Tag Archives: leadership traits

Leadership Lessons from Microsoft and Xbox Live

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Imagine you are an executive of a large corporation that competes in a number of verticals and enjoys a monopoly or near monopoly in many of these. Your company generally produces great products that meet the needs of many consumers. In some verticals your products are even considered best in class. While some people may fear your monopoly power, others are grateful for the fine products you provide.

If this were the case, you would likely be on top of the world. In fact, your company would probably be in such great shape financially that your great products would beget great customer service that would beget huge barriers to entry (even if someone built a better or comparable mousetrap).

Now, imagine that even though you produce some great products, your company is generally hated and mistrusted by consumers; and that most consumers feel like your company is just a necessary evil, and that they would gladly drop you as soon as they are provided with a suitable alternative. How would you feel coming to work every day? Would you be okay earning a living in this environment? Would you even care what your customers thought so long as they remained customers? Would you do anything to change customer perceptions?

True leaders – those who come to work with a sense of humility, a desire to serve and an abundance mentality – would work diligently to change not only customer perceptions, but also the corporate realities that created those perceptions. It appears that there are no true leaders at Microsoft. (Or, at the very least, none that have had a positive impact on Microsoft’s reputation among the consuming public.)

Pigs Get Fed, but Hogs Get Slaughtered

There is a saying in business that pigs get fed, but hogs get slaughtered. The idea is that it’s okay to step up to the trough and eat – it’s even okay to get fat doing so – but when you take far more than your share – when you are perceived as someone who constantly takes and never gives – you become a hog and you will be slaughtered. Microsoft is a hog.

Microsoft operates an online gaming platform known as Xbox Live. Two of my sons subscribe to this platform as Gold Members, and one of them is set to renew his annual Gold Membership next month. This annual renewal generally runs just over $50 and is a relatively good value if use the service as much as he uses it. In fact, he uses the service so much that he sometimes receives Xbox gift cards for his birthday or at Christmas. These gift cards might be for points to use in Xbox Live or even an actual subscription for an Xbox Live Gold Membership.

We recently received a notice from Microsoft that his Xbox Live membership was set to expire next month and that his account (which I created and maintain for him because of his age) was set to auto renew the Live membership for $59. Let’s be perfectly clear here: I never authorized Microsoft to auto renew anything. I make it a habit to never set anything to automatically renew because of the hassle getting my money back when some subscription inadvertently renews automatically.

Time to “Uncheck” the Auto Renew Box

I assumed Microsoft was up to some shenanigans here, so I decided to log into my son’s account and deselect the auto renew setting on his Live membership. (In this instance, my son has a couple of 12-month Gold Membership cards that he can apply to his account, so there is no need for an auto renewal. However, I would have deselected this anyway to avoid hassles when those expired.)

To make a very long story somewhat short, it seems Microsoft (in all their technical expertise) cannot create a button on their website that allows someone to cancel the auto renew feature online. You must call Xbox Support (yes, physical make a telephone call) in order to do so.

I want to let that sink in.

In 2011, one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world cannot program their website to allow someone to deselect an auto-renewal setting for an online service.

Before you decide that I am an idiot for believing that this is a technology issue, let me say that the first of two Microsoft reps who had to help me turn off the automatic renewal told me that Microsoft “… used to allow people to cancel the auto renew online, but that it created issues and that it was easier for most people to just call in …”

I want to let that sink in.

Microsoft requires that you log into your Xbox account to get the link that leads you to the page that tells you to call their support team to cancel this feature, but they say it is easier for me to cancel this feature via phone. Stop peeing on me and telling me it’s raining.

The phone call to cancel this service took more than sixteen minutes and required that I provide the same secret account information twice (I was told this was for my own security “… to ensure your account is not being accessed fraudulently …”).

I want to let that sink in.

I can order anything I want from Xbox online in less than 30 seconds, but in order to cancel something, I need to jump through hoops on the phone with two representatives and provide answers to secret questions twice. I feel very protected. God forbid some hacker cancel a service and save me money.

How do Others Feel about this?

Not surprisingly, people absolutely hate Microsoft over this very issue. In reactions ranging from expletive-laden tirades on Xbox message boards to thoughtful videos intended to warn the public or alert the executives at Microsoft that something is amiss, there are literally thousands upon thousands of frustrated customers (like me) who understand when a company is stepping up to the trough way too many times.

Microsoft is not the first or the last company that will make it hard for their customers to cancel a service, but there is a particular “fuck you Mr. Customer” feeling about this move that leaves a very, very bad taste in a consumer’s mouth.

I cannot understand how this is a good move for Microsoft. Does this required phone call discourage enough people from removing the auto renewal feature that it is a net win for Microsoft? If that is the case, then Microsoft is taking advantage of consumers, in my opinion. What goes through the mind of someone who sets up or supports a policy like this? There is an inherent evil in this thinking that reminds me in a very small way of the Enron traders who made money by screwing the State of California.

It’s in the Math, Microsoft

I know the folks at Microsoft are smart, but I cannot believe the math even works in their favor on this one. Given the anger so many consumers show over this ill-conceived policy, I cannot imagine that Microsoft makes up for the potential lost revenue with incremental renewals. Additionally, in my case they had to pay two people (both I assumed were Americans by their accents and clear grasp of the English language) to assist me in cancelling the default auto renewal for this service.

Of course, even if the math works out in Microsoft’s favor in the short run, over the long run (where most leaders should have their greatest focus) there is no way the sheer hatred generated by this policy is a long-term win for the company.

(A small personal example of this: I am a fairly heavy user of search engine services and generally split my searches between Google and Microsoft’s Bing; with Google getting about 75% of my searches and Bing getting the rest. Because of the business I am in, I also happen to be someone who tends to click more on sponsored search results than most. In fact, I estimate that I view sponsored results an average of 50+ times per week. Just moving to Google for all of my searches will cost Microsoft over $300 per year in lost revenue from my clicks. Of course, this is too small to even be chump change to Microsoft, but this is just one Microsoft service I will eliminate. For all future home computer purchases, I will forego buying the latest version of Microsoft Office and opt for the comparable free alternatives available at OpenOffice.org. And so on, and so on…)

True Leaders Would Care

Microsoft’s executives – the guys and gals needing the leadership lessons – will never miss my revenue, of course. They will also likely never feel any sting from the lost revenue of the thousands or millions who will do as I do. They could, however, feel a slight pinch from any attorneys general who choose to sue them over this practice. (You see Microsoft: States take it very seriously when big companies try to scam their citizens. Just ask the 24 states who sued Time Magazine in 2006 for their auto-renewal policy; something the states considered a deceptive business practice.)

As I wrote earlier, true leaders – those who come to work with a sense of humility, a desire to serve and an abundance mentality – would work diligently to change not only customer perceptions, but also the corporate realities that created those perceptions. And true leaders would not need government action to do so… true leaders care enough to do what is right.

Besides the pigs and hogs saying, there is another saying I think is appropriate for Microsoft: The worst time to take advantage of someone is when you can. Microsoft should plaster their offices with signs reading exactly that; it just might make a few people hate them a little less.

 

Leaders Don’t Get Too Caught Up In The Details

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Low Hanging Fruit and the Cost of Perfection

Imagine a small airplane flying low over a crowd at a baseball game. The door of the plane opens and a smiling man appears with a large sack. He turns the sack over just as the plane flies over the bleachers and millions of dollars in various denominations begin to flutter down to the amazed crowd below. The plane makes a dozen more passes, and each time the man empties sacks of bills onto the crowd.

Now imagine you are in this crowd and you see hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, fives and ones all floating toward your waiting hands. As the bills come within reach, you feel compelled to collect only the fives and ones because you know they’ll be easy to spend and they’ll work in most vending machines. Additionally, you decide to straighten each bill as it reaches your hand and you arrange all bills in sequential order by serial number and denomination as you collect them.

Of course, these decisions hinder your ability to gather the maximum amount of money, but you really want to make sure these dollars are perfectly displayed in your wallet once the money shower subsides.


Crazy? Probably, but managers in businesses of all shapes and sizes make similar decisions every day. While rationale people would grab every bill just as fast as possible, managers locked into some strange quest for flawlessness worry too much about perfection and not enough about the goal – costing their companies millions in actual losses and even more in lost productivity.

 

Leaders Grab the Low Hanging Fruit

 

Often in sales we talk about Low Hanging Fruit (LHF). This overused phrase refers to the sales that are so easy to make you just have to walk up to the great sales tree, reach up and pick the customer of your choice. This phrase is so hackneyed and misunderstood that it nearly cracked the Top Ten in our list of the 25 Most Annoying Business Phrases of All Time.

 

The concept of LHF in sales came about because inexperienced salespeople would often pass up the sure thing only to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to close a sale that would eventually yield them less commission. In leadership, LHF refers to the opportunities that take little effort. These opportunities are often not glamorous, causing unfocused managers to chase shinier objects (leaving the LHF to rot on the vine).

 

Leaders, of course, maintain the goal in the forefront of their minds. This keeps them focused and allows them the wisdom to grab the Low Hanging Fruit; and to avoid the traps of shiny objects and the ill-advised pursuit of perfection. Leaders do what is best for the company and not just what feels best at the time or makes them appear to be in control.

 

Perfection is a Joke, and it Costs Too Much

 

I once worked with someone who was put in charge of overseeing the migration of the company’s website from provider X to provider Z. While X had done a fine job with the site, the company just felt it was time to change. No biggie, this happens. Unfortunately, my colleague got so caught up in how every page of the new website looked (she argued for weeks about shades of blue that were indistinguishable to the naked eye), that the designers at provider Z left out major functionality that would have converted twice as many visitors. Additionally, the new website performed poorly with search engines like Google because my colleague was too busy picking just the right images to notice that the content was incorrect.

 

A leader who was focused on the goal would have known that search visibility and conversion were the primary objectives of the website, and that there were no secondary objectives. This leader would have looked at the opportunity to build the site correctly as Low Hanging Fruit and would never have been caught up in unimportant details like Cornflower blue v. Dodger blue.

 

The Devil is in the Details

 

In today’s business world there is no room for perfection. Those lucky enough to still have a job are likely carrying the weight of several laid-off coworkers. True leaders understand this and do everything they can to maximize the ROI of their activities and decisions. They do not get caught up in colors or sequential bill stacking when the future of the company is at stake. As bad as it may sound to the dilettante managers, leaders understand that good enough is sometimes good enough.

 

Some People Should Be Allowed To Quit – Coughlin’s Law Can Always Take Over

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Coughlin’s Law: Bury the Dead

People leave, let’s get over it. Gone are the days when a man arrives for work in the factory two days after his high school graduation and leaves forty years later with a gold watch. The American career path hasn’t included this scenario since before Lyndon Johnson took office. Over the last 40 years, American workers and American businesses have had an arrangement: Every man for himself.

For some reason, the most senior leaders of my company just don’t understand this.

We recently had an executive announce he was moving on; he no longer felt like there was a “fit” for him in our organization. He held no ill will for the company, but recent changes just made it difficult for him to continue in his capacity. In reality, he was doing what was best for him and the company. Besides, his employment was always, by law, considered to be “at-will.”

Our senior leadership was immediately filled with a strange hatred for this “traitor.” Like Bo Schembechler uttering that “a Michigan Man will coach Michigan” when then Michigan basketball coach Bill Frieder was talking to Arizona State in 1989, and Bo swiftly fired him (assistant coach Steve Fisher took over and won the national championship that season), our senior leadership began to treat this previously invaluable executive as some sort of leper. He became persona non grata overnight.

There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree. – Dave Mason

The Company Owes You Nothing

It’s important to note that my company’s leadership has eliminated more than one thousand jobs over the last fifteen months amid the current recession. This doesn’t make them villains; they did this in the best interest of the shareholders. This, you see, is their duty.


The one thousand plus newly unemployed soles may not like it, but the company owed them nothing. There was no contract between the parties that guaranteed a lifetime of employment. There couldn’t be; not if we want businesses to succeed and create jobs and pay taxes. (It’s important to note that nearly every one of those who were laid off received severance packages better than that which they were due. The company did right by these employees.)

You Owe the Company Nothing

Just as your at-will employment can be terminated by the company for no cause, you have the right to walk when you want. You owe them nothing. The minute you begin to think differently, it’s time for you to consider a career change.

While on the payroll – and especially when you’re in a leadership position – you owe your company your best efforts, which include leading with integrity. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that your integrity is critical to delivering great leadership. A duplicitous heart lacks integrity, and you have to be dedicated to your company’s well-being if you expect to be taken seriously as a leader.

That said, the minute you’re ready to go, you need to go, and you need not look back. It’s just sad that the alleged mature leaders in your company will likely treat you as someone taking part in some strange industrial espionage ritual.

Why Can’t Life Imitate Art?

Bryan Brown’s Doug Coughlin said it best in 1988’s Cocktail: “Coughlin’s Law: Bury the dead. They stink up the joint.” Companies and leaders need to figure this out and get over the natural turnover that occurs in American business today. People leave, it doesn’t make them the enemy. It does, however, make you look like an ass when you overreact to it.

Sarah Palin is a Quitter, and Quitters Never Win

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Quitters Never Win and Winners Never Quit

Argh! I can hear my mother misquoting Vince Lombardi in my sleep: “Quitters never win, and winners never quit.” A simple saying that forced me to keep my word throughout my life – even when it cost me money.

Why is it these simple clichés can hold such importance as to guide our every decision? (This particular phrase was so particularly annoying that it’s guided my decisions both in and out of business for over thirty years.) There are certainly others, but this mother’s saying carries special weight; as much an integrity statement as an indictment of those who would give up without a fight.

‘Quitters never win and winners never quit’ could be the primary rule dictating everything from a second grader’s soccer game to a governor’s fulfillment of her term.

Palin is a Quitter

We’ve written good things about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in the past, including a post that chronicled why she was a better leader than Barack Obama. That was September 2008 and this is now.

In demonstrating the worst leadership trait possible, Palin has decided that she cannot operate as a lame duck governor. (She had previously announced that she would not seek reelection.) Palin has decided to step down on July 26, 2009. Her current term was scheduled to end next year.

“I Want to Spend More Time with My Family”

While this is not the soon-to-be-former governor’s stated reason for quitting, her actual reason might as well be as lame as all the on again/off again retirements of star athletes. All we got from Palin was a quick Tweet: “We’ll soon attach info on decision to not seek re-election … this is in Alaska’s best interest, my family’s happy … it is good. Stay tuned.”

Well, as long as your family is happy…

Not so fast, Sarah. You are a quitter and we are disappointed. You were elected by the citizens of Alaska to serve them as their governor until 2010. Whether you were planning another term or not is irrelevant: they were counting on you to keep your word. When you chose to become the governor of Alaska, you agreed to serve the citizens of that frigid state and now you’re giving it up for personal reasons.

(Not to mention that you’ve passed on an extraordinary chance to shove through your agenda; an agenda you claimed was in opposition to the Washington elite. Who is going to carry your torch now? Who is going to keep your promises to the people of Alaska?)

Sarah Palin is not a Winner

News flash: True leaders don’t let personal reasons get in the way of their commitments to others. True leaders don’t let personal reasons get in the way of doing what is right. They keep their word and they never quit. True leaders are winners.

Palin is not, as we once thought, a true leader.

Much like Dan Quayle, Joe Biden and Admiral Stockdale, Palin lost more of her luster every time she opened her mouth. Her latest spat with David Letterman painted her as a died-in-the-wool Republican; someone willing to give up any sense of right for a chance to bash the Left. (Pun intended.) Every day since November 4, 2008 Palin has become more of a clown; a caricature of someone who once professed she was going to change the world of politics in Washington.

Sometime over the last eight months she stopped being a leader and became a punchline.


Good Riddance, Sarah P.

Likely, most Alaskans won’t care very much that you’re quitting. In fact, many will be relieved. Go away, Sarah Palin. Go back into the obscurity from where you were plucked and leave the future of the world to the leaders… we’ll try our best to hang on without you. (Note our tongues in our cheeks.)


Stop Chasing and Start Leading – Leadership Lessons from the NHL

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Last night the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals to win the coveted Stanley Cup. Both teams deserved to be there, both played well throughout the season, and – as evidenced by a Game 7 in a best-of-seven-series – both teams were evenly matched.

Both teams were so evenly matched, in fact, that the same two teams had faced off last year for a shot at Lord Stanley’s Cup. In 2008, the Red Wings were victorious, defeating the young Penguins in a Game 6 triple overtime thriller. After their heartbreaking loss, one Pittsburgh player, Marian Hossa, was offered a five-year, $35 million dollar deal to remain with the team. He declined; shocking nearly everyone in the hockey world by instead choosing to sign a one-year deal with the champion Red Wings. Hossa, you see, wanted to win a championship.

The Best Laid Plans…

As we learned in the first sentence of this post, Hossa’s old team defeated Hossa’s new team for the 2009 Stanley Cup. Hossa chased the Cup and fell short. The prevailing thought is that he screwed up – that if he’d stayed in Pittsburgh he would be on the winning side. Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum, and Hossa’s departure surely led to other changes with the Penguins that may have contributed to their ultimate victory. That’s only speculation. The fact is that Hossa – so focused on winning a championship – couldn’t see the bright future ahead for the Penguins. He chased the Cup and (predictably) did not catch it.

Leaders Don’t Chase, They Lead

It’s strange that a hockey player would make such a mistake. From very early on in youth hockey, players are taught to skate to where the puck will be, not where it is. Players who skate directly after a moving puck become very tired, very quickly… and they never get the puck. “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been,” Wayne Gretzky once intelligently stated. Hossa, we learned, skated to where the Cup had been, and away from where it was going to be.


Leaders don’t always know where the puck is going to be, but they do recognize that chasing things (especially shiny objects like the Stanley Cup) is fruitless and akin to a dog chasing its own tail. Leaders understand the goal and weigh decisions against it. Those activities that take them closer to the goal are good; those that don’t are bad. Leaders also understand their team’s capabilities, strengths and weaknesses; and they are able to project where their team will be at this time next year.

To See the Future, You Have to Look

With arguably the sport’s two greatest talents (Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin) and a young stud goalie (Marc-Andre Fleury) already on the roster, one would think Hossa would have seen Pittsburgh’s bright future and stayed. During the six games as a Penguin in the 2008 Stanley Cup finals, Hossa scored 3 goals and had 4 assists. In his seven games as a Red Wing in this year’s finals, he scored no goals and had just 3 assists. Pundits speculate that the pressure of his decision got to him. Understanding what makes leaders and non-leaders tick, we believe he performed poorly because of his desperation to win a championship; the same desperation that led him to chase instead of lead. The kind of desperation common in poor leaders.

The Effect of Ego on Leadership

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The Effect of Ego on Leadership

At AskTheManager.com we’ve always held to the belief that you can learn more from bad leadership examples than you can from the good ones. It’s not really cynical to think this way; in fact, we believe it’s quite healthy. It’s like seeking out the silver lining. We’ve learned so much from the poor, ineffective and insincere leaders in our lives, we feel we should thank them. And, when we closely examine the failed leadership examples of our collective past, we are faced with an overwhelming preponderance of overactive egos at work.

Of course, there are a few in the leadership development community who believe that leaders must possess the largest ego in the room to be truly effective. We disagree. Enlightened leaders – by their very nature – are as egoless as enlightened clergy. They serve, and as servants they deliver incredible results through the efforts of their entire team.

Even if you balk at the suggestion that effective leaders keep their egos in check, you cannot debate the negative impact of ego on team dynamics. Unhealthy ego is the single greatest barrier to teams working together effectively. Ego wears away the effectiveness of teams, and creates an agenda-driven environment where those with the uncontrollable egos put their needs ahead of the goals (and their teammates).

Ergo Ego

It’s not much of a stretch to understand that if the human ego can damage the dynamics of a team, and if teams are most effective when they have effective leadership, then leaders with too much ego can be damaging to their organizations.

Businesses need people to work as teams to meet their goals. Teams need effective leadership in order to function properly. When the leader makes it all about themselves, the team (and the organization) suffers.

Think about every bad business situation you’ve ever witnessed: What effect, if any, did ego play? Chances are that for most of the negative business situations in your memory bank, you can pinpoint the cause as ego-driven.


What’s a Bad Leader to Do?

If you’re an ineffective leader who recognizes they bring too much ego to the table, congratulations. Admitting you have a problem is always the first step. The next steps are a little harder.

In order to become an enlightened, effective leader (yes, this is a little redundant) you first have to realize that you don’t have all the answers. Even if you’re the owner of your company, you must understand very early on two important facts about industrial knowledge:

  • Those closest to the customers have the answers; and
  • Two heads are better than one.

As a leader, you are generally not the closest person to your customers (and you only come equipped with on head). Assuming you know it all is asinine and can be destructive to any organization. Seeking advice and answers from others not only makes you appear more genuine, it also means you’ll make better decisions.

Your next step toward shedding that melon-sized ego is to instill some humility in your routine. Humility, for those egomaniacal loons reading this, simply means that you’re humble; that you lack the pride and arrogance that makes you believe that everything is all about you. It also means that you see your major contribution as building and maintaining a motivating work environment that engages your team. (Leaders without humility believe their major contribution to the effort is the greatness that is “me.”)

Once you understand that you don’t know it all and that it’s not all about you, you can begin learning. Enlightened leaders have a voracious appetite for learning. They learn from books, from seminars and they especially learn from others. Truly enlightened leaders believe that everyone, even the receptionist and the janitor, has something to teach them. And they understand that the best way to learn is to listen.

A Spade is a Spade

Without some outside help, of course, it will be nearly impossible for the ego-driven leader to change his ways. We recommend assigning a peer or even a subordinate to call you to the carpet when you fail to provide humble, servant leadership.

Ask someone you can trust (and won’t resent) to call you an egomaniac when you step out of line. Encourage them to stand on your desk and shout at you whenever you fail to remain humble. You have to be willing to permit these constant course corrections or you have no chance to recognize and repair the destructive effects of ego on your leadership style.

The bottom line is that can’t let your ego get in the way of the goal. Your ability to overcome self-serving tendencies will determine your team’s effectiveness and anything you can do to give up your desire to be the center of attention can only help.

Leadership Lessons from a Dead Socialist

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Leading in the New Millennium: Pay for (Lack of) Performance

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

Although Sinclair’s words were uttered in 1935, they ring especially true when applied to the leadership void we face today. While Sinclair, a socialist, didn’t speak these words to decry the inattentive state of management during the Great Depression, his words speak volumes when applied to the CEOs, boards of directors, and other executives of the failed and failing businesses of this Great Recession.

We’re still a few months away from the first of many Lehman Perp Walks, though it’s important to note we believe that Sinclair’s quote can be equally applied to the senior leadership of Lehman as it could to the senior team at Enron.  

Enron and Lehman: Two Peas in a Pod

Let’s compare Ken Lay and Dick Fuld – two monosyllabic managers with their eyes on their own bank accounts and little regard for their employees or their shareholders.

Enron’s Lay claimed he had no responsibility for and little understanding of the risky and illegal ventures of his management team that bankrupted the giant company.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Assuming Lay was telling the truth when he feigned ignorance regarding the schemes that brought down Enron, it’s easy to assume that he did not want to understand – he was making too much money in his ignorance.

Lehman’s Fuld claims his company and he were, in effect, victims of the housing and credit crisis. Dick Fuld made over a half a billion dollars during his 14 years as CEO of Lehman – that hardly qualifies him for victim status. Moreover, Fuld made his hundreds of millions all while allowing his company to dive into riskier investments requiring insane amounts of leverage.




When Fuld is finally brought to answer under oath for the enormous bankruptcy he orchestrated (his congressional testimony in October was a joke), he will no doubt claim he didn’t fully understand the credit default swaps and other risky investments his team was helping create.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

So What Must We Change?

Clearly shame and public humiliation aren’t enough to sway America’s CEOs to always act responsibly and in the best interest of the company’s shareholders. Case is point: Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain recently requested he be awarded a bonus of $10 million for 2008. Without going into Merrill’s ‘08 financials (or lack thereof), let’s just say that Thain proved, if nothing else, he has incredible nerve. (Boards of failed companies, generally, don’t even face shame or public humiliation – they just move on like carpetbaggers.)

Given the speed at which many companies are collapsing, it seems that even the alleged pay for performance packages that reward a CEO for some short term positive movement of a company’s share price are ineffective. Fuld had the gall to argue in front of congress that he delivered terrific shareholder value during the first 13 of his 14 years as CEO. Big deal, Dick, tell that to the September 2008 shareholders and employees.

Leaders as Stewards

CEOs, like US Presidents, serve at the pleasure of their constituents. Presidents serve at the pleasure of the American citizens; CEOs, allegedly, serve at the pleasure of the shareholders (the owners of the company). No matter how many years of prosperity a CEO has delivered (via shareholder value), a sudden bankruptcy that destroys a 158-year old company proves that the CEO was no steward; that personal gain (including stroking his own ego) was his primary (and possibly his only) goal.

If our business leaders fail to act as stewards, then our boards must act. If our boards fail to act, shareholders have little recourse beyond civil remedies that generally fail to change behaviors. Civil penalties for underperforming and/or incestuous boards are insufficient to stem the tide of bad leadership we’ve faced over the past decade.

Perp Walks for Boards

It’s time we criminalized the lazy, incestuous boards who fail to protect the shareholder. It’s time that more than a few directors received several years behind bars for every billion in shareholder value they failed to protect.

If you think what we’re requesting is akin to advocating the death penalty for jaywalking, you’re way off base. We asked someone who sits on three Fortune 500 boards (who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity) what made them feel they were qualified to sit on so many boards while leading another large company as CEO. Their response: “Listen, I get about $100,000 from each company for four meetings a year. I think I can handle it.”

Four meetings a year – unfortunately, that’s how far too many board members view their duties. What’s worse is that your “performance” (i.e. networking) on one board leads to appointments to other boards. Rock the boat, and you’re not asked to join the other boards.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Amazing how a socialist like Sinclair can teach us so much about capitalism.

Bloomberg The Emperor Always Gets His Way

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Bloomberg The Emperor

We wrote a few weeks ago about the seemingly unbelievable possibility that New York Mayor Michael “Nero” Bloomberg would seek to have the City Council overturn New York’s term limits law – opening the door for Bloomberg The Emperor to serve a third term. (To read that post, follow this link.)

As crazy as it sounded then, it seems even crazier now that Bloomberg has convinced the City Council to unilaterally overturn what the voters put in place. Bloomberg, it seems, feels he is the only person capable of lifting the World from the current economic crisis.

The unabashed gall and narcissistic, ego maniacal attitude that even puts this kind of thought in someone’s head astounds us. The fact that the City Council was allowed to make this decision (because it also benefits them) seems criminal.

The vote was 29 in favor and 22 against. We think it’s time for New Yorkers to start using their heads at the polls. Clearly, they should vote out the Bloomberg 29 and, of course, The Emperor himself.




The Definition of Insanity

The funniest thing about this mess (if any of it can be considered funny) is that the Bloomberg 29 and The Emperor truly believe that New Yorkers need “consistent leadership” during these tough economic times.

Hah! While we doubt the Mayor of New York and his Council could have more than a miniscule effect on the economy, it’s hilarious to us that they believe they can. This begs the question: If the Mayor and City Council can positively impact the economy, then why did they let us get into this situation in the first place?

The last thing America needs right now is “consistent leadership.” Bloomberg’s been in office for over 6 years, the average tenure in the US House of Representatives is over 9 years and the average US Senator has served more than 11 years.

Sounds to us like “consistent leadership” is what got us into this mess.

The voters spoke years ago when they created the term limit law, and Emperor Bloomberg just turned his thumb down.

89% of New Yorkers polled this month said that if the Mayor wanted to extend the term limits, he should take the issue to the polls and let the voters decide again. The Mayor, it seems, doesn’t think the voters know what’s good for them. We’re just hopeful they wake up and throw the bums out.