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Be The One

To Answer to the Most Important Question Ever Asked About Civility and Decency

February 3, 1939 – July 10, 2021

Steve Harrison, my co-author on our book, The Decency Code – The Leaders Path to Integrity and Trust, and I were promoting our new book on a Pennsylvania book club Zoom conversation when, during the question and answer period, one of the attendees raised her hand and said, “I have a really important question. How do I get this started in my organization, family, company, or community?” I was broadcasting from Minneapolis and Steve was broadcasting from New York.

Without hesitation, he literally exploded by saying, “OBSESSION!!”. Then he said it again! “This is the most important question ever asked
about civility, decency, integrity, and humility.”

He continued, “BE THE ONE or find the one who can eat, sleep, dream, advocate, irritate, motivate, and inspire decency, civility, honesty, humility, truthfulness, and trust.” Steve was describing himself. And he was right.

He said it with such force there was a lingering moment of silence while everyone absorbed what he had said and writing furiously. But then Steve continued, “IF YOU ARE THE ONE then follow the many, many paths to decency.” And he started this interesting list. He said, “BE THE ONE…

who is accountable.’’
who is agreeable’.’
who is apologetic.’’
who is benevolent.”
who is candid.”
who shows character.’’
who is charitable.’’
who is chivalrous.’’
who is civil.’’
who shows compassion.’’
who is constructive.’’
who is courteous.’’
who is decent.’’
who is dignified.’’
who is empathetic.’’
who is engaged.’’
who is forgiving.’’
who is helpful.’’
who is honest.’’
who is honorable.’’		who is humble.’’
who has integrity.’’
who is open.’’
who is patient.’’
who is peaceful.’’
who is pleasant.’’
who is polite.’’
who is positive.’’
who is principled.’’
who is respectful.’’
who is responsive.’’
who is sensible.’’
who is sensitive.’’
who is simple.’’
who is tactful.’’
who is thoughtful.’’
who is tolerant.’’
who is transparent.’’
who is trustable.’’
who is truthful.’’

PLEASE NOTE: Steve only mentioned half a dozen or so of these. We have published this full list of “How to be THE ONE,” in several places. I thought it would be helpful if you saw all of the things Steve thought about as he made his comment.

Steve continued, “There are dozens of paths to civility, decency, integrity, truth, and trust:

  • “Take as many as you can.”
  • “As often as you can.”
  • “Every day.”
  • “Encourage and show others how to do the same.”
  • “Urge them to tell others.”
  • “Recognize and encourage everyone who does.”

Getting Started: Keep It Small, Keep It Simple, Just Do It

Steve always urged people to start with the small decencies and make room for larger ones later. What is a small decency?

  • Greet coworkers authentically and personally.
  • Remember to say please and thank you – or better yet, write thank you notes.
  • Before meetings you convene, be the first to sit down and the last to get up.
  • Welcome visitors by name – or better yet, call them guests.
  • Answer your own telephone.
  • Give away recognition when things go well; hoard responsibility when they don’t.
  • Convey bad news in person, in private.
  • When you make a mistake, admit it, and apologize.
  • Avoid criticism, it is remembered and resented forever.
  • Make all corrections positively, in private.
  • Remember why you like and respect people, tell them.
  • Think of new ways every day to be positive, grateful, helpful, and nice.
  • Keep a log.

Two Minute Schmooze.

Steve was a long-time Senior Manager and corporate culture innovator, he learned early one simple truth: The long-term success of any company, or organization large or small, local or global, depends largely on its culture.

  • Monitor your decency and civility progress every day.
  • Work to increase the paths you take daily, every day.
  • Challenge yourself.
  • Keep a log.
  • Show others.
  • Encourage others.
  • Recognize and acknowledge small decencies when you witness them.

BE THE ONE…that is the ticket.

Note: Steve Harrison died on July 10th, 2021. He revitalized the reputation of an industry and was constructively obsessive about the power of small decencies to make good companies great. He often reminded people, especially very senior people, about those unseen, unconditional but meaningfully small personal acts and decencies that have a powerful long-lasting impact on others, your culture, and the expectations of everyone.

“BE THE ONE, or FIND THE ONE. It’s ok to be obsessive to inspire decency, civility, honesty, humility, truthfulness, and trust.”

Steve rather famously said, “There’s a philosophy of doing business that goes beyond the transfer of goods and services. It calls for a transfer of values known as small decencies.” 

Steve was the author of, “The Manager’s Book of Decencies, How Small Gestures Build Great Companies”. The book is available on Amazon and will change your life, especially if you are The One. America’s culture has been sagging under the weight of division, anger, and confusion for some time now. Many of us have to be The One or find The One to reverse this trend.

Good Luck.

©2024 James E. Lukaszewski For information on reprinting or for the use of this material, editing is not permitted, contact the Copyright holder at jel@e911.com.

How Leaders Think and Operate
Part Three:

Inside the Mind of the Chief Executive During Crisis

One of the most challenging events for any Chief Executive is when a crisis happens within or outside an organization. Remember a crisis is a people-stopping, show-stopping, product-stopping, reputation-redefining event that creates victims and often explosive visibility. The operative word in this definition is victims. This particular chapter outlines the elements both of response to crisis situations and self-evaluation by Chief Executives of their performance as well as the performance of their organizations.  

Remember, as advisors to very senior officials we often use the word crisis very loosely and that needs to stop. If there are no victims, there is no crisis. It’s simply a bad day for somebody’s budget within or outside the organization or both. I call this the Chicken Little Syndrome. You recall the fairytale about the chicken saying the sky is falling all day long.

All businesses have problems, many of which land on the CEO’s desk. But if you tend to refer to all problems as crises, each time you do this and the boss knows its not a crisis, chips away at your credibility and your value to those who make the decisions that run the organization. All businesses have problems, very few businesses have crisis fitting the definition I just mentioned. And just another quick reminder that it’s how the company organization leadership handles victims that determines just who will be running the organization when the dust clears. Problems are rarely career-defining. All crises tend to be career-defining. Pay attention. Preserve your credibility and your access.  

We’ll discuss victims in more detail in another episode of these notes.

First, we need to help those who run our organizations understand what their responsibilities are in these situations, and what they will learn as a result of being in charge when an actual occurs.

  • It would seem logical that if you are addressing or advising senior leaders and the CEO, to be somewhat familiar with what they do, what they know, how they think, and where they come from.
  • Today’s CEO tends to be younger, getting to the job earlier, and even getting out of the job way before retirement.

o All of which means that CEOs will be doing other significant jobs in their lives rather than simply rising professionally to become the CEO of one company.

Define a Leadership Role for Leaders and Bosses During Crisis

  • Bosses need scenario-specific instructions for what they need to be doing, and when they should be doing it.
  • One consequence of management enthusiasm is that all of your conscientious planning, preparation, rehearsal, and simulation may be sidetracked, since top management will start from the very beginning and spend hours trying to figure out what they and everyone else should be doing.
  • Faced with a crisis, management may spend a lot of time in denial, covering bases that don’t immediately matter, such as embarrassment, apology avoidance, self-forgiveness, searching for the guilty, or just self-talk.

The Boss’ Most Critical Role in Crisis

  1. Assert the moral authority expected of ethical leadership.
a. Leadership takes appropriate and expected steps to learn from and deal with the issues a crisis situation raises, very promptly.

b. Moral authority consists of:

  • Candor and disclosure
  • Explanation and revelation
  • Commitment to communicate
  • Empathy
  • Oversight
  • Commitment to zero
  • Restitution, penance, or at least maintenance while victim issues are resolved
2. Take responsibility for the care of the victims.

a. Victims and victimization provide the energy that makes these situations so explosive, highly emotional, and unpredictable. Taking responsibility for victims moderates and mitigates emotion.

3. Set the appropriate tone for the organizational response.

a. If leadership gripes and groans, everybody gripes and groans.
b. If leaders whine, everybody whines.
c. Productive, constructive, instructive and inspirational tones from the top will move the entire organization toward more a prompt resolution of the crisis, and impact and mitigate reputation damage.

4. Set the organization’s emotional voice.

a. Be compassionate
b. Be helpful
c. Be courteous
d. Stop taking events personally

5. Commit random acts of leadership at every level.
a. Walk the floor.
b. Talk the floor.
c. Encourage people.
d. Knock down barriers.
e. Help everyone stay focused on the ultimate response goals of the organization.

Lukaszewski’s Axioms of Leader Survival During Crisis

  1. Defeat is almost always the work of over-optimistic bosses, uniformed co-workers and associates, well-meaning friends, or dysfunction within the organization.
  2. Act promptly, make mistakes a week early.
  3. All crises start locally.
  4. Crises rarely kill products or companies unless you let them.
  5. Colorful, emotional, and memorable language caused by taking events personally creates bad news.
  6. 25% of your resources and 50% of your energy is used to fix yesterday’s mistakes.
  7. Preparation, rehearsal, and luck spell survival.
  8. Luck is limited.
  9. No one cares about your problems until you make them care.
  10. Compassion, community sensitivity, with sensible, ethical approaches moves companies out of harm’s way.

Overcoming Management Objections to Readiness Activities

Nine reasons crisis management matters…

  1. Helps avoid career-defining moments for the boss.
  2. Moderates and minimizes damage to reputation and employee morale.
  3. Enhances a company’s ability to recover from financial losses, regulatory fines, loss of market share, damages to equipment or products, or business interruption.
  4. Reduces potential exposure to civil or criminal liability.
  5. May reduce your insurance premiums.
  6. Provides an opportunity for management and leadership to inspire, to demonstrate an ability to deal with difficult circumstances.
  7. Management behavior appears to be the most crucial factor for recovery – when it’s effective.
  8. Reduces the production of new critics, complainers and victims.
  9. It is the “right” thing to do.

Assess What You Learned Today
5 Personal Questions

  1. What’s the most important thing you learned from this program?
  2. What do you know now that you didn’t know at the beginning of this program?
  3. What is the most interesting thing you learned from this program?
  4. What questions remain for you to answer as you think about what you’ve learned?
  5. What is the first thing you are going to do to apply what you’ve learned in today’s program?

Your Personal Daily Ethical Audit

  1. What is the ethical behavior here?
  2. How are ethical questions being surfaced and addressed?
  3. What is remaining unsaid, ignored, actually covered up?
  4. When will leaders address the ethical expectations of others?
  5. Is the profit motive in balance with your own ethical expectations?

Personal Daily Incremental Leadership Behavior Audit

  1. What did I learn today that might help others?
  2. What did others learn from me today?
  3. What less than essential tasks or burdens did I shed today to work on things that truly mattered?
  4. What will others remember from my interactions with them today?
  5. What did I say today that will be used and quoted tomorrow?

Personal Daily Influence Achievement Assessment

  1. Do people quote you when you are gone?
  2. Do people quote you when you are in the room?
  3. Do people tell your stories quoting you?
  4. Do people tell your stories as their own?
  5. Do leaders and others call you and ask important questions?
  6. Do leaders ask others if you have seen the information others are asking leadership to approve?
  7. Do they hold up meetings until you get there?
©2024 James E. Lukaszewski

For information on reprinting or for the use of this material, editing is not permitted, contact the Copyright holder at jel@e911.com.



What Makes a Fellow a Fellow?

PRSA Announces the Election of
11 Outstanding Senior Practitioners
11 Outstanding Senior Practitioners

*NEW YORK, July 15, 2024 – PRSA announced today the 11 new members selected to the College of Fellows. Established in 1989, the College of Fellows includes more than 750 professionals and educators who have made a significant impact on the public relations and communications profession.

What Makes a Fellow a Fellow?

By James E. Lukaszewski ABC, Fellow IABC ‘08; APR, Fellow PRSA ‘93; BEPS Emeritus, ‘15. ©2024

This is the time of year when senior public relations practitioners are nominated for election to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) College of Fellows. As I begin my 31st year as a PRSA Fellow (I’m also an International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Accredited Fellow), it’s interesting to reflect on the experiences of all those I have coached and mentored over the years, on my way to becoming a Fellow in both organizations. Just about everyone comes to the Fellow’s process with few clues about what a Fellow actually is.

Becoming a Fellow is really all about the footprint left on our profession. There are Fellows who have worked their entire careers in a single market and have left a powerful footprint. There are Fellows who have worked in a single state and have left a significant footprint. There are Fellows who work regionally and nationally and, in the process, have left a meaningful footprint.

A “footprint” is about the quality of practice and the level of influence rather than how many projects done, clicks, or likes for whom, or where completed. This is the hardest part of becoming a Fellow. It is such a mindset shift from counting projects and activities, to really understanding personal impact, ideas, behavior and ethics that have helped others to become better practitioners, citizens, public officials, leaders, more honorable advisors, and people of professional substance.

The footprint goes beyond activities within the public relations profession. It is about the impact and influence of the nominee in their vicinity and marketplace; it’s about how nominees use their influence, experience, insights and presence to make change happen – perhaps bringing reality and sensibility, as well as reducing contention and bringing peace to contentious parties. Or, it could be the preservation of core community values and interests.

I think sometimes it’s easy to mistake proficiency or expertise for leadership, impact, or influence on others. Those who wish to analyze their careers, to assess their footprint, ultimately go through an interesting and introspective analysis of their lives and work. These are the steps I recommend: How many on this list apply to you in your life?

  1. Examine your life for the lessons that were shared with others. What did others learn from you?
  2. Reach back and make contact with those whose lives you have affected. What value came from knowing you?
  3. Ask those who have known, worked and benefited from your efforts, presence, and insights to answer five basic questions:
  1. What is/are/were the most important things, ideas, or concepts that these individuals learned from you?
  2. What is/are/were the most interesting things, ideas, or concepts learned or remembered?
  3. What is/are/were those things these individuals feel they might never have learned if you were absent from their lives. What do they know now that they didn’t know before, that mattered, because they met you, whatever the circumstance?
  4. What meaningful questions did you help others to confront, consider or explore that might not have happened had you not been present?How has knowing you changed people’s lives?
  5. How has knowing you changed people’s lives?

    6. These questions matter because once a practitioner becomes a Fellow, all of these impacts and significant impressions on others continue and intensify. It is more than an honor to be elected a Fellow. Accepting the nomination is a public recommitment to helping our profession and our professionals find ways to improve their skills, yes, but also to begin to look at their practices and their practice circumstances from larger and broader social and cultural perspectives.

    Becoming a Fellow is about reinterpreting your professional metrics from an entirely different and deeper perspective. It’s about understanding what matters, what is helpful, what is sensible, and often what is powerfully simple and true. It is about professional integrity, honesty, and having a truly meaningful personal and professional life.

    It’s their professional footprint that makes a Fellow, a Fellow.

    Congratulations to these extraordinary professionals.

    The 2024 inductees are:

    • Jill Spiekerman Bonham, APR, Fellow PRSA, Teaching Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota
    • Missy Burchart, APR, Fellow PRSA, President & CEO, Wilbron
    • Vivian T. Dávila, APR, Fellow PRSA, Public Affairs & Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company
    • Karen Garnik, APR, Fellow PRSA, President & CEO, Global Vision Marketing & Communications
    • Michael S. Gross, APR, Fellow PRSA, President, AKCG Public Relations Counselors
    • Kevin P. Kane, APR, Fellow PRSA, Corporate Communications Special Project Manager, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield
    • Eva Keiser, APR, Fellow PRSA, Principal, The Pural I
    • Michelle Olson, APR, Fellow PRSA, Managing Partner, Lambert by LLYC
    • Susan van Barneveld, APR, Fellow PRSA, President, Copernio
    • Melissa Vela-Williamson, APR, Fellow PRSA, Founder, MVW Communications
    • Candee Wolf, APR, Fellow PRSA, Founder and Principal, Wolf Olson Communications

    The College of Fellows Class of 2024 will be inducted at a gala celebration on Monday, Oct. 14, prior to PRSA’s annual conference being held in Anaheim, Calif. this year.

The 8th Ingredient of Happiness

Links in the Article:

“Make sure your comments are worth it before you offer them.”

            Marshall and Kelly Goldsmith wrote an amazingly insightful piece which appeared in the Chief Executive’s CEO Briefing of July 17, 2024. They asked a powerful question: When someone shares an idea with you and asks for your opinion, the urge is to cooperate. But the question the Goldsmith’s asked is even more important, “Is what you’re going to suggest or propose, actually worth damaging the attitude and aspirations of the person asking your advice?”

            Their example is of the CEO, attempting to add value to any question he or she is asked. While the response might add a couple percent of additional value to their idea, the impact on the person you are “helping” can be devastating.

Their advice is directed, especially to important people whose comments are taken as direct-action orders. Studies show that even minor suggestions from VIP’s which add very little value to an idea or suggestion can reduce the proposer’s motivation to carry out their suggestions by as much as 50%, or they may forgo the idea altogether.   

            The Goldsmith’s suggest four powerful questions to ask yourself before you respond:

  1. “Are you killing motivation?”Will your proposed comments add significant value and still motivate the person asking the question?
  2. “Are your words orders?”For the CEO of an organization, almost everything they offer will be used to initiate some kind of action. Sometimes on many levels of the organization. Is that what you intend? 
  3. “Pause before adding value.” – Before speaking, ask yourself, “Is my comment going to improve this person’s commitment?” If the answer is no, then ask yourself, “Is it worth it?
  4. This advice is really important at home. Which is why I’m adding it to Barbara’s original seven happiness ingredients. The Goldsmith’s advise before speaking, ask yourself, “Is my comment going to improve my relationship with the person I love?” If the answer is no, then ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” At home, if the comment you’re about to say could damage a relationship with the person you love, it is almost never worth it.”

Barbara’s ingredient number two is related, but the Goldsmith’s suggestion is very important. So often we think we are being helpful, but we’re stifling or hindering or perhaps even embarrassing someone we really care about who just wants some affirmation or confirmation about something they’re thinking about.

To read their full discussion click the following link. Marshall Goldsmith: The Dangers Of ‘Adding Value’ As CEO.

  Kelly Goldsmith and Marshall Goldsmith

Kelly Goldsmith is a professor of marketing at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. Marshall Goldsmith has been ranked as the world’s #1 leadership thinker and coach. His 44 books include the New York Times bestsellers What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Triggers and MOJO.

View More By This Author

Barbara’s Eight Ingredients of Happiness

  1. Strive to always say nice things about and to each other in private and publicly every day, everywhere.
  2. Avoid saying the two or three divisive, corrosive things we might love to mention every day. Just skip it.
  3. Always better to be positive or blah than negative or inflammatory.
  4. Keep negative, irritating, needlessly, and intentionally abrasive people out of our lives. Walk away.
  5. Happiness is having a simple, sensible, satisfying life every day.
  6. Maintain a genuine respect for each other 24.7.
  7. Always work to shift the credit for success to each other or others.
  8. Be sure your advice is helpful. Before you speak ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”

Barbara’s 8 Ingredients of Happiness

Devotion

How Leaders Think and Operate
Part Two:

This series of articles are provided as real insight into what happens in the C-Suite. So few PR people really get to work in the C-Suite on issues of importance to the entire organization. Most often we are in there briefly to get assignments, do projects, or answer questions. There is no practical school for learning how to be in a C-Suite effectively. This series of articles is designed to give you snapshots of the sort of things you want to learn and know about. I’m happy to discuss anything with anyone reading this document. Always happy to help our colleagues get more access to the top of the organization. If you have questions, please call or email jel@e911.com.

The main topics in this section of CEO Coaching Notes are: 

The Four Kinds of Information CEO’s Always Need

Each of these sessions provides important insights into how leaders think, how leaders plan, how leaders make decisions, and the information they need to have going forward. There is a lot of it. Always keep this in mind, one of the greatest CEO I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing and working with had terrific answers for crucial questions. And one of the most interesting answers I ever heard him say was when he was asked, “What is the most problematic part of your job as a CEO?” His answer surprised me but is incredible true and important for you to know. He said, “Being the last to know.” Think about it, knowing what the boss needs and wants to know and being able to provide it is one of the important and central keys to being invited into the C-Suite more frequently than for just planning another party.

    1. Data
      1. A sense of the market
      2. Organizational performance measures
    2. Perception issues
      1. What’s going on
      2. Gossip
      3. Temperament of investors
      4. Emotional state of the organization
      5. Candid assessment of the existing situation
      6. Candid assessment of the people in positions of responsibility to achieve their missions and reach these destinations.
    3. Responses to be executed in real-time
      1. Constantly redefining priorities
    4. What to do next
      1. Next steps
      2. Next events
      3. Next decisions
      4. Looking for barriers

    The Difference Between Leadership and Managing.

    • Managing is about making goals, and meeting the plan. Working inside the box.
    • Leadership is seeing over the horizon, choosing your destinations, then telling, teaching, and showing the rest of us where we are headed.
    • Strategy is how we get to the goals and achieve the vision.

    Management and Leadership

    • Management is…
    About coping with complexity, practices and procedures, control and problem-solving.

    Process and procedure.

    • Leadership is…
    About coping with change, competition, achieving grand visions, motivating, inspiration.

    Telling, showing, storytelling.

    • “Leadership and management are two distinct and complimentary action systems.”

    John P. Kotter What Leaders Really Do

    Leadership Realities

    • Leadership is…

    Most verbal communication

    A performing art

    Communication in the future tense

    About tomorrow and beyond

    Often on territory no one yet owns or occupies

    About strategy

    Strategy

    • Strategy is the key attribute of leaders and leadership.
    • Strategy is the energy that drives business and organizations, guides leadership, and directs the team.
    • Strategy draws people in the same direction.
    • Strategy is a positive, energizing state of mind.
    • Strategy provides the energy and momentum for the current plan of action.
    • Strategy is always positive.
    • Strategy is always about the future.

    Leaders are people of tomorrow. They work outside of the box. Their main job is to see over the horizon, identify new destinations, and then lead us to them.

    Leadership Realities

    • Leadership, when communicated, is the most strategic management value. Without leadership communication, even the most well-oiled machine will produce increasingly less value.
    • Leaders constantly search for ideas and concepts that can be concisely verbalized to drive the organization forward.
    • Leadership communication, of almost any kind and at almost any time, fosters forward movement in the organization.

    Why They Want Top Jobs

    • Enjoy complex problem-solving
    • Directly affect the business
    • Implement personal ideas
    • Help the organization go from good to great
    • Build a company to last
    • Make a difference in the world

    Why Top Jobs are Refused/Avoided*

    • Too little work/life balance
    • Too much focus on quarterly earnings
    • Too much stress
    • Too much public scrutiny
    • Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations
    • Too many stakeholders demands
    • Excessive media scrutiny

    What Sets Leaders Apart

    1. Focus on the future
    2. Truly see the bigger picture (are strategic)
    3. Develop followers
    4. Attract other leaders
    5. Act in real time

    How Leaders Think

    • It’s process, mostly
    • It’s inspiration, somewhat
    • It’s pragmatic (to survive)
    • It’s strategic (almost always)

    Why CEO’s Get Fired

    • Don’t deliver
    • Too optimistic
    • People problems
    • AWOL
    • Stuck in the mud
    • Communication Incompetence

    How Leaders Navigate

    They know50%
    They estimate25%
    They guess12.5%
    No clue12.5%
    When you are the leader, there is no one to follow. But you have the best view of the future.

    CEO Leadership Communication Function Ratios

    There are seven key leadership function ratios:

    Decision making:                                                    5%
    Articulating:        40%
    Coaching/Teaching/Motivating: 40%
    Forecasting (guessing):      5%
    Admiration Building:       6%
    Reputation Repair:       1%
    Repeating, Re-emphasizing, Re-interpreting:   20%

    117%
    The math is correct because the job of a leader is close to 24/7. Anyone who does anything on a 24/7 basis is, by definition, doing substantially more than any peer in a non-leadership position.

    Leadership Communication Impact on Employee & Organizational Performance

    CEO                            5%
    Senior management6%
    Upper management7%
    Middle management8%
    FLS30%
    T.G.N.T.M.25%
    I.M.I.U.

    Total    		19%

    100%

    Send Me Your Questions

    A lot of this information I know will be new to you, even if you spend some time in a C-Suite. I am happy to answer any of your questions about what I’m talking about in this section and any of the other articles in this series. The easiest way to is to email me at jel@e911.com. I’m frequently asked about all of these things so I’m pretty much ready with whatever answers you think you might need.

                Please write, and I will respond promptly. Looking forward to being helpful to you.

                Also important and available for free:

      10 Bad, and Intentional, Leadership Behaviors and Decisions That Corrode and Seriously Damage Community Relationships

      If you are a senior staffer or a particularly precocious junior staffer reading this, you’ll recognize these negative intentional leadership behaviors and decisions. Like many of you, I’ve been in the room with senior leadership countless times when the most unbelievable and often unrealistic, to say the least, discussions have occurred. Really smart people made decisions they knew were bad but did them anyway, out of frustration, irritation, spite, or getting even.

      Why do decisions like this happen so frequently? I think there are five reasons:

      1. The “I’m the smartest guy/gal in the room” syndrome. (Generally from business school grad).
      2. The only things that matter are the things you can actually count (compassion avoidance, insensitivity towards people, victims, injured or abused, living systems, rivers, lakes, forests, and species).
      3. Anything emotional is to be avoided, “I don’t want to look like a sissy to my peers.”
      4. No accommodation of or to negative voices because noticing them and their groups, ideas,  or troublemakers, don’t deserve it.
      5. Intentional disrespect.

      The reason I raise these behaviors and decisions in this way is that far too often we find ourselves as chief staff advisors failing to make a potent and powerful case against these behaviors and decisions. But each one of these, if carried out, invariably becomes extraordinarily expensive, reputationally harmful, often requiring long-term rehabilitation with concessions you would never have been forced to make had better decisions been made in the first place, and intentionally bad decisions avoided.  

      Here are seven of the most toxic.

      Seven Toxic Intentional Leadership Behaviors and Decisions That Are Disabling, Trust Busting, and Damaging to Community Cooperation And Support

      1. Failure to be truthful with communities.
        • This is done more by intentional information omission and outright lying.
      2. Failure to be forthcoming with communities.
        • This is mostly because management feels communities don’t deserve to have all of the information; “they haven’t earned it.” “Don’t know what to do with it.”
      3. Failure to trust communities with sufficient information to decide.
        • “It’s just a handful of angry people, powerless but irritable.” – Famous last words
      4. Failure to be open and engaging with the community.
        • Reflects a fundamental lack of respect for anyone who disagrees, who can’t be fired.
        • “We have been good corporate citizens responding to all requests and rules and therefore have earned a social license to do what we want and get what we want.”
      5. Failure to accept or invite community oversight, regulations, restrictions, and supervision.
        • What… am I crazy? “There are already too many meddlers.” Lexicon of Control
      6. Failure to answer all the questions that are being and will be asked.
        • Management: “You must be kidding. Who’s got the time for all of this? Communities don’t need to know half of the information you’re proposing to give away.”
        • “We will determine what the community needs to know.”
      7. Failure to continuously seek, ask for, and deserve community permission to operate.
        • Management asks, “Isn’t this what the permit process and politics are all about?”
        • Why doesn’t community dissent and controversy end once we get the permit and have answered all the most important political and public questions?

      Your Success Manifesto fo Community Trust Building, Permission Enabling, Cooperation Fostering, Public Support Generation

      1. Be truthful with communities.
        • Provide more information than requested.
      2. Be forthcoming with communities.
        • Communities deserve to have all of the information; because they are entitled to get it. The community wants those affected to have the information, all of it.
      3. Trust communities with sufficient information to decide.
        • Make sure angry people, opposing people, and those who need to hear, have the power, to be heard.
      4. Be open and engaging with the community.
        • Reflect, respect, and accommodation to anyone who disagrees. Protect and prevent antagonists and opponents from being retaliated against or fired.
        • Work every day to reestablish the community’s permission for you to do what you need and want, get what you need and when you need and want it.
      5. Accept and invite community oversight, regulations, restrictions, control, and supervision. Lexicon of Control
        • The more control you accept, the more power you have to actually manage your own destiny.
      6. Answer all the questions that are being asked, will be asked, should be asked, and especially questions that you wish they would ask you.
        • Management must make time for this! Stop asking when questions will have to be answered. You stop answering questions when people stop asking them.
        • Only communities know what they need to know. Suggest and provide more.
        • It is the community that decides what the community wants and needs to know. Comply. Better yet, anticipate and provide.
        • The greatest management communication mistake is failure to prepare for, introduce, and effectively answers all the questions you wish would be asked of you.
      7. Continuously seek, ask for, and earn community permission to operate.
        • Be prepared for community dissent and controversy to continue even after you get and meet all the conditions for permits, licenses, and truly answer all of the political and other public questions.
        • Management asks, “When will these angry and destructive people stop going after us and trying to increase restrictions on our operations? Every victory you have infuriates your opponents. The more successful your efforts the tougher the opposition becomes.
        • Start with the knowable, get the getable, do the doable, understand the understandable, keep this positive pressure on, and increase it where you can.

      Remember the first of Lukaszewski’s 12 Axioms of Crisis Avoidance/Survival: “Neither the media, your toughest opponents, smartest critics, nor the government knows enough to defeat you. Defeat is almost always the work of uninformed or overconfident, overly optimistic bosses, co-workers and associates; well-meaning but uninformed friends, relatives, or from dysfunction in an organization.”

      Boeing, the Poster Child for Intentionally Bad Decision Making

      At this writing in mid-2024, the most obvious current example of these corrosive behaviors is, in a single word: Boeing. To put it mildly, this company is in extraordinary turmoil. Its current Chairman is leaving, under duress, and is going to leverage a gigantic payout. The public is losing trust in this company. Doors have blown off Boeing planes in flight.  Boeing continues to fail more rigorous inspections by Federal Safety and Production Agencies.

      The company’s overwhelming problems are making it vulnerable to the ever-present international competition.

      The weight of all of these problems has slowed Boeing’s deliveries to the lowest point in five years. The company’s continuing history of safety issues spectacularly and fatally demonstrated by the crashes of the two fully loaded Boeing 737 Max plane crashes in Ethiopia and one in the Javis Sea these disasters still haunt the company. The revelations recently that the company has intentionally put delivery, production, and productivity over safety and public confidence. Legal issues are multiplying. A recent survey found that many Americans are willing to pay more to avoid flying on Boeing. Leadership failure has lead most often to devastating degradation of company progress and reputation. There are no more corners to cut.

      Another huge embarrassment, on the 30th of May 2024 Boeing’s long awaited and much  troubled manned space vehicle failed to launch being stopped in the last thirty seconds by a computer warning. Since the end of the American Space Program, Elon Musk’s rocket company has launched something like 85% of all American projects being put it into space. 48 hours after the emergency halt of the Boeing space vehicle launch, the company is unable to explain why this occurred. Remember one of my most favorite crisis axioms, bad news always ripens badly, things only get worse before they get better. Boeing’s situation is living proof with this action.  

      No one at Boeing has been indited, but investigations are ongoing.

      Let’s Find Out Who the Chronically Bad, Poorly Lead, and Intentionally Clumsy Company’s Are.

      Question for you. What company’s organizations and business leaders would you include in this list of chronically bad and intentional, willful leaders? Send me your ideas and suggestions about the candidates, company’s, and circumstances in a hundred words or less and we’ll discuss them specifically in an upcoming newsletter or broadcast.

      Please use my direct email address (jel@e911.com) to submit your examples.

      How Leaders Think and Operate
      Part One:

      Inspiration: To influence CEO, leadership and management behavior, we need to know who these people are, how they think and decide things, and where we can have the most useful influence.

      Welcome to CEO Coaching Notes, an ongoing series of thoughts, ideas, and practical advice to both help and influence leaders and those around them deal with the opportunities, questions, problems, and situations they are facing and will face in the future. This first section is as titled on how leaders think and operate. It’s important to have a sense of how this happens and to be able to discipline and offer advice quickly when assistance is needed or helpful.

                  This first section on my philosophy is crucial to those I advise understanding me and where I come from. This collection of ideas helps set the stage for an ongoing relationship of candor, openness, productive and spontaneous activities, and thinking.

                  Everything I talk about is designed to open the minds of those I work with to other possibilities and options for action. Thinking, planning, and using this approach ensures that I’m using their time to their best advantage based on what they need to know, do, think about, and forecast. We begin with the CEO because some people say it’s their bus to drive and our job to help them do a better job. If these observations raise questions, and I hope they do, then simply drop me a line at jel@e911.com with a comment and I will respond. Include your phone number and I will call you back.

      My Philosophy

      1. All problems are management problems before they are any other kind of problem.
      2. All management problems are leadership challenges. No victims, no crisis.
      3. A crisis is a problem that creates victims. People, animals, living systems.
      4. Leadership resides with those who can maintain more supporters than detractors.
      5. Staff functions exist and are funded by leadership to help leaders do their jobs better.
      6. Managers and leaders want to make the decisions…often based on the advice they receive from Trusted Strategic Advisors.

      Precautions for Advisors

      • Remember who’s driving the bus (the boss is.)
      • Staff functions have limitations.
      • Change the changeable; do the doable; know the knowable.
      • Understand the limitations of leadership. Be helpful. Anticipate shortcomings.
      • Develop a sensible behavior change strategy.
      • All leaders and managers think they are good to great communicators.

      This Program Will Help You To:

      • Truly know the boss (and your boss)
      • Get heard earlier on serious issues
      • Understand CEO survival patterns
      • Influence important decisions when crisis occurs
      • Know what motivates leaders to act in crisis, and when they misbehave
      • Succeed if your boss is not the CEO
      • Identify the words and actions on the part of management that can significantly worsen a crisis situation and, conversely, the ones that can move the situation toward a more satisfactory resolution.
      • Overcome management objections to crisis readiness.
      • Master the skills required to be a verbal visionary and valued counselor.

      My Assumptions

      1. You are the table.
      2. You recognize what you need to do to be trusted.
      3. You are willing to change yourself to get there.
      4. YOYO (You’re On Your Own, because you are)

      Leadership Patterns that Influence Readiness

      • Very few management problems are crises.
      • All crises are management and leadership problems. (problems that produce victims are crisis.)
      • Readiness is a management term (crisis management is a PR term) avoid PR terms.
      • Readiness is the goal. Readiness is a primary management responsibility.

      CEO Survival Forecast

      • CEOs are leaving faster.
      • Tenures are more intense, as well as shorter.
      • Higher profiles require more strategic guidance and counsel.
      • The first 100 days remain critical to success. Failures among first-time CEO’s are increasing.
      • Prosecution and persecution of top executives will continue.

      CEO Communication Trends

      • Non-business issues – globalization, adverse legislation, and anti-corporate activism – are intruding on management. These interruptions seem soft and distractive, often requiring moral rather than monetary or business judgment.
      • Continuing scandals mean CEOs are being measured to some degree on their morality and belief systems.
      • In both the U.S. and in Europe, career-defining risks for CEOs are increasing.
      • The avg. tenure of U.S., Canadian, and European CEOs is decreasing, yet most organizations still plan further into the business cycle than the current CEO is likely to survive.
      • One in four CEOs of major British businesses (sales over £500 million) leaves their job ahead of schedule. This rate continues to increase.
      • CEO average ages are declining.
      • Becoming a CEO is no longer a permanent appointment or final job assignment.

      Inside the Mind of the Chief Executive

      • Huge compensation packages allow CEOs to drop out before they are fired or forced out.
      • Even when they are forced out or fired, they get a large compensation package.
      • Compensation has become the measure of success.

      The New Top Executive Agenda

      • With the exponential rise of social networking and 24/7 web activism, more individuals than ever are watching, counting, and publicizing whether what bosses do and say matches what they have done and said. Troubles often get announced in advance in these new mediums, platforms well before legacy media.
      • Career-defining risks for CEOs and senior executives are increasing.
      • The typical CEO will spend 40% or more of their time on non-operating issues like:
      Adverse legislation
      Angry Neighbors
      Anti-corporate activism
      Compensation controversy
      Employee distrust
      Globalization / Political Sensitivities
      Internal Allegations
      Internal confusion about goals
      Irritated regulators
      Legislative Initiatives
      Personal Attacks
      Weaponized issues
      Whistleblowing

      The CEO’s World

      • All training is on-the-job
      • Limited freedom to act / decide (often a surprise to new CEO’s)
      • Lonely
      • No school
      • No educational track (the job is the education)
      • Often last to know
      • Only one such position in any organization
      • The Mom Factor (often closer to many CEO’s than Dad)

      CEO Surprises

      • More of an influencer than a doer
      • Decisions based on learned details, rather than in depth knowledge.
      • Being observed and monitored by so many, so often (can seem creepy)
      • The buck, still stops with the CEO
      • The difficulty of figuring out what to do next

      CEO Success Secrets

      • Focus
      • Limited objectives
      • Supportive people
      • Communicate constantly
      • Fix fast
      • Change fast
      • Finish projects that can be finished
      • Stopping failing projects before disaster strikes

      The Five Main Tasks of the CEO

      1. Soft intrusions
        a. Employee negotiations
        b. Navigating negative news
        c. Corporate embarrassment
      2. Hard obstacles
        a. Massive stock price drop
        b. Major product defect or problem
        c. Employee walkouts/Internal job actions
      3. Nagging problems
        a. Activist attacks
        b. Rumors
        c. Unfounded and founded allegations
      4. Career-defining moments
        a. Major organizational disruptions
        b. Criminal investigations
        c. Unethical behavior
        d. High profile product failures
      5. A vision of the future, the strategies to get there, and moving ahead when the headwinds are blowing.

      What is the Manifesto* for Your Practice?

      What are the Ethical, Practical Principles and Behaviors That Guide and Drive Your Practice?

      The Seventh Discipline of the Trusted Strategic Advisor

      My career has been more than forty years of refining what I stand for, always searching for the truth first and helping others do the same. I share this list with anyone interested, but especially those I’m advising. In order to be a truly successful Trusted Strategic Advisor, you need to teach what you coach in ways that help CEO’s absorb what you are talking about and do, in many cases, what you advise. You need to teach you right along with the advice you give.

      This list keeps growing and so will yours. Start building your own practice manifesto now.

      What will your practice manifesto look like? Here’s mine to get you started.

      *A public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives. – dictionary.com

      Jim’s Practice Manifesto

      1. Seek the truth first, find ethical, civil, and decent pathways, promptly and urgently.
      2. Truth is generally best expressed in positive declarative language and consists of 15% facts and data and 85% emotion and point of reference.

        There is a mistaken notion (from business schools) that the more facts presented the more likely the truth will emerge. The exact opposite is true. The more facts and data are released, the more confused people get, but more importantly, burying people, especially victims, in facts and data makes them feel stupid or foolish, and they get angrier and more powerful. The challenge of truth is understanding the emotionality of truth and especially the fact that there are different points of reference on every issue or question. In fact, there is a different point of reference for every witness, every victim, and everyone affected. Each of those points of reference is valid and true from the perspective of the person involved.

        The challenge of truth is always finding significant and important factual information but understanding, interpreting, and sometimes negotiating with people whose point of reference is very different from others involved in the same issue, situation, or problem.

        Management often uses facts and data as a defense against having to interpret, explore, and explain emotions. The more facts are used as weapons, the bigger your loss will be when you finally settle the issue.
      3. Use truth-hiding and truth-confusing techniques very carefully. Storytelling, metaphors, allegories, euphemisms, “ . . .in other words”, similes, and analogies rarely reveal, explore, or produce truth. Remember, these techniques are frequently used by liars. If something is a half-truth, it is a whole lie.
      4. Avoid known patterns of failure: silence: stalling: denial: victim-confusion: testosterosis: arrogance: searching for the guilty: fear of the media: whining. All of these behaviors build suspicion and anger.
      5. Ask better, tougher, more constructive questions than anyone else.
      6. Be 15 minutes early, or first.
      7.  Avoid surprises, forecast trouble (have a readiness plan in hand).
      8. Think before you edit, put your pencil down. Question all edits. Resist mindless editing. Seek simple, sensible, constructive explanations and information. Effective editing makes the truth easier to see, often in fewer words.
      9. Constantly challenge the standard assumptions and practices of our profession; build its importance, enhance the ability of all practitioners to better serve others from their perspective. Raise your hand. Speak up. Break the silence. Reveal the truth.
      10. Be productive, do the doable; know the knowable; get the getable; arrange the arrangeable, avoid the dumb and troublesome decisions and actions you know you should. Make a list. Remember. If you make a bad decision, never repeat it.
      11. Say things others fear to say, voice them first. Start with what is obvious and likely true. All crises ripen badly. In crises, things will always get worse before they can get better.
      12. Say less but make it more important. Write less but make it more meaningful and memorable.
      13. Go beyond what those you advise and those you work with already know or believe.
      14. Intend to make constructive, positive ethical differences every day. Keep a log.
      15. Intentionally look at every situation and circumstance from different, constructive, and surprising perspectives.
      16. Look out for the real victims. Always put victim interests first. Fail to do this and the victims will bury you.
      17. Remember, it’s your boss’s “bus.” They get to drive it wherever they want. Your role on “the bus” is to help the driver drive better. If you don’t like it, or them, can’t change it, or them, hop off, find another bus, or find and drive your own.
      18. Stop trying to save the day. The biggest staff mistake is to hang around in the vain belief that you can redeem yourself or, change how someone powerful does things, believes, and behaves. When they are done asking you and listening to you, find a new bus. When they have an opportunity to look a new direction, they surprise you by hiring an outsider and then you’re gone.
      19. Remember the loyalty exception: If whatever is happening on your bus is illegal, immoral, monumentally stupid, what are you doing there anyway? Leave that bus today and find a better one!
      20. Be aware that every issue, question, concern, or problem is a management/leadership issue, question, concern or problem (rather than a crisis) before it is any other kind of issue, question, concern or problem (including public relations).
      21. Start where leadership or management IS or you will end up in different places and fail.
      22. Strive for simple, sensible, sensitive, positive, constructive, compassionate, helpful, honorable, and ethical action options. All other approaches lead to trouble.
      23. The most usable advice format for leaders and managers to choose from is options. Always provide your advice as 3 options: doing nothing (0% option), doing something (100% option), doing something more (125% option). Let the person whose career is on the line choose the options and make the key decisions. That’s their job. Your job is to identify plausible, ethical, sensible, doable options from which managers and leaders can choose.
      24. Be Inconsistent. Inconsistency is the greatest virtue of strategy. The strategist’s greatest value is intentional inconsistency. If all you can provide are things the people around you already know, why are you there?
      25. Avoid, prevent, or stop Evil, the increasingly intentional harming of innocents and people without power. Innocents include vulnerable populations, animals and living creatures, and living systems (forests, bodies of water, the earth). (See V. below.)

      My Fundamental Beliefs

      1. All questionable, inappropriate, unethical, unconscionable, immoral, predatory, improper, victim-producing, and criminal behaviors are intentional. Adults chose specifically to do wrong.
      1. All ethical, moral, compassionate, decent, civil, and lawful behaviors are also intentional.
      1. The choice is always clear and always yours.
      1. Those who lead with genuine integrity, civility, respect, decency, humility, and compassion are likely to be more ethical, and trustworthy.
      1. Unconscionable intentions, behaviors, actions, and decisions that vilify, demean, dismiss, diminish, humiliate, cause needless but intentional pain, express anger and irritation, demand or bully, are mean, negative, insulting, disrespectful, disparaging, tone-deaf, without empathy, that intentionally injure, accuse, overbear, are punitive, restrictive, exceed the boundaries of decency, civility, and integrity, are, in my judgement, all unethical.
      1. Teaching what I can do, how I can help, the perspectives I bring, this is the substance of the seventh discipline, teaching the CEO how to best utilize my skills and services. If it doesn’t work or only works for a limited time, be prepared to move on, because they may have for any number of reasons.

      What About You?

      What are the principles that guide your practice, your thinking, your actions? What does your practice manifesto look like? I am always open to conversations about all these ideas. Contact me at jel@e911.com, subject line: “Ethical and Practical Principles”. If you do write or call me, I will send you my powerful one-page “Model Personal Profile, The purposes and passions of my life”.

      How to Get More Invitations to the C-Suite and Be Heard Part 2

      Be Quick, Be Careful, Be Candid, Have a Management Mindset

      My practical and empirical knowledge combined with the research of others demonstrates consistently that bosses expect these crucial attributes and behaviors from trusted strategic advisors: 

      • Real-Time Advice: Typically, staff advisors come to listen to their leadership then, head back to their office to figure out how to help them or if they can. The trusted strategic advisor gives cogent advice on the spot without having to leave the room. 
      • Candor: Truth with an attitude delivered immediately. Something that Public Relations practitioners have difficulty with as evidenced by the recent research by Dr. Marlene Neill revealing ten troublesome issues that practitioners face every day. If your reaction to this definition is, “Jim, you don’t know my boss!” That’s probably true, but it’s time to leave the organization if your boss has a problem with candor.  
      • Coach at Every Opportunity: This is really what one of the greatest values we provide to those we advise. Coaching rather than having a specific answer for things, is the art of options, and suggestions, that is offering three approaches to respond to an issue or question before management.
      • Consequence Analysis, Being Insightful: This is the trusted strategic advisors greatest challenge, to be more than relevant, and to be able to comment on much broader areas than just what the news media is going to be doing or thinking.
      • Knowing What is Important: Senior people, contrary to their behavior, are interested in input on what they should be dealing with and should be thinking about or in fact are dealing with or thinking about. How does one find this out? Ask and keep asking. Be an intelligence collector and sharer.
      • Early Warning: Another value of the trusted strategic advisor is their knowledge of what’s happening throughout the organization. Rather than being the first to acknowledge what others have revealed or spoken about, your credibility is really built on being the first person to alert management to issues and questions they need to be concerned about. When I asked top leaders what the worst problem is they face every day, almost unanimously it is, “Being the last to know.” The trusted strategic advisor worth their salt, skips all those filters, sidetracks, and barriers to information and brings intelligence information immediately to the attention of top people.
      • What To Do Next: Seems ironic but one of the great problems in leadership is knowing what to do and what the next steps are. In dozens and dozens of conversations over the years with leaders and managers who were having difficulties, offhand I would say 90% of the problem came from really not knowing what to do next and not being able to get some reasonable advice on what those actions and decisions and problems should be or are. This questions actually is at the top of every leaders list, “What the heck do I do now?” One of the great techniques of the trusted strategic advisor is the, “What if” exercise. What if this happened? What if that happened? What would you do? What would you say? What would you decide? What is the first step you should take? If you can play a role in the, “What’s next?” game. You’ll be among the first to be invited to every important meeting.

      Now, let’s talk about the current reality.  

      The purpose of examining this list is a way of analyzing yourself, how you operate, what you think about yourself, and how you approach the task of being a trusted strategic advisor.

      This is hard but please listen up.

      Public Relations tends to rely on what I call the Liar’s List of communication tactics. This is the tendency to avoid positive declarative, definitive, evidence-supported communication in favor of nine alternative communication strategies:

      • Allegories
      • Analogies
      • Euphemisms
      • False Comparisons
      • Lies
      • Metaphors
      • Similes
      • Stories
      • Verbal Translation, “In other words…”.

      Each of these techniques are obvious attempts to state anything but the simple plain truth. This is the list liars use by those with whom we disagree or who are disagreeable. The two most abused of these techniques are metaphors, explaining something and using a substitute reality, and stories, which unlike life, have obvious beginnings, middles, and ends, usually attention-getting opening, statements, and a conclusion in the form of a lesson, message, conclusion, punch-line, insight, moral, or self-evident truth. If only life would behave this way.

      The whole problem with stories is that they are completely artificial (euphemism for lies). Life does not have a sensible beginning, middle, or end, A Situation rarely starts with snappy opening headlines and rarely concludes with the definitive statement of purpose, accomplishment, or an obvious ending. They are fabrications. The truths of stories are almost always fabricated. So now you’re asking me, “What if a story is half true…?” Half a truth is always all lie.

      Too often, one of the biggest values senior executives can count on us for is our skill in creating an alternative universe of information about something that may be difficult, unpleasant, or unwanted to communicate. That is intentional untruthfulness.

      The goal has to be candor.

      Be More Careful

      1. Our function has a reputation for avoiding conflict and candor. This is one of the reasons we’re often left out of important meetings at senior levels. If the issue is important, management is still taught to arrive at important decisions through conflict and aggressive argument. If that makes you feel uncomfortable it shows quickly and without mentioning anything to you, you will be automatically excluded from meetings where intensive discussions take place. Advising leaders requires a tough stomach.
      2. Also, we tend to avoid naming what we see, or worse, we find ways to euphemize and therefore avoid getting the benefits of candor and clarity. Anger, even violent anger being described as, “Tempers boiling over…” or, “Softening harsh language. Truth is usually blunt and hard.
      3. Our inability or unwillingness to accurately and dispassionately assess skills, competence, strengths, and weaknesses of other members of the senior team and staff. We don’t have much of a taste for evaluating the skills of others the way senior executives must. Most of the major business problems organizations face are created by people in positions of importance. If there’s one thing that most senior leaders need it is staff who can accurately, helpfully, and purposefully assess strengths, weaknesses, shortcomings, skills, apititudes, accessibility, and other attributes of those on the senior team including themselves. If that responsibility tends to make you uncomfortable, you become less valuable in everything else you do for the senior team.
      4. The notion that we are an organization’s conscience. This is a pretty big and important burden. One of these days I hope that someone actually defines or lays out a job description of corporate conscience. The idea seems to work in some organizations. I’ll be writing about this in a future Jim’s Wisdom. Many of those who consider themselves corporate consciences also consider themselves experts in ethics. Sometimes accurate, but often oversimplified.  

      Changing the Management Mindset

      A number of years ago I was a senior advisor to a fortune company going through a very devastating criminal proceeding. People had died, were injured, the behavior of certain individuals at the company was intentional, several were prosecuted and six went to prison. The Chairman was acquitted during the trial and retired.

      The company itself, however, took it’s problems seriously and worked to begin to understand how a company this successful and this important, saving lives every day could get into the mess that they had.

      They hired several forensic compliance consultants to interview many employees to get a sense of what employees expected of company leadership during times of crisis. Here is that list. For those of you who act as corporate consciences, I urge you to examine this list and see if you could actually deliver useful advice to senior management based on employee expectations.

      Employee Expectations of Leadership During
       Emergencies and Tough Times (i.e. All the Time)

      a. Find the truth as soon as possible: Tell that truth and act on it immediately.

      b. Promptly raise the tough questions and answer them thoughtfully: This includes asking and answering questions yet to be asked or thought of by those who will be affected by whatever the circumstance is.

      c. Teach by a truthful parable: Emphasizing wrong-way and right-way lessons.

      d. Vocalize core business values and ideals constantly: These include the values and ideals, the ways and behaviors that employees bring to work each day.

      e. Walk the talk: Be accessible; help people understand the organization within the context of its values and ideals at every opportunity.

      f. Help, expect, and enforce ethical leadership: People are watching; people are counting; people know when there are lapses in ethics causing trust to be broken. When bad things happen in good organizations, it’s those occasional lapses that deepen the troubles.

      g. Preserve, protect, defend, and foster ethical pathways to the top of the organization: Constantly identify, explain, explore, and warn about situations where ethical processes can be compromised, especially among executives who are on upward career trajectories.

      h. Be a cheerleader, model, and teacher of ethical behavior: Ethical behavior builds and maintains trust. In fact, to have trust in an organization requires that its leaders act ethically constantly.

      i. Make values as least as important as profits: Research shows that most people seem to enjoy working more when they are with organizations they respect, people they trust, leadership they can rely on, and who respect them. Wherever you find an organization or company that puts values on the same level as profits, there is often even more loyalty and support because companies who do this sacrifice for principle. Everybody notices and wants to be a part of these kinds of organizations.

      j. Be respected: Research also shows that respect is more desired by employees than any number of perks and preferences. Respect is what draws employees back to work each day.

      Two Powerful Mantras of Written and Verbal Communication and the Truth About Stories

      I learned long ago that fewer rather than more words tend to help understanding, especially of truth.

      These examples have been my guiding thoughts as I write most any document or prepare a speech to an audience:

      1. The Ten Commandments, Exodus Version, has 313 words.
      2. The Gettysburg Address had but 272 words.
      3. John F. Kennedy’s, Going the Moon speech at Rice University, 26 words, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and to do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard.” 
      4. John F. Kennedy, 17 words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
      5. Martin Luther King, 4 words, “I have a dream.” (four words and seven dreams out of a 91-minute presentation in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial.)
      • Write less but make it more important and more memorable.
      • Say less but make it interesting, powerful, and important.
      • What makes a story valuable is a moral, or a lesson, or key message or purpose, or a self-evident truth.  
      • Use stories carefully. Most stories are never true.