrina's aftermath: namely, that the people of the Gulf coast need both immediate response/relief as well medium to longer term rebuilding help. The Red Cross -- the best branded charity in the field -- would have access to the most money. And it would have been wonderful if the Red Cross had annouced publicly its intention to raise funds that would, in turn, be provided to strategic partners better positioned to provide rebuliding assistance.
Instead, we got the 'we'll spend every dime on immediate relief' because, in what sounds almost like a petulant child, 'you slapped our hands the last time for trying to save for another rainy day'. The problems for the Red Cross's brand and mission here were two fold: poor communications and poor self-understanding of limitations.
Now, we learn that the Red Cross claims it is $340 million short in funds needed for Katrina and Rita. In addition, Congress is readying itself for a 'look see' at how the Red Cross responded. Other relief and rebuilding organizations are angry about imperious Red Cross attitudes. And, it's alleged that if you lived in the Gulf Coast and were African-American, the Red Cross wasn't quite as likely to respond as if you were Caucasian American.
So, here we go again. America's best branded, iconic relief organization is about to take another hit to its brand. Will the charity have some reasonable explanations. Yes! Let us not forget the extraordinary scale and propotion of Katrina. And, at the same time, will the Red Cross pass 'the test' on having delivered on its brand promise through open communications, good partnering and effective operations?
Well, based on the gathering storm reported in the WP, the answer there looks like it will speak from two camps: Those in the Red Cross will say, "Yes". Those beyond the Red Cross in the media, African-American citizens of the Gulf Coast, other non-profit organizations needing to respond and rebuild -- and certainly some governmental organization including Congress -- will say "No".
At the end of the article, an expert in non-profits calls from more openness. "What happens if you don't is that you live off your myth and you conceal your problems. They are an organization obsessed by its own myth."
Myth. Brand. Promise. Delivery.
At the Red Cross, these are critical words. And when it comes to disasters, the folks at the Red Cross must know deeply and wisely what these words mean. And why.
Otherwise, we will continue to see 'disasters' following disasters at the Red Cross.
Posted by Doug Smith at 03:04 PM | PermalinkOctober 23, 2005
Ben & Jerry's Redux
Many who admired Ben & Jerry's iconic status as a socially responsible company worried about the dilutive effect of Unilever's acquisition of the ice cream maker in 2000. And not without reason. According to current CEO Walt Freese, the company under Unilever softened its commitment to continuing the efforts of its founders. There's a lesson in this about corporate social responsibility (which we'll return to below). But, in addition, there's a profound lesson about brand.
If most people knew one thing about Ben & Jerry's brand it was this: the mission and the company were not just about crazily named ice cream. The brand stood for both making good ice cream and taking action to improve the lives of people.
When Unilever went 'soft' on Ben & Jerry's social mission, they also turned their backs on one of their own core competencies: branding. They jeopardized the soul of Ben & Jerry's brand. So, CEO Freese's decision to embark on a $5 million dollar campaign to save small family farms is both good corporate social policy and good corporate economic policy. It is Ben & Jerry's redux -- a return to what the company stands for.
From it's beginning, Ben & Jerry's brand -- like it's mission -- stood for both the pursuit of value and the pursuit of values. The two were intertwined; each contributing to the success or failure of the other. Like many other businesses facing growth and competition, Ben & Jerry's stumbled. Eventually, the company reached a point of mediocrity -- but it was mediocre performance with regard to both value and values. The failures on both fronts reinforced each other -- just as the earlier successes had done.
The orthodox business press (those who worship shareholder value as if it were an idol), jumped on the failure as evidence that Darwinian concern for profits is the one true path. Celebrations must have ensued when Unilever took over the troubled company.
Based on Freese's announcements, these celebrations were premature. But, there's yet another and deeper lesson in all this: It is a heck of a lot easier to reestablish a brand that stood for integrating value and values than to change 'value-only' brands into more sustainable promises and experiences.
Unilever has hundreds of brands for products it makes and distributes around the world. As our interconnected globe of markets, networks and organizations spirals into ever increasing complexity and messiness where social, environmental, political, technological, religious, medical, and legal challenges cannot be disentangled from economic ones, Unilever -- like all enterprises -- must find its way to an integrated concern for value and values.
This goes beyond the profoundly unethical so-called balanced scorecard -- the wolf in sheep's clothing that justifies concern for values only if it promotes shareholder value. Instead, drawing from the heritage of Eastern philosophy, we must learn to see and act on our legitimate concern for profits with our equally legitimate concern for all human values. Each -- like the original vision of Ben & Jerry's -- must serve the other in reinforcing ways. This is not the one-way street of the balanced scorecard (concern for employees and customers okayed as long as shareholders benefit). The ethical scorecard demands that the pursuit of value serve the pursuit of values that serves the pursuit of value that serves the pursuit of values.... and on and on.
It's extraordinarily difficult and complicated to turn a behemoth of Unilever's size away from 'profits and value only' to a more sustainable approach. The sheer number of issues they are tackling is mind boggling. The challenge they've set to find some coherent and transparent way to set goals and evaluate progress is daunting. (And, as can been seen in their 'five year record', they have yet to wrap their minds around the true integration of the financial with the non-financial).
Still, kudos to the employees (including executives) of Unilever. They've given deep thought to the challenges ahead. They have publicly declared their intention and commitment. And, with enough focus on performance -- real outcome-based goals that integrate concern for value with concern for values -- they have a real chance to get where Ben & Jerry's was at the beginning: a brand that stands for the fully human enterprise.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:28 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)October 19, 2005
Shareholder Values at Roche
As of today, scientists know two things about avian influenza ( the 'bird flu"). First, that the disease is deadly. Second, that transmission from birds to humans is rare. In the dice game of mutation, however, both characteristics could change. Humans might become vulnerable to birds. The disease might become less deadly.
Mutation at this biological level happens lightening fast. Both shifts could very well happen over the course of this autumn and winter. All of which means we need to pay attention to the pace and effectiveness of the other mutating phenonmenon -- human kind's medical response as determined by markets, governments, networks and organizations.
Looking over the past several decades, we can find much to give us confidence here. There is a nearly vertical growth curve in indicators of scientific advance (patents, scholarly articles, technological advances, etc). And, still, we must remind ourselves that we are human. There is that other part of the picture: greed, selfishness, fear, bigotry and so on. There is the track record of governments that have not distinguished themselves in terms of performance that matters such as planning, preparedness, fairness, coordination and so forth.
And, there is the profit motive -- the celebrated engine of bringing good things to life. Good things like Tamiflu, the patented pharmaceutical owned by Roche. Big Pharma has not distinguished itself over the past several years in adhering to the Hippocratic Oath, that, among other things, demands all health professionals to 'keep the sick from harm and injustice'.
Roche, like other big pharmaceutical companies, has recently written a caveat into this oath: so long as they can pay, we can make profits and we can preserve our patent rights.
All of which means Roche's reversal of its announcement last week that it would remain the sole manufacturer of Tamiflu is good news on two counts: (1) that Roche will now consider licensing others; and, (2) the speed of the change.
One week. That's much, much faster than any similar shift has happened with those pharmaceutical companies who have refused to sell anti-viral AIDS patented medicines to impoverished peoples. It is, as the management gurus like to say, a dramatic improvement in cycle time.
At least two potential causes are known. Kofi Annan has put pressure on Roche. And, Cipla, an Indian pharmaceutical company announced it is nearing readiness to distribute an un-patented version of Tamiflu. Put differently, we can see both governments (the UN) and markets (competition from Cipla) at work in the 'mutating phenomenon" that will determine human response.
Both are good news. Now, let's ask Roche and it's shareholders (as well as employees): At what profit margins will you license Tamiflu? Will you use 'quality requirements" according to the Hippocratic Oath, or as a smokescreen for restricting distribution?
Put differently, what do you stand for? What are your values?
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:17 PM | PermalinkOctober 18, 2005
Ignorance at The Economist
Over the years since 9/11, The Economist has run a series of commentaries on globalization, corporate responsibility and the common good under such titles as "Profits over people", "Globalization and its critics", "The good company", and "Profits and the public good". The pieces are clearly written and worth reading -- if you're interested in a refresher course on the best available thinking about 19th century economics.
Those of us who struggle with 21st century realities, however, need access to better and different thinking. It's been more than 230 years since Adam Smith wrote about the power of self interest to motivate his local butcher, brewer and baker. Today, the vast majority of those who read The Economist, like the rest of us, get our dinner from 'farm through food' chains that stretch across the globe and run through thousands of corporations. "Self interest" continues to matter tremendously. But, the 'self' in the phrase is no longer traceable to a local baker or butcher. It's just more complicated than that.
Continuing to preach -- and the tone in these pieces could easily come from a pulpit - about the wondrous power of the profit orientation to bring good things to life has all the superficial appeal of an idiot savant. Yes, there is wisdom. Profits and the profit orientation in markets matters to the health and well being of the globe.
But, note to The Economist: we already know that.
How about taking the risk to learn something new -- something that can actually help the rest of us make choices in dealing with complex current reality?
Posted by Doug Smith at 12:01 PM | PermalinkOctober 16, 2005
Meaningless Politics
We know we live in fractious, partisan times. Our public discourse weighs in with more heat than light. Truth is up for grabs. Not that truth is an easy matter. Still, our contemporary beliefs, behaviors, attitudes and speech have made the always challenging prospect of determining truth – especially shared truths – more complicated.
For the moment, though, let’s distinguish between truth as evidenced by reasonably observable facts from truth that is more purely linguistic and definitional. “The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening”. Few among us, whether “Red” or “Blue” or “Liberal” or "Moderate" or “Movement Conservative” would debate this empirically observable statement.
Facts, though, often require more work to observe. Do 21st century market economies contribute to the risks of global warming? As we’ve seen in the debate over this question, even facts (e.g. about ‘causes’ and ‘risks’) can find themselves heavily subject, even perhaps hostage, to the other flavor of truth sharing: truth as language.
The most famous recent example of this flavor may be former President Clinton's declaration: “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is”. His was, at a minimum, the classic lawyer’s response to a question; namely, ‘let’s define our terms’.
There is a critical difference, though, between lawyers who define terms for purposes of a particular transaction and the body politic having some minimal agreement on the language needed to govern together – to make sense of shared lives.
And, so, consider this incident from a recent election. A candidate for a city office receives a questionnaire from a politically active interest group. One of the questions asks ‘whether the candidate would favor city ordinances” supportive of the interest groups proposed policies?
The candidate responds, “I prefer a legislative solution to the issues raised by these questions.”
As a matter of language, ‘city ordinances’ are legislation. The candidate has been asked, “Would you favor legislative solutions of the type we’re proposing?” The candidate answers, “I prefer legislative solutions to the questions you raise.”
The candidate has given a 'non answer' answer. But, the problem here goes beyond a candidate being slick. The audiences for this comment -- voters and others including young adults and children -- become accomodated to langauge without meaning. They are told by candidates who, if elected, will be their political leaders, that there is a difference between 'city ordinances' and 'legislation'.
We cannot have shared values without shared language. It is not humanly possible. If we politicize language beyond the reach of shared meaning, we cannot govern together. Indeed, we cannot hope to live together in anything other than cheap ignorance and moral despair.
October 12, 2005
What Does Good Credit Mean To Citigroup?
In the wake of September 11th (and the burst of the dotcom bubble), Citigroup started an ad campaign they hoped would capture the spirit of the times. Out went 90s exhortations about value and money; in came reminders about values and what’s most worthwhile in life:
“Don't wait” Citi told audiences, “until someone says ‘Your money or your life’ to remember that they are two different things.”
The ads must have struck a nerve because the campaign still runs years later. Citigroup, like other organizations, pays attention to the benefits and costs of advertising and brand building. Whatever metrics they use to gauge consumer response must be positive.
Another interesting question, though, is this: What’s been the impact of the campaign on employees at Citigroup? (When I write ‘employees”, I include executives.)
Thousands of people work for Citigroup. And, like all of us, they bring some blend of values to the office each day. On most days, most of the time, they must be good folks who seek to do reasonably good things – like, for example, providing good credit to others.
The Citi ad campaign, though, raises the bar on what ‘good’ credit means.
Citi employees are making a promise about ‘good credit’ when their ads tell customers:
"Be independently happy".
If the brand promise in this ad is to be matched by the brand experience, Citi employees must hold themselves accountable for building consumer independence – a corollary of which means assisting their customers in avoiding dependencies that drive out happiness.
Credit is a source of potential dependency. Potential. Credit need not lead to dependency. Half of cardholders, for example, pay their bills on time and in full each month.
There are millions of Americans, however, for whom credit is a dependency. For some, the dependency derives from financial necessity; for others, from inadequate skills and knowledge; and, for others still, it is an addiction.
Hence, this question for Citigroup employees: Why and under what circumstances do you provide credit to these Americans?
One answer could be: Because it is profitable.
That is consistent with the governing orthodoxy of capitalism. It also matches the first first part of the following Citi ad:
"People make money. Not the other way around".
But it’s the second half that reflects Citi’s current brand promise:
Another response could be about opportunity and freedom. While money does not ‘make people’, it surely helps provide the material basis for happiness in a market economy. Citi and other credit card providers assist customers in climbing the economic ladder.
To match brand experience with Citi’s current brand promise, though, Citi employees need to take steps to make certain they provide ladder climbing credit assistance only to folks who use it to achieve independence. Citi has a variety of business practices that help their employees succeed at this.
In addition, like other credit card companies, Citi has sophisticated statistical modeling and data techniques that predict with stunning accuracy consumer credit card usage and behavior. Citi uses these tools to price different cards to different groups. Some get credit at 10%, some at 16% -- and some at just under 30%.
That’s right. 30%.
It’s that number that raises the curtain on whether Citi employees' shared values match the brand promise in their ads. Because the same models instructing Citi to charge 30% to higher risk consumers predict that consumers who pay such high rates are headed into dependency instead of financial independence or happiness.
Which takes us back to the initial question about what 'good' credit actually means to the employees of Citigroup. For those who are sincere, ‘good credit’ must mean credit that is both profitable for Citi and ‘good’ for their customers.
30% rates don’t meet that test.
Citi employees have a choice every single day they show up to work: match brand experience with brand promise by ceasing to offer consumer credit at 30%.
When they make that choice, they will surely take a huge step toward fulfilling yet one more promise in their ads:
“Human decency is up a point and kindness is making a rally”.
October 11, 2005
Delphi's Viral Bankruptcy
Two centuries from now Robert Miller, the CEO who took Delphi Corp into Chapter 11 last Saturday, will be as little remembered as Ebenezer Monroe -- the farmer who may have fired ‘the shot heard round the world’ on Lexington green in 1775.
Miller’s filing, though, has already ricocheted across the planet. In just a few days, the Delphi bankruptcy reached into and shook up the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Tens of thousands of United Auto Workers (current and retired) –- and their families -- awoke Sunday to the possibility of strikes, radically reduced wages and benefits, lost jobs and diminshed or eliminated pensions. Eventually, some will follow Delphi to bankruptcy court.
Thousands of auto parts suppliers (hundreds who sell to Delphi) are already revisiting options that include fire sales, mergers, closing down and, yes, bankruptcy. Tens of thousands of people work for these copmanies. They, too, heard Miller’s filing. Tonyia Young worries her employer Guide Corp. will match the steep wage and benefit cuts planned at Delphi. Tonyia will undoubtedly witness some in her position follow Delphi into bankruptcy.
Men and women who run small businesses near Delphi and other affected companies could hear the “bang!” of Miller’s court action, too. Said Mary Mosley, owner of the Lighthouse Bakery and Deli about a mile from a Delphi plant: "It's scary because a lot of businesses are connected to Delphi. It makes a big difference."
Some of these merchants will follow Delphi into bankruptcy.
What to Mary and Toniya were anxious murmurs must have been a sonic boom to people at GM. It’s not just the $1.2 billion Delphi owes GM. Far worse are these twin threats: (1) Any disruption in Delphi operations could shutter GM plants heavily dependent on Delphi parts; and, (2) GM might have to reassume $11 billion of liabilities it had hoped to shed when it spun Delphi off six years ago.
By Monday, GM stock had plummeted and some openly speculated on what was once unimaginable: That GM might follow Delphi into bankruptcy.
Not everyone rose to cold gruel for Sunday breakfast. Chinese auto parts manufacturers whose business has tripled since 2001 are looking at the kind of sustained growth that, fifty years ago, prompted the head of GM to brag, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” European auto parts suppliers who've done a better job of implementing strategy than Delphi see opportunities to pick up assets and become stronger. And, many investors think the tea leaves finally point to the kind of industrial restructuring that can make them rich (or richer).
Unlike these potential winners from Delphi's bankruptcy, the thousands of workers, families, businesses, merchants and others who stand to lose will see the viral contagion pile trouble upon trouble onto the quality of their lives in the places they reside: personal and business bankruptcies, divorces, worsening drug and alcohol abuse, broken local government budgets, deteriorating services, a sense of isolation and despair.
In 1775, people like Ebenezer Monroe shared fates with others because of the places they lived together. People from other places were unwelcome if they brought trouble with them. We don't live in a world of places anymore. Instead, ours is a world of markets, networks, and organizations. In our new world, place is contained by - and is subject to -- business, not the reverse.
And, so it is that CEO Miller's message heard round the world is quite the opposite of what echoed from Ebenezer Monroe's musket. Monroe exclaimed to the British, "Take your business out of my place!" Miller of Delphi proclaims to all adversely affected by his Chapter 11 filing, "Take the problems of your places out of my business.”
October 09, 2005
Suggested Reading
A few weeks back in a post entitled Downsizing Journalism, I commented on the suicidal effects that cost-focused strategies have on newspapers: cost reductions in the face of declining circulation reach into the newsroom which, eventually, reduces the quality of the news which leads to declining circulation and more cost reductions.
There are three parts to the phrase "newspaper business": (1) news; (2) paper; and, (3) business. With the rise of the Internet -- and shifting habits of younger people -- paper has emerged as a very expensive form of distributing news. Put differently, paper drives a wedge between part one (news) and part three (business).
This is not trivial. And, that's why every executive and employee in newspaper organizations (and anyone else who cares about this topic) should read Ken Auletta's article in the October 10, 2005 issue of The New Yorker. (Sorry: The magazine, at least as of today, chose not to post the article on its website).
Auletta uses the recent resignation of the Los Angeles Times' editor as a focal point to explore the fundamental problems facing newspapers. He has done a masterful job of presenting in clear and compelling ways the tensions between the Los Angeles Times' editors' desires to be a world class newspaper versus the coporate headquarters' desire to deliver steady growth and earnings from the newspaper business.
The title of Auletta's article is "Fault Line". It's brilliant. Not only because he so clearly lays out the inherent tension between striving for quality news versus meeting bottom line expectations - but also because, as happens too often in organizations facing profound change, the leaders from both sides fell too easily into a game of finding fault - the 'we/they' battles that never produce win/win strategies for change. Never.
Auletta has done something else in this article. He has provided journalists an example of excellent journalism. He has done a careful job of reporting both sides of this story. He has not pulled punches; but, neither has he taken cheap shots. He has succeeded in portraying all the players as human beings trying to do their jobs in a tough situation. In other words, he has shown respect to the people in his story and, thereby, shown respect to the readers of his story.
The Los Angeles Times can achieve both aspirations: (1) world class news; and, (2) profits and growth. But it cannot succeed if either goal trumps the other. Auletta's piece -- if carefully read and used -- can help the people of the Los Angeles Times find their best future together. Indeed, it can help all people in newspaper businesses convert the 'paper' wedge pitting 'news' against 'business' into a clarion call for shared collaboration and creativity required to deliver both high quality 'news' and high quality 'business'. Both/and. Not either/or.
Posted by Doug Smith at 01:46 PM | PermalinkSeptember 29, 2005
People Business
"All companies are people companies," writes Jennifer Rice at BrandBlog. It's such an obvious point -- yet, evidently, one we seem to overlook in our daily discourse.
When we say, read or hear words like “corporation” or “business”, “people” is not the word that springs to mind. “Profits” jumps out at us. But not “people”.
Yet, as Rice reminds us, "People make products for people. People serve people. People work with people and for people."
Rice goes on to describe how these habits of mind are but one of many signs of the dehumanization of society and business. She quotes the insightful work of Robert Putnam. In his landmark book, Bowling Alone, Putnam cites dozens of indicators (from lack of participation in local affairs to giving the finger to others with whom we’re not pleased)) pointing to a deterioration in our experience of civility and community.
But to make anything of Putnam’s insights, we must learn to peel back the onion. Just as the word ‘profits’ is more likely to leap out when we hear, say or read ‘business’ or ‘corporation’, the word ‘place’ instantly echoes off the word ‘community’. Putnam hears this echo – his recommendations insist that we must recapture civility and community by focusing on places.
What Putnam misses is that tens of millions of us no longer live our lives – no longer meaningfully and richly interact with other people on a daily basis – because of the places we happen to live. Instead, our best opportunity for the experience of community has shifted from places to organizations.
Why? Because it is in organizations, and especially the organizations where we work, learn, play and pray, that we throw in our lots with others who are not necessarily friends or family. It is in organizations, not places, that we depend on other people we know by name and interact with daily on issues that matter to our futures – our shared fates.
Organizations are ‘thick we’s’ – a phrase describing the experience of having an every day, tangible and gritty sense of shared fates with others we know. For so many of us, beyond friends and family, our thick we’s happen much more in organizations than in places.
If, instead of ‘corporations’ or ‘businesses’, we habitually used words like ‘work communities’ – or just ‘communities’ – the word ‘profits’ would still spring to mind. But so would "people”.
Meaningful language is among the scarcest resources during any period of profound change. For us to hear and act on Rice’s exhortation, we need new language like 'thick we's' or 'work communities'. Or we need to find -- and hear -- new meaning in old words like “business”, “corporation”, and “community”.
