Be sure to click over and tell me what you want in 2009

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Yesterday I said, “…there’s a lot of latitude in what one chooses to know,” and listed four barriers; I also said that we’d talk about

I promised to offer up some ideas on how to hear past the four barriers to knowing, but you need to recognize that no matter how many tools you have, hearing is still a part of your MAP and you may find it necessary to modify your MAP in order to these or any other tool.

Barrier 1 Information disagrees with your ideology or world-view: Probably the best example of this barrier is found in the US Supreme Court. To perform their duties correctly the justices are supposed to interpret the US Constitution without reference to their personal philosophy. If you’ve ever followed the confirmation hearings you know how unlikely this is to happen.

To overcome it, or at least be aware of your prejudices, you need to take a step backwards and really listen to those around you. Seek out people whose ideologies are different than yours and get their interpretation. Yes, theirs will also be biased, but by putting all of them together you’ll start to see a full 360 degree view.

Barrier 2 Information is presented by the opposition, someone you dislike or with whom you disagree: Remember the common advice when someone says something mean to you? “Consider the source of the comment before you consider what was actually said.” Good advice, but dangerous to do unconsciously.

That’s the key to avoiding this barrier—banish unconscious and replace it with hyper-conscious, which is easier than you might think. Typically people know when someone meets any of these criteria, but in the interest of ‘getting along’ they bury the feeling and teach themselves to ignore it. The problem is that it doesn’t go away and continues to color any interactions. But if you embrace the feeling consciously and then separate it from the information received you are far more likely to be able to evaluate it objectively.

Barrier 3 Information conflicts with your personal agenda/goals: The most obvious example of this is the Wall Street meltdown. Business was driven strictly be a goal to raise profit thereby increasing bonuses; any information that derailed that was ignored.

On one level this one is easy; you need to be brutally honest with yourself regarding exactly what you’re after, although you don’t need to share the information with anyone else. Along with a brutally honest vision of your goal, you need to determine to what lengths you’ll go to achieve it. Finally, you need to decide whether all of that agrees with your ethical structure, the persona you want to project and the legacy you want to leave behind you.

Barrier 4 information is inconvenient or annoying: Remember the old saying, “don’t confuse me with facts?” When things are going well, or a decision has been made, it’s very tempting to ignore anything that might upset the applecart. In part, this is what happened in the sub prime fiasco.

Overcoming it means forcing yourself to keep an open mind, always accepting and evaluating new information as if the decision hasn’t yet been made and then integrating it into your model. If the result is substantially different from the prior result, then you need to look for additional information that either confirms or refutes the need for modification or outright change.

Cultivating these tool will prove useful in all parts of your life. They can even help you build a reputation for achieving where others fail.

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A couple of weeks ago, Steven Pearlstein said, “Their leadership failure was a big part of the story of how we got into this mess…a number of executives have complained that this indictment is both too broad and too harsh. Given what was known at the time and the competitive and legal pressures that come to bear in these situations, they believe their actions and judgments were reasonable.”

“I didn’t know…” is America’s favorite excuse, although it won’t hold up in a court of law; ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of the law excuses no one) dates back to Roman times.

The operative word is ‘know’ and, unfortunately, there’s a lot of latitude in what one chooses to know.

People don’t know anything that

• disagrees with their ideology or world-view;
• is presented by the opposition or those with whom they disagree;
• conflicts with their personal goals/agenda; or is
• inconvenient or annoying.

The irony is that Wall Street’s leaders really didn’t know—for all the above reasons.

If you truly want to lead—yourself, your family, a company or any other organization—than it’s your responsibility to not just listen, but also to hear past all those reasons.

We’ll talk more about how to do this in tomorrow’s Ducks In A Row post.

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Wow! Just three more days and it will be New Years Eve. And that means you have a choice to make.

Either you think of something intelligent to say when you raise your glass at midnight or you need to be so drunk no one will expect you to say anything, let alone something intelligent.

In case you’re planning on the first choice and need creative input, here you go…

The first two are for events that involve less booze, more formality and the impression for which you’re striving is that of deep thinker.

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” Bill Vaughn (Which are you?)

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” Hal Borland (I can quantify my experience, but I’m not sure any of it translates into actual wisdom.)

However, if you’re at one where things are looser, the spirits excessive and your goal is to generate laughter and impress that gal/guy you just met turn the conversation to resolutions and then use one of these.

“A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.” Anon (Yup, that’s why I stopped making them.)

“He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool.” F.M. Knowles (That’s me, a foolish weakling—see above.)

My final offering should make everybody happy. It’s good in any circumstances and really does exemplify the transition from experience to wisdom—and it’s experience that almost everybody has.

“People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.” Anon (Pure wisdom!)

What are your favorite New Year’s sayings? Why not take pity on others and add them in comments? Choice is good and your additions will increase it.

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The end of the year is all about wrap-ups, so why fight the trend? So here are two detailing the best and the worst leaders and one fun one about you.

First is John Baldoni’s Awards for Poor Leadership along with his reasoning. Hopefully Baldoni doesn’t consider this list complete when it barely scratches the surface, but it’s an interesting sampling from several different arenas.

Then comes glassdoor.com’s employee-generated top 10 list of “naughty and nice” CEOs—naughty having the highest disapproval ratings while nice had the opposite.

It’s always nice when egg is faces other than business, so my third offering is from the sports world, plus, I found a Best & Worst 2008: The Weird Wide Web link at the bottom—and they really are pretty weird.

Finally, here are 50 Ways to Improve Your World in 2009 from US News & World Reports. Interesting, useful and quirky if you take a few minutes to click around.

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In 1992 the SEC investigated a Madoff feeder fund.

In May, 1999 and again in 2005, Harry Markopolos, money manager and investment investigator, presented his research on the Madoff Hedge Fund to the SEC in which he concluded that the fund was a giant Ponzi scheme…

“I used the Mosaic Theory to assemble my set of observations. My observations were collected first-hand by listening to fund of fund investors talk about their investments in a hedge fund run by Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, a SEC registered firm. I have also spoken to the heads of various Wall Street equity derivative trading desks and every single one of the senior managers I spoke with told me that Bernie Madoff was a fraud.”

Nothing happened.

In Warren Buffet’s 2002 letter to his stockholders he said,

“We try to be alert to any sort of mega-catastrophe risk, and that posture may make us unduly appreciative about the burgeoning quantities of long-term derivatives contracts and the massive amount of uncollateralized receivables that are growing alongside. In our view, however, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.”

Nothing happened.

But you know all this; you’ve been reading and hearing about it for weeks, so why am I bringing it up yet again?

Because the lesson we all need to learn from this is not to ignore the stuff that makes us uncomfortable; the information that doesn’t fit with our world view; the messy stuff; the unhappy stuff. Large, small or miniscule, it needs to be dealt with, not left alone to grow larger and larger until it overpowers everything around it.

Because when stuff is ignored it doesn’t go away, it gets worse.

Because that’s what leaders do, they deal.

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I was going through some old files and came across one from 1998 that I thought was fitting to share with you today. It had no attribution, but a little time with Google and it seems to be a product of Ralph Marston.

You

You are always you, no matter what kind of car you drive or what size house you occupy. You are always you, no matter what color your hair is, or how much you weigh. Inside, it is always you.

You are not your job. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the body in which you live. You are more. You are you. There is no one else like you anywhere. You are unique. You have a special contribution to make, not in the distant future, but right now, today.

There is something you can do right this moment, for which you are absolutely the most qualified, the most appropriate, the best suited person to do it. You are better at being you than anyone else in this world. It is your grand, glorious responsibility and the best opportunity anyone could ever hope to have.

You are you. Make the most of that and you’ll understand how very special it is.

I’ve written on and off that your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is unique and, like a snowflake, no two are alike.

Today is a holiday and holidays are good days to take a bit of time just for yourself, kick back and cogitate about who you are, where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, who you’ll be when you arrive and, most of all, what you will leave in the wake of your travels through life.

I hope you take the time to do it.

Have a wonderful holiday, filled with all the things that matter to you.

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What else NOT to do

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One of the most important things to keep in mind as you study and work to develop your personal leadership abilities, the ones you’ll use throughout your life, whatever you’re doing and no matter the position, is that they’re neutral.

That’s right, leadership skills and abilities are without prejudice, neither good nor bad—you might say they swing both ways.

According to Warren Bennis, a leader innovates, develops, focuses on people, inspires trust, has a long-range perspective, keeps an eye on the horizon, originates, and is his own person.

Does that sound like someone you’d like to emulate? Because it’s a perfect description of Bernie Madoff.

Leadership actions are a MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) function. In other words, it’s not the actions that are worth emulating, but the MAP.

Notice I said emulating, not copying.

Consider those people you respect, as well as those lower on your list. Even when you disagree with parts of their MAP, you may agree with others, which means you can draw from many sources, but in the end it’s your MAP and that makes it absolutely unique to you.

During this holiday season, think about it. The economic mess with which the world is dealing was created by people with great skills and, to be polite, challenged MAP.

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Egoship. I doubt that I coined the term, but I did think of it independently. It’s been popping into my head for a number of years now as I read stories of astronomical pay packages for business leaders.

It didn’t take a business guru to start noticing that along with those salaries seemed to come an ermine cloak, although some were sable and others only mink, and the egos that went with them.

And considering what’s happening, things aren’t changing as much as you’d think—or like.

“Six top money managers of Harvard University’s endowment, which has lost $8.1 billion since the summer, earned $26.9 million in compensation in its most recent fiscal year.”

“Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.”

“Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review.”

“The highest-ranking executives four firms have agreed under pressure to go without their bonuses, including John A. Thain, who initially wanted a bonus this year since he joined Merrill Lynch as chief executive after its ill-fated mortgage bets were made. And four former executives at one hard-hit bank, UBS of Switzerland, recently volunteered to return some of the bonuses they were paid before the financial crisis. But few think others on Wall Street will follow that lead.”

Of course not. Wall Street egoships aren’t going to give back anything, they had to be forced to forgo what they did. Why should they take a hit for the trouble they caused? It would be almost un-American.

And as Michelle Singletary said today, “Who in their right mind thinks a chief executive earning a $1 a year is actually making a sacrifice?”

Of course, Wall Street sticking to its ways as much as possible should have been expected. The great thing about egoship is that it knows it can do no wrong, so it never needs to apologize or take responsibility.

And if the reformers show up at its door egoship knows exactly what to do:

• Say all the right things;
• make impressive, empty gestures;
• be patient until they forget and go away; and then
• return to business as usual.

Are we going to forget this time? You tell me.

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