(Read yesterday’s post if you don’t understand.)

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Company culture is a hot topic in the business press; CEOs are working to foster “cultures of innovation;” and culture is being lauded or blamed for a variety of happenings.

The bird’s eye view of what’s important in culture is as varied as the executives, academics, pundits, media and other experts who expound on the subject.

But what about the worm’s eye view—what do plain vanilla employees think and want? It’s important, since without them there is no company.

It used to be when I talked with people that it was easier for them to articulate the attitudes and behaviors they didn’t want to encounter in the workplace.

Even today, with a far more savvy and sophisticated workforce, people still tend to focus first on what they don’t want:

• Too much politics: personal, group, or in senior management.
• Unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Poor management practices such as erratic management; intimidation; micro-management; belittling or contemptuous treatment; poor scheduling; no loyalty; the attitude that “we don’t have enough time to do it right but we have enough time to do it over;” workaholism; etc.
• Any form of harassment, whether overt or covert
• A generally negative attitude, i.e., the glass is half empty
• Arrogance or an elitist attitude.
• An unwillingness (at whatever level) to seek and implement the compromises necessary to meet most of the organization’s needs within the required timeframe.

But when you get them to focus on the positives, the sophisticated and savvier mindset of today’s workforce is even more obvious when discussing the factors they desire.

Here are some of the high points that people say they want for themselves and from their managers and company:

• The opportunity to truly “make a difference.”
• To be treated fairly.
• To trust the management and be trusted by them.
• To embrace the idea that work can and should be fun.
• Accurate prioritizing of company, team, and individual goals while keeping them synergistic.
• A positive “can-do” attitude (aggressive, but realistic—the glass is half-full).
• Continuing development and quality improvement in people, products and services, and processes.
• Committing to employees, customers, and investors—and meeting those commitments.
• An open, accurate, company-wide flow of information starting from the top.
• An environment that encourages people to reach their full potential, professionally and personally.
• A conscious effort to stamp out “not invented here” syndrome (in all its varied forms) so as to not waste time reinventing the wheel.

There’s great value in this worm’s eye view. By eliminating what employees don’t like, and giving them what they want, you create a foundation on which to build the kind of innovative, profitable culture—the kind craved by investors, customers, and the rest of the outside world.

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Yesterday I shared quotes from Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos that focused on entrepreneurial topics, especially stock and its price.

Today, we’re going to look at Bezos’ vision for Amazon marketing.

Let’s start with what you thought of the last Amazon ad you saw. You’re probably scratching your head and thinking that it wasn’t very good, since you don’t remember it.

There’s nothing wrong with your memory or the ad, for that matter, because there was no ad.

That’s right, no giant ad budget, no super-size presence at tradeshows, no typical corporate marketing.

“Instead of shelling out big bucks for lavish trade shows and TV and magazine ads, Amazon pours money into technology for its Web site, distribution capability, and good deals on shipping. … “It is pretty unprecedented that their brand has ascended so quickly without a large marketing budget,” says Hayes Roth, chief marketing officer at brand consultant Landor Associates. “It’s not about splaying their logo everywhere. They are all about ease of use.”

Amazon has done well in the recession for the very reasons that Wall Street lambasted them after the dot com bubble burst.

Wall Street wanted short-term profits, while Bezos focused on the long-term.

When I was looking for yesterday’s quotes, I also found these two and they say it all.

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”

There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.”

It takes enormous strength of character to stay focused on the future when investors are pounding on you to focus on immediate returns.

Too many CEOs sell their company’s future by focusing on keeping investors, analysts and the media happy in the short-term.

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I want to share three comments from Jeff Bezos today, because tomorrow’s post is about him.

They all focus on the financial side and point up the great difference between Bezos and many other CEOs when it comes to money and stock.

If Bezos is anything he is pragmatic and real—no BS. And that is just as true when he is talking about entrepreneurial topics as about his business.

The truth in this comment has only increased over the years and will continue into the future. “Good ideas will always get funded, so that’s not going to be a problem. But you will see that it will be harder and harder for bad ideas to get funded.”

“It’s part of the territory with Internet stocks, that kind of volatility. It can be up 30 percent one month, it can be down 30 percent in a month, and a minute spent thinking about the short-term stock price is a minute wasted.” Obviously, Bezos never wasted any minutes on the subject.

If you’ve followed Amazon at all, you know that every time Bezos invested in better technology or added product lines Wall Street predicted its imminent demise. Even today, after a decade of success, the analysts question Amazon’s every move.

Bezos takes it in stride, still focusing on the long term and customer satisfaction, as he has all along.

“No. I’ve taken plenty of criticism, but it’s always been about our stock price and never about our customer experience. After the bubble burst, I would sit down with our harshest critics, and at the end of the meeting they would say, “I’m a huge customer.” You know that when your harshest critics are among your best customers, you can’t be doing that badly.”

Join me tomorrow for a look at Bezos’ approach to nonmarkteing.

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I have some great links to add to those I gave you last Saturday.

Another article from McKinsey shines a spotlight on managers’ need to “master the disciplines of uncertainty,” because it isn’t going away any time soon.

The market may have torpedoed you and me, but it’s done far less damage to the corner office. “Compensation for top executives at many of the nation’s largest publicly traded firms was essentially unchanged last year, even as the stock market plummeted.” Why are we not surprised?

What has changed? An article in the WSJ Online tells us that COO positions are going the way of the dodo bird because CEOs want to be closer to the action and more involved in day-to-day operations. But Jay Galbraith says, “One unspoken reason COOs’ numbers may be falling may be simple fear. As the pressure on CEOs heats up, at least a few simply don’t want such an obvious successor in place.” Again, why are we not surprised?

Economics is one of the few business area that make my eyes glaze over; not from boredom, but from an inability to understand it—believe me I’ve tried. Last week I said that How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? is a must read to understanding what happened to the global economy. For those who wish to dig deeper, two new books on the oft-maligned John Maynard Keynes were reviewed in Business Week (they do understand economics:). “John Maynard Keynes ought to be named Man of the Year. Governments around the world have successfully, if messily, resurrected many of his insights from the 1930s to thwart economic collapse. Foremost is his idea that easy money and government spending can rescue an economy in free fall—with credit frozen, businesses panicked, and consumers paralyzed.” I’m sure this won’t be popular with the free market crowd.

Enjoy!

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Frequent readers know that I am not a devotee of Warren Bennis, who famously propagated the idea that leaders and managers are not only different, but that ‘leaders’ are higher on the food chain possessing far more value than the lowly manager.

I have devoted numerous posts to dispelling this attitude (See series starting here.), much like Don Quixote tilting at his windmills. (It’s not a new attitude; I’ve had a statue of Quixote and Sancho Panza for years:)

I was discussing this over lunch with several executives and voiced my thought that no manager at any level can function successfully in today’s climate unless she is a leader.

This brought forth a terrific response from a CEO that is well worth sharing.

“A manager who doesn’t lead is a bureaucrat.”

An astute, simple and very accurate statement for people who are, or aspire to be, in charge, no matter of what or at what level, to frame and hang on their walls.

If you don’t want to

• craft and share a vision of what, why and when {whatever} needs to happen and leave the ‘how’ to your team;
• share information openly and willingly;
• take the time to craft communications that can be heard and understood by all;
• help both your company and your team become all that they can be;
• shoulder the responsibility, but give away the credit; a
• think ‘them’ before ‘me’;

then you shouldn’t be in charge.

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Cheating isn’t new, nor is my writing about it.

It probably dates back to the cavemen, but it’s become more acceptable with the passage of time. Or maybe it’s just that the level of cheating needed to upset people and the stakes involved have increased so much.

An article in the Sun Journal gives an excellent overview of the pervasiveness of cheating.

Of course, the best thing to do if you’re going to cheat is don’t get caught, but if you do and lie about it the penalties increase exponentially.

For some reason people are tolerant of the cheating, in some cases they even seem to expect it, but they go totally ballistic when they get denial and lies from the cheaters when they are caught.

Nixon and the Watergate tapes are a case in point. Dirty tricks in politics were nothing new; it was his blatant lying and lack of remorse that resulted in his impeachment.

When Nixon was up there denying that he edited the tapes and claiming to know nothing about it one thought kept going through my mind and my conversations, “How stupid does he thing we (the American people) are?” and that reaction hasn’t changed with any of the hundreds (thousands?) of accusation/proof/denial scenarios that have played out since, whether in politics, business, religion, sports or any other arena.

It takes a great deal from our so-called leaders to get a reaction beyond a shrug of disgust from me, probably because I have no-to-low expectations.

But treating me as if I am stupid will send me around the bend in no time flat.

I have no liking for Bernie Madoff, but at least he had the guts to plead guilty as opposed to Jeff Skilling, who added the cost of his trials and appeals to the rest of his fraud believing that we were too stupid to see/understand what he did.

The saddest part is the example these clowns set for younger generations.

What really happens to those like Nixon, Ebbers, Skilling, and all the lesser cheats?

Some serve a few months or years in jail; they might lose their “good name,” although that will fade in time, but they won’t be left destitute. Most go back to their old life; if they can’t do that they can always write a book, become a guest speaker or go on the talk show circuit.

The same actions that brought them down will serve to lift them up, so what’s the big deal?

As to the sports arena, another athlete on steroids or some other performance-enhancing drug is barely news these days.

“The Canadian sprinter stunned the world by running 100 meters in 9.79 seconds. Oops. Busted. Turned out Ben Johnson was the world’s fastest steroid abuser.

“How many athletes are using performance-enhancing substances? The answer is, everyone who’s willing to.” says Jay Coakley, author of Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies.

“Every athlete looks for an edge,” says Charles Maher, Cleveland Indians team psychologist. “Some are conflicted about it. They want a competitive advantage but they don’t want to damage themselves.”

With no real consequences in the vast majority of cases, and whatever penalties there are quickly forgotten, why not cheat?

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Now learn how to guarantee business FAILURE

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There is much talk about building winning teams and how to lead them and much of that centers on “influence” and “visions.”

The ledgendary Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, an expert on winning teams, provided a far simpler approach that you can be implement in a matter of seconds.

The only caveat is that once started it must be followed exactly and whole-heartedly.

“If anything goes bad, I did it.
If anything goes semi-good, we did it.
If anything goes really good, then you did it.
That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”

If more “leaders” followed this path we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Do you have the courage to implement Bryant’s approach?

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Oh for the memory of youth; not memories, but the ability to remember what I’m doing.

Last July I started looking for a new tagline. Even though I’m stuck committed to the blog’s name I want something that reflects my take on leadership as opposed to the generally accepted view.

Like any blogger I asked my then readers what they thought, received some interesting suggestions and promptly forgot about it.

The subject recently came up again, so I looked up the post and here are what I think are the best from those suggestions.

Eric Eggertson, who used to write CommonSensePR, gave me a number of suggestions, among them Seize the future and Inspire and achieve;

I came up with Seize the initiative;

Luke suggested Miki Tells You How It Is;

Phil Gerbyshak took Luke’s idea and came up with No Spin, Just Straight Talk.

Darth Sidious suggested The Drive to thrive and also said my writings have enhanced he and his friends’ Sith philosophy! Hmm, I wonder if George Lucas is aware of that.

Back to the tag line.

What do you think? Do you like one of these or do you have a better idea that reflects the tone and philosophy of my Leadership Turn?

Leave a comment to with a new tagline or vote for one already suggested by October 1 and win a copy of The Three Laws Of Performance. If I end up using one of the above tags I’ll use Ramdom.org to decide the winner.

Enter as many times as you like; previous suggestions are automatically entered.

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