Arguing on the Internet for Fun and Profit

Actually, nothing is less profitable than arguing with someone on the internet. It's a game where even if you win, you lose. And I forgot this cardinal rule when I posted a comment on another blog that ran contrary to the writer's thoughts.

The writer had gleefully announced that the current crop of Gen Y'ers entering the job market would bring a cultural revolution to the workplace. Gen Y'ers, unlike us Boomers and Gen X'ers, have high morals, are idealistic and more dedicated to family than work, thus have better lifestyles than the hopelessly overworked Boomers. When Gen Y'ers rule the workplace, she writes, there will be no crime in the streets, no homeless people and peace of earth.

Blather, I say. First, every generation enters the workplace with hopes, dreams and aspirations of making a positive change in society. Some of us are fortunate enough to have done so. The writer's supposition is that previous generations have started evil, and that simply isn't so.

Every generation also started out thinking they knew more than their predecessors. After all, we had shiny college degrees, and all they had was experience. What we rapidly learned, however, was that experience counted for something. I fear that the current generation, what I call the "ME Generation", is incapable of learning that fact. Their mommies and daddies have raised their precious little snowflakes in a cocoon safe from the normal challenges of life - the challenges that mold and make us into adults. Schools teach to the lowest common denominator, and no one ever fails - and that extends right through college. How else does Yale explain having 95% of its students pass with honors? To fail is seen as scarring the poor child for life. So everyone passes, everyone makes the team, and thus the ME Generation has come to expect rewards and success as their right.

Boomers and to an extent Gen X'ers know what it is to risk and to sometimes fail. Havelock Ellis wrote: "It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success." Trying and failing is what gives us experience, and enables us to move forward. It teaches us what not to do, and what to do different in order to succeed. And the bottom line is, if you don't have practical experience, if you don't know failure and success, you can't lead the troops into battle.

And business is battle. The Gen ME'ers seem to think it's a social service agency, where there are great benefits and a paycheck every two weeks. I fear that we are coming to a time when business is going to be cutting back, and there will be massive layoffs and some plant closings. I wonder if the current leaders learned anything from the last time we went through this.

When I was in the oil patch, crude was running about $17 a barrel. And corporate blood was running in the streets. We literally went to work in the morning not knowing if we would have our jobs at lunch time. Companies whose role was to explore and drill for crude were laying off geologists and engineers. At one company I dealt with, they laid off my contact - a man with 30 years of experience along with the requisite degrees. He was replaced by two shiny new MBA grads. The 2 MBAs probably made about as much together as my contact. But when I called the new kids for information, it would take them a week or two to come up with the answer that the old guy knew off the top of his head. And by that time, the business opportunity had passed. Eventually, the company brought my contact back as a consultant, but keep the shiny new MBAs around as window dressing. Good work, HR department.

My point is this: Experience counts. Some people have the same experience over and over, so they aren't learning or accomplishing anything new. But successful people have a continuum of experiences that give them credibility in the workplace. You can't gain that credibility fresh off the bench. You have to work for it.

So good luck to the ME Generation. I guess they'll learn like all of us did. But it's going to be a tougher ride for them. Having gone through life protected from bumps and bruises, they are going to have to earn some scars before they have the right to lead.

Buckeyes 14 - Michigan 3. Life is good.

For the past few years, life as I know it comes to a halt for a few hours on the third Saturday in November as I take in The Football Game. Not just any football game, but a battle between good and evil. The most storied rivalry in the history of sports - my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes go up against the Michigan Wolverines.


Michigan didn't have a good year this year. They started their season with what was supposed to be a walkaway game against Appalachian State, a small double A school no one had ever heard of prior to this year. The Appalachian State Whatever They Are Called dug down and pulled off a 34 - 32 win over the Wolverines, bringing down the Big House. Buckeyes everywhere giggled and guffawed at the fortunes of Michigan. How many batteries does it take to shock a Michigan fan? 1-AA.

Buckeyes spent much of this year as a BCS number 1 team. I'm not sure that standing was deserved. They have a stellar defense, but their offense struggled to put together a solid game from time to time. Ron Zook and his Fighting Illini found the key to the Buckeyes and beat them for our only loss of the year, but it was enough to drop us to seventh place. By winning the Big Ten championship, it looks like the Buckeyes will get a respectable trip to the Rose Bowl.

Wolverine fans responded to the Appalachian State loss by demanding the head of coach Lloyd Carr. At The Game, it was rumored Carr would announce his resignation. In sports, coaches always take the blame when players don't perform. But one incident at the very end of the game was cause for much meditation.

Five seconds left in the game, Buckeyes up 14 - 3, ball on the Michigan 5. The Bucks had been running it up the middle for 4 or 5 yards for most of the second half, so fans were gleefully looking forward to one last dance over the goal line. Instead, Coach Tressel instructed the quarterback to ground the ball and run out the clock. The media was effusive in their praise for the gentlemanly conduct of Coach Tressel.

Woody Hayes wouldn't ground the ball! In fact, Woody would not only go for the touchdown, he would have then gone for the 2 point conversion. When he had the opportunity to do that after a lopsided win over Michigan, the media asked Woody why he ran up the score. Why go for the 2 pointer, Coach? Woody's answer: "Because they won't let me go for three."

This isn't Pop Warner football. This wasn't a rout over the Little Sisters of the Poor, where mercy might be appropriate. This is Big Ten football, and it's Michigan for crying out loud. If the cleat was on the other foot, Lloyd Carr would have been dancing in the end zone. Are you feeling sorry for Lloyd Carr? There's no feeling sorry in football! Especially The Game.

This has an interesting corollary in business. At what point do we back off of a competitive endeavor? In sports, you only have to have one more point than the other team to win. Winning by 1 point or 30 points gives the same result. But in business, the score is measured in profits, dollars, customer satisfaction, quality... and at what point do we say "enough"?

I doubt if there is a Board of Directors anywhere that would smile warmly upon a president who decided that they had enough market share, or that sales had reached a level that was "good enough". They would question the sense of a leader who told his team to back off, because they didn't want to embarrass their competition. The boundaries are drawn by ethical considerations. When the rules are bent to gain market share or to increase profits, then that's plainly going too far. Can you say "Enron"?

The story is told that Mrs. Carr put Lloyd's breakfast cereal on a plate and placed it in front of him one morning. "Lovie," Lloyd asked. "Why is my cereal not in a bowl?" Mrs. Carr patted Lloyd kindly on the shoulder and said "If I put it in a bowl, you'd lose it."

Sports are often used as a metaphor for business. Maybe I'll post more on that later. Meanwhile, another college football season draws to a close, and my Buckeyes can chalk up another win over Michigan. Life is good.

Book Report: America the Principled

Just in time to feed the election year media machine comes a new book from Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, America the Principled: Six Opportunities For Becoming a Can-Do Nation Once Again. I believe this will be the must-read book of the year, and hopefully every Presidential candidate will take it to heart.

First, let’s get the political biases out of the way. I am a Canadian citizen with Permanent Resident Status in America. As such, I cannot vote, although no doubt many non-citizens have cast ballots in the past. If I had voted in the last election, I would have cast my ballot for George W. Bush. In Canada, I generally voted for the Western Canadian Conservative party, whatever name they were using at the time. Western Canadian conservatives are generally middle of the road – we don’t like taxes or welfare bums, but we believe that citizens and corporations have responsibilities to society. I do not know how I would vote in America today. I do not, at this posting, see a reasonable middle of the road candidate. I suspect that the Republican Party is going to get thumped in the upcoming election.

So now you know where I am coming from. And perhaps that makes it a bit surprising that I love this book by a definitely-to-the-left Harvard professor. Let’s face it, Harvard and the rest of America’s tenured college professors names are unlikely to show up on a Republican 4^th of July picnic invite list.

As an immigrant, I think I take a little different view of America than a native born American (like my wife). I see the great possibilities in this country. I didn’t come from a third world country, but I still see America as a symbol of freedom and opportunity. So it saddens me to see the increased polarization of America – Red and Blue states; white, black and Latino cultures; rhetoric and intolerance on both the right and the left. And Americans complaining that their freedoms are being usurped? They have no idea of what it’s like to live without basic freedoms. You don’t see anyone tying an inner tube to their rear end and setting off from Miami hoping to land in Cuba for the good life. You don’t see anyone sneaking across the border into Mexico. No one hides themselves in a cargo container with hopes that they will end up in China. The entire world looks to America as the land of the free.

But Dr. Kanter points out correctly that we are losing that image. Instead of the land that offers hope for freedom, we have become thought of as a bully. As formerly third world countries gain economic and military prominence, people don’t look to America for leadership. But her book offers a plan for America to regain center stage and its leadership role in the world.

Dr. Kanter’s six points are, briefly:

• Make prosperity available across all economic and social levels through a science-based “white-coat” economy;
• Restore trust in government, making it an instrument of public interest, i.e. a servant of the people;
• Focus on real family values by creating fair, flexible and attentive workplaces;
• Rid the private sector of imperial excess by instilling a values-based capitalism of businesses that are well run, make lots of money, and do lots of good;
• Support individual grass-roots engagement with citizens of other countries to defeat the “Ugly American” image;
• Move from “me” to “we” through national service programs that engage young people through retirees to create a community spirit that unites America.
  

Bravo, I say. And rather than just spouting theories, Kanter goes into detail on how these steps can be implemented. The thing I find interesting is that she doesn’t think it’s just the job of government to implement these steps. It’s a tripartite union of government, business and citizens all dedicated and motivated to make America great again.

Unfortunately, Dr. Kanter reveals her left-wing biases from time to time. She suggests that much of the harm to America’s reputation has come over the last 7 years, or the “Bush is responsible for all evil” shtick. I think there were Presidents before Bush who can take some of the blame for that as well. She trots out the old line that if we weren’t spending trillions for the “futile war” in Iraq, we could have universal health care, free schooling, blah, blah, blah. If we weren’t in Iraq, we wouldn’t be going into debt to our eyeballs. I’m not sure that money would be directed to social programs.

And in a book that criticizes the polarization of American politics, could she not have found a prominent right winger to provide a blurb? Bill Clinton, Arianna Huffington and Donna Shalala are hardly middle of the road proponents for political moderation.

Still, Dr. Kanter has provided a valuable book for opening discussion on where America is going. At this stage of the election campaign, I haven’t heard anything from any candidate that speaks to any of these issues. I hope we aren’t heading for more of the polarizing politics that we’ve seen in the last 3 elections. That’s the fault of both parties. Hopefully someone will take up the torch Dr. Kanter has lit and light a fire under the electorate.

You can purchase your own copy from the publisher

by clicking here.

Are we on the road to Abilene?

My 3 and a half year old granddaughter Hayley, a perfect child in every way, wandered into the kitchen one morning and announced to her mother “I love God.” Her mother, not sure where this conversation was going, wisely nodded her head and said “That’s good.” “Well, that’s what He wants to hear,” Hayley shrugged, and wandered back out.

I’m not one to say something just because someone wants to hear it. But I have been in situations where I’ve been hesitant to speak up. What causes that? In my case, the leader was an overbearing jerk who would belittle anyone that spoke out against his ideas. It was simply less aggravation to keep quiet than to be the target of his insanity. But there was never a case where serious money or lives were in danger.

Jerry Harvey, professor of management at The George Washington University, has seen situations where “groupthink” has led to disaster. He calls it “The Abilene Paradox”, and raised the issue in his book “The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management”. Dr. Harvey begins by telling of a hot, dusty day at his in-laws in Coleman, Texas:

The family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. Jerry’s wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." Jerry, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

Looking to spark some discussion, Jerry says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it." The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. Jerry says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

I heard Dr. Harvey speak on The Abilene Paradox in Columbus, OH a few years ago. He has a great Texas accent, and speaks in a down home, folksy sort of way. But his message is serious: Groups will take actions that contradict what individual members want to do or think is right. He suggests that managing “agreement” is a more serious issue that managing conflict.

At his Columbus lecture, he raised the account of the Challenger explosion. He had received a letter from someone on the launch committee detailing the process for the pre-launch meeting. He described how every person on the committee had the opportunity to stop the launch just by saying “We’re not ready.” And although the writer knew that there was an issue with the seals, he couldn’t go against the pressure of the group by being the one to stop the launch. By voicing agreement, he delivered the Challenger and its crew to its inevitable end.

Not many of us deal with life and death situations like that, but our fear to speak up can still have repercussions. One company where I worked, everyone spoke up against a project except the senior executives, and it ended up being a $4 million boondoggle. Saying “I told you so” wasn’t much consolation when the bonus checks were canceled.

One employer made “The Abilene Paradox” part of their management training. And anyone had the opportunity (duty?) to raise the flag if they thought the team was going in the wrong direction. All they had to do was ask the question “Are we on the road to Abilene?” Everyone knew the story, and it made the team stop of consider the actions they were taking. Many times I saw this simple technique cause a team to change or finesse its action plan. Many times, it saved the company thousands of dollars as suggestions from front line people were worked into the plan. Without knowing it, the company was really doing a kaizen style review of their processes and systems, eliminating waste before it was built into the system.

“Are we on the road to Abilene?” is a good question to ask whenever teams reach decisions. You don't want to make a decision based on what the leader wants to hear.

Welcome

I chose the name “Management Zen” because I plan to use this as a place to record my thoughts and meditations on the art and science – and sometimes plain dumb luck – of management. Zen is a school of Buddhism that teaches self enlightenment through meditation and self contemplation. One definition says that Zen “…is characterized by humility, labor, service, prayer and gratitude; it disdains the pursuit of worldly accomplishments and acknowledges that life’s pain and suffering often comes from material preoccupation and desires.” Humility. Service. Gratitude. Aren’t those some of the marks of great leaders?

Work completely consumes many of us. Email, cell phones, Blackberries – we’re never out of touch and seldom have the chance to quiet our minds or take a break from the stresses of day to day life. It isn’t that we are preoccupied with material things. It’s that life demands we be on stage 24/7. When we do get a break from work, we have kids, school, family, church, community… what little time we have is quickly consumed by other duties and interests.

So this is my escape. My therapy, if you prefer. I am a voracious reader, mostly on issues of business trends and leadership. Over the past few years, I’ve become fascinated with the Toyota Lean Production System and its application to business functions other than production. I welcome your thoughts and arguments on any of the topics here.