Short But Sweet
I wrote a book on leadership called, Vital Integrities: How Values-Based Leaders Acquire and Preserve Their Credibility. It is 252 pages long. In case you don't have time to read the whole thing, I have listed ten quotes from successful leaders that I referenced in my book. These quotes, taken out of context and standing alone, should provide all the advice you need to become a better leader.
Ricardo Semler: "If we have a cardinal strategy that forms the bedrock for all our practices, it may be this: Ask why. Ask it all the time, ask it any day, every day, and always ask it three times in a row."
Howard Schultz: "If people relate to the company they work for, if they share an emotional tie to it and buy in to its dreams, they will pour their heart into making it better."
Robert Reich: "The change agent of the old economy worked in an environment where incremental change was all that was needed -- and all that was tolerated. Change today demands the change insurgent."
Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom internal auditor who bravely disclosed to its board's audit committee how the company had covered up $3.8 billion in losses through deceitful bookkeeping methods): "There is a price to be paid. There have been times that I could not stop crying."
Jeff Bezos: "I'd rather interview fifty people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person."
Mike Eskew (speaking to UPS employees after 9/11): "In today's climate of uncertainty, when our neighbors and friends and customers see our brown package cars rolling down the streets of Manhattan...or small towns across the country...they take comfort in knowing that the daily rhythm of life...and commerce...moves on."
Dana Beth Ardi: "Glorifying the top 20 percent doesn't ensure you get the job done. It's not about the top; it's about finding the right combination of people to accomplish the mission."
Billy Starr (founder of the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, the largest athletic fundraising event in the country): "A unified force of people made whole by the belief in a single mission has the ability to improve the human condition."
Frederick W. Smith: "You have to have rewarding, alternate career paths for outstanding specialists -- engineers, for example, or R&D people -- who can continue to make major contributions to the organization without going into management."
Ralph Nader: "A basic function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."
To learn more about Vital Integrities, click here.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Ricardo Semler: "If we have a cardinal strategy that forms the bedrock for all our practices, it may be this: Ask why. Ask it all the time, ask it any day, every day, and always ask it three times in a row."
Howard Schultz: "If people relate to the company they work for, if they share an emotional tie to it and buy in to its dreams, they will pour their heart into making it better."
Robert Reich: "The change agent of the old economy worked in an environment where incremental change was all that was needed -- and all that was tolerated. Change today demands the change insurgent."
Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom internal auditor who bravely disclosed to its board's audit committee how the company had covered up $3.8 billion in losses through deceitful bookkeeping methods): "There is a price to be paid. There have been times that I could not stop crying."
Jeff Bezos: "I'd rather interview fifty people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person."
Mike Eskew (speaking to UPS employees after 9/11): "In today's climate of uncertainty, when our neighbors and friends and customers see our brown package cars rolling down the streets of Manhattan...or small towns across the country...they take comfort in knowing that the daily rhythm of life...and commerce...moves on."
Dana Beth Ardi: "Glorifying the top 20 percent doesn't ensure you get the job done. It's not about the top; it's about finding the right combination of people to accomplish the mission."
Billy Starr (founder of the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, the largest athletic fundraising event in the country): "A unified force of people made whole by the belief in a single mission has the ability to improve the human condition."
Frederick W. Smith: "You have to have rewarding, alternate career paths for outstanding specialists -- engineers, for example, or R&D people -- who can continue to make major contributions to the organization without going into management."
Ralph Nader: "A basic function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."
To learn more about Vital Integrities, click here.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Blind Justice
Does the Treasury Department discriminate against Americans who are blind? U.S. District Judge James Robertson thinks it does, at least when it comes to printing money. Robertson ruled that the Treasury's paper money format violates the Rehabilitation Act, a 1973 law prohibiting government programs from discriminating on the basis of disability. The judge ordered the government agency to change the way it prints currency to give people who are blind an easy way of distinguishing one denomination from another.
"Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations," Robertson wrote in his opinion. "More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired." The ruling came after a four-year lawsuit brought by The American Council of the Blind.
Government attorneys argued that changing the size or texture of money would be expensive and cited the costs of equipment upgrades and increased annual expenditures. But consider that, since 1990, the U.S. Treasury Department has invested billions to alter the look and feel of paper money in an effort to prevent counterfeiting. Treasury moneymakers have incorporated security threads and microprinting, increased the size of the portraits, and added hints of color. The redesigned $50 and $20 bills are already in circulation; new $10 bills are due this year, and the $5 changes should come out in 2008. So with all the modifications they were making to our currency, why didn't Treasury officials address the known problem of helping people who are blind easily tell bills apart?
Some will undoubtedly say that the ruling is the product of another in a long list of frivolous lawsuits. But thank goodness, for all Americans who are visually impaired, in Judge Robertson's courtroom justice is indeed blind.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
"Of the more than 180 countries that issue paper currency, only the United States prints bills that are identical in size and color in all their denominations," Robertson wrote in his opinion. "More than 100 of the other issuers vary their bills in size according to denomination, and every other issuer includes at least some features that help the visually impaired." The ruling came after a four-year lawsuit brought by The American Council of the Blind.
Government attorneys argued that changing the size or texture of money would be expensive and cited the costs of equipment upgrades and increased annual expenditures. But consider that, since 1990, the U.S. Treasury Department has invested billions to alter the look and feel of paper money in an effort to prevent counterfeiting. Treasury moneymakers have incorporated security threads and microprinting, increased the size of the portraits, and added hints of color. The redesigned $50 and $20 bills are already in circulation; new $10 bills are due this year, and the $5 changes should come out in 2008. So with all the modifications they were making to our currency, why didn't Treasury officials address the known problem of helping people who are blind easily tell bills apart?
Some will undoubtedly say that the ruling is the product of another in a long list of frivolous lawsuits. But thank goodness, for all Americans who are visually impaired, in Judge Robertson's courtroom justice is indeed blind.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
The Benefit of Trust
A recent poll conducted by Maritz Research about workplace benefits reveals how leadership actions affect employee trust. In an online survey of over 1,300 randomly selected U.S. workers, nearly half of all respondents indicated that benefits are extremely important to them. Not surprisingly, those to whom benefits are very important said they chose their current employers because of their attractive benefit packages. Furthermore, those who are satisfied with their organization's benefits say they are likely to stay. But worth noting is how drastically employees' opinions of their leaders change when companies ask workers to give up or share in the cost of their benefits.
"Perhaps the most interesting finding was that taking away or reducing benefits was associated with greater job dissatisfaction than having no benefits at all," said Rick Garlick, Ph.D., director of consulting and strategic implementation at Maritz. Consider these examples from the survey: Only 27 percent of workers without benefits disagreed with the statement, "my company's leaders are ethical and honest," compared to 51 percent of employees with reduced or eliminated benefits. Forty-three percent of workers with no healthcare benefits disagreed that "senior management's actions are consistent with their words," versus 62 percent of employees asked to pay a greater share of their healthcare costs. In short, employees who never had healthcare or retirement benefits are more likely to trust their leaders than those workers who had benefits taken away.
As the Maritz survey illustrates, employees who join an organization because it offers something they value will feel betrayed if they suspect their interests and needs will now go unmet. It's the same whether we take back their healthcare benefits, or revoke the freedom we gave them to do their jobs; it's no different if we discontinue a 401(k) match, or stop promoting from within. Once they perceive, whether accurately or not, that management changed or somehow misrepresented the company's values, employees lose trust in their leaders, and they feel foolish for having trusted their employers in the first place.
Before you ask employees to pay more for their benefits, or to forgo them altogether, ask yourself if the increase to the bottom line is worth the decrease in employee trust. And when you're looking to earn and maintain employee trust, make sure you're living by the values you profess.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
"Perhaps the most interesting finding was that taking away or reducing benefits was associated with greater job dissatisfaction than having no benefits at all," said Rick Garlick, Ph.D., director of consulting and strategic implementation at Maritz. Consider these examples from the survey: Only 27 percent of workers without benefits disagreed with the statement, "my company's leaders are ethical and honest," compared to 51 percent of employees with reduced or eliminated benefits. Forty-three percent of workers with no healthcare benefits disagreed that "senior management's actions are consistent with their words," versus 62 percent of employees asked to pay a greater share of their healthcare costs. In short, employees who never had healthcare or retirement benefits are more likely to trust their leaders than those workers who had benefits taken away.
As the Maritz survey illustrates, employees who join an organization because it offers something they value will feel betrayed if they suspect their interests and needs will now go unmet. It's the same whether we take back their healthcare benefits, or revoke the freedom we gave them to do their jobs; it's no different if we discontinue a 401(k) match, or stop promoting from within. Once they perceive, whether accurately or not, that management changed or somehow misrepresented the company's values, employees lose trust in their leaders, and they feel foolish for having trusted their employers in the first place.
Before you ask employees to pay more for their benefits, or to forgo them altogether, ask yourself if the increase to the bottom line is worth the decrease in employee trust. And when you're looking to earn and maintain employee trust, make sure you're living by the values you profess.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Shorty Gordon
Once upon a time, when there was honor among soldiers, prisoners of war were duty-bound to make every effort to escape. In fact, attempting escape was part of what many considered the noble game of war, rather than a punishable wartime act. In his book, A Prisoner's Duty, Robert C. Doyle describes four different escaper personalities. Some seize opportunities that present themselves, gambling on a spur-of-the-moment break. Others need the comfort found in forming partnerships and planning joint escapes. There are those Doyle calls the "Great Escapers" who organize groups of prisoners and mastermind mass escapes. And then there are "tigers," prisoners who resist captivity at all costs and start looking for ways to escape immediately after their capture.
Lee Gordon was a tiger. In World War II, "Shorty" Gordon served as a ball turret gunner with the U.S. Army Air Corps' 305th Bomb Group. On February 26, 1943, enemy fire brought down his B-17 over Wilhelmshaven, Germany. He parachuted to safety, but German troops captured him and took him to Stalag 7A in Moosburg, Germany. Gordon promptly began looking for a way to escape.
His first two attempts failed, but Gordon succeeded on October 13, 1943. He traded identification tags with an Australian prisoner so he could gain access to an outdoor work area. After hiding in a bathroom stall until dark, he jumped a fence and walked away. Riding on freight trains, he eventually made his way to France. He entered a restaurant, approached a waitress, and told her, "I'm an American." The waitress summoned members of the French Resistance who helped get Gordon to England. On February 27, 1944, one year after his capture, Gordon arrived in England and became the first American prisoner to escape successfully from a German prisoner-of-war camp.
Shorty Gordon, a tiger and an American hero, died last week at the age of eighty-four.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
What do you think? Post a Comment
Lee Gordon was a tiger. In World War II, "Shorty" Gordon served as a ball turret gunner with the U.S. Army Air Corps' 305th Bomb Group. On February 26, 1943, enemy fire brought down his B-17 over Wilhelmshaven, Germany. He parachuted to safety, but German troops captured him and took him to Stalag 7A in Moosburg, Germany. Gordon promptly began looking for a way to escape.
His first two attempts failed, but Gordon succeeded on October 13, 1943. He traded identification tags with an Australian prisoner so he could gain access to an outdoor work area. After hiding in a bathroom stall until dark, he jumped a fence and walked away. Riding on freight trains, he eventually made his way to France. He entered a restaurant, approached a waitress, and told her, "I'm an American." The waitress summoned members of the French Resistance who helped get Gordon to England. On February 27, 1944, one year after his capture, Gordon arrived in England and became the first American prisoner to escape successfully from a German prisoner-of-war camp.
Shorty Gordon, a tiger and an American hero, died last week at the age of eighty-four.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Great post George. I remember reading about Shorty in your book. One thing that stood out to me was his reaction to the small heroic deeds by the local French who looked after him while he awaited return to America. One hero recognizing the heroic nature of others.
What do you think? Post a Comment
When Credibility Goes Up In Smoke
For this year's annual shopping expedition to Chicago, we booked a room at the Westin Hotel on Michigan Avenue. We could have stayed anywhere, but we purposely chose the Westin to support the company's bold decision late last year to ban smoking from all of its hotels and resorts. We're zealous nonsmokers, so we wanted to patronize the first completely smoke-free hotel chain.
Imagine our disappointment when we entered the lobby and encountered the stench of secondhand smoke. As it turns out, there's an independently owned bar adjacent to the Westin with a wide-open door that leads into the hotel's lobby. The bar's access is immediately next to the hotel's main entrance and only a few feet away from where Westin guests line up to check in; therefore, secondhand smoke greets you every time you enter or leave through the lobby.
By declaring its hotels smoke free, Westin's leaders asserted that the chain values the health and well-being of its guests and employees. But unavoidable exposure to secondhand smoke left us wondering if they really care, feeling foolish about our reason for choosing their hotel, and vowing to steer clear of Westin hotels in the future.
Too many organizations fail to reinforce their values, resulting not only in customer attrition but employee turnover, too. Consistency between an organization's stated values and its leaders' actual behavior is critical to credibility. But when there is discrepancy between what the company says and what its leaders do, customers stop coming back, and so do employees.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Imagine our disappointment when we entered the lobby and encountered the stench of secondhand smoke. As it turns out, there's an independently owned bar adjacent to the Westin with a wide-open door that leads into the hotel's lobby. The bar's access is immediately next to the hotel's main entrance and only a few feet away from where Westin guests line up to check in; therefore, secondhand smoke greets you every time you enter or leave through the lobby.
By declaring its hotels smoke free, Westin's leaders asserted that the chain values the health and well-being of its guests and employees. But unavoidable exposure to secondhand smoke left us wondering if they really care, feeling foolish about our reason for choosing their hotel, and vowing to steer clear of Westin hotels in the future.
Too many organizations fail to reinforce their values, resulting not only in customer attrition but employee turnover, too. Consistency between an organization's stated values and its leaders' actual behavior is critical to credibility. But when there is discrepancy between what the company says and what its leaders do, customers stop coming back, and so do employees.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Negative Equity
The heads of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler Group met with President George Bush at the White House yesterday for what they billed as a discussion of challenges facing domestic automakers, such as the high costs of health care and pensions. But any reasonable person listening to the CEOs' post-meeting press conferences would conclude that their real motive was to shift responsibility for their current woes from themselves--and decades of mismanagement--to the U.S. government. But to do so, the automakers must rewrite history.
Years ago, the then "big three" car manufacturers convinced workers to forgo some pay increases and accept long-term health and retirement perks instead. Now the Detroit threesome blames workers for their companies' financial struggles, just because employees expect their promised benefits.
Adding to the automakers' problems is a pending accounting rule change will require companies to include future pension liabilities on their balance sheets. The revision will leave GM and Ford in the unusual and unhealthy position of having total liabilities that exceed total assets--a situation known as negative equity. I know from working in banking for two decades that financial institutions don't like lending money to companies with negative equity.
As CEOs, Wagoner, Mulally, and LaSorda should be concerned with their companies' balance sheets. But equally important are the ledgers employees maintain on the ethical net worth of their leaders. Honesty and integrity are assets; deceit and distortion are liabilities. Any attempts to alter history will leave automaker leaders with negative moral equity.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Years ago, the then "big three" car manufacturers convinced workers to forgo some pay increases and accept long-term health and retirement perks instead. Now the Detroit threesome blames workers for their companies' financial struggles, just because employees expect their promised benefits.
Adding to the automakers' problems is a pending accounting rule change will require companies to include future pension liabilities on their balance sheets. The revision will leave GM and Ford in the unusual and unhealthy position of having total liabilities that exceed total assets--a situation known as negative equity. I know from working in banking for two decades that financial institutions don't like lending money to companies with negative equity.
As CEOs, Wagoner, Mulally, and LaSorda should be concerned with their companies' balance sheets. But equally important are the ledgers employees maintain on the ethical net worth of their leaders. Honesty and integrity are assets; deceit and distortion are liabilities. Any attempts to alter history will leave automaker leaders with negative moral equity.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
A Stone of Hope
"With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Yesterday, ten years and a day after former president Bill Clinton signed legislation authorizing a Washington memorial commemorating the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., organizers held a groundbreaking ceremony at the monument's future site on the National Mall. The memorial will reflect Dr. King's spiritual presence through the combined display of water, stone, and other landscape elements with passages from his sermons and speeches, and with King's physical image in the "Stone of Hope." A design panel selected ROMA Design Group's concept from over 800 entrants. Harry Johnson, president of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, said the target for completion is the spring of 2008.
The King Memorial will be on the northeast corner of the Tidal Basin, on a direct line between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. In a speech at yesterday's ceremony, President George Bush said, "By its presence in this place it will unite the men who declared the promise of America and defended the promise of America with the man who redeemed the promise of America."
Donations for the $100 million cost of the memorial reached $65.5 million earlier this month. You can join me in making a contribution by visiting the memorial's official Web site today.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Yesterday, ten years and a day after former president Bill Clinton signed legislation authorizing a Washington memorial commemorating the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., organizers held a groundbreaking ceremony at the monument's future site on the National Mall. The memorial will reflect Dr. King's spiritual presence through the combined display of water, stone, and other landscape elements with passages from his sermons and speeches, and with King's physical image in the "Stone of Hope." A design panel selected ROMA Design Group's concept from over 800 entrants. Harry Johnson, president of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, said the target for completion is the spring of 2008.
The King Memorial will be on the northeast corner of the Tidal Basin, on a direct line between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. In a speech at yesterday's ceremony, President George Bush said, "By its presence in this place it will unite the men who declared the promise of America and defended the promise of America with the man who redeemed the promise of America."
Donations for the $100 million cost of the memorial reached $65.5 million earlier this month. You can join me in making a contribution by visiting the memorial's official Web site today.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
More Rolling Heads
It has been another scandalous day in the business world, with two major companies announcing more departures of misbehaving top executives.
First, KB Home ousted CEO Bruce Karatz after an internal investigation revealed he improperly dated personal stock options over the eight-year period from 1998 and 2005. The agreement in which Karatz "retired" requires him to repay the company nearly $13 million. The company also fired human resources director Gary Ray and accepted the resignation of chief legal officer Richard Hirst, both related to the matter. KB Home is the fifth-largest home builder in the United States and, according to the Wall Street Journal, Karatz was one of the nation's highest-paid executives, earning $155.9 million in 2005.
Then, DaimlerChrysler disclosed that the head of its bus unit, Wolfgang Diez, had resigned "for personal reasons" amid discoveries of "irregularities" at the world's largest bus manufacturer. Diez had been the chief executive of DaimlerChrysler's EvoBus unit since its formation in 1995. The company said it uncovered the irregularities during a "routine investigation of its own business." However, the company is also under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly bribing foreign officials, while financial regulators are probing into potential violations of U.S. anti-corruption laws.
Ethicist Michael Josephson said, "There's a hole in the moral ozone and it's getting bigger." It's becoming increasingly apparent that ethical holes start with a puncture at the top.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
First, KB Home ousted CEO Bruce Karatz after an internal investigation revealed he improperly dated personal stock options over the eight-year period from 1998 and 2005. The agreement in which Karatz "retired" requires him to repay the company nearly $13 million. The company also fired human resources director Gary Ray and accepted the resignation of chief legal officer Richard Hirst, both related to the matter. KB Home is the fifth-largest home builder in the United States and, according to the Wall Street Journal, Karatz was one of the nation's highest-paid executives, earning $155.9 million in 2005.
Then, DaimlerChrysler disclosed that the head of its bus unit, Wolfgang Diez, had resigned "for personal reasons" amid discoveries of "irregularities" at the world's largest bus manufacturer. Diez had been the chief executive of DaimlerChrysler's EvoBus unit since its formation in 1995. The company said it uncovered the irregularities during a "routine investigation of its own business." However, the company is also under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly bribing foreign officials, while financial regulators are probing into potential violations of U.S. anti-corruption laws.
Ethicist Michael Josephson said, "There's a hole in the moral ozone and it's getting bigger." It's becoming increasingly apparent that ethical holes start with a puncture at the top.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Negativity Bias
In 1998, John Cacioppo and some colleagues at Ohio State University demonstrated that the human brain reacts more strongly to negative stimuli than it does to positive input. The researchers showed college students pictures expected to arouse positive feelings, negative feelings, and neutral feelings. Using EEGs to record electrical movement in the brains of their subjects, they found greater electrical activity occurred during those moments when students viewed pictures inducing negative thoughts. Their conclusion: negative information stimulates our brains the most and makes us biased toward negativity.
Being aware of negativity bias can help you understand the cause of workplace negativity. Our natural tendency to focus attention on negative information comes from our inherent response system that prepares us to fight or flee whenever danger is apparent. As a result, employees pay more attention to negative information they get from coworkers than they do good news they hear from the boss. The boss said we're getting raises, but I hear they won't be as big as last year. In other words, workplace negativity is not necessarily the behavior of problem employees, or a symptom of poor leadership; it's human nature at work. Can knowing this help you lead your employees?
To answer that question, it's helpful to examine how advertisers use negativity bias to influence consumer behavior. When you think of negative advertising, you probably think of the blatant, our-product-is-better-than-their-product ads. For instance, if you sell mouth wash, you could advertise that your minty-fresh formula tastes better than your competitor's awful-tasting product, and you might convince some mouth wash buyers to switch to your brand. But successful advertisers don't just seek a larger piece of the market-share pie; they strive to make the whole pie bigger. So, in our example, instead of using negativity to disparage the competition, they play on consumers' negativity bias with ads aimed at convincing more people that they have bad breath.
As a leader, can you use negativity bias to influence worker behavior? I don't mean employing the do-it-my-way-or-you're-fired approach. I mean stimulating employee interest by pointing out the negative consequences of undesired behaviors. For example, instead of preaching, "We need to provide good customer service," perhaps your message should be, "Customers won't shop at stores with poor customer service." Now that you have their attention, you can follow up with, "Here's how we can deliver the type of service that keeps customers coming back forever."
Who thought negativity could be such a good thing?
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
What do you think? Post a Comment
Being aware of negativity bias can help you understand the cause of workplace negativity. Our natural tendency to focus attention on negative information comes from our inherent response system that prepares us to fight or flee whenever danger is apparent. As a result, employees pay more attention to negative information they get from coworkers than they do good news they hear from the boss. The boss said we're getting raises, but I hear they won't be as big as last year. In other words, workplace negativity is not necessarily the behavior of problem employees, or a symptom of poor leadership; it's human nature at work. Can knowing this help you lead your employees?
To answer that question, it's helpful to examine how advertisers use negativity bias to influence consumer behavior. When you think of negative advertising, you probably think of the blatant, our-product-is-better-than-their-product ads. For instance, if you sell mouth wash, you could advertise that your minty-fresh formula tastes better than your competitor's awful-tasting product, and you might convince some mouth wash buyers to switch to your brand. But successful advertisers don't just seek a larger piece of the market-share pie; they strive to make the whole pie bigger. So, in our example, instead of using negativity to disparage the competition, they play on consumers' negativity bias with ads aimed at convincing more people that they have bad breath.
As a leader, can you use negativity bias to influence worker behavior? I don't mean employing the do-it-my-way-or-you're-fired approach. I mean stimulating employee interest by pointing out the negative consequences of undesired behaviors. For example, instead of preaching, "We need to provide good customer service," perhaps your message should be, "Customers won't shop at stores with poor customer service." Now that you have their attention, you can follow up with, "Here's how we can deliver the type of service that keeps customers coming back forever."
Who thought negativity could be such a good thing?
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Practical application of negativity bias to effective entrepreneurial collaboration? http://www.FoolQuest.com/alien.htm
What do you think? Post a Comment
Botched Credibility
Give John Kerry another Purple Heart, this time for shooting himself in the foot with a "botched" stay-in-school joke. Campaigning Monday on behalf of California Democratic gubernatorial challenger Phil Angelides, Kerry told an audience at Pasadena City College, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Kerry insists he mangled the punch line of a jab intended to poke fun at President Bush, meaning to say instead, "you get us stuck in Iraq." Whatever his intention, he appeared to insinuate that U.S. troops are poorly educated, prompting his own political party to swift-boat-kick him back home to sit out the rest of the campaign.
Kerry is not the only politician who ever misspoke. Just last week, President Bush was in Iowa stumping for Republican congressional candidate Jeff Lamberti. Twice during his speech, the President referred to Lamberti as "Dave." But what makes the latest Kerry gaffe remarkable is the Senator's refusal to apologize for getting his foot caught between his tongue and his cheek. Had Kerry simply said, "Oops, that didn't come out the way I intended it. I'm sorry if I offended anyone," this would already be old news. Instead, he accused his critics of distorting his message for their political gain and destroyed his credibility in the process.
Too many leaders are reluctant to apologize for their blunders, perhaps out of fear of showing weakness. That's unfortunate, because humility goes a long way with employees. Workers know that being the boss is difficult and that their leaders are susceptible to an occasional error of judgment. They also know that it takes a strong leader to admit a mistake and to say, "I'm sorry." If you're in charge, expect to mess up from time to time. Just don't botch your chance to apologize.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Kerry is not the only politician who ever misspoke. Just last week, President Bush was in Iowa stumping for Republican congressional candidate Jeff Lamberti. Twice during his speech, the President referred to Lamberti as "Dave." But what makes the latest Kerry gaffe remarkable is the Senator's refusal to apologize for getting his foot caught between his tongue and his cheek. Had Kerry simply said, "Oops, that didn't come out the way I intended it. I'm sorry if I offended anyone," this would already be old news. Instead, he accused his critics of distorting his message for their political gain and destroyed his credibility in the process.
Too many leaders are reluctant to apologize for their blunders, perhaps out of fear of showing weakness. That's unfortunate, because humility goes a long way with employees. Workers know that being the boss is difficult and that their leaders are susceptible to an occasional error of judgment. They also know that it takes a strong leader to admit a mistake and to say, "I'm sorry." If you're in charge, expect to mess up from time to time. Just don't botch your chance to apologize.
Bookmark this post on del.icio.us
Author George Brymer's comments about the leaders who get it, and those who never will.
