Still here...

Sorry for the light posting over the last week or so... Spring has sprung and my hair's on fire. Hoping to get things slowed down later in the week.

Josh Marshall nails the 9/11 commission hootenanny and in so doing, nails us all

What this is about isn't Condi Rice or Richard Clarke or even George W. Bush. It's about what happened -- finding out what happened.

One side wants to find out; the other doesn't. This whole story turns on that simple fact. Why else try to destroy Clark unless what he has to say is profoundly damaging? Liars are usually easily discredited; it's the truth-tellers who need to be destroyed.

Anyone who's reading the series on Brain & Brand -- yeah, yeah, I know, it's long and windy -- will recognize there's a whole lotta R-Complex playing out here. These people are some of the best educated the world has to offer, but if you look for common sense, there's no pattern, there's none there.

But why should there be? Sheltering is vital to life and, let's face it, sheltering in idealism is bi-partisan. But shelter, formed in a hurry -- backfilled, if you will -- won't stand. It never does. Ideology, in service of only itself, only respectful of its is own perfection, is doomed. It is cheerleading. It is not Leadership.

If you dig deeper and give our more primal motives the credit they deserve, there's no surprise whatsoever in the 9-11 Commission proceedings. We are creatures of hope. But we're also practitioners of sloth, vengeance, lust and pride. You're not impressed by that evaluation? Me neither. Actions count. Results matter.

Now, stop being so smug and smart.

How often do we call a spade a spade? If you don't name it, you can't fight it. And if you don't fight it, you can't slay it.

The facade of this week's proceedings is what gives me the giggles. Richard Clarke, a man with previously impeccable credentials, has come forward with a book, and now testimony, which say, essentially, I said what I had to and kept my larger concerns within the group.

And?

His critics--his previous evangelists--are now accusing him of everything from grandstanding to disloyalty to perjury to treason.

So what? The obvious, which doesn't get acknowledged or pricked by media or responsible folks is this: When you're IN, nobody does much to OUT themselves--at least not on purpose, or without motive. Clarke maintains he was asked during his four-administration tenure (Reagan, Bush41, Clinton, Bush43) to spin the facts in a positive light.

Duhh?

But for the political players, this draws claims of "Shocked, shocked, that [spinning] is happening here."

What a cruel and dishonest ploy. What damage to the nation. What a farce.

How? Who amongst us has not been in that position? If our careers extend longer than 12 months, who amongst us hasn't honed this spinning skill to a craftsman's edge? Likewise, what "Leader" worries that the everyman will consider the details for a simple second beyond the ONE minute that evening news gives it before it launches things into the ionosphere? And so, there's a creepy aspect to language that flows within organizations: If it's said, it becomes "Truth."

But logic, nor media proof, neither, finally, is Truth the high ground in question here.

"Perception" of victory is.

We weed and weave stories and directions so as to lie to our supporters and to fudge our detractors. We spin an imaginary unachieveable future. We create depression where we hoped to create enthusiasm. In this, we foment institutional distrust and further the innate belief that a "A Company" or "An Organization" can't have my best interests at heart. Here, the subtlle irony kicks in for me: The "CEO" administration is falling back on techniques that highlight the dark side of popular perceptions of the CEO. This is that they are self-interested, vicious, arrogant and intolerant of criticism.

Welcome to R-Complex territory.

Sad.

They're not fooling anybody. The M.O. is painfully obvious to persons with two opposable thumbs and a resume: This is the common fight for the primacy of a perceived competitive advantage we've all witnessed occuring on high before. The old ways die messily, swinging fists, swords, memos or layoff notices, and leaving bodies in their wake. 12 months or 12 years later the fight is proven to have been a folly--by tragedy (another WTC? Or 6? Via ship? Or by RV?) or by mere whimpering failure (the truth and dissembling by the responsible is revealed, post election.) Everbody has a martini, shakes their heads in mock chastisement, and moves on to begin repeating the mistakes of the past under the guise of "reform":

[Wiki]...fed clues from a source with inside information, Feynman famously showed on television the crucial role in the [1986 Challenger] disaster played by the booster's o-ring seals with a simple demonstration using a glass of ice water and a sample of o-ring material. His opinion of the cause of the accident differed from the official findings, and were considerably more critical of the role of management in sidelining the concerns of engineers. After much petitioning, Feynman's minority report was included as an appendix to the official document.

...After much petitioning...

Space.com:
On Sept. 29, 1988 shuttle Discovery returned America to space. It wasn't long before the shuttle program regained confidence, renewed its status as a symbol of technical superiority and resumed its role as an icon of the American spirit of exploration.

Then on Feb. 1, 2003 Columbia and its crew of seven astronauts was lost.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board will say that despite the success the shuttle program has enjoyed, NASA has become too familiar with the program, like an old friend whose buddies have overlooked its quirks and flaws. In a word: operational. Instead, NASA must treat each shuttle mission as a test flight.

...quirks and flaws...

Karl Weick, U of M Biz School: There is an interesting story ... about ... Wernher von Braun. When a Redstone missile went out of control during prelaunch testing, von Braun sent a bottle of champagne to an engineer who confessed that he might have inadvertently short-circuited the missile. An investigation revealed that the engineer was right, which meant that expensive redesigns could be avoided. You don't get a lot of admissions like that in organizations today. But all it takes is one such story to make an individual in the company buck up and say, "Hey, these folks are serious about facing up to failures, so I'm going to take a chance and speak up." [This interview is no longer online--link archived on this server]

In each of the above cases, scientists and administrators--Smart Professionals--were balancing organizational imperatives against the realities of life. I use that in Italics for a reason. They were leading. Von Braun took a step to deny the realities he'd been handed. He really wanted to know. He wanted to lead, not to appear as a leader.

That's an important distinction. One has to earn leadership by unconventional acts. More and more, the simple act of tellling the truth qualifies as unconventionality. A brand, a person, a group becomes differentiated by merely being honest? It seems so. But who amongst us is willing to do that, to take that step? Who do we vote for or follow, once we're tired of and inured to mediocrity?

From today's Knowledge@wharton update

Leading from Within Means Learning to Manage Your Ego and Emotions

“It is not essential to have a big ego to be a successful CEO,” says Deepak Chopra, a physician who has helped make alternative healing respectable in the U.S. He laments that American society has been trained to measure business success solely by the calculation of shareholder value. That, in turn, has bred a generation of top executives who have “bought into the idea of ego, power, extravagance, arrogance and total disregard for other people’s feelings,” says Chopra, who will be speaking at an April 9 Wharton Leadership Ventures conference in Philadelphia titled Leading from Within.  
 
Long-lasting businesses aim to serve needs, not just sell products, he says. “If you start with the premise of increased income for me and my shareholders, you get the big scandals you have had recently.” For the individual business leader, success should be much more, he suggests – “having meaning in your life, having love and compassion, self-esteem and a sense of connection with your own creativity.” Absent that, “egocentric leaders become most insecure, anchoring their self esteem in external things such as money and power.”

...According to Chopra, the ultimate test of business leadership is what happens to a company after the CEO leaves. By that criterion, even the hallowed Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, does not make his first team, Chopra says, suggesting that GE hasn’t done as well in the immediate aftermath of Welch’s departure. Indeed, Chopra asserts that a roster of top performing corporations would put Wells Fargo and Philip Morris ahead of GE, yet “you don’t know their CEOs’ names.” He asks why, and answers his own question: “Because these people were not into themselves; their goal was not adulation or power for themselves but to create a great company.”
 
After five and a half years of running her family business – a company founded nearly 80 years ago by her grandfather and run for 50 years by her father – Lynda Barness, president of The Barness Organization, home builders based in Bucks County, Pa., has distilled similar insights about the essence of leadership. “I have learned that it is necessary to navigate rather than rule,” she says....

I like Lynda already.

There's more on Chopra, Lynda and others, plus these:

When the CEO is the Brand, But Falls from Grace, What's Next?

Shell Games at Royal Dutch/Shell: Will They Affect Corporate Governance in Europe?

Why Some Start-ups Choose Cooperation over Competition

IKEA: Furnishing Good Employee Benefits Along with Dining Room Sets

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Life in a Mall

Hmmm, here's something apropos to the previous post. I like harmonics.

From Spring 2004 Strategy & Business (You need to register but it's free.)

The Post-9/11 Resilience of American Brands

American foreign policy initiatives have generated rising anti-U.S. sentiment in many corners of the globe. American multinational corporations (MNCs) have grown increasingly concerned that such perceptions might influence how foreign customers value their brands. They are particularly worried about their businesses in Islamic countries, where anti-American feelings are fierce.

Our research suggests, however, that American MNCs should not overreact. Strong public opposition to American foreign policy doesn’t necessarily affect consumer choice. American companies should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of abdicating the “American-ness” of their brands. They should be honest and open about their heritage, and they should not overdo introductions of locally adapted products. That tactic could appear more patronizing than culturally sensitive....

In addition, we looked generally at whether antiglobalization sentiments affected global brand preferences. Does an antiglobalization segment exist, and is it particularly strong in Islamic countries? We did find a significant antiglobal segment, about 13 percent of our sample. But, remarkably, this segment was not the largest in the three Islamic countries; in fact, the strongest responses came from China and the United Kingdom.

These findings suggest that American multinationals have exaggerated beliefs about how anti-American sentiment is affecting consumer choice, and, therefore, that the current retrenchment is unwise.

An American global brand — whether it is Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Motorola, Ford, or Kraft — is understood foremost as global, not American. Even brands that use American values as part of their symbolism don’t seem to positively or negatively sway consumers’ opinions of the brand.

We also found that Islamic consumers were even more favorably disposed toward the positive characteristics of global brands — their reputation for quality and status value in particular — than were consumers in non-Islamic countries.

Given our findings, we were not surprised to learn that Coke and Pepsi turned in their most successful year ever in the Arab countries in 2003. American multinationals should wear their global success proudly, rather than try to hide it....

This is the right approach. American companies should have the confidence to treat Islamic countries as they do all the foreign markets in which they operate. Indeed, they would do well to follow the same “glocal” strategies (global reach, local implementation) that have served them well in other parts of the world.

To pursue these courses of action in the Islamic world, however, MNCs must develop more senior executives who understand the cultures and know how to do business there. Similarly, the drive for diversity in the multinational company boardroom should be global, not just national, in its perspective. Today, how many Fortune 500 companies’ boards of directors include a Muslim? How many of their top executives are Muslim? All too few.

There is so much latent power in the American Dream that even our sometimes bull-in-a-chinashop nature can't dull it. It seems hackneyed to say you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but it's true. Also true: honey's got higher margins.

I'm voting for this guy. Now, where the hell is he or she?

On the stump, somewhere in America, October 20, 2004:

Do you share in the pride we all feel to belong to this thing called the USA? Wonderful: You're in, welcome to the club. But first, as citizens, let's do a little inventory: We may look and speak and live differently, but we remain Americans. We're great buiders and great thinkers. We're great sharers. We're great doers. It is who we are. Yet somewhere along the way, someone has sold us a bill of goods. Somehow the idea was introduced that better profits trump the betterment of you and me. Either-or, not both-and. That somehow, national security comes not from cooperation and coordination, but by some imagined lonesome cowboy ethic that never really was. Imagine a movie that expects you to believe this plot--that a sheriff succesfully protects his town by alienating and insulting the ever-friendly marshalls in the surrounding counties. This is the premise and the plan, tragic and costly, we're expected believe today. You're either with us, or you're against us. Our way is the only way.

This is wrong. This is not us. We have more confidence and ability than strained belligerent bluster like that betrays. The only franchise on infallibility comes from God, everyone's God. Our Declaration of Independence is quite clear on this. America is not about being perfect. It is about pusuit of the ideal of perfection. Why? Because the minute we say "perfect," we're done. Our national reason for being is gone. Besides being impossible, "Perfect" is a destination. Terminal. Where to from there? If the world keeps turning, nowhere but irrelevance. But seeking perfection, not accepting good enough, now there's a journey. And a plan. And journeys need supplies, new help, new ideas and new things to discover. And the right journeys are glasses half-full. They are self-sustaining and self-starting. They are energy itself.

Franklin Roosevelt told us fear is no way to face the future. We know he was right. It's not who we are, and it will never be allowed to define us. America's real security, not imagined, must be tended to and our power to protect, ourselves and others, must be unquestioned. And so it shall be, unquestionably. That is what this election is about. And, with your trust and faith, it is why I stand before you today.

But it seems I stand before you for another reason also. Like Dr. King, I have a dream. A dream you share. A dream that the prosperity and security of America for the next century is assured. That dream becomes reality only when we tend to the unfinished business of this great and maturing nation. And that business is the uplift of those who are struggling with task of joining prosperous nations like ours. That is our Mission to the Moon, but on this here Earth. This is altruism, yes, but it is enlightened self-interest also. We are builders. We are inventors. We are managers. We are creators. These endeavours require opportunities for release and action. They require customers. And they mean jobs.

My friends, do you remember the words of Lady Liberty--bring me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses? Well, they don't have to come to us. We, will go to them. And with discipline, fairness, ideas and opportunity, America will not only do well in the 21st century, we will have done Good.

[update] What is the above gibberish? The result of an interesting lunch where the conversation revolved around politics and the false, inert and simplistic choices voters will end up with this fall. We all agreed, no matter what our party preference that tired, unimaginative rhetoric makes us want to puke. We even agreed that if John Kerry's gonna keep using the lame "bring it on", he needs to let his audiences finish the the actual line because it sounds so hollow and shallow coming from him. That led many of us to ask, what would an ideal candidate say--how would he or she bridge the predicament we are in globally and domestically with a message of action and hope? Does the above fit the bill? Who knows, but I had to get it out of my system.

The Brand Called Omarosa

Brand Autopsy has a nice post on, well, see the above headline.

Yes, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, our ex-White House "political consultant" (tee-hee) and now ex-almost-Apprentice is thinking of Marthanizing herself. (Hey, that may just be another one for the Fouro Executive Lexicon™!)

The primary lesson that I learned was the importance of branding. Inspired by Trump's branding brilliance, I am building my own brand by launching a line of business suits and accessories, exploring book and TV deals and a nationwide speaking tour. I made the mistake of not focusing solely on the task at hand and not focusing on relationships. It would have been more strategic to develop alliances in order to survive in such a high-stakes game.

That is the funniest damn thing I've read in weeks.

While the line extension possibilities boggle the mind, let's have a contest to name that clothing line, first. A few humble starters...

1. Professional Suicide
2. Solipsis
3. Omihead, Omigod, Omarosa!

Next?

Okay, okay. It's not the Real Thing^® and yes, it does contain carcinogens. But, other than that...

New Zealand Herald:

The fiasco meant complete collapse of Coke's ambitious attempt, with a £7 million high-profile publicity campaign, to break into Britain's burgeoning bottled water market, which is worth more than £1 billion a year and now growing by 20 per cent annually.

Executives at the Coca-Cola (Great Britain) headquarters in Hammersmith, West London, were horrified by a PR catastrophe on a scale with the jeweller Gerald Ratner's famous comparison of his products to prawn sandwiches, or Shell's attempt to sink the giant oil storage buoy Brent Spar in the Atlantic. "Obviously, we are very upset about it," said one.

Executives... were horrified by a PR catastrophe

I realize this is the journalist's characterization, but it does pretty much sum up the gaping maw of where real people are and what corporations view as a "perception challenge": The Truth. And it's relative importance. Read on...

Dasani was said to undergo a complex purification process and then have carefully selected minerals added to it.

But the brand hit trouble straightaway when it emerged that the source for Disani was actually the Thames Water mains supply to Coke's Sidcup plant - which has passed more than 99.9 per cent of quality checks, making it already one of the purest drinking waters in the world.

While half a litre of Thames tap water costs 0.03p, half a litre of it bottled as Dasani was costing 95p, a mark-up of more than 3,000 times, or a profit of more than 300,000 per cent.

As a person charged with working in this stylized Kabuki called "marketing" I know the hits people's integrity takes having to justify things in their professional lives they would flat out reject in their personal dealings. In this way, we find ourselves stuck, checking our principles at the door for a paycheck. Our values haven't changed. We're just asked to visit them on weekends. Like the children of divorce.

This is systemic entropy in action. It is unsustainable in human terms. And this should be deeply troubling to business leaders. Instead, we hear crickets and the occasional dog barking in the distance.

They say millennial milestones bring profound change. I'm not worried. Ours is just late, not DOA.

Link from PR Fuel via Corporate Engagement

Don't curse the fates, curse your opponents. Or: Ideology means never having to say "Ooops."

From James Lileks via Jay Solo comes this zesty jab at those ungrateful peaceniks protesting one year in Iraq:

Imagine if you woke from an operation and discovered that your tumor was gone. You’d think: I suppose that’s a good thing. But. You learned that the hospital might profit from the operation. You learned that the doctor who made the diagnosis had decided to ignore all the other doctors who believed the tumor could be discouraged if everyone protested the tumor in the strongest possible terms, and urged the tumor to relent. How would you feel? You’d be mad. You’d look up at the ceiling of your room and nurse your fury until you came to truly hate that butcher. And when he came by to see how you were doing, you’d have only one logical, sensible thing to say: YOU TOOK IT OUT FOR THE WRONG REASONS. PUT IT BACK!

Okay then. I like this approach. Maybe I'll try it:

Suppose I get a client by offering to help boost his market share. To do this, I recommend repositioning his chewing gum product as a cure for cancer. Some believe at first and buy by the case. But the medical community has a cow and lets its disgust be known. Hope has turned to skepticism, then to anger. This alienates half my client's employees and half his consumers, plunges his balance sheet further into the red and garners him reams of bad press. The alienated employees and consumers find common cause in their grievances, form an angry mob and set out to picket my client's place of business. Things get out of hand. Security is called in. Violence ensues, torches get lit and a building gets burned down. Only problem is, in their zeal, the protesters got the address wrong and it turns out they've mistakenly burned down my client's chief competitor instead. The next day, Wall Street reacts to the news and my client's share price doubles. Customers who previously had two choices now have one. My client's market share doubles. Logically, I have done what I said I would do. Mission Accomplished. Now, given my proven effectiveness, can I help you with YOUR marketing?

I think we have a new business strategy for the ages here. Thanks, James.

Why does doing it right take less time than doing it over?

From Pattern Language dot com, a conceptual framework midwifed by Christopher Alexander:

...Then what happened is we tried building buildings not just writing down known solutions. What something looks like actually depends on how it is made. If you watch raindrops fall off the tree, you can see that the tear drop shape is formed over time and couldn't get that shape any other way.

If you look at corn kernels on the cob, you can see that the kernels are not quite straight or even but have grown to fit just so on the cob. It's why we enjoy things that are hand made and find mass produced widgets so boring and would like a house that fits just so in the landscape, and like a jewel, brings forth the charm of the landscape itself.

So all our attention was on understanding process, how things unfolded and got made so that each part was unique and had a just so rightness in the way it fit.

But what we're working most hard at is writing sequences. Now a sequence is something that looks very very simple and is actually very very difficult. It's more than a pattern; it's an algorithm about process. But what is possible is to write sequences so that they are easy. You follow the steps in a sequence like you follow the steps in a cooking recipe....

A sequence is like a bit of genetic code. It helps things to unfold in the right way. An human embryo follows steps as it grows, and if it misses a step then there is a malformation. But ten embryos following the same sequence will lead to ten very different people, each one unique.

A sequence means a different process.

Normally what happens when you build a house, for example, is that an architect, tries more or less or understand what you want and makes a blueprint. But a blueprint and CAD designs are mostly guess work about what is going to be just right for the dimension of a room or the placement of a window. It's like tossing thirty coins all at once and hoping they all land on heads. Never works. A sequence is figuring out which decision has to come first and getting it right and then moving to a second decision. Like tossing one coin at a time, which is actually a much better, faster, and less expensive way to get to thirty coins all on heads. But if you work from a blueprint you are stuck with your guesses and the builders, who aren't the architect, just have to follow the blueprint, even when they know a much better solution. It's a silly way to do things.

Insulated Decider, meet Isolated Deliverer.

There's a Black-Market of Self Esteem in companies many bosses probably don't have a clue about.

Dig deep enough into any organization and you will find an invisible ghetto. It's non-sanctioned, off the org chart, and carries great potential. For good, when re-engaged. Or harm, when ignored. Unlike most ghettoes, this one has power. As a rule, that power is exercised against corporate "values" or directives. At the least, it's usually ambivalent to them, which is almost as bad.

Just as nature is "self-organizing", groups of people coalesce into social systems automatically. In companies, Isolated Deliverers do this all the time. As an isolated deliverer, you may feel you have no access to the sanctioned perks or opportunites of those above or around you, that the structure doesn't match your ideals, or the PR doesn't match the reality. If you read the papers or just the company memoranda, you simply know this to be true. What do you do? Well, if you feel shut out and unable to play the game, you make up your own game.

Naturally, you're disappointed to be "out", but you adjust your standards according to your circumstance: Standards of Intrinsic Reward, and Standards of Group Excellence. You create a virtual environment where you can feel good about yourself. An affinity group of the disaffected maybe. Look close enough and you'll find that groups like these have a mayor, heroes, jesters, wanderers and more, especially in larger companies. The archetypes abound in these groups just like any other. And, as non-sanctioned as it may be, it is a cohort. It has a social structure:

1. Pecking order
2. Rules of the game
3. An admission requirement

Sound vaguely familiar? How does this manifest in your organization? If you have any stories or examples, I'd like to include them in future posts on the topic.

(What's an Insulated Decider? You have to ask?)

[update: forgot to include the request for stories]

Six Degrees of Separation. Or Citation. Or G5. Or Lear. Or Falcon 2000. Or...

Slate's Daniel Gross (the Moneybox guy) reckons corporate scandals can be partly blamed on the fierce desire of execs to keep their sky-limos and the rarified life of exclusive privelege they convey.

Hey, if you're worth a billion or so and you stoop to goofyness to avoid a 50 grand stock loss, who's to say what's plausible or not?

[reposted for Carnival of the Capitalists visitors due to bloggered permalink]

Brain, Metaphor, Archetype, Brand.



Part I
Part II
Part III - TBA [*see below]

This series explores the relationship of personal motives to corporate brand identity. A core premise is that brand is as much a leadership and operational tool as it is a means to sell product. In fact, by relegating Brand to afterthought status you create real problems for yourself and your people. The examples and ideas in the series move from historic to current, business to metaphysics, psychological to geometric. Deeply resonant brands have often become that way often not by design, but by intuitive accident, by tapping into universal but little discussed standards of human decision-making. The central fact of brand from this perspective is that it is dimensional and real and packed full with primal meaning and opportunity. It is far more powerful than we suspect.

Brands, as well as people, function more effectively when they're connected to something other than themselves. It's called "context". Carefully considered, contextually resonant companies do several things well, and often automatically: They generate a sense of ownership and pride which reinforces a self-regulating culture of merit. The more this approach is imbued in an organization, the less complex the challenge of management becomes. Likewise, the more connected that consumers, employees and stakeholders are in their purpose, the clearer and more fundamental each relationship becomes.

But this only happens when brands are allowed to reach formulations where certain relationships are accorded equal weight and value. Only then do we approach what equates to a sustainable, meaningful brand model in terms that people care about: Dimensionality. 3-D. That's the real world, messy and emotion-laden as it is.

Again, self-identification and brand identity are intricately joined. We're all looking for some thing, some need to be filled, some group to identify with, some reason for sharing our energy and effort and money. Companies, through their brand identity, have powerful opportunities to be part, if not necessarily all, of the answer to that search. The benefits of a company placed in this indispensable position should be obvious. The requirements are geometrically simple. And they include four elements any sensible business person should insist on when judging the utility of a message, idea, project or plan:

1. Coherence
2. Relevance
3. Resonance
4. Internalization.

It must make sense. It must apply to what we do. If must be meaningful enough that we don't forget. It must be powerful enough that it points out and crystalizes what we already think, but couldn't enunciate before. It makes us damn proud. It feels right, because it's already "us". Lastly, it moves people because they handle the moving.

* The third and final post will cover the idea that meaningful Brand is ubiquitous and it's job is to mobilize affinity amongst employees and consumers. This happens when its language and implementation is allowed to influence and power the mix of all functional activities that affect the customer. Brand can be a liberating and powerful, strategic and tactical story. And all the elements of an organization can play a part and benefit from the telling.

I hope you enjoy the series. Any comments are welcome.

Is this the good part of the Internet or the not good part?

Which political candidate do your neighbors and associates like enough to give money to? All you need is a zip or an address or a name for this FEC database. (Current to 12/31/03--next update 3/31/04.) You can even generate color-coded maps of political giving in any area nationwide.

Fundrace.org

Yes, I'm creeped out by it.

Apologies for the drop in posting Friday/Saturday. Had an out of towner on short notice and barely time to pack a toothbrush. As always, chatting for hours with your coworkers enroute to a meeting stirs the juices a bit.

After some quality youngster time at a local arts fair this afternoon I'll be hammering the keyboard later.

The Smoking Gun reports:

MARCH 18--Donald Trump, reality TV star and rapacious New York developer, has filed to trademark the phrase sweeping an underemployed nation.

No word yet on the pending Cradle-robber™ or Over-compensating Yutz^® applications

East is East and West is West and guess where McDonald's latest ad campaign was born?



Via Adland/Ad-rag comes this China Daily story on the country's burgeoning Advertising and Creative industry. Asian locales like Singapore and Hong Kong have long been notable thanks to their minimalist art sensibility mated with a certain colonial-leftover British wit and influence from guys like Neil French, but this piece gives some depth to Chinese marketing's current state of maturity. Funnily enough, it also proves once again that geography is a technical detail when it comes to people: Suits are suits, and creatives are creatives, and never the twain shall meet. Even in China. Take that, Rudyard.

Re-engineering Siblings

The Scene: An American home.

The Players: An 8-year old girl; a 5-year old boy

The Situation: At each other's throats.

The Solution:



Any parents reading this? If so, I'm sure you'll empathize. The key here is Media Placement -- frequency and reach: bedroom door, coming and going. Over bathroom sink and toilet paper holder. Insides of exterior doors so as to catch young eyes leaving for school in the morning. All strategically placed at the eye-level of a 5-year old.

This is actually the re-introduction of previously effective campaign. Our now almost 9-year old daughter was of course, once a 6-year old. One who had issues with her then 3-ish little brother. You know the story, "my toys are my toys, his toys are my toys." Ditto: My tv channel, my french fries, my juice, etc. Also, it seems the little guy was to blame for everything from a family dog covered in motor oil to the Johnsonville Flood. The boy, not being a very developed debater at the time, got the raw end usually. And strangely, he kept coming back for more. (Having grown up with an older brother who made sport of mugging me from time to time, I always thought it would have been "neat" to have a big sister instead. The last 6 years have cured me of that silliness.)

After a month of saturation coverage (pantry, bookbag, miniature versions for "Barbie's Playhouse", a copy taped over the TV screen) we started to note a decline in customer service complaints. The HR department seemed less stressed at the end of the day. The final check against placebo effects came with a call from a strategic alliance: A first grade teacher. It seems that word of mouth had traveled. Our erstwhile Angelica had been posting gains in her citizenship numbers and with her peers and the teacher was curious what the "care, share thing" was.

Victory! We hoped. We crossed our fingers and began slowly phasing out the horizontal media channels but stuck to verticals like bedroom doors and the bathroom mirror.

Result? The 6-year old was allowed to remain in the Fouroboros corporate fold and moved on to become a valued SBU, posting winning gains in core competencies as judged by certified educational regulatory bodies. Additional gains accrued to outreach activities such as swimming and soccer, nicely adding to goodwill and market awareness. She also does her homework and feeds the dog without complaining. Sometimes.

Of course, this is management.

The boy will be 6 in May.

The art for Care-Share 2.0 went to the printers this morning.

A 100-year old nail making company had grown to mega-size and was getting rocked by competition. The Chairman called his directors together and said, "We're stodgy and boring! Nails are boring! We need personality. We need to advertise!"

His executives called in all the top creative agencies. They picked the best one and told the chief, "it's gonna be great!" 3 months later, the Chairman gets a memo from the company CEO: "Our spot airs tonite. First slot, first break, during the six-o-clock news. It's brilliant!"

The boss gets home that night and settles in front of his big screen just in time for the commercial break: The spot opens on something tan and out of focus with the sound of wind and crows squawking under. As we pullback, we see it's dirt we're looking at as the camera begins to pan and tilt up to reveal a post--it's a post in the dirt. The camera reverses direction, still tilting, and we see sky, then another reverse and another piece of wood, only it's horizontal this time. We pan along and see fingertips, and slowly pull back to reveal fingers, and a palm, and a big honking nail through the palm. The company logo comes up and a booming biblical voiceover says: "Try...Hobson's...Nails."

The chairman drops his scotch, falls out of his chair and leaps at the phone. He calls the CEO, "Idiot!!! You don't sell nails by saying you helped kill the world's biggest religious figure! Pull it, now! Get another agency and get it right, or you're fired!" 3 months later, the Chairman gets another memo: "The spot airs tonite. First slot, first break, during the six-o-clock news, we've got it right this time, and it's brilliant!"

Same setup: Chairman, bigscreen TV, scotch and first commercial break: Open on an aerial shot, moving high over a shimmering desert. On the ridge of a huge sand dune in the distance, we see a dust trail. As the shot moves in, we see tiny figures running; closer still we see it's 2 people chasing somebody. Still moving in, we see the guy in front has white, flowing robes and a beard as he runs out of frame. Closer still and we see the two chasers are wearing .... dresses? ....no, they're roman soldiers. Camera cuts to the two, now stopped and exhausted, trying to catch their breath. One soldier turns to the other and says: "should ... -huff- ... have used ... -wheeze- ... Hobson's Nails."

[Update: When I told my brother I was going into advertising 15 years ago, his response was to tell me this joke. He's an allegorical dude.]

---

NYT: Hollywood Rethinking Faith Films After 'Passion'

As the overwhelming success of "The Passion of the Christ" reverberates through Hollywood, producers and studio executives are asking whether the movie industry has been neglecting large segments of the American audience eager for more openly religious fare.

More tales from the OODA Loop

In addition to the usual fare of know-it-all-ism here at Fouroboros Worldwide, today seems to be Political Macro Economics Day too. This comes from The Big Picture...

This is the chart that can swing the election. It's the key White House vulnerability: The economic structure of both the job market and indeed, the entire economy has changed. There are fundamental reasons why jobs are not coming back post-recession. These involve structural changes, like outsourcing and increased productivity -- as well as more mundane factors. I have yet to hear anything from this administration recognizing these structural changes.

As this chart shows, a seismic shift has occured in a basic aspect of the economy. THAT is the vulnerability of any incumbent -- when something very different is occuring, and the White House fails to notice it.

Great post. It's well sourced and well explained. "What Will Determine the Outcome of the 2004 Election:" Here.

Somebody's gotten inside somebody else's OODA Loop

WaPo: In recent weeks, the White House has had to endure its chief economist's positive comments about job "outsourcing," or sending work overseas; controversial passages in the annual Economic Report of the President; questions over the legitimacy of Bush's 2005 budget; a California swing in which Bush bragged about the possible addition of two or three jobs to a 14-person business in Bakersfield and a flap over a job-creation forecast that not even the president could stand by.

But the non-naming of Anthony F. Raimondo on Thursday as assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing and services has brought the concerns to a boil.

The long-anticipated announcement of a manufacturing czar was supposed to be a good-news day for a White House struggling with its economic message. Instead the planned, smiling photo op fizzled when it came to light that a year ago Bush's choice had opened a major plant in Beijing.

Ooops.

"This is a hyper-charged political environment, and they have not adapted," the former official said.

And Karl Rove, who is on the government payroll as the White House senior adviser, is stretched thin between trying to watch what the administration is doing and overseeing the ramping up of a campaign that has accelerated its plans in response to Kerry's early lock on the Democratic nomination.

Machines don't fight wars. Terrain doesn't fight wars. Humans fight wars. You must get into the mind of humans. That's where the battles are won.

-Col John Boyd, USAF

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

As you know, Battles, Campaigns, Wars, Corporate Initiatives, even Live Television take on unexpected characteristics once you flip the switch and the train is in motion. And, like a train, they are very hard to stop, unable to offer time-outs so you can sit and ponder which switch to throw when presented with a "Y" in the tracks. This is the strength and the weakness of OODA. Strength, because if you're in control and shaping events due to your superior assimilation of landscape data and ability to execute, you can figuratively create endless "Y"s for your opponent. In fighter pilot terms, even in athletic terms, it's called being in the zone. Time slows down for you in a sort of zen serenity: you're calm while your opponent is sweating every minute detail, and losing it with each reactive bead of sweat. Weakness? You run the risk of believing you're omnipotent, relative to your competitors perceived abilities. Call it, uhh, operational hubris.

John Boyd, creator of the OODA Loop, recognized that in an age of increasing information gathering potential, the opportunities to exploit what you know could only be taken if you can adequately and wisely assimilate and categorize the incoming data. In essence, you must know what you know, know what you don't now, and always be aware that there's one more worry: things you don't know that you don't know. Confused? Exactly. That's why it's called complexity theory. But we like simplicity around here, so let's translate:

Don't believe your lying eyes and ears. Never accept the answer you expected to hear. Accept input from atypical sources. Insist on it. The more strongly you feel about a certain event or outcome the more widely you should entertain alternative futures. Overlay information to find patterns and rythmns, because they're there. Keep your head on a swivel, not up your ass. The brain gets more oxygen that way.

Well, that's probably how Boyd would have said it (a bit of a maverick, Boyd.) Much in the way that, for the want of a shoe a kingdom was lost, or Mrs. O'Leary's cow changed Chicago forever, God and victory is in the small, seemingly innocuous details. And, of course, you must leave out any ideological biases when assimilating the data and generating strategy--or you short out the loop. In other words, sometimes you use the tool, and sometimes the tool uses you.

Did I mention Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rove are huge fans of Boyd's work?

Too bad the Colonel died in 1997. Methinks the Bushies are in need of a refresher.

Something tells me Tom Friedman would really like Imaginary Girlfriend™!

Via Corporate Engagement comes this from The New York Times' Thomas Friedman:

A bottle of bottled water held 30 little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles, a total turtle delicacy. The problem was that there were many turtle battles for less than oodles of noodles.

...I was sitting in on an "accent neutralization" class at the Indian call center 24/7 Customer.... I gave these young Indians an authentic rendition of "30 Little Turtles," which is designed to teach them the proper Canadian pronunciations.

[snip]

There is nothing more positive than the self-confidence, dignity and optimism that comes from a society knowing it is producing wealth by tapping its own brains -- men's and women's -- as opposed to one just tapping its own oil, let alone one that is so lost it can find dignity only through suicide and "martyrdom."
    Indeed, listening to these Indian young people, I had a deja vu. Five months ago, I was in Ramallah, on the West Bank, talking to three young Palestinian men, also in their 20s, one of whom was studying engineering. Their hero was Yasser Arafat. They talked about having no hope, no jobs and no dignity, and they each nodded when one of them said they were all "suicide bombers in waiting."
    What am I saying here? That it's more important for young Indians to have jobs than Americans? Never. But I am saying that there is more to outsourcing than just economics. There's also geopolitics. It is inevitable in a networked world that our economy is going to shed certain low-wage, low-prestige jobs. To the extent that they go to places like India or Pakistan -- where they are viewed as high-wage, high-prestige jobs -- we make not only a more prosperous world, but a safer world for our own 20-year-olds.

Pitiful elitist myopia derived from tenure. In his usual fine job of gee-whizzing the obvious, what Friedman misses is that in the absence of bling-bling, security becomes a rather academic abstraction. 20 year olds in Ramallah and Sarajevo braved withering crossfire to get to any job. Safety is a luxury when your kids or brothers and sisters are hungry. Scarcity also generates a preterantural social structure that points down, whether you're a 20 year-old in Khe Sanh, or just in Kokomo. William Golding wrote a very interesting book on the tendency.

I guess this means we're about due for Friedman's follow-up to The Lexus and The Olive Tree. Perhaps, "The Rice Rocket and the RPG"?

Read this CEO quote. Then, I have a question for all comers

In December, the CEO of a California-based high tech firm told me that "there is no amount of overtime that we will not pay, there is no level of temporary services that we will not use, there is no level of outsourcing or offshoring that we will not do, in order to prevent us from having to hire one new, permanent worker in the U.S." As I travel around the country, meeting with business leaders, I hear similar, though less succinct thoughts in almost every sector and every part of the country. U.S. wages, health care, and other benefit costs have gotten so high -- and the press by investors for high stock prices is so great -- that the premium is on wringing every last bit of work out of as few employees as possible, to do anything but incur the costs of adding permanent employees.

The above is via Charlie Cook, and his political newsletter "Off To The Races". (Go here to subscribe. It's free but there's a 2 week lag to get it.) This snippet is currently hot on several economics blogs. Decembrist. DeLong. Sawicky.

My query is this:

C-Level executives and industry are in danger of losing some vital artillery: Politically, companies and industries have used the "apple pie" fig-leaf of job creation to wheedle policy makers into tax cuts, tariff gymnastics, subsidies and free range on a lot of issues like the environment, copyright, safety regs, zoning etc.

Is this not undeniable?

Viewed this way, Outsourcing has the potential to create the Grange Wars all over again. Don't laugh. If CEOs can only winge and moan about balance sheet health and the abstract need for their companies to survive, yet offer no domestic employment growth benefit to prove their American commitment and cement their standing in society, they're going to have a hard time getting calls returned from Mayors, and State and National legislators.

In short, business has a very big problem that's been handed them by the natural course, nay, the March of economic evolution. And this one has the potential to create more headaches--far more--than the advent of IT and the personal computer had on the business scene.

Firstly, whomever (McKinsey?) gave global job transfer the name out-sourcing couldn't have done a better favor for its opponents. What finer way to characterize an Archetypal image of a malignant enemy at the gates than outsourcing? If you're not in, you're out. With the exception of maybe dining, when has out ever been a "good" thing? And when attached to something as fundamental as people's livelihoods, outsourcing has all the appeal of forced organ donation. Bad mojo. A loser.

Language matters in this case. Witness the vocabulary of state and local economic development: Quality of life. Right to work. Good schools. Competitive housing. All those terms apply to people, specifically, to attracting and retaining them. They are predicated on an Additive, not a Subtractive jobs model for American business. If there is even an implication that that is shifting, and the implications are sprouting like mushrooms after summer rain, what are the dominoes that are gonna fall?

Set aside national pride or the noble civic place of corporations. Instead, ask yourself: Where are you and I, as business people, gonna hide our money when they come for it to prop up wheezing social and health services sectors? Are we more interested in pious political speechmaking only to then have our future dictated to us? Or do we drop the bullshit and address reality in time to have a say?

That's not to say some businesses don't see the trouble coming or don't acknowledge its impact in their forecasts. But those are very large businesses--Globals or MNCs for the most part. And to date, their answer has been to "go around" the problem. It's an interesting route. The journey takes you to exotic places like Bangalore or Guangdong. Others are self-admiringly talking of "boot straps" and the need for American workers to be more "self-reliant". "Why can't workers realize they live in a contract labor world?", I've heard plaintively asked--even angrily asked--more than once.

Yeah, right. Interestingly, when I work with companies to help create these kinds of employees in-house, the first shriek we hear is "We can't do that--it would be anarchy!" Similarly, which schools are teaching kids to be these budding McGuyvers capable of living off the land, highly flexible and resourceful? Certainly none I know of and I'm in them almost daily--and this is to oversee programs we've developed for some of the more "gifted" students, no less.

There is a conundrum in this situation for sure. It starts with the fact that globals can operate internationally. Small business-owners can't, no matter what smoke Microsoft and others may be trying to blow up your skirt. Smaller businesses need the products of their local school systems--you know, those can-do warrior-explorers with freshly minted diplomas and the resourcefulness of Grizzly Adams. And yes, smaller businesses need some semblance of access to even the most rudimentary healthcare benefits for their people.

Gee, it seems smaller and mid-cap businesses have a dog in this fight.

But I only hear them voicing their "business person" personae, the stereotype and the received wisdom, rather than speaking up for their selves and their self-interest. In fact, when it comes to many current issues--I see more dream-state wishing and hoping from businessfolk than they'd ever accept from their own people.

What we have here is business environment that University of Michigan biz school professor Karl Weick says presents leaders with seemingly unforeseeable "Cosmology" events. (A simpler analogy might be "Tidal Wave".) That is, these things are there to see if you have eyes. In fact, they usually herald themselves with all the warning of a children's garbage can orchestra coming over the hill.

But alas because there is no "consensus" on "what it all means", we find ourselves clucking and swappping facts to refute or minimize the fact that something of note is happening. Denial in other words. I mentioned a dog-fight earlier. It makes me remember the story of the Dog that growls at a passerby. The passerby turns to approach the dog. The dog bares its teeth. The passerby moves closer. The dog growls some more. The passerby thinks better of it, and moves on. And the dog returns to chewing off its tail.

In this way, we all talk about "change" being the driver of opportunity but bark when the real thing approaches. Or get run over when it arrives. Weick also has a comparative for this: High Reliability Organizations.

Nuclear Power plants are HROs. So are Aircraft Carriers. They are places where a "normal" operations day is knife-edge dangerous. Where failure can be catastrophic. The result is that these types of organizations build and practice a heavy ethic of "what if?" They become masters at imagining potential failures or changes of course. And they use the knowledge for good.

Naturally this requires a certain admission of fallibilty. A rare commodity I know, but one that opens doors to the honest, courageous and wise.

Ahh, The courageous. And the wise. They don't rest on their laurels. They don't look to crucify alternative viewpoints. They are Idealists, not Idealogues; Realists not Reactionaries. (One can pooh-pooh single provider systems or villify HillaryCare of the 90s for instance, but how many are storming the Business Roundtable or the National Association of Manufacturers now that they are endorsing the same damn thing?) It seems, of late, there are a lot of people making political hay by championing the interests of the courageous and the everyman. But very few are willing to point out the obvious fact that one needs the other, and that inertia or ignorance is a poor excuse for allowing the distance and distrust to grow larger.

You see, my final question is: If the everyman looks to the courageous, and he does, where are the courageous? Are there any real business leaders out there, or are we all merely satisfied with appearing as such?

It's an important question. Time's a wasting.

Just a little office thought experiment on The Future of Man & Commerce for a project. (Odd: No happy meal toys.)


[click to enlarge]

I'm sure we missed lots. Any additions?

[3-15: edited for a bad cut and paste]

Brain, Metaphor, Archetype, Brand.



Part I
Part II
Part III - TBA

This series explores the relationship of personal motives to corporate brand identity. A core premise is that brand is as much a leadership and operational tool as it is a means to sell product. In fact, by relegating Brand to afterthought status you create real problems for yourself and your people. The examples and ideas in the series move from historic to current, business to metaphysics, psychological to geometric. The central fact of brand from this perspective is that it is dimensional and real and packed full with primal meaning and opportunity. It is far more powerful than we suspect.

Brands, as well as people, function more effectively when they're connected to something other than themselves. It's called "context". Carefully considered, contextually resonant companies do several things well, and often automatically: They generate a sense of ownership and pride which reinforces a self-regulating culture of merit. The more this approach is imbued in an organization, the less complex the challenge of management becomes. Likewise, the more connected that consumers, employees and stakeholders are in their purpose, the clearer and more fundamental each relationship becomes.

But this only happens when brands are allowed to reach formulations where certain relationships are accorded equal weight and value. Only then do we approach what equates to a sustainable, meaningful brand model in terms that people care about: Dimensionality. 3-D. That's the real world, messy and emotion-laden as it is.

Again, self-identification and brand identity are intricately joined. We're all looking for some thing, some need to be filled, some group to identify with, some reason for sharing our energy and effort and money. Companies, through their brand identity, have powerful opportunities to be part, if not necessarily all, of the answer to that search. The benefits of a company placed in this indispensable position should be obvious. The requirements are geometrically simple. And they include four elements any sensible business person should insist on when judging the utility of a message, idea, project or plan:

1. Coherence
2. Relevance
3. Resonance
4. Internalization.

It must make sense. It must apply to what we do. If must be meaningful enough that we don't forget. It must be powerful enough that it points out and crystalizes what we already think, but couldn't enunciate before. It makes us damn proud. It feels right, because it's already "us". Lastly, it moves people because they handle the moving.

I hope you enjoy the series. Any comments are welcome.

Outsourcing, to the next level

The overhead costs. Performance challenges. Constant interruptions. High maintenance "people" issues. The endless obligatory small talk.

Does this describe your love life?

Then you need An Imaginary Girlfriend!

Yes, real girls. With most of the perks! Gushy notes on cute, perfumed stationery. (Smiley Face "i"s!!!) Pictures to show to your friends at work. Breathy voice mail messages. And syrupy emails clogging your in-box. Yes, all the sights, sounds and smells of a real girlfriend, but none of the hassles of management or HR!

Why get your chops busted? Bust some paradigms instead! Outsource your love today. Because proximity is so--20th-century!

Hey Brain-Boy! Where's the rest???

[Update: "Brain, Metaphor, Archetype, Brand" posts are here]

Just responded to a nice email from another reader looking forward to Part II of the brain posts. I'm sure he was too polite to say "Where is it?" or "When is it?"

Sorry but work has stomped on my nascent blogging career this week with several trips away from the office. I couldn't even watch The Apprentice last night!

Anyway, thanks for your patience. Post II is about where I'm happy with it and not TOO worried that it flies off into the ether. I've carved out some time to sit down and double check facts and stuff later in the day. Up by close of Business today. I promise.

(And hey, where are the comments--this was supposed to start a conversation, remember?)

FROM today's knowledge@wharton email:

Should Dick Grasso Return the Dough?

It's today's $139.5 million question: Why doesn't Richard Grasso, former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, give back at least some of the nearly $140 million in compensation that he was granted by the NYSE's board of directors? That the question is even being raised, of course, speaks to the sudden change in thinking about such issues as corporate governance and executive compensation. While some say that the New York Stock Exchange should be held as accountable as Grasso, right now it's the former chairman who is facing the most public outrage. The sentiment among corporate governance experts at Wharton is that Grasso should a) give some of the money back, or b) at least start talking about giving it back.

Puzzling through the Jobless Recovery. Or Is It a Fundamental Shift?

On March 5, the U.S. Labor Department announced that the U.S. economy had created only 21,000 new jobs in February, far below the 150,000 that economists had predicted. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.6%, but only because many people have given up on finding jobs. Economists and other employment experts offer a host of possible explanations but no definitive answers. What is clear, however, is that technology, productivity gains, and job shifting on a global basis are all contributing to new trends in hiring.

Things are looking a bit hectic today. I hope to have Part II of Brain, Metaphor, Archetype, Brand ready to post towards the end of the day.

In the meantime, a nice thought from Ralph:

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all . . . that is genius . . . a man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."

-- Emerson

Received a nice email about a comment I made over at Brandmantra on under-valuation of the marketing function in organizations. What the hey, I guess it's worth reposting here:

...Pardon the icky term, but when the "positioning" of Brand perception and its value is reoriented within organizations, it allows marketers to come out the ghetto. That's a chicken or the egg situation in many cases though. To which I offer three thoughts:

1. Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.
2. Execute the idea, not yourself.
2. Tis better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

Translation: Think about your true problem and the first audience you must persuade--follow the ambition trail up to the top within your marketing organization and feed that latent, often unsatisfied need with your new language and approach.

Match passion with process and process with profit and people with everything--each alone is DOA.

And, be gutsy when you have your Eureka moments--don't let them die, keep refining and proofing it. Even if your idea doesn't survive where you are, if it is good it will be remembered. And it will make for one kick-ass interview the next time you're looking to jump. Seriously.

Hmmm... Sounds familiar. Oh, yeah...

Carnival of the Capitalists

Carnival of the Capitalists, hosted this week by Catallarchy, has very kindly pointed its readers to this motley collection of hurried prose and unbillable hours.

The post they mention is on Benevolent Leadership titled Are leaders born, or made? They're born, then unmade. Scroll down to below the Rummy Tai Chi pictures.

[Update: edited for bloggered permalink. Post in question is now imediately below this one]

[repost]

Are leaders born or made? They're born, then un-made.

During work hours, we at Fouroboros Worldwide dabble in the dodgy business of advising poobahs on strategy and what-not. It gives us great opportunity to do what everyone has dreamed of at one time or another: Tell somebody in charge they're full of crap--but with a smile, naturally. We also get to make lots of cool charts like this:


...And create neato processes that save money or create money and/or get people to stop wringing each other's necks. Kinda like this...


But you know what? That's all comfort-food and left-brain permission for business people to do what they know they need to, but are somehow scared of: get out of their own way...

The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers, James M. Citrin and Richard A. Smith

Benevolent Leadership
Extraordinary leaders do not necessarily have to claw their way to the top — they are carried there

Just take a look in the business section of any bookstore and you'll find reinforcing titles such as Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. Those who've battled their way to the top, therefore, must be the most aggressive, self-centered type of people, right?

Not necessarily. Happily, the facts show that the most successful individuals populating the top rung of the corporate ladder are more often those who can attract top talent and inspire them to exceptional levels of performance.

Are benevolent-leader CEOs more competent? There is certainly no evidence to support this. Yet, looking beyond some of the highly visible CEOs to mainstream executive leaders, research clearly indicates that benevolent leadership has a direct, positive impact on success.

Why is this the case?

The answer lies not in the ability of the CEO per se, but rather in the environment that this style of leadership generates within an organization and the resulting effect it has on the performance of team members. It is the creation of this type of organizational environment, we have found, that is consistently linked to superior long-term performance for these executives and their companies. Quite simply, benevolent leaders achieve advantage by creating an environment where the very best performers want and even seek to work, will perform at peak levels, and will remain loyal. In turn, the leader successful in creating this environment is rewarded by the performance of those working with him.

Good stuff. But if everybody's talking about the importance of evolving workplaces and innovation and merit and stuff, how do you convincingly communicate that they matter to you without feeling like Stuart Smalley or Tony Robbins? Simple. Sometimes you just have to get Medieval on the office furniture. Much more effective than Casual Friday or "empowerment" sessions.