Savvan's Blog

2011 in review

savvan — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:41:53 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 32 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Discrimination, Leadership, Learning, Love Leadership, Management, Strategic Human Resources

Mental Illness – the ‘dis-ease’ that we are afraid to talk about…

savvan — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:06:20 +0000

Mental Illness – the ‘dis-ease’ that we are afraid to talk about…
This past week, an article in the WSJ caught my attention, “A Serious Illness or an Excuse?
As Awareness of Mental Issues Rises, Colleges Face Tough Calls; Playing ‘Detective’”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203430404577094330403235506.html?KEYWORDS=mental+illness+at+universities

One of the statistics in the article mentioned,
“At the University of Texas at Austin, 33% of the 1,687 students that registered with the disability services office during the spring 2011 semester listed psychological problems as their “primary” concern. In the spring of 2008, only 23% out of 1,175 did. (The increase was due, in part, to a procedural change that routed more students to the disability office.)” WSJ article December 13, 2011.

Wow! From 23% -33% in three years…are those statistics showing that there is more acceptance of mental illness? Is it showing that due to the pressures of the economic downfall people are having a more difficult time coping with the world around them and are seeking help?

Do we believe it is a good thing we are addressing the concerns of the mental state of well-being in our society rather than to deny it exists?

What mental illness reminds me of is Leonardo de Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing.

Leonardo de Vinci – and his pictorial description of the The Vitruvian Man (c. 1485) Accademia, Venice The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci circa 1487.[1] It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the famed architect, Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man. It is stored in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, Italy, and, like most works on paper, is displayed only occasionally.[2][3]

What you see in the drawing is that there is precision in the physical body – and what could be the remaining parts to create the circle? As an example, Each person has a physical, mental, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual state, each of these states (parts) make up the ‘whole’ of the human being, When one of the states is not functioning optimally then we (as human) are out of balance; one state pulls the tension on the other state and body accommodates the circumference of the circle to become unbalanced. This unbalance could be temporary or could become constant state of being and become indefinite.

Therefore, can the human body become balanced? Yes, I would surmise like a ‘rubber-band’ the tension gets pulled on one of the ‘states’ and stretches that one state which affects the other parts of a state in well-being and sometimes the rubber band stretches in and out-of-balance. The human body can repair and mend an out- of- balance state and return to a state- in-balance provided that the out-of-body state is dealt with.

As an example, when we break a bone in our physical body, we need to get the bone set – so that it can heal and relieve the body of the additional stress, i.e., such as other bones, muscles, tendons, and soft tissue that are currently providing support to the bone so it can heal. Once the bone heals, the supporting elements go back into balance.
The same thing could be true when we are out-of- balance due to the stressors in our life, and how we react to those stressors by changing or not changing our mental attitude to deal with the demands on our physical body, and our psychological well-being.

Let me ask, if you saw an individual walking around with a broken arm bone dangling from their shoulder socket – would you think it would be strange if the person ever got the physical bone mended? How long would they walk around in pain, unable to use their physical arm before they sought help or that the arm finally mended in place – yet not performing at its optimal best? Would you try to reach out to the person to help them get the bone fixed? How many of us would walk up to the person and not be afraid because it is obvious the person is in physical pain? Or would we walk away, mutter to ourselves – and say, “oh my, that chap has a problem…”

Why then do we not address the same concerns when the psychological health and mental well-being are out-of-balance? We have seen so many TV shows in the past that help us see this, one recent example was played out for us in the CBS show, A Gifted Man. http://www.cbs.com/shows/a_gifted_man

One of the episodes featured a man (husband, father) who worked as a chauffeur and his wife and child saw some radical behaviors being demonstrated by this man. He was acting out in ways that they could not understand yet they could verbally express. As it turned out the man had a brain tumor which was pressing on part of the brain in the frontal lobe causing his thinking to go astray…and his behavior showed the symptoms. Once the tumor was repaired, eradicated, the man’s thinking returned to a balanced state.

This example shows what happens when a physical tumor is affecting our mental and psychological states of well-being. We as humans have such a hard time seeing that a mental or psychological concern may be due to a physical concern. Or it could be that there is a symptom that is causing the mental snap, such as an internal issue, a lack of a vitamin, a hormonal imbalance in the pituitary gland, or an external stress from an abnormal demand taxing (causing stress) our ability to cope in the moment?

As another example, being in physical pain and not going to the doctors, or the intellectual stress required at exam time, or the success factors required in the workplace and the demands (stress) of the job requesting us to perform (past our balance point) to meet deadlines?

In another recent publication, The HR Daily Advisor, the article title is “The Delicate Dance of Addressing Mental Disabilities”
Monday, December 12, 2011 3:00 AM
by Steve Bruce

Category: ADA
“Many mental impairments are hard to spot and hard to diagnose, and employers tend to give mental impairments too much attention or too little, says attorney Audra Hamilton”.

http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/archive/2011/12/12/ADA_Accommodation_Mental_Disability.aspx?source=HAC&effort=14

See the article…in my opinion, the label, ‘Mental Disability’ is for legal protection and the laws to protect the company and the human? Is the title to help the human correct their in-balance? Is it truly a mental disability? Or is it a mental illness? Are you mentally disabled to perform your job? Or are you mentally ill to perform your job? If you are physically ill, again such as a broken bone would you be considered disabled?

Why do we as humans have such a hard time looking at mental illness as something so ‘out-of-the-norm’ that we cannot face it or even help the person re-balance their life? Is the mental illness causing so many blockages to our ability to think (intellect) and to do (change a behavior) that the out-of-balance signal is not going off to help us re-balance?
Is it because we cannot see it ourselves physically? Is it because our society is afraid to deal with what mental illness is? What if others see our mental state, such that we may have a ‘mental-broken arm’ that is causing us distress? Would we be able to hear or see the mental-broken arm and tend to mending it?

When we are out of mental or psychological balance – we tend to create labels to address the concern and it ends up in a bucket known as mental illness or worse. Once a label is created what happens to our intellectual mind? ‘Someone may say, ‘that human is cracked (mentally)’ – would they say the same if there was a physical impediment? ‘That human has a broken bone’…

Mental and psychological illness can be equally as damaging to oneself as it can be to those people around us who are in re-lationship to us. Think about having a broken-mental arm – would it be easier to tend to? When we have a physical broken arm, it is temporary, and we get it fixed the arm is whole again and we move on. In this instance, the person who suffered the most physical pain was the person with the broken arm, not all those people who are in re-lationship with that person.

In closing, can we treat the human-being as a whole, rather than a sum of its parts or as all of the parts of a whole?

Foot note Source:Wikipedia
The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described[4] by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De Architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture. Leonardo’s drawing is traditionally named in honor of the architect.
This image exemplifies the blend of art and science during the Renaissance and provides the perfect example of Leonardo’s keen interest in proportion. In addition, this picture represents a cornerstone of Leonardo’s attempts to relate man to nature. Encyclopaedia Britannica online states, “Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe.”
According to Leonardo’s preview in the accompanying text, written in mirror writing, it was made as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as described in Vitruvius. The text is in two parts, above[a] and below[b] the image.
The first paragraph of the upper part reports Vitruvius: “Vetruvio, architect, puts in his work on architecture that the measurements of man are in nature distributed in this manner, that is:
• a palm is four fingers
• a foot is four palms
• a cubit is six palms
• four cubits make a man
• a pace is four cubits
• a man is 24 palms
and these measurements are in his buildings”. The second paragraph reads: “if you open your legs enough that your head is lowered by one-fourteenth of your height and raise your hands enough that your extended fingers touch the line of the top of your head, know that the centre of the extended limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle”.

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Discrimination, Leadership, Learning, Love Leadership, Management, Micro-inequities, Strategic Human Resources

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA)

savvan — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 20:46:23 +0000

Typically when I blog, I try to provide interesting sourced information on what is going on in our world today as it applies to the learning profession.

Albeit a bit atypical, a personal story about FMLA and why it is so important to your ‘well-being’. Not only is this legislation a godsend for employees of either sex to take time off when a new baby is on the way, or an illness, the other gift it brings is securing your employee spot, and your health insurance until you can return to work. Please see the particulars about the law as noted in the DoL guide.

http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/fmla.htm

Several weeks ago, my husband went directly into the emergency room and into a 3-day stay in the ICU and was transferred to a regular hospital bed for a period of 3-weeks. The reason, septic shock. (See description below)

“Description
Septic shock is a possible consequence of bacteremia, or bacteria in the bloodstream. Bacterial toxins, and the immune system response to them, cause a dramatic drop in blood pressure, preventing the delivery of blood to the organs. Septic shock can lead to multiple organ failure including respiratory failure, and may cause rapid death. Toxic shock syndrome is one type of septic shock”.

Symptoms
Septic shock is usually preceded by bacteremia, which is marked by fever, malaise, chills, and nausea. The first sign of shock is often confusion and decreased consciousness. In this beginning stage, the extremities are usually warm. Later, they become cool, pale, and bluish. Fever may give way to lower than normal temperatures later on in sepsis.

Other symptoms include:
• Rapid heartbeat
• Shallow, rapid breathing
• Decreased urination.
• Reddish patches in the skin

Septic shock may progress to cause “adult respiratory distress syndrome,” in which fluid collects in the lungs, and breathing becomes very shallow and labored. This condition may lead to ventilatory collapse, in which the patient can no longer breathe adequately without assistance”. See the web link below for further information.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/septic+shock

So, why am I telling you this story, and why do you need to understand what to do immediately as a partner to engage the FMLA to save a job and maintain your health insurance.

During an emergency, most of us do not think of the logical steps required to pay for such intensive care in a hospital. Yet, without protecting your job, and the termination of healthcare benefits you could be left paying thousands of dollars (over 6 figures) yourself if you don’t take the time to get the needed FMLA paperwork completed ASAP. Provided you live or not through the situation, the bills keep coming in for medical care received and without a legal method to save your job; you would face the potential of losing that job as well, provided you survived.

I was fortunate enough to have reacted immediately within the first four days and got the FMLA coverage in place with my husband’s employer. Yes, the downside is the leave is unpaid and yes you still have to pay the same rate for your health plan as if you were receiving a paycheck, yet the alternative is worse.

Additionally, understand how your health insurance works; understand that in today’s healthcare arena you are on your own. Being an educated consumer can save your sanity and thousands of dollars in misinformation of claims handling. The calls to collect money begin the day you get released from the hospital. The stress of those phone calls and the very little healthcare management receive in your discharge and your continued recuperation and prolonged health concerns is very disconcerting.
Take charge of your health and manage your own decisions. Be cognoscente of the fact that the defensive medicine being practiced today does little to think through the patient’s nutritional, psychological, and emotional well-being. Take the time to understand the prescriptions being recommended and how that will make you physically feel and listen to what your body is telling you. If you are not getting the help you need from your medical team, do what you can to get the required services so you can recover and get well quicker. Again, manage your healthcare.

As mentioned, get to know your health insurance and make wise-decisions when benefits are being offered at your company such as short-term disability, (pennies on the dollar) especially if your organization offers no sick-days. During the FMLA unpaid leave from work the bills still come in and need to be paid. Short-term disability will provide some economic relief.

In summary, during this economic depression, the costs of all goods and services have gone up and continue to go up. In the WSJ on Saturday there was a timely article about your employee health benefits and the election period coming up in November. Study your new programs carefully. Sign up for benefits that are offered to you including group term life insurance. Once you have an illness such as septic shock the chances of you getting insured without an additional cost is slim to none.
Group life insurance can get converted to whole insurance (yes at a premium), yet it is better to know you have options to make decisions about rather than having no options. The decisions you make today can make a huge difference in your family’s life and well-being. You will have done the right thing and make sure there are benefits available when you are sick and unable to work.

See the information below about the Health Insurance article…

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204774604576626991626461026.html?grcc=88888Z0&mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_healthChoosing the Right Health-Care Plan

It’s Benefit-Election Time for 2012, and—Surprise! —Employers Are Passing Along More Costs;
Dealing With a ‘Health Coach WSJ – OCTOBER 22, 2011

“Here’s why you should be paying more attention.
You’ll probably be paying more next year.
According to early results of a survey by Mercer, a consulting unit of Marsh & McLennan, about a third of employers are going to bump up the deductible, co-payments or annual out-of-pocket maximum. About 7% will boost some other type of cost-sharing.
You should delve into the details of plans’ charges before you choose one. Keep an eye out for where you will owe co-insurance, which is a percentage of the cost of care and tends to be more expensive than a flat co-pay, and for fees that may not count toward your out-of-pocket maximum.
Monthly contributions also will increase in 2012—to a projected average of $2,697 a year for an individual employee, up from $2,525, according to a survey from benefits-consulting firm Towers Watson. The bite will be sharpest for plans that cover families, and may include additional surcharges on spouses who can get insurance elsewhere, says Randall Abbott, a senior consulting leader at Towers Watson.
High-deductible plans paired with tax-free savings accounts have been gaining ground for years, and insurer Cigna says their popularity is up another 35% so far in 2011 among its employer clients. That doesn’t include the large bump that will happen on Jan 1.”

Filed under: Leadership, Learning, Love Leadership, Management, Strategic Human Resources, Uncategorized

Is there opportunity to shape and shift the L&D role in an organization in providing needed metrics to the C-Suite?

savvan — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:53:03 +0000

“Measurement Matters: If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” quoted by David Norton, co-author with Robert Kaplan “The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action” 1996 – Published by The President and Fellows of Harvard College. (Chapter 2, page 21).

“What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get better.”

As we approach the FYE strategy and budget reviews with our senior management, executives and Board of Directors it is the time to impress the value of business and learning metrics to the C-Suite. The learning technologies are in transition as is social learning, just-in-time learning, simulations and game technologies. It is time to address the multi-generations in the workforce with measurement and treat the L&D role in an organization as a true P/L function. It is the L&D industries’ responsibility for not being taken seriously as a business unit and producing the needed metrics to the executive management. It is time to set aside business politics as usual. If you want other business units to take L&D seriously then it is time to change the outcomes of what makes us valuable.

Each type of learning, whether it is classroom, eLearning for compliance, product training, blended learning with webinars and instructor led components all require metrics for the business to determine the business cost ratio and the learning analytics to determine if learners improved.

The big question; why do we not measure thoroughly both business and learning metrics? It has been easy in the past to say that the C-Suite is not interested, or the business unit does not want it. It could appear there is lack of interest, yet this argument is as old as the historical posted hypothesis what came first, the chicken or the egg? Additionally, we have had old Learning Management Systems (LMSs) that just did not capture the needed requirements in a report tool generator to get useable learner metrics. Yet we know today, the analytic applications are available to get metrics that measure performance and other correlated improvements in the business, such as increase sales revenue, or improved performance.

As we move into social learning, collaborative training and just-in-time learning for the workforce – how will we capture the needed business and learning analytics to provide value in our learning programs, provide value to the L&D industry to garner the true support of the C-Suite? How do we build our programs so they are sustainable and deliver the proper metrics?

I recently attended an applied learning technology conference and all the wiz-bang technologies were available to show the audience. Yet what were positioned were the ‘cool’ technology and not the business and learning values needed to the C-Suite. There is no doubt in my mind that technology is the enabler of the education programs provided, yet the business and learning analytics are what are needed for the executive management team in order to transfer the value of what is important to the business.

Everyone talks about Social Learning and Just-in-Time learning and call this ‘learning’. Ok, if we look at program types (not evaluation/measurement types such as Kirkpatrick and Bloom) for social learning and Just-In-Time – are we really learning anything? Alternatively, are we providing helpful information such as mobile directions, or product specs to regurgitate information to our customer? It could be said we need not retain that information as we can find it again. Ok – yes, we can find the information again, yet how do we measure this information so we are showing value for our profession and value to the business?

As an L&D industry, it is our job to ask, what is the program type for the ‘training’? (See below) What are the expected outcomes for this training for the individual? How does this training align with the business strategy? What metrics can we provide to show that the training has value? How do we the L&D professional show we have value?

When will we, the L&D professionals start asking these? How can we assist our organizations by making metrics top of mind during the annual review strategies with the executives and to increase the budgets for workforce training? If we truly are going to increase performance we need to begin by providing business and learning analytics to our executives to engage their attention and shape shift their mindset to incorporate metrics as part of the learning strategy for their organization.

Program Types:

Type 1 – Information Broadcast
Type 2 – Critical Knowledge Transfer
Type 3 – Skills and Competency Development
Type 4 – Certification Programs

Lastly, the window of opportunity truly is open now as talent management teams struggle to retain and engage their employees. We start with change leadership to provide metrics and quality written content for our end-users. It would be very difficult to increase productivity margins as the current productivity of an American worker is stretched to the brink. The answer is to increase hiring and train all employees with a purpose in mind.

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Leadership, Learning, Love Leadership, Management

What’s Wrong with America’s Job Engine? – by David Wessel – WSJ

savvan — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:45:06 +0000

What’s Wrong with America’s Job Engine? – by David WesselWednesday July 27, 2011

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904772304576468820582615858.html

And… CEOs in Their Own Words: Don’t Plan on Hiring – Willa Plank

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904772304576470484142293112.html

In reading, both articles the winners are the temporary firms hiring folks for ‘just-in-time’ needs and those with college degrees. Yet that doesn’t explain the entire trend of what to do with the ‘Change’ in the demographics of our workers. Employers are also saying they can’t find the needed skill here in the U.S. In the past, several years since this financial debacle meltdown began people have returned to Universities, Community Colleges and updated their skills. What is it that the American worker is missing for skills?

If I were a betting person, which I am not – I would say it has more to do with the geopolitical and worldwide economics than the skill set of the American worker. America still has top talent, yet can this talent compete worldwide at a price that the market currently is demanding? As mentioned in previous articles the burn out factor is significant in those who currently have jobs. People are working at the top level of their productivity and compensation is stagnant. The question we hear is how can we increase productivity in the American worker?

The answer is hiring more people, as the current people are tapped. The productivity can only be driven harder by incurring additional workers. The slogan is ‘doing less with less’ not ‘doing more with less’. Those working today are doing less with less as the productivity margins are at the tip point, and unless tipped the break-even state remains.
That brings us to the big question of change, no one likes it, especially when key motivators such as money, bonuses, perquisites, additional benefits hamper or benefit the change.

Will there be change?

This is a huge question and is truly to be answered by those in the C-Suite. The strategy and tactics that are employed have not significantly changed their motivators therefore their behaviors have not changed.

If we truly want the C-Suite to recognize the value of their employees as their competitive edge, the change then would begin with them. It is a rarer organization that has made any significant change in their own abilities to lead and receive compensation that shows they are changing with the times. Creative use of human capital is been through treating the worker as a product, to be used temporarily and just in time. What if the C-Suite was subjected to just in time hiring, would the end-results change in their organizations? I don’t know the answer to that, yet by continually changing leadership brought in from outside and promotions from inside the organization may yield more innovation and yes maybe more genuine concern for their employees.

…WSJ’s Willa Plank reports the nation’s CEOs do not see an economic recovery underway and do not plan to hire workers anytime soon. Also, over the past ten years, the American adult work force has dropped to 1983 levels. Photo: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Over the past 10 years:

• The U.S. economy’s output of goods and services has expanded 19%.

• Nonfinancial corporate profits have risen 85%.

• The labor force has grown by 10.1 million.

• But the number of private-sector jobs has fallen by nearly two million.
• And the percentage of American adults at work has dropped to 58.2%, a low not seen since 1983.

Something else is going on, too, a phenomenon that predates the recession and has persisted through it: Changes in the way the job market works and how employers view labor.

Executives call it “structural cost reduction” or “flexibility.” Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon calls it the rise of “the disposable worker,” shorthand for a push by businesses to cut labor costs wherever they can, to an almost unprecedented degree.

No one talks about that any longer. Between the end of 2007 (when American employment peaked) and the end of 2009 (when it touched bottom), the U.S. economy’s output of goods and services fell by 4.5%, but the number of workers fell by a much sharper 8.3%. Today’s puzzle: How and why employers managed to boost productivity, or output per hour of work, like never before during the worst recession in decades?

In a survey of 2,000 companies earlier this year, McKinsey Global Institute, the think tank arm of the big consulting firm, found 58% of employers expect to have more part-time, temporary or contract workers over the next five years and 21.5% more “outsourced or offshored” workers.

“Technology,” McKinsey says, “makes it possible for companies to manage labor as a variable input. Using new resource-scheduling systems, they can staff workers only when needed—for a full day or a few hours.”

More
CEOs Say Don’t Expect Much Hiring
Business Leaders Press for More Work Visas
In Their Own Words: Executives on Hiring

Even though the government counts 4.68 unemployed workers for every job opening, some employers insist they can’t find workers with the skills they need at wages they can afford.

Write to David Wessel at capital@wsj.com

CEOs in Their Own Words: Don’t Plan on Hiring – Willa Plank

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904772304576470484142293112.html

By WILLA PLANK
Wednesday July 27, 2011

The CEOs are speaking. And the message isn’t encouraging: Don’t expect many new U.S. jobs anytime soon.

WSJ’s Willa Plank reports the nation’s CEOs do not see an economic recovery underway and do not plan to hire workers anytime soon. Also, over the past ten years, the American adult work force has dropped to 1983 levels. Photo: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

These executives remained consistently cautious. They were willing to invest only in growth businesses or international markets, largely Asia.

Some of the most optimistic remarks came from temporary-staffing and labor-outsourcing companies. Much of this growth actually represents a negative for the overall jobs picture, as many of these posts represent short-term demand from other companies that are too cautious to hire full-time workers.

And even then, much of the growth is coming abroad.

Write to Willa Plank at willa.plank@dowjones.com

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Leadership, Management

CEO Pay in 2010 Jumped 11% May 9, 2011 WSJ

savvan — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:42:47 +0000

CEO Pay in 2010 Jumped 11%
May 9, 2011
WSJ

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703992704576307332105245012.html

By JOANN S. LUBLIN
You may be saying to yourself, why now would this blog be posted, after all, we are in the last week of July 2011 and this is old news! I only think it is relevant as we see the news headlines of the lawmakers in Washington DC unable to make decisions and the CEOs waiting it out. All of this indecision is affecting the ‘little-people’.

The only thing that these folks are elected and paid to do is work in the best interest of their constituency, the people of the U.S. Yet their actions are roiling not only the stock market including the losses in the past week yet also the companies mentioned in this report. Hiring is all but slackened off, piles of cash remain and those companies that are having a difficult time with their strategies are restructuring scores of people yet again. Again, the leadership of these companies is in fact sending Washington a message; yes and I believe it may be falling on deaf ears.

Although sad, the only way the lawmakers or leadership seems to get the message is when their wallets have been hurt; and so far, that has not been up for discussion. Until the true pain is felt outside of the beltway and boardrooms, the same behaviors will occur from our elected officials and CEOs. The lawmakers will continue to be space-takers and collect their salaries and benefits years after they leave office, even if they serve one term. The CEOs will still be allowed to run their companies and collect their millions regardless of the pain they cause their employees and contractors when they are dismissed.

Articles From the Wall Street Journal and the Hay Group

Chief executives at the biggest U.S. companies saw their pay jump sharply in 2010, as boards rewarded them for strong profit and share-price growth with bigger bonuses and stock grants.

AND…

MAY 8, 2011

The Wall Street Journal/Hay Group Survey of CEO Compensation

The Wall Street Journal/Hay Group CEO Compensation Study was conducted by Hay Group, a management-consulting firm. The study analyzes CEO pay from the biggest 350 U.S. public companies by revenue that filed their definitive proxy statements between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011.

Survey Methodology & Terms Definitions Footnotes

http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/php/CEOPAY11.html

http://www.haygroup.com/ww/services/index.aspx?ID=2589

Top Five Highest-Paid CEOs
The median value of salaries, bonuses and long-term incentive awards for CEOs of 350 major companies surged 11% to $9.3 million, according to a study of proxy statements conducted for The Wall Street Journal by management consultancy Hay Group.

The rise followed a year in which pay for the top boss was flat at these companies.
1) Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom Total Compensation: $84,328.3

Viacom Inc. CEO Philippe P. Dauman topped the list. He received compensation valued at $84.3 million, more than double his 2009 pay, thanks largely to equity awards in a renewed contract.

2) Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle Total Direct Compensation: $68,649.8
Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle Corp., took second place. Long ranked among the highest-paid chiefs, he received compensation valued at $68.6 million for the year ended last May 31. It mostly consisted of options valued at $61.9 million. (The package was included in a November Wall Street Journal survey of CEO pay that slightly overlapped the current study.)
Oracle declined to comment.

3) Leslie Moonves, CBS Total Direct Compensation: $53,881.4

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves landed the No. 3 spot with compensation valued at $53.9 million. The total includes a $27.5 million bonus, which “reflected the company’s remarkable year under his leadership,” a CBS spokesman recalled. “He led CBS to results that produced extraordinary growth in shareholder value” as returns of 37.4% outpaced media peers, the spokesman said.

4) Martin E. Franklin, Jarden Total Direct Compensation: $45,169.8

Martin E. Franklin, the longtime head of Jarden Corp., was fourth highest-paid. His $45.2 million package consisted mostly of restricted shares tied to higher per-share earnings or stock price at the maker of consumer goods. (An executive gets such shares free after sticking around for several years, but they sometimes come with a performance test, as Mr. Franklin’s did.)

5) Michael White, DIRECTV Total Direct Compensation: $32,635.7

DirecTV Group Inc.’s Michael White ranked fifth with a $32.6 million package. The lion’s share came from options and performance-based stock. He took the helm of the satellite-TV provider in January 2010. DirecTV doesn’t expect to give Mr. White any more equity grants for the rest of his three-year employment agreement, a spokesman said.

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Author, Joann S. Lublin at WSJ. —Joe Light contributed to this article.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703992704576307332105245012.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Leadership, Management

Leadership Development and Gender Bias – Does it exist in our Leadership Training in 2011?

savvan — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:52:05 +0000

Leadership Development and Gender Bias – Does it exist in our Leadership Training in 2011?

As we enter the new world of change as the workplace grows more diverse what can we do as Talent Management agents to help lead less gender bias in all types of training?

Are there barriers and biases for women leadership on governing boards within organizations? My guess without having done a lot of research and development is yes.

When you couple the multi-generational workforce, with the current leadership who primarily are in the Traditionalist and top and middle baby-boomer tiers that typically make up these governing boards, then a real look at how to change mind-sets may help with the needed change required in gender biased leadership roles for women.

• Traditionalists, Born before 1945 (ages 66+ in 2011)
• Baby Boomers, Born 1946 to 1965 (ages 46-65) Three-tiers, the 46-51 ages is the last tier, middle-tier – 52-60, first tier is 61-65 – in 2011)
• Gen Xs 1966-1975 (ages 35-45 in 2011)
• Gen Ys, 1976- 1986 (34-25 in 2011)
• Millennials, 1987-1977 (Ages 24-33 and younger+)

In an article in the Journal of Leadership Studies (2011) entitled, Women in Grassroots Leadership: Barriers and Biases experienced in a Membership Organization Dominated by Women, the authors Kaufman and Grace did some great research on the matter, and the findings are a bit disturbing. Regardless of the same exact leadership training in an organization, the men six months later did better than the women in that same organization. “Expectations and ideas about leadership are often taken from a perspective that adopts masculinity as the norm (Lamsa & Sintonen, 2001; McEldowney et al., 2009).” (p 7)

The study was conducted at an organization known as the American Farm Bureau Federated in a Leadership program entitled “Strengthening the Voice.”

The Path-Goal Theory was used which sets up the (1) the defined goals, (2) clarify the path, (3) remove the obstacles, and (4) provide support.

In a nut shell what was discovered is the obstacles were not removed regardless of the path-goal theory therefore the women were not as successful as the men. Obviously there is more detail in the actual case-study – yet the take-away is the interpretation to those barriers and biases that these women engaged in as they moved towards the goal of leadership in their organization. Some of the findings; 1) Persisting Stereotypes and Bias, 2) Separation and Isolation, 3) Desire for Change, 4) Potential for Added Value.

If you look at the multi-generations of the Millennials and the Generation Ys and Xs as the women come into the workplace – will the women bump into some of the same biases and barriers that the Baby Boomers and Traditionalist women face? The question, how to change the mindset of organization’s that are male dominated so women can move to more and more leadership positions within an organization and on boards?

The issues are still individual perceptions, group think and organizational structures regardless of the type of organization such as non-profit or for profit. Will different types of training need to be provided to address the gender biases in the workplace, most likely it will. Multi-generational training will need to include gender biases as the Millennials and Generation Ys become more prominent in the workplace. Leadership and Management training programs need to focus on the barriers that are real for women and make the efforts to remove the barriers for success. Every time a woman leaves an organization to find another organization that better accepts her is a costly choice for the current organization, provided that the organization looks at human capital and knowledge as an asset.

Kaufman, E. and Grace, P. (2011). Women in Grassroots Leadership: Barriers and Biases experienced in a Membership Organization Dominated by Women. Journal of Leadership Studies, Vol. 4, Number 4, 2011, DOI: 10.1002/jls, pp. 6-16.

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Discrimination, Leadership, Learning, Love Leadership, Management, Micro-inequities, Strategic Human Resources

Women Bullies – Yes Women Bullies Exist in our Society from girls to women and our Society allows this behavior beginning in Kindergarten to the C-Suite.

savvan — Sun, 08 May 2011 19:05:07 +0000

Women Bullies – Yes Women Bullies Exist in our Society from girls to women and our Society allows this behavior beginning in Kindergarten to the C-Suite.

In the March/April 2011 issue of Diversity Executive Magazine, Author Natalie Morera writes an article entitled, Research Finds Most Workplace Bullying Victims Are Women.

Research conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute has found that 35 percent of U.S. workers report being bullied at work, and an additional 15 percent have witnessed it. Further, 68 percent of bullying is same-gender harassment; 58 percent of bullying targets are women; and 80 percent of the time, female bullies target other women. The woman in this article finally quit her job due to the bullying at her workplace.

“Of those bullied, 58 percent are women, and 80 percent of them are bullied by other women.” Did this statistic get your attention?

If it didn’t it should have! This behavior is so not acceptable yet we let it happen over and over again that we even need to have a Workplace Bullying Institute – yet the outcome for women is that is how women are socialized! I just don’t buy that as I believe it is a convenient excuse for women to be mean and spiteful to those that may threaten their status. It truly doesn’t matter what the context is whether it is boys, grades, clothing, sports or promotions in the workplace…those who believe they deserve and are entitled over another person will do whatever it takes to put someone else in a precarious place so they can cast themselves in a better light.

Morera (2011) continues in her review, “The style in the C-suite that enables bullying is laissez-faire,” he said, meaning executives tend to take a hands-off approach to addressing bullying. This indifference to bullying lets it thrive.

“It’s either positively rewarded in the militaristic, command-and-control model — people revered for their aggression — or it’s treated with indifference, and therefore that’s tacit approval and it’s allowed to continue,” Namie said. “In either case, bullying is done with impunity because it’s so rarely stopped. Rarely does management intervene and actually say this is destructive for people, employee health and the organization.”

According to Namie, bullying affects business in the form of turnover and absenteeism. It can generate lawsuits, as well as workers’ compensation and disability costs, he said.

“They all get away with it,” he said. “Bullies bully with impunity. They almost always get rewarded. That’s what’s sad.”

In an article written by Tim Crothers of the New York Times, April 12, 2011 entitled Green Hope Soccer Phenom Gets Her Kicks On Her Own.

In this article it features, Indi Cowie of Cary is regarded as one of the best youth girls’ soccer players in the world and the world’s best female freestyler.

Can you imagine the dedication to these sports it has taken Indi? It also was noted in the article at Green Hope High School’s talent show how that they spelled her name incorrectly… and then again her name would be misspelled in the subsequent article in The Green Hope Gazette. This seems like this is no big deal – yet a world youth young woman’s name should be spelled accurately. In a team sport such as soccer the article went on to say,

“At the beginning of one game, I got the ball and beat three girls to score a goal, and my coach pulled me off the field,” Cowie remembers. “He said, ‘You should have passed.’ I said, ‘But I scored a goal, Coach.’ He sat me out for the rest of the half. At halftime he asked me, ‘Are you ready to play properly?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ I did the same thing, and he took me off the field for the rest of the game.” Cowie was 10. She recalls another match during which her teammates screamed at her to pass every time she got the ball. She still scored a hat trick.”

I understand that in a team sport we are supposed to engage our team members to help us win and yes it is up to a parent, teacher, sports coach, manager, supervisor, and the C-Suite to stop the discrimination and bullying behavior. The solution is it begins with each individual being acknowledge for their uniqueness and the practice of allowing negative behaviors to be dealt with in present time of an incident rather than let it get out of hand. With social media and other areas where there is competition, we know it has caused innocent suicides in teens, and forced job loss to those who were not on the ‘A’ team as the women bullies focused on keeping others down rather than cheering them on as any true sports team would.

In the HBR article by Marcus Buckingham, (2005) entitled On What Great Managers do, there is a quote from Michael Jordan based on “The old cliché is that there’s no “I” in “team.” But as Michael Jordan once said, “There may be no ‘I’ in ‘team,’ but there is in ‘win.’” It is a lesson those who are in the business of coaching girls in school and in the workplace that they teach this concept and put an end to this socialization of women. Women are nasty and truly are as bad as any gang on the streets of the worst neighborhoods in the U.S.!

The article about Indi continues,

“Cowie sees herself as belonging to a world where legendary attackers like Diego Maradona, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney are celebrated for their talent and, yes, their selfishness. Her parents think it’s partly the Scot in her: Cowie is stubborn. But she admits it hurt when she once received an anonymous phone call from a girl saying, “We all hate you.” When she checked the caller ID, she realized the call came from a teammate.
“Maybe that’s why I like freestyle so much,” Cowie said, “because I don’t have any teammates to worry about.”

“Girls’ soccer becomes toxic sometimes because there is so much jealousy,” said her mother, Judith. “Over the years, Indi would wonder what was wrong with her, and there would be tears, and I’d keep telling her, ‘I know it’s been tough on you, but it’s going to get better.’ She’d say: ‘Will it, Mum? When? ”

In closing, Indi, I feel your pain – I too have been there and I was no superstar in sports. I may be one of those silent women in the audience and in the workplace yet you bet I am rooting for any woman who can be the great person she is! I wish the bullies no harm – yet they truly need to look at their own self and figure out what they need to do to be nice! Shame on the competitiveness of all the adults who let this behavior exist! It is time to change this outrageous discrimination of bullying of other women.

Morera, N. (2011). Research Finds Most Workplace Bullying Victims Are Women.
Diversity Executive Magazine. http://www.diversity-executive.com/article.php?in=1132

Buckingham, M. (2005). What great managers do. Harvard Business Review, 83(3), 70-80.

Crothers, T. (2011). Green Hope Soccer Phenom Gets Her Kicks On Her Own. New York Times, April 12, 2011. http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/04/12/1123748/soccer-phenom-gets-her-kicks-on.html

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Discrimination, Leadership, Love Leadership, Management, Micro-inequities

What are the key systems implications that will affect a successful outcome in professionalizing an organization such as Cisco Systems?

savvan — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:03:58 +0000

What are the key systems implications that will affect a successful outcome in professionalizing an organization such as Cisco Systems?

Japanese proverb:

Vision without Action is just a daydream and consequently,

Vision without Action is just a nightmare.

In a video I watched in (2009) of Jack Stahl, formerly President of Coca-Cola Company, he was asked to share his experience in Coca-Cola during one of its great growth periods. Stahl describes the challenges in changing strategy, especially in taking an organization to a higher level of achievement.

In review of the current dilemma at Cisco, see the articles listed below in resources from April 4, 2011, Read John Chambers’ Memo to Cisco Staff , April 6, 2011 Chambers Vows ‘Fix’ as Cisco Stumbles and April 7, 2011 Cisco Investors Need a Switch postings in the WSJ. Cisco Systems and the Chief Executive Officer, John Chambers clings to his strategy from pre-2009, he may have lessons he needs to learn in regard to the value of humanity and putting people first before technology. Organizational Development, Process Management and true Strategy begins in the C-Suite, yet the leadership truly needs to listen to others and collaborate with others to put an organization on the right footing for the future.

Here are a few key points that Jack Stahl suggests from his video…

“Stay alert always, listen, listen, listen and ask questions of your constituents. Understand your constituents view point and that means being in dialogue with them.

Have your radar system finely tuned, listen for burgeoning issues and take heed of the warning signs as they seep into your awareness. Take action immediately!”

In the pre-2009 strategy set by John Chambers, Cisco faces a huge change in the organizational strategy as well as the sales direction of the company. Cisco traditionally has been a manufacturer and product hardware company specializing in routers and switches for the internet. Moving into the Enterprise Architecture (EA) space and selling at an architectural level is not an easy move for hardware box sellers. Many organizations that have made a significant change from products to solutions have walked away from those changes as any boxer can attest to with bruises and cuts sustained from a match with the odds stacked against winning and not knowing the opponents strengths and vulnerabilities before entering the ring.

Cisco has been known as a bellwether company in the past and in 2009 all seemed quite well as Cisco joined the Dow in April 2009 replacing GM. However, they need to continue movement in leadership and change management both internally and externally in their organization to continue success.

I do believe the current CEO, John Chambers has had his ear to the ‘ground’ listening to the swell of the tidal wave as Jack Stahl puts it in Chambers pre-2009 strategy. John Chambers has made an effort to make changes regarding the command and control style of management to a collaboration style of management, yes and he admits this is not in his comfort zone. From the current news reports posted in this article in 2011, my question, how is that Command and Control style of Management working for your organization now? Have the changes worked?

CEO John Chambers had publicly said he is trying to change is management style – and letting go of Command and Control and work on a Collaborative method of governing. This new change kicked off August 1, 2009 for FY’10. The jury is still out if Cisco can turn their company around with a different management style, respect for their people as a competitive asset and consider moving forward with a systems thinking, systems theory based organization.

Cisco took steps away from their Core routers and switch business, as discussed by the author, Jim Collins and in his book Good to Great (2001) and the article by Jim Collins (1999) The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms discuss several ways an organization needs to change their core business if they are going to be a great company. Perhaps it would be time to consult Jim Collins and his book, Good To Great to bring Cisco to Level 5 in Leadership? One of the first changes made is mentioned in the article by Collins (1999) is the ‘what’ was the catalytic mechanism that truly drove the change at Cisco? Was the change the right changes for Cisco as they venture into the Consumer Markets with the acquisitions of Linksys and Scientific America?

Cisco’s Home Entertainment programs are the next biggest change and challenge in the organization that will require significant change to deliver both internal and external services to their partners and customers. These are only a few of the acquisitions over the past several years, how does the overall strategy and alignment of their continued acquisitions water down their core strength as an organization? What have they truly done to improve their bench strength of all their management teams?

In review of the systems and recreating an organization, In Ackoff’s book (1999) Re-Creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century. The Nature of Systems, Ackoff states: “Training is the transmission of knowledge. Training and education are not the same thing. Education is the transmission of understanding and wisdom. Failure to distinguish between training and education is commonplace”. (p 160)

As Ackoff describes there are three ways to divide labor therefore there are three ways to organize these types of organizational units.

1. Functionally defined (input) units

2. Product, or service defined (output) units

3. Market, user-defined units (p.226)

“Therefore, the resulting organizational design always reflects the relative importance attributed to each criterion: function, product or service, and market…”All reorganizations involve changing the relative importance of the three criteria used in dividing labor (p. 227).”

…change the organizational level at which units of the three appear. There are two Functional units

Functional units:

1) Operation Units: directly effects an output

2) Services Units: have no such effect, they affect the nonoperational behavior of other units, e.g., accounting, data processing and human resources

The strategy and vision of the company should reflect these changes. It would appear that Cisco and yes John Chambers needs to reflect on the vision and strategy for the organization and perhaps go back to the drawing board.

During the past it appeared the most important organizational unit was #2 – product, or service outputs and # 3 – Market, user defined units. If I were to guess the ‘People’ function was not high on the list of priorities other than the mandates required by law.

And in closing a few quotes from the Gurus in the business world, and some that Cisco’s chief would have been advised to have listen to as well…

Bruner from his book (2003), The portable MBA states: “Without a deep and sophisticated understanding of people in organizations, all transformation paths lead to dead ends.” (p. 32)

From Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals, (1971) “Most people do not accumulate a body of experience. Most people go through life under-going a series of happenings, which pass through their systems undigested. Happenings become experiences when they are digested, when they are reflected on, related to general patterns, and synthesized.” (np)

In Ackoff’s book (1999) Re-Creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century. The Nature of Systems. He provided a quote:

“Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought”. – Albert Einstein (p.3)

I wish John Chambers the best, Cisco will need to use all the wisdom that Jack Stahl has provided – and keep asking the ‘Publics’ their opinion so the ship can be steered in the right direction to enable success for present and the future success for Cisco. Additionally working with others and their insights may be a value to Cisco as they continue in their growth. Stay tuned… .

Resources:

Alinsky, S. (1971) Rules for Radicals. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Ackoff, R. (1999). Re-Creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century. The Nature of Systems. (3-19)New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Bruner, R.F., Eaker, M. R., Freeman, R. E., Spekman, R.E., Olmsted Teisberg, E. & Venkataraman S. (2003). The portable MBA 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Chambers, J. (2011). Read John Chambers’ Memo to Cisco Staff. Wall Street Journal, Accessed April 4, 2011.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576244902304807250.html?KEYWORDS=john+chambers

Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Collins, J. Turning Goals into Results: The Power of Catalytic Mechanisms. Harvard Business Review, 77(4), 70-82.

Tuna, C. (2011). Chambers Vows ‘Fix’ as Cisco Stumbles. Wall Street Journal, Accessed April 6, 2011.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576244880784625192.html?KEYWORDS=john+chambers

Winkler, R. (2011). Cisco Investors Need a Switch. Wall Street Journal, Accessed April 7, 2011.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704101604576246902351795210.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_5

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Leadership, Learning, Love Leadership, Management

The Father of Community Organization and The Father of Creating Wealth the Rules for Radicals

savvan — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 21:02:22 +0000

The Father of Community Organization and The Father of Creating Wealth the Rules for Radicals

As the Internet opened the door to the world and its connectivity so has the perspective of creation of new job roles and skill sets that are currently unknown for the 21st century. How do we prepare for the unknown?
In a recent book review February 18, 2011 by Dave Kansas in the WSJ entitled, ‘Rules for Radicals’ and the book ‘Eat people’ by Andy Kessler is a clever play on words using Saul Alinsky’s book entitled ‘Rules for Radicals’. See the full book review:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704409004576146102350540690.html?KEYWORDS=Rules+for+Radicals#articleTabs%3Darticle

Kessler’s book focuses on creating wealth as an entrepreneur and provides 12 rules on how to be the top tier as he describes as a Creator – as they are the top of the food chain. What you don’t want to be is the Servers and the sub-set, such as Sloppers, Super Sloppers, Sponges, Slackers, Thieves and Slimers if you are to be the next biggest creator of wealth. “The Makes versus the Takes (114).”

As he describes the positions of the Makers and Takers he refers to “The English classification system and was quite simple,

-Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
-Rich Man, Poor Man Beggar Man, Thief
-And then the American’s added: Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief (p 112).”

What is Saul Alinsky’s definition of the Realistic Radical versus the Free Radical as explained in Kessler’s definition? Originally Alinsky’s focus was on Realistic Radical versus Rhetorical Radical and being a community organizer for the good of all without being an extremist and to truly understand the meaning of power.

Kessler believes that Alinsky is about redistribution of wealth, not the creation of wealth and Alinsky’s focus, between the classes of people of the Haves and the Have-Nots. Kessler’s Makes and the Takes sound a lot like Alinsky’s Haves and Have-nots. Kessler’s definition in the book Eat People (2011) of a Free Radical, “a free radical is someone who not only creates wealth for themselves, but at the same time, improves the world, makes life better, and increases everyone else’s standard of living (p 24).” Isn’t Kessler’s definition what Alinsky was talking about as a community organizer, in his 11 Rules of Means and Ends and Tactics? (See Rules below)

After all, Kessler admits that part of his inspiration for his book Eat People is due to Alinsky’s book Rules for Radicals written in 1971. Kessler does a good job at bringing the content from Alinsky’s into the 21st century.

Kessler goes on to say, that the Free Radical additionally pulls off this parlor trick by destroying the status quo or a stealth tax on society, a true Free Radical improves society and is paid handsomely for doing so (p225).” Great!

Our new jobs will be created yes by Kessler’s Creator who can help stem the gap of the Have and Have-Nots and leave our local communities in better shape to reap the benefits. The increase in productivity is the key to the great divide. As Kessler points out, “According to the Economic Policy Institute, Labor productivity is a measure of the amount of goods and services that the average worker produces in an hour of work. The level of productivity is the single most important determinant of a country’s standard of living (p 87)”. Andy, you could not have said this any better! We are competing worldwide more and more and we need to ready for this new culture to create new jobs now not later.

In summary, how can we get our organizations today to change their current thinking and focus on how to increase productivity of each worker in their fold? Where and when does this change management in our leadership begin to engage and enrich the lives of those under their management? What learning tools can we use to sustain a true organic system within the organization for continual learning? How do we prepare our leaders to add economic value to the Free Radicals?

Of Means and Ends – 11 Rules
“We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.” – Alfred North Whitehead
That perennial question, “Does the end justify the means? Is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, and always has been, “Does this particular end justify this particular means?”

Rules for Radicals – A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals – Saul D. Alinsky
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgement to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins—or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.” –Saul Alinsky

1. Rule number one: first, that one’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue. Accompanying this rule is the parallel one that one’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s distance from the scene of conflict.
2. The second rule of the ethics of means and ends is that the judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.
3. The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means.
4. The fourth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.
5. The fifth rule of ethics of means and ends is that concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
6. The sixth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that the less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.
7. The seventh rule of ethics and means and ends is generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.
8. The eighth rule of the ethics and means is that the morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.
9. The ninth rule of the ethics and means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.
10. The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.
11. The eleventh rule of the ethics of means and ends is that goals must be phrased in general terms like “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” “of the common Welfare,” “Pursuit of Happiness” or Bread and Peace.” (p. 24-47)
Alinsky, S. (1971). Rules for radicals: a pragmatic primer for realistic radicals. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

The 12 rules in “Eat People” are more like 12 philosophies.

Eat People and Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs – By Andy Kessler

Mr. Kessler’s heroes, he says, are the free radicals of the business world, “someone who not only creates wealth . . . but at the very same time, improves the world, makes life better, and increases everyone else’s standard of living.

Rule #1 If it doesn’t Scale, It will Get Stale
Rule #2: Waste What’s Abundant to Make Up For What’s Scarce” is a bit of a mind-bender at first, given society’s intense focus on preserving, recycling and sustaining.
Rule #3: When in Doubt, Get Horizontal” is also alluring.
Rule #4: Intelligence Moves Out to the Edge of the Network.
Rule #5: Wealth Comes From Productivity”—yes, OK.
Rule # 6: Adapt to Humans; Don’t Make Them Adapt to You
Rule # 7: “Be Soylent—Eat People,” in a reference to “Soylent Green,” the 1973 science-fiction movie about overpopulation.
Rule #8: Markets Make Better Decisions Than Managers” also seems obvious, though markets have come in for some banging in the past couple of years.
Rule #9: Embrace Exceptionalism” is a riff on how culture rewards mediocrity and how Mr. Kessler’s Free Radicals don’t.
Rule #10 Be a Market Entrepreneur and Attack Political Entrepreneurs
Rule #11: Use Zero Marginal Cost to Create a Flood (or Someone Else Will)
Rule #12: Create Your Own Scarcity with a Virtual Pipe

Kessler, A. (2011). Eat People: And Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin Group.

Tactics – Saul D. Alinsky
“We will either find a way or make one”. – Hannibal

“Tactics means doing what you can with what you have. Tactics are those consciously deliberate acts by which human beings live with each other and deal with the world around them. In the world of give and take, tactics is the art of taking; how the Have-Nots can take power away from the Haves.

Always remember the first rule of power tactics”:
1. The first rule: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. The second rule: Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. The third rule: Wherever possible go outside of the expertise of the enemy.
4. The fourth rule: Make the enemy live up to their own rules.
5. The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is the man’s most potent weapon.
6. The sixth rule: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. The seventh rule: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9. The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. The eleventh rule is: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.
12. The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. (You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying, “You’re right-we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.”
13. The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Universal rule: One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and “frozen.” (p. 126-164)

Alinsky, S. (1971). Rules for radicals: a pragmatic primer for realistic radicals. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Filed under: C_Suite_Business, Leadership, Learning, Management, Strategic Human Resources