I’m Sorry

I’m Sorry

by | Mar 13, 2025 | Leading

“I’m sorry. So Sorry.

Please accept my apology.

I know I was wrong,

But I was too blind to see.”

(1960 #1 hit by fifteen-year-old Brenda Lee, written by Dub Albrittin and Ronnie Self.)

“I am a terrible person!”

The clocks changed last night and I awoke at 3:00 a.m. (old time), thinking about all the horrible things I have done in my life. At ten, I stole my sister’s boyfriend’s ring given to “go steady.” It caused great anxiety and I ultimately “found” it under a bed. I stole my Rolodex when I changed jobs at twenty-seven. I never called any of the numbers and finally threw it out forty years later. I stole my sister’s opening line at my mother’s funeral, “If my mother were here, she’d apologize for the rain.” I’ve apologized to my sister, and apparently she has forgiven me, but I still feel rotten.

All these thefts were for self-aggrandizement, to make myself feel special, more powerful, or to attract attention. I was my parents’ youngest child and the only boy, and my sisters have told me how the attention I got made them feel decidedly un-special. I have spent my life working to overcome a need for attention and an adverse reaction to authority figures, i.e., people who stop me from getting my way.

I sometimes talk too much and don’t listen enough. I think I like writing because I’m the only one in the conversation.

I am working on this and I have been for much of my life. When I mess up, and I realize it, I apologize. Some say that like my mother, I apologize too much, though I don’t often say I’m sorry for the weather.

Real leaders admit their mistakes

These days I’m not leading anything or anyone, but a lifetime of observing business leaders, doesn’t just turn off. So I observe what CEOs  and politicians say on the news:

“The rocket had a sudden unscheduled disassembly.”

“Did I say that? I never said that.”

I know there is a school of leadership that says, “Deny, deny, deny, backtrack, reclarify,  but never apologize.” I just don’t think it is very effective leadership. How will you improve if you deny your transgressions?

Admitting when you are wrong makes you human; it builds trust.

A client and I went nose to nose yelling at each other in a meeting. The next morning I apologized and offered my resignation from the project. Vince said, “Alan, you don’t get to take all the blame for our fight. I was there too, and I’m not resigning.” We each apologized publicly at the next meeting and worked together for another couple of years.

I worked for two clients at the same company who both had volcanic tempers. One regularly pulled people back together and apologized. He also employed a coach, a cognitive psychologist who helped him replace his temper triggers with a “pause and a breath”. He got a lot better in the year that I knew him and I heard he was promoted to senior management about three years later.

The other leader “explained to people why he lost his temper,” so they could correct their behavior. I’ve written about Will before. He was really smart, highly verbal, and got good results. Everyone said he’d be CEO. Instead, three years after we worked together, he was fired “for cause,” which phrase cost him a substantial amount of money from his contract “golden handshake.”

Learning to apologize is a career building skill for leaders. Doing it well takes some practice.

Bad Apologies:

  • Take too long coming: As close to the event as possible is best. And apologies lose their value in direct proportion to the number of people telling you to apologize or punishing you for your behavior. Will Smith taking six months to apologize for slapping Chris Rock on the stage at the 2022 Oscars substantially reduced apology effectiveness.
  • Blame the victim: “I’m sorry you reacted negatively to what I said.”
  • Justify your behavior: “I’m sorry, but. . . what you said. . . you don’t understand. . . What did you expect. . .”
  • Apologize in private for public sins. Humiliating someone in front of the whole office and then saying “Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that,” when standing at the rest room sink might not be well received.
  • Go overboard: Saying “I’m a terrible person” is a bit too much for a ten-year-old’s transgressions, even if they’re part of a worrying pattern.

Good apologies:

  • Mean it: The reflexive “Sorry” as the person knocks you over to board the bus ahead of you isn’t believed. You have to feel and show remorse and concern.
  • Admit what you did or said that was wrong: “I know I said we were out of inventory, but it turns out we are storing that in the clean room and I overlooked the email that explained that.”
  • Actually say “I’m sorry” or I apologize: Not “my bad” or “Whoopsy”
  • Take action to correct the problem: “I’m sorry. Let me reimburse you.” Or “I’m sorry, let’s get you to the hospital,” will be better received than “Oops, my fault.”
  • Ensure it won’t happen again: Sometimes saying “I’ll work on that,” is enough. Sometimes you have to back up your promise with the system or process to prevent recurrence. Multiple apologies for the same repeated offense are rarely believed.

Maybe I’m not a terrible person, just an imperfect human. If I ever talked over you in a meeting, or insensitively failed to listen to you or respect your opinion, “I’m sorry, so sorry. Please accept my apology,” (with apologies to Brenda Lee, Dub Albritten and Ronnie Self for expropriating the words of their song).

Oh, and leaders, while you’re learning to apologize, learn to give credit where credit is due. “We” is always better than “I,” except when you apologize.

Learning from Genghis

Learning from Genghis

by | Feb 28, 2025 | Leading

“I am the Scourge of God!  If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me among you.”

Bellowed Genghis Khan from horseback outside the sacred Mosque of Bukhara, moments before he ordered the wealthy town elders to surrender gold and jewels, razed their homes and slaughtered them, leaving peasants “scattered to the winds to tell the tale of the horror they witnessed here.”

Not a very nice guy.

My first wife described my political transformation, after going to the London Business school when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister:

“Alan went from Ché Guevara to somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan.”

Most people don’t think of Genghis Khan as a positive model of leadership.  Perhaps he isn’t. He was a conqueror, driven only by territorial acquisition and theft. He was often merciless to his enemies. Genghis Khan has been held up as the archetypal barbarian throughout much of history.

Voltaire described him as “this destructive tyrant . . . bred to arms and practiced in the trade of blood . . . who lays the fertile fields of Asia to waste.”

Karl Marx blamed the Tsars cruelty on him “The bloody mire of Mongolian slavery forms the cradle of Muscovy” (principality around Moscow).

The writer in a 1990 article in The Economist railed:  “Unlike other conquerors, he brought no ideology, no Napoleonic Code, no Roman Law.  His simple fanatical aim was to amass huge areas of territory…Genghis’ empire, if that’s what it was, fell to pieces after his death….”

In 1990, I was working for a propeller aircraft manufacturer in Northern Ireland. I interviewed many people in preparation for the offsite where the CEO intended to win everyone over to an integration plan with the Canadian jet manufacturer acquiring them..

Virtually everyone described my client as “ a really warm supportive guy, who can also be Genghis Khan.” Evidently he had an explosive temper and angry verbal sharpness that people described as “Mongol beheadings.” I was very nervous about the feedback session.

He laughed. ”Yeah, I know. I’m working on that. Hey, let’s have some fun with this. I bet old Genghis was nicer to his people than he was to his enemies.”

I did some research and wrote a whitepaper,  and an exercise for the group to decide what they could learn from Genghis.

I was surprised to learn that Temujen, Genghis Khan, was an extraordinary leader.

A hunted outcast on the steppe from the age of ten until the age of seventeen, he rose in four short years to be elected Genghis Khan (rightful ruler) of the Mongols.  After defeat and desolation two years later, he rose to be Khan again and later to be Emperor of the Steppes and the World Conqueror. In twenty-five years he amassed territory that stretched from the China Sea to the gates of Vienna, from Moscow to South India. His descendants ran the Golden horde in Moscow, the Mughal empire in India, the Ilkhanate in Persia and Iraq, and the Yuan dynasty (Kublai Khan) in China that opened trade with Europe (Marco Polo).

The Mongols before Temujen’s rise were a collection of nomadic tribes: Tatars, Merkit, Kerait, Naiman, and hundreds more.  He took these scavenging, raiding clans, struggling for survival in a forbidding land of extreme hot and cold, and turned them into one of the greatest armies the world has ever known.  The gigantic scale and speed of these Mongol operations were incredible in an age before firearms, mechanized transport and modern communication.

He inspired extraordinary loyalty, even among former enemies, through two-way trust. He divided booty equally. If a soldier was injured Genghis might personally carry his share to his tent. If a soldier was killed, the booty share was transported to his first wife.

Genghis Khan was illiterate. I was shocked to learn that he travelled with Uighur scribes. They wrote propaganda that exaggerated his massacres to soften up the next enemy. Many towns surrendered without a fight. The scribes also recorded the Secret History of the Mongols, only recently translated, and “Bilik and Yasa, the leadership maxims and laws of Genghis Khan,” which was the title of the whitepaper.

The Great Yasa (laws), a few examples:

  • Love one another;
  • Respect wise men of all peoples;
  • Do not steal;
  • Share all food to be eaten; never eat in front of another lest you offer to divide your meal.
  • Never eat offered food before he who offers it first partakes;
  • Consider all sects as one and do not distinguish one from the other. Nor interfere with a man who speaks with his God if he keeps the Khan’s law;
  • Whoever becomes bankrupt thrice is put to death after the third time;

Genghis Khan’s Leadership Maxims (Bilik), examples:

  • Mongols shall not give their nobles laudatory names like other nations. He who sits on the throne shall be called Khan, and swear his allegiance to the Great Khan. (Khan was an elected position.)
  • Ambassadors, emissaries, and messengers, whether of the Khan or his enemies, are protected under the Khan’s law.
  • At the council speak your mind without fear of reproach, but when the wine is poured the council has ended. Debate no more.
  • Any word on which three well-informed men are agreed may be spoken anywhere; otherwise by no means speak them;
  • In council or when accepting a man into your service speak last.
  • When meeting a stranger or a friend, no matter what your troubles, inquire first after the other’s circumstances.  Interest creates friendships.

Learning from Genghis

Genghis killed about forty million people. I don’t glorify his brutal war-lord behavior. However, Genghis Khan did create an organization with several admirable characteristics:

  • A sense of identity. They became Mongols, not a collection of clans.  The word “Horde,” which originally meant “camp with corral for horses,” became synonymous with thundering blitzkrieg cavalry.
  • Discipline. They trained in maneuvers relentlessly until they “moved as one man.”
  • Absolute reward. These Mongols were guaranteed an equal share of plunder, which the Khan might personally deliver to them if they were wounded.
  • Absolute accountability. Clear expectations and punishment were the norm.  Merit promotion was given for loyalty, honesty, and excellent performance.  Death was ordered for deceit, lack of discipline, disobedience, and gluttony.

Since I wrote “Bilik and Yasa” much additional research on Genghis Khan has emerged. Anthropologist Jack Weatherford published several books starting with, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (2005). In this book Dr. Weatherford describes Temujen’s mastery of logistics and infrastructure. The Khan invented siege engines, rapidly built bridges and canals to transport troops and supplies. Weatherford lays out the internationalism of Genghis Khan, including his respect for alliances, diplomacy, and trade and his esteem for philosophy and his protection of religious freedom.

In The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire (2010), Dr. Weatherford shows the crucial role that women played in the Mongol Empire, and, while I doubt the Khan was a feminist, he evidently valued the expertise of his wives.

So maybe, even in a negative example like Genghis, there are lessons for leaders to learn.

SUWI or SUWOI?

SUWI or SUWOI?

by | Feb 7, 2025 | Leading

I’ve been thinking about Shakespeare’s play Hamlet recently. Though I trained as an actor, I never played Hamlet. Hamlet is a young prince of Denmark, grieving the loss of his father, and feeling vaguely uneasy about the fact that his mother married his uncle Claudius so soon after his father’s death.

“Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables” he jokes with his friend.

For those who never read, nor saw Hamlet, let me give a quick synopsis.

Distraught young Ham is told by the ghost of his father, King Hamlet I, that Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, killed him, “Murder most foul, ” by pouring some poison in his ear. Claudius then married young Hamlet’s mother Gertrude. For the next three hours, like many a young university student, some CEOs and journalists, Hamlet ponders too much of all sides of what is known and unknown, the seen and unforeseen consequences of various strategies. Ham stumbles about the stage stuck in anguished inaction. In the end, Ham and most of his friends and family end up dead, very pricey justice.  At the conclusion, young Norwegian prince Fortinbras, who has the “bias for action” gene that Hamlet lacks, arrives with an Army to avenge the death of his father King Fortinbras I, killed in a duel by Hamlet I. Everyone but friend Horatio is already dead. Sad.

There is quite a lot of other psychodrama in the play, including Ham’s inability to confront either his uncle, nor his mother, his inability to return the love of the Lord Chaberlain Polonius’s daughter, Ophelia, who suicidally drowns in a creek. Ham also sends several innocents, friends Rosencranz and Guildenstern,  and Polonius and son Laertes to perhaps undeserved deaths.

There are several instances where Shakespeare comments on how people shamelessly ingratiate themselves to power. Early in the play Hamlet mocks Polonius.

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius: By th’ mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed.
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel
Polonius: It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet: Or like a whale?
Polonius: Very like a whale.

Later in the play Hamlet mocks Osric

Osric  I thank your Lordship; it is very hot.
Hamlet  No, believe me, ’tis very cold; the wind is northerly.
Osric  It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
Hamlet  But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.
Osric  Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,

Remembering these scenes, sparked a memory of a new executive’s speech to his team.

“Don’t feel embarrassed if you suck up to me. I like it. If you meet a leader who tells you that he or she doesn’t like to be flattered, RUN AWAY, because they’re lying to you. So suck up. Yeah, suck up as much as you want.

But let me share something I learned at MIT. There is a difference between SUWI and SUWOI.

SUWI is sucking up with integrity. Yeah, you say nice things to me. You tell me you like working with me. You put a little smiley face on bad news,  if you know what you believe and don’t shy from TRUTH.

SUWOI, on the other hand, is sucking up without integrity. You accept and parrot everything I say. You always flatter me. You say things to me and then snigger and bitch in the hallway. You have little or no relationship with the truth and your behavior and your espoused beliefs are so far apart you cease to espouse your beliefs out loud.

Let me be clear, SUWI is not required, but it is OK with me, SUWOI is definitely NOT OK.”

People laughed.. There seemed to be less tension in the room. And SUWI and SUWOI became a little inside joke in the leadership team. People would preface difficult news, “In order to avoid SUWOI, . . .” or “definitely SUWI, I want you to know”. . . when they gave a genuine compliment.

It is hard to speak truth to power. This was one leader’s way to avoid the Polonius and Osric trap of agreeing with the leader even on the most trivial of opinions.

Leaders need truth tellers around them. There are still a few leaders, who don’t want that. There are some leaders who are fine if you give them the truth in private, but dislike open contradiction. These leaders may be in a precarious spot or they may be insecure.

There are some leaders who will punish disagreement, no matter the circumstance or whatever SUWI trappings you hang around it. If you work for one of those leaders, RUN AWAY. They are too absorbed in their own personality to see that you are a person, different from them, with any kind of boundaries.

But for everyone else, suck up with abandon, but suck up with integrity, SUWI rules.

The New Leader Opportunity

The New Leader Opportunity

by | Jan 26, 2025 | Leading

“Business is NOT a democracy!”

The CEO had raised his voice. I wouldn’t have said he was actually yelling, but his face was a darker shade tending toward red, and he was definitely speaking louder than he had been moments before.

My colleague, a consulting partner, was explaining that there was considerable disagreement with his post-acquisition integration plans and not just from the acquired company. This news did not please him, which caused him to so forcefully state his view of business governance.

The partner paused briefly, and then said quietly, “it is true that business is not a democracy, but it still requires the ‘consent of the governed.’”

Now it was the CEO’s turn to pause. He exhaled. His clenched jaw relaxed some and he enunciated clearly, “Fair point. . . . continue.”

The partner continued and ultimately we were engaged in a post-acquisition integration restart project, which featured the combined leadership team making decisions about which businesses would be left alone, which spun off, and which would receive additional investment. Staffing, the issue that had caused the dissent, followed those decisions. The CEO was sanguine about the outcome, but I think still believed that people should have just done what he told them to do.

I recognized the “consent of the governed” phrase from the US Declaration of Independence, but it turns out to be older than that, June 15, 1215 to be exact, the Magna Carta. The English King John affixed his seal to a document written by his barons, facilitated by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, which gave people rights to have input into laws that governed them, and justice “equally” before those laws.

Business is not a democracy, but lack of input and perceived injustice can still cause people to vote with their feet, either dragging them or using them to walk out, taking critical knowledge and skill with them.

The New Leader Opportunity

Acquisitions are one new leader opportunity. Suddenly you are leading a whole new group of people and if you treat them as the “spoils of victory,” you will make acquired company staff aware of their feet. You will also telegraph to everyone else how little you value expertise.

Anytime you lead a new group of people it is a new leader opportunity. The opportunity communicates how you value followers, or don’t. Unity, input, transparency, and fairness are watchwords.

Sometimes new leaders come from inside the organization, sometimes they are hired from the outside, but often they are put in the role to make a change. This is most visible at the CEO level. Jack Welch was promoted from the GE Plastics division to replace Reg Jones; Lou Gerstner was hired from RJR Nabisco to replace John Akers at IBM. Both had board mandates to radically change their corporations. However, any new leader can come from inside or outside, and almost always those that do the hiring expect that something will change. Understanding that expectation is the first step for a new leader.

The Why

At the CEO level there is often a decline or lack of growth in revenue or profitability or both that moves the board to act. Sometimes at lower levels, there is a lack of improvement, or innovation, or there are some people issues driving the change.

A new leader must understand and explain why people should choose to change.  What has changed with customers, competitors, technology that necessitates doing something different? And why not changing is not an option.

“Because I said so” rarely worked with my children, but it definitely doesn’t work with adults. Nor do the corollary statements ‘we bought you,” the “boss or board says so,” or any other “my way or the highway” sentiments. People may comply, in the short term, but they will also become aware of their feet.

Insight – Action – Results

This is the model I used to frame change. Insight is the data behind the why. Action is what we do more of, less of or differently. Results are the outputs we are trying to achieve. It is simplistic. For most changes, there will be breakdowns between insight and action, as people take different times to understand or act. There will be actions that don’t produce the desired result and “back-to the-drawing-board” moments. But a leader must frame what we are trying to do and why and engage people in the how and when.

The Who

Rarely do the same people who got us here, get us there. Oh, it is possible that the status quo folks will seamlessly become the passionate converted to the new vision. But frequently, those who lead the new change will be those outside the existing power structure. It’s why Jim Collins made the first step of Good to Great, decide “who’s on the bus. This is the essence of John Kotter’s “guiding coalition,” from The Heart of Change.

So who is on the bus? My list of criteria includes people who: :

  • Have internalized the “Why” of the change.
  • Are true problem solvers who invest the time to define and analyze a problem, not just suggest solutions before having the facts.
  • Have extraordinary communication skills – looking for clarity over eloquence, and simplicity over sounding smart.
  • Others listen to. (This often has nothing to do with positional power, but everything to do with competence.)
  • At least one person who immediately jumps to the “worst case scenario.” This is your risk assessor, your seer of unintended consequences. You don’t want a whole team of doom and gloomers, but one or two people with this view – and a sense of humor – can help avoid disaster.

Wasting the Opportunity

Often, you get one opportunity as a new leader, to attract followers, to engage people and help them choose to change. If you waste that opportunity, badmouthing, berating, and blaming, it is hard to come back. If you act unilaterally, or fail to have empathy and gratitude, the only people who follow will be those who want something from you. And no one will tell you when you’re blowing it.

Feedback and Accountability

Reward the people who give you the “straight skinny,” the people unafraid to say “the emperor is naked.” Even King John, who was not known to be a good king, agreed to clause sixty one in the Magna Carta.

Clause sixty-one gave the barons the right to appoint twenty-five barons ” to keep, and cause to be observed with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter.” The barons would give the violator (including King John) the opportunity to correct a transgression. If not corrected the barons could take the offender to trial.

King John, perhaps the worst king in Britain’s history, agreed that he was not above the law and could be held accountable. He didn’t live up to it, but others have since.

So business is not a democracy, but it does require the consent of the governed and some accountability beyond stock options and bonuses.

Change: Alarms and Indicators

Change: Alarms and Indicators

by | Jan 6, 2025 | Leading

How do I know if things are going wrong?

A couple of months ago I wrote about the basics of Change Craft, which comes down to simple questions: Why? So What? Who? What? How? I finished with “expect back sliding, missed targets and failure.”

A reader commented to me by email, “Alan, those are all results indicators. By the time I see those, the change process has already gone off the rails. What are the initial condition indicators or process alarms that will help me avoid a problem before it happens.”

“Good point, Ted,” my response began and I went on to describe the flashing red lights a change leader should look for. They aren’t always obvious. Mostly they are language cues that indicate a dangerous mindset.

If you hear yourself or your boss or those on your team say these things, watch out!

“Easy Peasy”

Change is not easy. Individual self-improvement is hard enough, but add to that the difficulty of groups of individuals it gets exponentially harder. Different people hear the same word differently. For example, my wife believes that “worry” is much more serious than “concern,” but if I hear “I’m concerned” that is “DefCon 3, Stop everything you are doing and FIX this.”

So even people who share the same national and corporate culture will hear the same words differently, complexifying describing change rationale, and giving instructions. That complexity multiplies by the numbers of people involved. Now imagine cross border communication, or acquisition integration communication. How do you know people are hearing what you mean?

Also, a change plan, inputs, activities, outputs, and responsibilities, especially recorded on Microsoft project or similar software, looks like every other plan. It is likely to produce a “of course – we got this” reaction, which has to do with tasks not people.

“Need to know basis”

Secrecy and change success are negatively correlated. Oh, I get that when making a strategic change in products or markets, you might want to keep some of the information close to keep it away from competitors. However, in the absence of information, people just make stuff up, and what they make up is often destructive.

I once worked in a health insurance company that was breaking into the Medicare Advantage market. An IT manager decided to “get ahead of the game,” and installed time clocks on the Customer Service Representative’s (CSR) screen, and a new call code MAD (for Medicare Advantage Deployment). A rumor started in the call center among the CSRs that MAD stood for “Measured Against Downsizing.” The not-yet-operational clocks were perceived to be measurement devices and that each CSR was being evaluated against some criteria that would lead to a workforce reduction in force. In a matter of weeks the rumor spread across the company to other call centers and CSRs were threatening a walk out – all because some executive wanted to keep the new market entry strategy a secret, and CSRs didn’t “need to know.”

“We/they, us/them”

This is a tricky one because talking about us and them happens frequently in business, we-company, they-suppliers or customers. But when you hear leader saying us/them about layers or departments, or change teams talking about other change teams using we/they, it’s a signal of artificial divisions and a lack of integration, which is death to change initiatives.

This shows up in change activities. “The training is for them, not us.” We get the full briefing; they don’t.” “They get paid overtime for out of worktime change work; we don’t.”

Most organizations are hierarchical; and “siloed” vertically, but when you need the whole organization to move as one, as in an integrated change, then hierarchies and siloes can slow you down or stop you dead.

“Resistance”

“Resistance to change” is a cliché, “We fear change,” Is a frequent Saturday Night Live joke. Many change models actually describe what you need to do to overcome the rational, political, and emotional resistance to change.

While it is true that some of us don’t like arbitrary change, (“So why exactly is it better to put the apple corer here, instead of where we’ve always kept it?”), most people don’t fear change and they don’t resist change. They fear loss in unknown circumstances, lost of job, pay, reasonable workload, etc. Mostly they fear a loss of autonomy, the right to choose the change on their own terms. In short, they don’t resist change; they resist your change, because they weren’t consulted, or it wasn’t explained to them.

So when you hear your change team talking about “resistance to change,’ they may be covering up their failure to engage people properly.

“That’ll never happen”

I don’t know for a fact if anyone on the IT manager’s team at the Medicare Advantage change effort brought up the unintended consequences of “getting out ahead of the change”, described above. I imagine that if it was brought up, it would have been met with, “What? That’ll never happen. The CSRs won’t even notice!”

“That’ll never happen” is the command and control leader’s response to raising low probability-high consequence events. In risk analysis, real dangers are glossed over with the conflation of the likelihood and consequence scales. “Come on. What’re the chances?”.

Unintended consequences are a real concern in change. What seems like a simple action changes unseen variables. “Raising the temperature one degree, did increase viscosity and therefore throughput, but it also increased pressure and the ‘U’ pipe sprung a leak.” Uh-oh.

The biggest single oversight of unintended consequence I ever saw, was in an acquisition of a competitor in specialty chemicals. The low value brand bought the premium brand, both US firms. Realizing that acquisitions are an aggressive competitive act, the leaders paid attention to market share and concluded that combined global market share of 16% wouldn’t be threatening in a market where the number one and two players had a combined share of almost 70%. In public relations announcements they signaled that this was a one-time event, (i.e., “don’t worry ‘bout us – no threat here”). One month into integration the number one player, a German firm, bought one of the firms’ domestic suppliers. The combined two US firms bought 60% of this supplier’s output and the German firm didn’t want to get squeezed out of US supply. Instead the combined firm was.

The head of production at the acquiring firm had raised this possibility and suggested long term supply contracts. He was told “What? That’ll never happen.”

 

People make change happen

A consulting partner once told me, “change is about the decision; people will fall in line.” And sometimes they do. Usually, when they do, it is because some leader engaged them in the process and treated them as equals worthy of trust. People don’t come equipped with warning lights. The only flashing alarms we have are body language and words.

 

Pay attention and listen.

Leadership Dysfunction 2.0

Leadership Dysfunction 2.0

by | Dec 7, 2024 | Leading

“People say I should have known. Maybe. There was that thing at the holiday party, but he was really drunk. The girl was drunk too, by the way. And anyway everybody agreed to drop it and she got another job soon after, so everything worked out.

“He was such a sick programmer, I mean, really elegant code, everybody said so. And the dude was a machine. He totally saved the Techniche voice chat bot project, – made the delivery in three days. People said he was mainlining Red Bull, ‘n’ the client said the bot was like talking to a real person. That Indian accent thing was complete magic, ‘Please to hold the line, while I trensfer you to the You – knighted States. – Halo sar, May I please introduce you to Todd in Topeka who will halp you now. . . . – Haie, Ahm Todd, How kin ah hep you today, sir?’ Still cracks me up.

“I mean, I didn’t know him, really. In the break room once I asked him, ‘Dwayne, dude, why does everybody call you ‘BH,’ and he rolled up his sleeve and showed me the biohazard tattoo and said ‘Afghanistan Recon.’ I thought he was too young to be a vet. Then Howie told me, ‘No dude, that’s his Call of Duty handle.’ Maybe that should have been a clue, but we all play. Dint think anything of it.

“I don’t really get the ‘why,’ if you know what I mean. I mean, sure, HR Karen’s all hands email was really targeted to him  ‘. . . so as you RTW you should dress appropriately and leave the camo and tac gear at home.’  And yeah, –  his clothes did leave a little to be desired and he didn’t really need to bring a fourteen inch survival Bowie to work. Maybe she should have just spoken to him or, at least, realized that ‘all hands’ goes to the board, including his dad.

“His dad was so helpful with the Sand Hill guys for the mezz and IPO. I wish Karen had thought about that, . . . wait, . . . ‘waddya mean that’s not her name? What? HR Karen is Denise? No.  And . . . – oh yeah, was,- – a single Mom with two kids. . .who’ll take. . .? Her mother? Jeezus! I mean, she did send that email the week before complaining about Dwayne. I mean, I had to think who she meant, I mean, everybody called him BH, . . . so he broke some stuff, . . . and what does ‘going postal’ even mean?

“This is just awful. It’s gonna mess people up for months. Maybe we should relax the RTW, ‘cept we take such a hit on productivity with work from home. You’d think the game room and snacks would make people want to come back. We got a big deadline on Goomee2 in ten days. I dunno is it better to be with other people if they’re as shocked as you or better to bury yourself in, . . . right, poor choice of words, . . . better to lose yourself in work at home?

“Y’know what I don’t get is the CSRs and marketing girls, I mean, sure, most of ‘em don‘t get tech, but they’re nice enough and sweet lookin’ -Jeezus what a mess. So much blood. Glass everywhere. Hadda replace all the carpet, and the glass, and half of the cubicles. Insurance paid for most, – thanks for filing those claims. We lost five days cleaning up the center – thank God we had Bangladesh as back up. Stock took a hit, but Charlie was right, – it’s coming back.

“Y’know what burns my ass? It’s a tragedy, I get that. It’s awful, but the media just won’t let it go. I mean, it’s been a month, ‘n’ it coulda been a lot worse if ole Juan hadn’ tackled him, . . . did his wife get the flowers? . . .  yeah, just wish that last spray hadn’ gotten ‘em both, I mean I’d just like to ask him, . . . “Why? – I mean BH, . . . – not Juan.

“That’s the thing about mental health. I mean, it’s ‘mental,’ right? Like inside your head, – invisible. But the press will not let it go ‘n’ now it’s the politicians. . . State. . .’n’ Feds. . .

Guns, sure, it’s always the guns. Too bad we have that big ‘No Firearms’ sign on the front door, if HR Karen, . . . ah right, . . . Denise, If Denise had been packin’ this whole thing woulda been a lot less traumatic.

People say I should have known. How’re ya gonna know what goes on inside someone’s head. Somebody has a bad day and yells at one of the girls, or someone has a fight with his wife and throws a stapler, breaks some coffee mugs, and dents a partition, is that such a big deal?  Yeah, maybe, . . . well there’s risk in everything, . . . life is a risk, . . . I could walk out the door today ‘n’ get run over by a beer truck, wouldn’t that be a cryin’ shame, . . . risk.

“Still I wish I knew. . . Why?. . .

“He was such a great coder. . .

“So No, Carol, I don’t want to talk to the Senator. ‘N’ no more reporters, OK? Say ‘we’re cooperating fully with the investigation, ‘n’  I’m unavailable for comment.’

“Oh, ‘n’ Carol, wouldya be a love ‘n’ run to Star, ‘n’ get me another Venti Carmel Macchiato with triple shot Red Eye, yeah with whipped ‘n’ four packets of the natural sugar, y’know the ones in the brown packets.

“That’s great, Babycakes. I’ll be in the game room. Gotta Foosball rematch with Howie.”

 

Avoiding Leadership Dysfunction