Leadership in Business and Politics

Op-Ed Columnist for the NY Times, Thomas Friedman, wrote a piece called Secrets of a Pollster. In it he talks about the big missteps of political leaders and how they recovered from these problems. The conclusion is that to be a great leader: “You can’t be too honest in describing big problems, too bold in offering big solutions, too humble in dealing with big missteps, too forward in re-telling your story or too gutsy in speaking the previously unspeakable.”

When you think of Jim Collins’ Good to Great, this has a familiar ring. The notion of being open and truthful about problems and showing humility apply to business leaders and politicians alike.

What we at Launchpad Partners have been saying is that if you want to have a great problem solving and innovative company, the leadership must install three key components of culture: Trust, Engagement, and Empowerment (TEE, think golf tee). Trust is king. It includes the passion for truth telling, facing hard problems head on, being honest, and acting with as much openness as the law allows. When a company achieves the full measure of TEE, then it is a problem solving, innovative powerhouse that’s on the path toward taking the leadership role in its industry.
Launchpad Partners help companies through periods of stress. Once the company is through the stress, and once it is eager to become the competitive powerhouse in its industry, we then partner with the CEO and Board to create an environment of Trust, Engagement and Empowerment. We apply certain key tipping points which germinate this environment without disrupting the day to day operation of the humming machinery we’ve just helped install.

2016 Summer Olympics

Last night, the University of Chicago, Booth Graduate School of Business International Roundtable sponsored a talk on the Chicago bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. John MacAloon led a highly interactive discussion with the people in attendance updating us on the process and progress of this initiative. The International Olympic Committee will be visiting Chicago the first week in April to review the bid proposal. Presenting to the IOC will be the mayor, other local dignitaries, John MacAloon, and Barack Obama.

On October 2nd the IOC will make their selection from among Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Madrid, and Chicago.

Several organizations are involved in the Olympic games in addition to the IOC. There is the US National Olympic Committee; the International Federations for each sport (28 of them); and the local organizing committee. (Some entities have their own independent status as a NOC, like Puerto Rico which is why it will never vote to become a mere state in the USA.)

What is very interesting is how our US cultural view of the Olympics, and the view the IOC would like to promote, misaligned they are. In the US, the Olympics are all about medals, advertising and revenues-vs-expenses. Not so elsewhere.
Obviously these are of interests to other countries as well but the primary purpose of the Olympics is to foster the Olympic Movement. “Olympism is a life philosophy which draws together sport, culture and education in the aim of creating a harmonious balance between body, will and mind. Originally promoted by Coubertin, this philosophy is an essential element of the Olympic Movement and the celebration of the Games. For today’s Olympic Movement, Olympism is constructed around three core values :excellence, friendship and respect.”

CEO as leader

At a recent presentation I talked about how you create superior competitive advantage through innovation and the culture that you need to install to enable a company to be truly innovative. The role of the CEO as leader is absolutely critical to building an innovative culture.
An innovative culture is one that gets the best problem solving and innovation from everyone in the company. To do that you need a culture of Trust, Engagement, and Empowerment (TEE). We talked about the steps you need to be willing to take to lead a company into this culture.
While each of the steps are simple, having the will to take them is the principle obstacle facing CEOs. So one member of the audience as the following two question. "Given several CEOs behaviors around the bailout, from flying corporate jets, to taking big bonuses, is it possible that many of the most senior executives in large companies today are the wrong people to really lead a company to put it in place a culture this truly innovative and thus will give the company the best opportunity to be the competitive powerhouse in the industry?" He added "Isn't there a role for the Board of Directors in all this?"
It is a great question. First of all, I think there are a few truly exceptional CEOs who have the ability to be true leaders in their companies. But otherwise, you look at the the perks; the enormous salaries these people seem willing to take; the arrogance and sense of entitlement that is displayed; and some of the other stuff that we've seen in the banking and insurance world lately makes you believe that perhaps many of the individuals in these positions are the wrong people to be leading these companies. It may go much deeper than that. It may be that the Boards of Directors are made up of such people and operate to the benefit of each other rather than to the benefit of the stockholders; and the employees; and the customers and suppliers and the community at large.
Stockholders should be much more critical of boards. But every stockholder has a vote irrespective of how long they've held the stock. Where large blocks of stock are traded by institutional investors who are looking for short-term lifts in stock price, their short term interest will likely conflict with the interests of long-term investors (and employees, customers, suppliers, and the community itself). But they control huge blocks of votes. Perhaps the rules around voting rights should be amended to requires stockholders to hold a stock for two years before being able to exercise a vote.

Dinner at Yoshi’s

Tonight Linda and I had a marvelous dinner with her cousin’s eldest son Josh and his fiancé April. The company was wonderful, the food was spectacular and the Dry Creek Chardonnay was the best Chardonnay we’ve had in a long time.

Dick Durbin showed up at Yoshi’s tonight। He is a good senator and a decent guy. He showed respect for our privacy and didn’t come over to schmooze with us.

Tonight’s dinner was to celebrate Josh and April’s upcoming wedding, which we will likely miss as it is in Steamboat later in the Spring. Linda would like to go, so perhaps we will make it.

Innovation CEO

Here is the slideshow from the Harvard Business School Alumni Breakfast in Chicago North Shore: Innovation CEO

Latin American International

On this Tuesday, I will be speaking at the:Latin American International Business Conference Northeastern Illinois University
Alumni Hall TUESDAY 3-3-09 9:25 - 10:40 am Innovation in Latin America William Burnett
Full Announcement at: http://www.neiu.edu/~bschool/LAIBC09sched.pdf.

Move Managers Around – Recession Strategy for Innovation

The trouble with a strategy of cost cutting is
it creates a huge obstacle for any change
that involves a little investment. It is a very
risk-averse tactic. When the rule of the day
is to cut spending to the bone, it is very
difficult to look at changing the way things
are done if there is any level of risk. Change
means risk. The strategy of moving
managers around can generate great results
only if the objective of the business is
‘improvement’. Finding an opportunity to
trim a cost is just a consequence of that, not
the objective. The reason moving managers
around works is that it overcomes one of the
biggest obstacles to innovation and problem
solving – mindset. It allows latent ideas to
bubble up and deliver results, including cost
cutting results, while preserving both
innovation and long-term profits. See Article at http://www.wburnettllc.com/Part_1Revised4Blog.pdf