This week's film from Nic Askew is - as most are - kickin'. Well worth taking the seven minutes (or ten minutes, if you treat yourself to both films). Winner of the original 'Apprentice' reflects on being true to yourself, regardless of whatever is going on around you. Thanks Nic!
An encouraging trend! There seem to be more leadership blogs emerging. A few notable examples include:
Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman's blog
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystem's CEO's blog
Jacque Kemp, ING Asia / Pacific CEO's blog
Mark Price, Waitrose Managing Director's blog
Of these, I think my favorite is Mark Price's blog. He combines his personal experience (trying to lose weight) with practical advice (a nutritionist offering tips and feedback) as well as recipes (healthy and otherwise), a discussion forum, and shopping list functionality. In my mind Mr. Price has done a wonderful job of mixing his humanity with business. The blog site is human, conversational, practical and usable. He invites a conversation. These are the marks of a great blog to which I aspire. For more objective standards you may want to check out the Blogger’s Choice Awards.
But hey, since this is my blog, here’s where I’ll offer my own two cents.
In Mr. Kemp’s blog I love that he’s using social media to talk about social media. He brings in terrific examples of how ING is using Web 2.0 to create conversation. Mr. Kemp uses illustrative maps, refers to ING’s use of Second Life, and uses SlideShare (a sort of slide version of YouTube) while talking about ING strategy, technology and community activities. The tone is conversational and comfortable. Blogger’s Choice agrees: “My Cup of Cha” has been nominated as one of the best corporate blogs.
Personally I’d love to see some additional user interaction on the blog. Links to financial planning tools. Links to additional leadership blogs within ING. Perhaps some personal tidbits about Mr. Kemp and other ING leaders. It’s a great company. Let us get to know you a little bit!
But all in all, a “My Cup of Cha” is a wonderful example of leadership blogging in action.
Similarly, Mr. Lutz’s blog offers terrific information about (not surprisingly) GM cars. If you love a GM car, chances are that he (or his writing team) have blogged about it. He gets a fair number of comments, so kudos to Mr. Lutz for interaction. His tone is fairly open and conversational. He doesn’t discourage conversation, even when it’s a bit controversial.
Again, I'd love to see Mr. Lutz adopt some additional user interaction, a la Car Talk. OK, since I’m from Boston I’ll be the first to admit that I'm a sucker for the Tappet brothers, but their 'Time Kill Central' rocks. It's the perfect mix of humor and information.
Overall I'm simply thrilled that more leaders are blogging. Cheers to the folks listed above, among others! And the more leaders that get their thoughts out there in a personal way, the better.
According to the July 2007 issue of SHRM's HR Magazine "a company's culture can be molded - and for the better - by the cumulative power of small decencies." News? No. But certainly worth remembering.
Scanning the article, I found my emotions morphing from incredulous disdain ("This is news?!?") to appreciation for a basic reminder that bears repeating.
Small decencies cited in the article include:
Characteristics of 'decencies' include:
My friend Shaleen gave a perfect example when I was chatting with her last Friday. Shaleen and her husband sell car parts at a local race track on weekends. She described her favorite track in Minnesota. It's not the facilities or the money. It's the track owner. At the end of each race night the track owner personally shakes the hand of each of the 200 participating race car drivers, and thanks them for racing. Basic decency.
Is it a habit for you, or one to begin cultivating? Just for today, have fun noticing the basic decencies at work and at home. Where do they already exist? Where are the opportunities?
I've been so inspired this week.
First, the frank team had a mind-blowing meeting with Brightcove in Cambridge, MA where we pulled out heads up from our day-to-day client work and batted around some amazing possibilities for distributing user-generated video content, for ourselves and our clients. What a blast. It's always a treat when you can take a day or two to get OUT of the business to work ON the business.
Then I shifted gears toward the holidays. I drove south about an hour to see my dad and brothers. Now, those of you who know me have heard: my dad has had a tough year. In the last five months my mom and his best friend have died, he's had major surgery and his house has been flooded with 150 gallons of oil and declared a hazardous waste site. He's struggling day to day to coordinate contractors and insurance, sort out what can be saved and what needs to be tossed (no mean feat after 46 years of marriage / accumulations), shuffle his sleeping quarters among his friends' homes, and just plain breathe through the toxic fumes.
And Dad wants to put up Christmas decorations. His life is a bit of a disaster right now and he wants to celebrate.
And what I notice is that most people, frequently including myself, are not as mindful of the positive. Not as determined to focus on what's good in life. Not as driven by what CAN be (vision), versus what is.
Which renews my commitment to find the good where I can, and grab on to it with both hands. Hard.
This is so cool: Coca-Cola has announced its intention to work with rural African communities, using Coca-Cola's product and logistics expertise to bring drinking water (and other beverages) to the communities.
In my mind, the most exciting part is Coca-Cola's movement from a web 1.0-based, colonial, bureaucratic approach (such as the approach it used to bring soft drinks to India, where high pesticide levels resulted in product bans) to a web 2.0, grass roots partnership approach with local communities.
Hats off to Coca-Cola for taking a new approach, letting go of 'control', and partnering for a lasting solution!
REALLY interesting leadership research conducted by Yankelovich in 2005, randomly interviewing over 1300 people about their views on leadership, the characteristics essential to leaders, and their confidence in today's leaders. (Study highlights on page three, important leadership traits page 11.) What I found interesting - 1) that interviewees saw themselves as part of the problem, for not being better informed, and 2) ethics and integrity topped the list of leadership characteristics. Interesting to take that list of leadership characteristics and hold the mirror up (toward me? toward my organization's leaders?), and see what shows up....
