Teddy Kennedy would not have been tolerant of lip synchers in his midst.

This last week, a top professional I know admitted to a guilty pleasure: She had been to the Britney Spears concert the night before at Madison Square Garden (she was a fan). Naturally, I had to learn more about what a Britney Spears show was like!  My colleague said she had a wonderful time; it was an exciting show, very entertaining, but that it appeared as if Ms Spears lip synched all but one of the songs and only twice did the pop star even bother to address with the audience.  Yet even after all that, yes, my business associate said she would certainly attend another “live” Britney Spears show in the future.
This last week we also all learned about Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing. Say what you will about his politics, the scandal at Chappaquiddick or anything else regarding his life, but by all accounts Senator Kennedy was passionate about his work, sincere in his beliefs, and truly genuine. Consider this one tribute from Edward Rollins, someone who certainly didn’t share many of Senator Kennedy’s views:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/26/rollins.kennedy.gop/index.html.

As I went about my day-to-day business affairs this past week I couldn’t help but connect what I unfortunately encountered to Britney Spears’ re-emergence and Senator Kennedy’s death (strange--but read on).

Edward M. Kennedy earned respect, particularly by his adversaries, because he held strong beliefs and was focused on driving results he thought to be important. He was at the eye of many legislative storms, but he built extraordinary working relationships over the course of a nearly 50 year career in the senate. Similar to the work team I wrote about back August 27th, he forced others to bring their best game and they brought out no less the same from him. By contrast, Britney Spears fans seem to not only tolerate the apparent lip synching portions of a live concert,  they enthusiastically cheer it.

The workplace remains dominated by too many people who physically show up to work each day, but who don’t bring the same intellectual or emotional commitment. I truly hope that we mourn the death of one man and not the passing of a much-needed approach to one’s work. To me, the best way to remember and honor Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts is by adopting the same principled, passionate, collaborative and results-oriented energy to our careers as he did and perhaps become less tolerant of the lip synchers in our midst.

Who would have guessed: August -- a prime time for engineering high rates of sustainable growth.

Although I’ve always been told that not much business gets transacted mid-late August because everyone is on vacation, I’ve always found August to be a particularly productive month. Not only has August 2009 not been an exception, my experiences this month tell me that there’s heightened focus and purpose in the business world…clearly a very positive leading indicator! I’d like to use the remainder of this space to relate my highlight for the week to the encouraging signs I’m seeing in general.

Presented with an opportunity to launch a new business line, a company I’ve been working with (that defines the word “conservative”) had the good sense to pursue the initiative with cautious optimism. The company assembled a project team that did more than simply evaluate the venture’s worthiness. This cross-functional team was comprised of members that brought subject matter expertise and a strong willingness to challenge every assumption. From day one it was clear that this was a highly capable group of professionals and it soon became even more evident that this team has uncommon maturity. Members didn’t make the process easy on one another, yet at no time did any meeting devolve into finger-pointing, egoism or turf protection. This team collaborated in a most impressive way: each member demanded goal-oriented excellence from himself and his peers.

Along the way, the project sponsor had moments of doubt—even thought at least one participant was going to do everything he could to kill the initiative. As it turned out the (apparently) most negative group member proved to be the driving force for transforming concept to reality. Had any member, particularly the project sponsor, lost sight of the business objective; had anyone reacted to legitimate business challenges in a personal rather than professional way; had they lacked individual and collective commitment to the absolute best work product theirs would have been abandoned like so many other excellent ideas unfortunately are in Corporate America. Without the sincere efforts of the team’s toughest critic, their high-potential initiative would ultimately fall short of its objectives. This team set a very fast pace, accomplished a great deal in a short period of time, yet all had to keep up with other job responsibilities. They never missed a meeting, none of the participants ever came unprepared, and none allowed other responsibilities to be slighted either.

As they practiced it, collaboration wasn’t pandering nor was it about compromise. Theirs was collaboration as I believe it is intended to be: each sum intensely driven to create a superb whole. Though they did ask the question that is on everyone’s mind these days, “is this the right economic climate to try something new?” They didn’t obsess on that ever present excuse in most business environments today and they also concluded that the best remedy for poor results is growth and growth will come from innovation. As more companies and project teams adopt the “We Must!” mentality, removing all vestiges of finding reasons why not to do something (always the easiest path) economic vitality will overwhelm anything that has ailed us.

I was privileged to work with this group and what they did, in August no less, is the model for engineering high rates of sustainable growth for many years to come.

Change the person or change the person.

Driving institutional change requires far more than executive buy-in to the concept, leaders themselves must set the fast pace through their own performance. Particularly when the stakes are high, when a company has urgent matters to solve, I know of no better method than: change the person or change the person.

This approach allows organizations to rehabilitate real talent that simply requires assistance yet also allows for terminating those who may be too myopic or incapable of professional growth. Either outcome also reinforces positive company attributes because transformed professionals are able to instill growth & development throughout a company while terminations become so obvious to all they can be conducted without friction, fear and raw emotions typically associated with a high-profile dismissal.

When properly conducted, changing the person or changing the person is anything but a long drawn-out affair. Driven by clear-cut objectives, evaluated through meaningful performance metrics and measures as a highly collaborative effort I find it’s rather easy to quickly get to the proper destination.

This morning I concluded a brief project for a company that has had significant problems in a small but once highly profitable manufacturing division. While the business unit VP had once been a rising star in the company, corporate executives were so convinced he was now their biggest impediment to restoring profitability they had apparently made up their minds to terminate him quite a while ago.

However, fearing nobody else in the organization could step up and not having a detailed understanding of the division’s daily sales and operations themselves, parent company executives allowed a condemned man to stay in his role until they could find the right time and figure out what to do. During my initial meeting with corporate leadership, I introduced the change the person or change the person concept and got the typical response: “Oh, you can’t teach this old dog new tricks…he’ll never change…”

Though I must admit the first couple of days were tense and this VP was highly suspicious about my stated intentions, it didn’t take long for him to distinguish himself. He was clearly a very bright, very motivated, very committed, and very willing top-tier professional who had encountered market conditions, competitive forces and performance pressures unlike anything he had ever before experienced in his career. He wasn’t unwilling to learn and change; in fact that was the furthest thing from the truth! He just didn’t know how, and because what had once worked for him was now failing he had lost total confidence in himself. Perhaps more telling, his initial distrust about my role was really about his now distant relationship with corporate executives.

By working closely together in this intense process we quickly discovered a number of revenue-building and cost-improving measures that were successfully instituted. August will be the division’s first break-even month in roughly 2 years and all indicators are they’re on track to eek out profitable months for the remainder of 2009. Though a far cry from the business unit’s best days they are on course to get there. And because the division’s leader has successfully transformed himself he’s now requiring the same from all staff which is why I’m quite confident they will once again be the parent company’s darling much sooner than anyone realizes. I’m equally certain that they would be much further behind, quite possibly on the road to eventual company shut-down, if we just focused on changing the person when the company already had its best VP in that role…he just needed help and direction so he could change.

Individual and collective commitment to excellence matters most.

I must admit that I had to be dragged kicking & screaming by Laurie Pehar Borsh (a truly top tier professional in her field, you can learn more about her business by visiting http://www.ecmgusa.com/ or http://www.personalprproductions.com/) to actually write this blog. Since its inception, I’ve often wondered whether or not anyone was actually reading it. Well, I’ve erased all these doubts thanks to the avalanche of feedback I’ve gotten over Saturday’s “Ted” entry. Maybe it’s the only interesting thing I’ve ever written, but as a result of the reaction I’ve gotten to “Ted” I will use today’s space to set several records straight.

First and foremost I will not allow this blog space (or anything associated with it) to be utilized by people who are trying to settle their own scores. Some people have attempted to post comments alleging someone they know is "Ted"…those will not be permitted here. I write about the situations I encounter because I swim in the deep end of the pool; not many are overly experienced in the deep end nor are they particularly comfortable there. If I can help others navigate their way through these treacherous waters it’s my privilege. In today’s volatile economy we are all better if we can learn from one another, share our useful experiences, and dig out (without the need for government intervention).

I’m amazed at how many people have contacted me to guess who "Ted" is.

I’ve heard from people I don’t know submitting names I’ve never heard of (thank you for reading this blog, by the way---I hope you find it interesting and helpful).

I’ve heard from former and current colleagues with their wild guesses.

Heck, I’ve even heard from at least one guy who insists HE IS "Ted" even though Saturday’s post doesn’t even closely resemble my involvement in his affairs (in this instance, I don’t recall the last time we had lunch or the last time we spoke for 2 consecutive hours…just for openers).

I am as shocked as I likely find it telling that everyone seems to know a "Ted," and some might even see themselves in "Ted." The point of this piece was not to publicly pick on an individual who temporarily re-entered my life after a long absence nor is it intended to provide rumor mill material for amateur Tom Ruskins of the world (another plug: Tom Ruskin is Founder/CEO of CMP Group, http://www.cmp-group.com/, a top-notch investigative and protection agency).

So why are so many people fixated on "Ted" and how do they seem to know far more of them than I ever conceived? I don’t know every motivation or detail, but I’m going to take a stab at it nonetheless.

It starts with one of my core business premises: FUNDAMENTALS RULE. There have been and there remain way too many businesses across too many sectors that are so lacking in fundamentals, in their desperation to get out of urgent trouble they make matters worse. "Ted" apparently hit a universal nerve because a not insignificant number of readers are either working with or for companies that are caught in the vicious cycle of fundamental-less businesses.

Keep in mind that "Ted" was written as part of my Blog Trilogy with August 6th’s “Cultivating Major League Talent” as the opening act. Much of the thinking here has been inspired by one of the most insightful and brilliant people I know, Rich Thau Founder/CEO Presentation Testing (http://www.presentationtesting.com/). Rich and his company do phenomenal work. You may have read about one of his most topical projects in the current Business Week edition. If not, here’s a link: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/c4143btw375952.htm?campaign_id=rss_null. During a recent discussion with Rich he mentioned that an area he’s personally very interested in is education because it is the foundation for building and maintaining the nation’s competitive edge. EXACTLY!

An abandonment of fundamentals layered over a poorly educated workforce—at all levels—is the recipe for disaster that, I believe, conspires to create business conditions too many of you relate to.

An education is certainly what we get from attending school, but I find continuing and practical application of the many lessons we learn (best evidenced by serious ongoing personal/professional improvement) is most meaningful. The point is we can’t cultivate major league talent if organizations do not instill learning and doing cultures.

Companies can’t expect to post solid results if employees are ill-equipped to contribute, especially in the more competitive global economy. Economies will suffer if bankers stray from sound underwriting principles where the after-effects, among others, are lack of capital, available credit, and unacceptable rates of unemployment.

Undoubtedly stemming from Apollo 11’s 40th year anniversary last month I’ve heard the phrase“If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we….{fill in the blank with your favorite subject}?” more than I’ve heard it in quite some time. Perhaps an oversimplification, but the catalyst for putting a man on the moon was President Kennedy’s memorable phrase from his September 12, 1962 speech at Rice University: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” In other words, it takes a focused, educated, tempered-in-fundamentals effort to come close to achieving any goal.

My Blog Trilogy was intended to echo JFK’s words and apply them to business, at least among those who honor me by even occasionally reading my posts. As evidenced by the response I got to “Ted,” there are too many among us, in responsible positions or otherwise, who have unfortunately chosen the opposite path by doing what’s easy and looking for short-cuts.

Building and sustaining achievement is hard, but by following the right formula it's as achievable as it is rewarding. Trying to figure out who "Ted" is, in my opinion, becomes yet another example of obsessing on the easy and unimportant; what matters is our individual and collective commitment to excellence.

Toxic CEO Ted Provides a Lesson: How NOT to Run a Business

He said he really needed to speak with me about an urgent matter.

He said he needed at least a couple hours and would buy me lunch if I helped him work through the problem.

He said he had nobody else he could turn to and because we have totally different business philosophies he really needed me even though he knew I had no respect for him.

He said he needed a friend.

Maybe I was more curious than I was motivated to help, but I couldn’t refuse this invitation. So I met with this CEO for a privately-held firm, and for purposes of this post we’ll call him Ted.

Ted is one of naturally brightest people I know and at a very young age he built a formidable company. But Ted used his native intelligence to constantly scheme and find ways to make money by really bending the rules; reneging on agreements, overcharging customers in hopes they wouldn’t notice, and engaging in several other unethical and possibly even illegal tactics.

Ted is a lazy guy, he would much rather use his God-given brainpower to find the easy way rather than pushing himself to really build something. So Ted is probably the dumbest person I know. I will say this though, from time-to-rime, especially when he was caught in one of his schemes, he did try to clean his ethics and practices up. Although I hadn’t been in touch with Ted for a long time I was rather certain that these periodic spasms of operating integrity never lasted very long.

Ted has always believed he was able to make a great deal of money by always outsmarting everyone else. This also allowed Ted to not work very hard and because he had found a handful of employees that served as trusted accomplices Ted could enjoy a life of leisure funded by a steady stream of what I can only consider to be ill-gotten income. Ted had always said the reason he wanted to run his own company was it would allow him to “make a lot of money”. Furthermore, Ted created a company culture that was addicted to the same.

Ted’s willing accomplices extended to more than just low-skilled low-talent employees that would do his (literally) dirty work to draw a paycheck; a paycheck that was always far greater than anything any of them could have ever dreamt imaginable. Because Ted’s company routinely posted impressive top-line growth for most of this decade lenders were tripping all over themselves to give him money.

There are many excellent small/mid-sized companies that are being choked to death today because banks aren’t lending; the unemployment rate is indescribably scary because these cash-starved companies can’t financially maintain a workforce. In large part, Ted and others like him are the root cause. In larger part, the bankers who ignored fundamentals are really to blame for the mess. But that’s not what Ted wanted to talk to me about.

As a man who built a business based solely on short-term thinking and taking obnoxious short-cuts, current economic conditions have accelerated and highlighted Ted’s many corporate shortcomings. Dependent on equally short-term thinking bankers who were no longer there for him, some calling in major loans early, his business was being squeezed. Competitors were taking business away from him at eye-popping rates; some customers disappeared quietly, others have litigated. His company was bleeding at such a furious pace he had to significantly cut back on staff and when even that wasn’t enough to cover his growing financial shortfalls he had to impose radical salary reductions for remaining employees. His low-skilled low-talent staff hadn’t developed real professional capability; they were doing what the boss told them and drawing hefty paychecks in return…until now. But that’s not what Ted wanted to talk to me about either.

No, Ted’s urgent matter was that he had just uncovered a ring within his organization, comprised of the most trusted of his inner-circle staff, where his employees were selling his company data to competitors and, of course pocketing these ill-gotten gains themselves. Ted was angry about this but as I listened to him he was clearly more hurt. After all, how could they do this to him!?!? How could they not show Ted the loyalty due him since he had taken such good care of them all these years, especially at a time when he most needed them!?!?!??!

What he initially said he wanted from me was advice on what he should do. Should he prosecute all for industrial espionage? Or should he get some to turn over on others and just make examples of a few (the few would be those he liked the least anyhow)? But as Ted kept talking he then said, “But I can’t really do anything can I? They all know too much and they might get me in trouble.” In truth what he really wanted was a forum to rant and engage in one of his most common practices: self-justification and putting the blame elsewhere.

I gave Ted the couple of hours he requested and I don’t think I said more than 20 words the whole time. Yes, Ted said he wanted my helpful advice but he really didn’t, and if actually asked I wouldn’t have told him anything he wanted to hear. Of course we both knew this going in to that lunch meeting.

Ted was distressed because his employees were disloyal and did despicable things to him. It seems to me that in this case, these despicable employees showed themselves to be totally loyal to Ted: they acted exactly the way they had seen him and conducted themselves as he has. For a brief period of time Ted thought he had it all, thought he had figured it out better than anyone ever could. Forever, Ted will be toxic.

About all this new sales enablement technology---The MOST knowledgeable AND experienced sales person is still MOST effective.

Shortly after reading the brilliant Gerhard Gschwandtner’s most recent blog post, http://sellingpower.typepad.com/gg/2009/07/is-sales-enablement-just-lipstick-on-a-knowledge-management-pig.html, I received a follow-up phone call from a sales person trying to rekindle my interest in purchasing sales enablement technology. His pitch was the now-familiar “clone your top sales performers through our capabilities.” To support his value proposition, he cited several highly recognizable companies that had purchased his product. Naturally he was unable to furnish examples where his company had created an army of successful sales clones. Indeed, even his super-charged company apparently does not have a sales force of 100% top sales performers.

I’ve long believed that a highly knowledgeable sales person is a more effective sales person, something I covered in my July 27th post. To further illustrate my credentials on this subject, a CEO for one of the nation’s leading surgical device distributorships recently forwarded a copy of an email he sent to his staff. It so happens that this CEO once worked with me, and his recent companywide email included the following:

“The region I was a part of was led by Mike Berman. It was here, I learned the power and responsibility of leadership to create the culture that would drive their regional sales force to beat these industry titans. Berman regularly read 10 newspapers a day, continually educated us.”

Needless to say, he and I worked together several years ago and the “Industry Titans” he writes of are FedEx and UPS; newspapers have long been replaced by the Internet. As a longtime practitioner for knowledge-based selling, well before it was known as “sales enablement,” I’m no less enthusiastic about it than I was back then. In fact, I’m certain it’s even more critical to a sales person’s success than ever before. But the mere suggestion that a highly-researched sales person is destined to be a high performer is pure rubbish in my view.

So as I listened to this highly enthusiastic sales enablement sales guy talk about his product, and after I spoke to one of his company’s reference accounts, I could draw no other conclusion that this highly useful capability is being bought and sold as some kind of a one-size-fits-all short-cut to success. Ultimately, that always ends in disaster and I look forward to learning about client retention rates for the sales enablement providers in a year from now (and I am willing to take bets what they will look like so please contact me if you want in on the action!) I’ve always been in awe of and will forever be in awe of top sales performers.

Any true top performing sales person has to be offended by the very notion that their breadth of knowledge and skill can be replicated through a software application and companies that buy this premise are simply out of touch with the hard work and continuous effort required to reach, let alone maintain, top sales performer status. Sales enablement vendors lose credibility with me when they overstate what their useful technology can do. Again, rather than selling to help a (prospective) customer really succeed in their field, these suppliers are apparently intent on just posting another sale themselves.

Whenever I’ve challenged anyone from the sales enablement companies on this the typical response is “oh, you just don’t get it.” Well, the sad truth is as much as anyone, I do get it, always have! But rather than embracing the technology being offered I’m staying away for the reasons covered in my July 9th post: GET REAL! Undoubtedly, the calculator has been a CFO’s blessing--just as effective use of sales enablement capabilities can be a most useful tool for a sales person. Having worked with several excellent and not-so-excellent CFO’s in my career I am most confident the difference wasn’t found in the choice of calculator. The right professional with the right tool and the right commitment to her/his craft will always be a top performer and this is earned, never cloned. And if it were this easy, Cody Ransom would be in uniform for this weekend’s Yankee/Red Sox series.

Cultivating major league business talent requires more than natural gifts.

Prior to yesterday’s game the Yankees designated Cody Ransom for assignment. Now if I were writing a sports column, taking up space to report about dumping a journeyman player from a first place team that starts a critical 4 game series against their biggest rival would redefine absurd. But this isn’t a sports column and the 33 year old Cody Ransom who has spent the vast majority of his career as a minor leaguer is a relevant metaphorical business topic. I refer to Cody Ransom not as someone who has posted an anemic .233 lifetime major league batting average over 197 games played, but as Cody Ransom a truly phenomenal athlete….this Cody Ransom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqjUJJ86VV0

It’s easy to forget that even the most marginal professional ballplayer is a special athlete. To me it’s unfortunate that too many don’t recognize that cultivating major league business talent requires more than natural gifts.

Troubled economic conditions have a way of accelerating or shining a very bright spotlight on problems that had been there, but remained unaddressed during more favorable climates. These underlying issues were always there; all too often they were ignored or left unaddressed. As a result of my own professional focus I get to see this more than most, particularly the disastrous after-effects.

I’m more convinced than ever that the depths and dimensions of corporate volatility are created and solidified when conditions appear to be optimal. Rather than challenging the most gifted employees to continually improve, all too often, management makes excuses for their high-potential as well as their (apparently) high-performing employees.

In my opinion, instead of demanding excellence on all levels, most notably ethics and judgment, management—perhaps unintentionally— often fosters environments that encourage short-cuts and short-term action. As a result, knowledge and skill does not have the opportunity to become fully developed, especially at the levels required to excel in today’s more competitive and more educated, global economy.

It takes more than Cody Ransom’s awesome natural ability to make for a productive major league player just as it takes far more than having the right foundational components to develop an excellent business professional.

This past week I had two distinctly different and rather incredible experiences that compelled me to write about Cody Ransom getting cut by the Yankees and relating it in this highly generalized for business piece. My next two posts will speak to both these situations, each highly relevant to anyone in any business that intends to build sustainable high-performance organizations. Stay tuned.