Wired 4 Leadership

What a striking contrast.  Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs; Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan Chase; John Mack of Morgan Stanley and the newest member of the club Brian Moynihan of Bank of America testifying before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission earlier this month.  For some inexplicable reason they still appear unable to grasp nor fully accept responsibility for their failures in managing America’s financial system.  Too big to fail has metaphorically speaking become “stuff happens”.

Meanwhile some six blocks away from the Capitol, Washington Wizards superstar Gilbert Arenas was pleading guilty to one count of possession of a firearm without a license in Washington, DC Superior Court.  While it’s doubtful any one of them wanted to sit before a Commission or a Superior Court Judge, at least one person was now being held accountable for their actions.  AT&T, Gatorade, Accenture, General Motors, Gillette and other firms drop professional golfer Tiger Woods as spokesperson or promotional star for their products and services following his admission of infidelity.  Tiger takes a respite from the game.  Washington Redskin’s Head Coach Jim Zorn promptly loses his job after the team’s last regular game of the 2009 NFL season.  With two years of poor showings by the team, Zorn was accountable.  Former Senator John Edwards, after years of head fakes, dodges and double pump denials finally acknowledges his paternity for the offspring born of his adulterous relationship several years ago.

2010 it seems has announced itself as the Age of Accountability.

And why not?  It’s fair to say that we have been through a wicked couple of decades in which personal responsibility for failure, malfeasance or simply bad behavior was freely and recklessly assigned to others.  Whether it was football stars denying responsibility for murder, dogfighting or gun-play, a President denying an adulterous relationship or the reality of trading arms for hostages, Congressmen admitting inappropriate relationships with various aides and staffers or a small coterie of Governors seemingly gone wild, it has been quite a spectacle.  The rationale and denials grew increasingly bizarre, increasingly public and increasingly pathetic. Our country’s sense of decency and demeanor seemingly was on holiday.  You couldn’t help but wonder, “what is wrong with these people?”  Oh, right, they’re human.

As leaders, there is a fundamental truth that underlies all of these actions.  Simply put, when you, your membership, or your organization “mess up, fess up”.  Nothing destroys a leaders credibility more than being caught in a cover-up.  As most of us have learned “your word is your bond.”  You get in more trouble trying to hide a mistake, than you do acknowledging it, apologizing as necessary and going about the business of making things right.  Stepping up allows you the opportunity to fashion a solution.  While making the essential apologies you also are able to point a way to the future.  Rather than diminish your standing, demonstrating your leadership in a crisis serves to strengthen it.  Failure, like accountability is a fact-of-life for leaders.  Savvy ones use the opportunity to build character anew, leverage time for introspection and renew the will to persevere.  How about you?

Closing out his run on the Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien left behind some heartfelt advice to his fans.  “Please don’t be cynical,” he said.  “I hate cycnicism—it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.  Nobody in life get’s exactly what they thought they were going to get.  But if you work really hard and you’re kind amazing things will happen.  I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.”

Don’t be cynical.  Expect the unexpected. Work really hard.  Be kind.  Amazing things will happen.  Lessons for leadership in today’s and tomorrow’s world.

There’s a fascinating discussion going on at the LinkedIn Print Networking Group about the viability of print in the age of web, email and social networking.  While guessing about the imminent death of an industry is always great sport, the death of print is wildly overstated. While print now has numerous competitors for “eyeballs” and attention, it still remains one of the most effective communication mediums on the planet. In a time when only 77% of American households own computers, print narrows the digital divide by providing ready access to books, magazines and other knowledge resources affordable to most everyone or available for free at community libraries.

Information technology marketing has long thrived on “smoke and mirrors” announcing new product launches well before the underlying technology is ready for “prime time” and by selling products that do not function as promised or are so complex they require a programmer’s level of knowledge to operate.  While I love technology and use plenty of it, I have also seen it unnecessarily waste limited financial resources, deliver mediocre results and frustrate even the most devoted users. Technology companies positioning themselves as the “green” alternative conveniently overlook the  24% annual growth in energy demands from server farms essential to powering the Internet.  Browsing the Internet for just 12 hours a week will require over 300 pounds of coal to fuel the electrical demand.  Who browses only 12 hours a week?  It’s clear we need to be paying closer attention to the impact of our prolific technology usage.

The United States alone dumps 200-300 million electronic items every year. While the Basel Convention bans the export of hazardous waste, US e-recyclers have successfully circumvented the treaty rules resulting in global e-waste dumps around the globe. With only about 14-18% of computers and computer related junk suitable for recycling, the race for the next generation of faster chips or the latest Netbook is really a race to top off landfills. Toss a computer into the landfill and your great, great, great grandchildren will be unearthing the circuitry, along with mercury, cadmium, and other toxins five decades from now. Toss a book or newspaper into the landfill and all of it will be gone by the time your grandchildren head off to school in the spring and probably sooner. That’s something to think about.  E-waste is a big environmental issue and a huge business opportunity for someone with the necessary smarts and funds to create a responsible recycling management system.

While the ‘digital natives’ among us will always sing the siren song of a technology future and the well meaning will believe they are saving trees by not printing e-mail, the paper industry continues to lead the way in recycling nearly 58% of all paper consumed while printers are finding new solutions to complex communication needs.  Printing companies remain among the most resilient, technologically sophisticated and nimble manufacturing enterprises on the planet. Printers bring a unique perspective and deep knowledge to the communications marketplace found nowhere else.  That’s the real story about the future of print and the graphic communications industry today.

What are the tough trade-offs your association never seems to get quite right?  There is no shortage of ways to go wrong.  If every organization exists only to serve and leaders by extension exist only to serve those who are serving others, there is one area that rises to the top pretty quickly.  In the “risks versus rewards” world of being a leader bringing the right talent, to the right project (or problem) at the right time will rank head and shoulders above all the rest in 2010. 

Paul Russell Global Head of Learning and Leadership Development at Google makes the point.  “Development can help great people be better—but if I had a dollar to spend, I’d spend 70 cents getting the right person in the door.”  Associations face very real challenges in being certain they have the right talent in the right places.  A recent announcement by the American Petroleum Institute that it was laying  off 40 people was also coupled with an announcement that a ”handful of job openings for positions with specialties in new forms of communications: social media, grassroots advocacy and digital outreach” would be available.  The long held educator’s axiom—we are educating students for jobs that don’t yet exist— is coming true.  Being an SEO specialist has real currency in today’s marketplace, but that job didn’t exist five years ago.

Which brings us to your organization.  What talents and skills are essential to the future growth and well-being of your organization?  Where will those talents come from?  How will you find them or perhaps grow them in 2010?  These are serious questions deserving serious discussion time among your leadership team.  A Center for Work–Life Policy  2008 survey shows, the number of employees expressing loyalty to employers plunged from 95 percent to 39 percent. Likewise, the Academy of Management Journal found that after a round of layoffs, voluntary attrition spikes by as much as 31 percent.  The report suggests that precisely the wrong people — those who have the strongest track records and brightest employment prospects even in a recession—are most likely to leave.  Generic “rightsizing” and careless talent management doesn’t make associations stronger, it makes them weaker and more vulnerable.  That’s would be exactly the wrong way to start 2010.

A Contribution to Acronym’s Big Ideas theme…

If your association couldn’t charge dues, would your members pay you for the experience of belonging? It’s a serious question. The dues value versus member benefit proposition has been thriving for decades.  Associations have been selling it and thankfully there have been an abundant number of buyers.  Until now.  With the economy in the doldrums, the enlightened self-interest of members sends them in search of cheaper alternatives to the services and solutions your association customarily provides.  Dues it seems are dispensable.  Experiences however are not.

Our appetite for self-revelation—the experience of learning, seeing, feeling or living into something new—appears insatiable.  And if we can’t experience it ourselves, many it seems will gladly live vicariously through others.  There is a hallucinatory pastime feeding a celebrity saturated culture captured by People, US Weekly, OK, Star, and In Touch magazines, the E! television channel, and myriad alleged newscasts about stars.  While White House gate crashers, adulterous governors and golfers, misanthropic politicians, and avaricious financiers rise and fall on the swells of the voracious 24/7 celebrity news cycle, real people and serious work is being done elsewhere.

While the desire for meaningful experiences has been twisted by a popular, media-drenched culture, there are social entrepreneurs, innovative nonprofits and forward thinking leaders busily creating experiences so emotionally compelling they are fueling an astonishing rise of donors, members and funding sources unseen in previous decades.  It is important to remember that although the Internet boom and bust of the late 1990’s slowed growth, it did not eliminate innovation.  Likewise today’s economic downturn has not destroyed all of the world’s wealth.

If as some suggest, the world is will turn away from the material and financial excesses of past decades, then surely the renewed human desire for revelation and fulfillment offers an unbounded opportunity for associations, professional societies and the philanthropic community to illuminate and elevate the experience of belonging well beyond dues.  It is beyond time to think about it.  It is time to act.

We knew it would come to this.  For the past decade for-profit companies have been slipping into “membership mode” in search of new customers and leveraging the powerful tools of retention inherent in the not-for-profit membership organization.  You’re not a customer, you’re a member—and membership has its privileges after all.  Problem is, it didn’t really work for them.  The profit motive came to outweigh the service motive.  Although their lingua franca was crafted to appeal to the sensitivities of membership—the benefits were fleeting—rarely more than an extension of a one-to-one marketing scheme gone astray earmarked by lousy execution.

Predictably, for-profit firms have started to flee their “partnership” or “membership” programs having realized in hindsight that it takes a great deal more “care” to hold onto “members” than it does “customers”.  Simply put, the expectations are different and if you are not prepared to manage them you will fail.

The path forward for associations is surely different today and will be tomorrow too.  Yet it is important we not miss the lessons nor repeat the mistakes of our for-profit brethren.  There’s a reason tax exempt organizations live free of federal income tax.  Keeping mission and service at the forefront can help us not forget that.

My dear mother long since passed from this life used the shorthand “mind your p’s and q’s” to signal me and my siblings that we were to be on our best behavior.  Who knew some forty years later, I might come across the origins of the phrase while exploring the ever dynamic and future-focused printing and graphic communications industry.

A bit of history.  There was a time when type was set by hand.  The individual letters (wood and later lead) were taken from large wooden trays holding characters of the alphabet and placed into a composing stick.  Once all the characters comprising the needed message were in place, the type was locked up and a cast was made.  This is the basis of printing text invented by Gutenberg.  One of the challenges of the day was keeping the right alpha or numeric character in the right slot in the tray and having a discerning eye to know which character was which.  For example was the character a “p” or a “q”?   Hence minding your p’s and q’s became shorthand for being certain you were placing the correct characters in the correct place on the composing stick.

As leaders there is certain poetry to minding our p’s and q’s beyond being on our best behavior.  Minding the little problems, so they don’t become big ones.  Seeing the benefits of keeping precise order for some things like databases and perhaps dumping out the letter tray, to renew a process or program that isn’t working.  Choosing our words (and by extension our letters) carefully to truly be an inspiration or motivator to those around us looking for new direction.    It is easy to be cynical and even doubtful about our capacity to lead in circumstances not of our own making and seemingly beyond the capacities of society yet alone our organizations.  Yet like hand setting type one character at a time, setting our goals and objectives in character by character fashion we can find a pathway forward and a future for those who rely on our capacity to do so.  We have come a long way from those early days of craftsmanship.  There is certain artistry to the work of leadership not unlike that found in hand type and letterpress reproduction.  The uniquely rich feel and texture of embossed type on paper is a reminder not of a lost art but rather the richness of history and in our desire for differentiation a way to look at the future by touching our past.

It is said there’s another story about p’s and q’s referring to quarts and pints in British pubs, but I think I’ll leave that explanation to my friends at the Beer Institute for another time.

In a crazy economy. crazy measures on recovery come to the fore it seems.  New York Times writer Jack Healy wrote a terrific piece Men’s Underwear as an Economic Indicator in which he explores the range of ersatz economic indicators we use to assess the status of the American economy.  Healy recalls that “in the 1970s, when Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve was still running his own economic consulting firm, he said that he looked at sales of men’s underwear as an economic indicator. Sales rose steadily in normal times, the theory went, but tended to dip when men had less money, or were trying to cut back on their spending.  Nowadays its everything from uncut grass to mosquito populations that inform the notion of economic recovery.

So where do Associations stand amidst the myriad economic indicators?  Are our traditional indicators still a valid measure of where we stand and what’s to come?  For trade associations whose dues structure are based on the revenues of their member firms a rude awakening likely awaits as the sales declines of 2009 come home to roost in the dues assessments of 2010.  Likewise participation levels in conference programs, events and seminars which have slowed for many membership groups may not be a reliable indicator as new forms of program participation—think webinars, audio conferences and distance learning tools—take hold.  Even the veritable National PTA is fending off membership defections as parents view social media as the better way to organize and inform parent decisions.

Gazing into the future in today’s environment is daunting at best but Associations looking for leading indicators will find them in membership satisfaction, membership conversion–that is how many prospects buy your value proposition–and join, the association’s rate of innovation, diversity, and measures of ethical behavior by members all stand as strong indicators in today’s environment of future sustainability.  Our more traditional tools of member retention, financial statements and event evaluations each a lagging indicator do little to help us anticipate the future.

So what are your measures?  What are the new metrics essential to measuring your succeed?  How will we know when the economy is in an upturn for your profession or industry?  Finding new meterics is an exercise in both innovation and creativity with a significant pay-off for your Association.  Don’t take the process lightly, but if you haven’t already begun to look now might be the right time.  Sure it’s hard to know what works, but just in case you’re wondering,  underwear sales will fall 2.3% this year.  Where are your sales headed?

The life of an association CEO has more than its fair share of struggles, challenges and the occasional glorious success. Asked recently about a “not expecting it” experience in my career, it took a millisecond to remember this one. True story. Many, many years back, the first day of my new CEO position began at the Association’s Annual Convention. Following a full day of speeches, introductions and business activities, a welcome dinner with the entire Board was held that evening. After more than a few drinks, the Chairman of the Board looked over at me and said, “You know I preferred the other guy (meaning the other CEO candidate). I guess we’ll see how it works out.”  Battle stations.  Welcome to CEO life.

Who says social networking doesn’t pay?  Clever crimefighters may find a new ally on LinkedIn.  True story.  Association member calls to say they hired a new sales person.  The sales person has been working for a few months, and is collecting salary/commission advances against future sales.  Unexpectedly, the new salesperson has now stopped reporting to work, answering his phone or responding to e-mails.  Oh, and he never made so much as one sale, so his salary advances were never actually earned.  Member firm is having difficulty locating the now former employee.  Social media to the rescue?  You guessed it—association staffer types this fellow’s name into the search field on LinkedIn and viola there he is.  Will he join the staffer’s network?  Sure, he replies helpfully.  An e-mail correspondence ensues.  Where’s he working now?  Surprise, surprise he’s working for another association member firm, collecting advances on non-existent sales all over again.  A few phone calls later and our intrepid non-sales rep is now talking to the police about the crime of fraud.  The clever and innovative uses of social media never ceases to amaze.