So, it’s no fun to have made the call, but I see that Tony Hayward is in fact on his way out. He is being held accountable (not necessarily blamed, but the buck stops with him).A recent Gallop Poll showing how the “confidence” people had in various institutions means we have a very long way to go in getting folks to have faith in big business. Luckily, many still have confidence in small business. “Small businesses rate a 66% while big business gets 19% and organized labor 10%.”
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Corporate Culture, Crisis Management, Governance, Leadership
Many years ago I heard the statement made that “corporate staff is like body fat. You have to have some in order to survive. But the goal is to have as little as possible.” I think the same is true of Government. You have to have some, but the goal is to minimize it. So I start from the premise that Governments and Businesses have the same challenge – deliver value and necessary services while keeping the nonproductive activities and costs to an absolute minimum.
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BP, Communication, Gulf Oil Disaster, Leadership, Management, Sustainability
A colleague, Ira Wolfe, asked a great question over on one of the many leadership blogs we frequent. His question was, “The BP Gulf of Mexico Crisis is just gushing with leadership lessons. What do you think are the most important lessons leaders can learn from this?” I like this question and had been thinking about this very thing for weeks now. There were several responses, and I too contributed since I’d been pondering this topic anyway.
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Ethical Corporation, Governance, Leadership, Management
I can’t help it. The outrage at BP over this oil spill is getting out of hand. People are complaining about things that are not at all helpful to complain about. One bright light was complaining because BP is paying for Ad Words on the major search engines so that when people type in a search phrase having to do with the oil spill, BP’s website is showing up in the paid ad section. Duh!
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Communication, disaster, Education, Gulf Oil, Leadership, Management
Toyota apparently felt they had done well by convincing the NTSA to limit the recall investigation. Oops. It’s backfired. Now the money they saved is going to be lost and more. The banking industry seems oblivious to the disdain of the consuming customers and is already finding “sneaky” ways to charge higher interest. They are also fighting Credit Union requests to allow the Credit Unions to lend a higher portion of their assets to small businesses. They never learn.
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Communications, Leadership, Management, Marketing, Networking
“We,” that is the royal we, are apparently in no mood to put up with politicians, greedy executives and big bankers on Wall Street. Main street, as the saying goes, “hates” Wall Street. No leader of big organizations (including religious and other not-for-profits) or small business owner is exempt from this disgust with the rich and powerful. How did all this happen?
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Communications, Ethics, Opinion, Shaping the Corporate Culture, Trust
By now we’re used to it. The self-righteous politician who loudly preaches the dire consequences for the country’s failure at family values and then is caught in extramarital affairs; and who none-the-less believe they should still hold their office. Or the politicians and government officials who scream about government waste while feeding themselves at the public trough. And of course, the “fat cat” bankers who (even though their jobs exist today only because the taxpayers bailed them out) believe they are somehow entitled to obscene bonuses. Power, it seems, does in fact corrupt. Worse, the perpetrators are so damned hypocritical and arrogant!
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Culture, Ethical Corporation, Ethics, Growing Edges, Leadership, Management
You have to wonder what the insurance companies were thinking. Many, maybe most, small businesses are struggling with cash flow issues; and we all know that. One might expect the insurance executives to be sending out the word to agents and brokers that in light of the “predatory government regulatory atmosphere,” there shall be no premium increases for small business clients. Apparently that hasn’t happened. Instead monumental premium increases are hitting small businesses.
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Healthcare, Innovation, Leadership, Management
I spent about two-and-a-half days in a weekend training session with my colleagues this month. The topic was Understanding Company Financial Statements. The training was excellent, as is usual with Vistage, and it was well worth my time. To make things even better, we “saved the company.”
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Finance, Governance, Leadership, Management
A friend volunteers a the local public library where he sorts and prices the donated books for the used bookstore portion of the library. He knows I speak on Business Ethics and so he called the other day to announce that he had a “really old book” titled “Ethics in Practice.”
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Governance, Leadership, Management, Shaping the Corporate Culture
