Opinions on nearly anything

Two major engagements wound down over the past few months.  I had not been diligent in hustling new business for the past year or so and the result is that I am unemployed.  Well, almost.

There are still some board activities which pay a small stipend.  Some acquaintances have been hit by the recession.  Some counselling continues and some small successes are coming from those activities . . . non-monetary rewards but very real.

In the past the “pipeline” remained full by a regimen of email, phone, network group meetings, lunches and other outreach activities.  For the past several years the network group meetings and similar activities have gradually diminished. 

One of the most effective methods of feeding the pipeline is through existing engagements.  Performance was, of course vital, but also interest in what else was getting in the way of the client’s success often resulted in follow-on work, sometimes right away, sometimes in the future.

The recession has hit my clients of the past year or two very hard.  Follow-on work dried up.   The lowered intensity of networking is showing up in few new prospects. So here I am, unemployed for the first time in 60 years.

Many contempories advise retirement.  But, what I do is who I am.  I am not a retiree.

The focus will continue on helping others succeed.  There are several such projects (pro bono) currently underway.  Teaching is also on the horizon.  I had taught a few years ago but Sarbanes-Oxley brought that to an abrupt halt.  (I was, at the time, Chair of the Audit Committee of the Apollo Group.)  No payment, other than that from board duties could be made by Apollo to me per “SOX.”  That restriction ended when I left the Apollo Board a few years ago.

So, if you know someone who needs help succeeding and would like to feel good about their success, point them in my direction.

Last time I railed about BusinessWeek and some of the reasons I believe it is in a long slow dive into oblivion.

This issue will touch on another long-time publication that is much farther down the slope leading to oblivion – ComputerWorld.

To we (has been) technocrats, ComputerWorld was a pioneer in the field of computer related publications.  It began publishing sometime in the mid-60′s.  My first exposure was a ’60′s equivalent of a blog.  Somebody in the GE Process Computer Department in Phoenix would send a letter each week to a group throughout GE with short article excerpts, from a variety of sources, of new developments in the computer field.  I noted that the source for many of the excerpts was ComputerWorld.  So I wangled my manager to pay for a subscription.

I am still a subscriber.  But to a different publication (same name, much different content).  For nearly 40 years ComputerWorld was a weekly publication.  At its peak it was over 100 pages and was in a broadsheet newspaper format.

Sometime in the past decade it began to shrink.  It went through several phases.  Now it is a monthly magazine, probably less than 40 pages.   It expect it will stop printing altogether within the next year or so.

In the greater Phoenix area we are seeing the demise of the traditional newspaper.  Several of the smaller papers have ceased publishing.  The Phoenix Republic is shrinking.  In physical size anyway.  There is some data that says the readership is not shrinking.  I suspect that one of the reasons for slow or no shrinkage is that there are many subscribers like me.  I must have a newspaper when eating breakfast.  Otherwise the day is unbalanced.  But, the trend towards oblivion has had some other factors which, no doubt, has kept some subscribers but are causing this one to read more on line and look for the needed mix in the news coverage.

For instance:  In the Phoenix Republic the typical business section has four pages.  One, 4 up, broadsheet.  Typically half of those pages are taken up by day-old market data and advertising.  In contrast, the typical sports section has 12 or 16 pages.  Yes, some sports are a business so maybe I should count a page or two of that 16 towards the business section.  But, the game between two small junior high soccer teams probably has a small readership.  The Monday and Tuesday paper has shrunken to half its former size.  Even the page size is smaller.  One really aggravating item is that in an effort to reduce the number of pages, the size of the comics strips has shrunken.  Somehow reading the comics with a magnifying glass is just all wrong.

The result is that I am developing a reading pattern on line that is supplementing the physical paper at breakfast.  At some point I will find the right screen to leave in the kitchen and cancel my subscription to the newspaper.  And I am not alone.  Today I read, on line, that the spending on subscriptions was being hammered by the recession.   The fading quality and coverage makes the decision easy to economize by stopping long standing print media subscriptions.

I’ve been a BusinessWeek subscriber for at least 30 years.  When I first subscribed it was often well over 100 pages in length, packed with stories that were interesting, well written and, in general factual.  The current version was 68 pages.

Roughly three months ago the transition occurred.  McGraw Hill sold BusinessWeek to Bloomberg for (allegedly) $5 million dollars.  Seems quite low, but overall the financial magazines have suffered a tremendous contraction of revenue this last year . . . as much as 40% say some.

Over the past few months some of the better sections disappeared.  Maria Bartolomo’s interviews vanished.  The tech section also vanished.  The last page, which for several years featured Jack and Suzi Welch responding to reader questions, also kept changing authors and subjects as it diminished in quality.

But, one of the features in the issue of December 30, 2009 really strayed.  It was a crude hit piece on for profit colleges.  Since Apollo and its subsidiary University of Phoenix is the largest such educational institution, the author, Daniel Golden hammered it the hardest.  The article claimed that one could obtain a degree by taking one course.  Throughout the article there was the theme that for profit colleges were taking advantage of military students, that for profit educational institutions were somehow evil and that degrees from for profit colleges were inferior.

I am not going to rebut these allegations.  That will be done, I am sure, by many others.  I do have a solid foundation to believe that these allegations are factually and conceptually wrong.  For instance:

Approximately 30 years ago I was looking for a source for some specialized training for a group of engineers.  After trying to interest the State universities and the community colleges, without success, I stumbled across a new, non-traditional, university.  The staff there responded and within a few months the program was launched.  That university is now a subsidary of Apollo, Western International University.  A number of people on my staff at that time were students at WIU and at the University of Phoenix.  Many would have liked to have attended the State universities but there were no programs which allowed a full time employee to obtain a degree.  (I was one of these.) 

Roughly 25 years ago I was invited to join the board of WIU.  In 2000 I was invited to join the board of Apollo, leaving seven years later and returning to the WIU board.  In 2001 I finally obtained a graduate degree because the University of Phoenix had a compressed schedule . . . tough, but compressed and on-line.  And for about a year I was an instructor at WIU.

So, I have experienced the operation of one of the major for profit universities in a variety of dimensions.  In addition to being a boss with students in their programs, I have been a board member, a student and a professor.  In those roles I have also participated in the rigorous accreditation reviews starting in the early 1980′s.  The accreditors are very tough.  They too, started out thinking that for profit was some how low quality and low rigor.  No longer.

So what has this to do with the hit piece in the recent BusinessWeek?  They wrote about a university for which I have a long and deep relationship and understanding.  The article was not accurate and was aimed at objectives far afield of the former BusinessWeek.  Muckraking journalism is an approach to garner attention.  It works, for awhile and for certain types of publications.  It may work for the new, Bloomberg BusinessWeek.  But, it will not work for their current reader base.  If this continued decline in quality and theme continues, I will not renew my subscription.  There will be others making a similar decision.  The decline in review will continue and another great magazine will likely vanish.

Take a look at the thickness of your favorite magazine and/or newspaper.  All of mine have become smaller over the past few years.

An acquaintance recently left a position after a relatively short employment.  Apparently there was tension from the beginning.  The “contract” between the employee and employer was not clear to either.  No, I’m not talking about something that sets ouf salary, benefits, terms of separations, and other routine items.  The contract in question is something that very few of us ever have.  It has little to do with tangible items and everything to do with real results.

The “contract” that is seldom every acknowledged has at least five aspects:  style of action, decision rules, foundation and provisions.

Does the employer expect the employee to seldom (never) make mistakes or tackle issues agressively and only seek guidance when the best action is not clear or has many forms? 

Does the employer expect the employee to fear, follow, avoid, maintain and be cautious?  Or are the expectations for the employee to dive in, deal with the situation, confront obstacles, have “presence” and look for gains?

What are the foundations of the employee expectations?  Should the employee be submissive to authority, depend upon the organization, make near term sacrifices in expectation for long term, nebulous rewards and be very wary of strong self-expression?  Or are the expectations of the employee to take action that makes sense, assume authority (within reasonable bounds), make and fulfill committments?

Does the employee expect the employer to have clear rules, a high level of control, exert discipline, have a clear hierarchy and for the employee to take action because they have to?  The alternative is that the employee develops a vision, acts authentically, cares about positive outcomes, takes action because they want to, has a sense of service to the client and works in a manner of enlightened self-interest?

Religious organizations, the military, governments and many large corporations explicity or implicity expect employees to agree to a contract of command and control.  “Don’t do anything until you are told, do it the way we have always done it and report back on your progress and for more direction.”

The acquaintance had the attitude of self-direction but seemed to wind up with jobs where the command and control “contract” was implicit or explicit.  It also appeared that the “contract” terms were never discussed early in the employment.  Only after there was a clash because an action hadn’t been cleared before implementation did this issue of contract terms come to light.

Often, there had been so much damage by then that departure was the only long term resolution.

Today I received an email with a familiar final paragraph.  Essentially the demand was to forward the email to everyone I knew in the world so that the wrong so elegantly presented in the email would be seen as being very bad and all these right minded folks receiving my forwarded message would demand change.

The grevious situation in need of correction was the generous pension that the US Congress members receive when they retire.  The redress?  Terminate the current plan and add them to social security.

My reaction to the sender was to ask whether we really wanted to have people in Congress who do not expect to live well in retirement?   So given that most of those potentially electable would like to live well, what other approaches might be available for assuring a comfortable retirement.  Well we have some examples of our Congress members looking to benefit from providing favorable treatment to potential contractors to the government.  Sometimes they even forgot to report such income.  Sometimes the delivery of these quid pro quo benefits are deferred to avoid a variety of complications, including taxes, damage to reputation, appearance of favoritism and other unsavory outcomes.

Of course there is another alternative.  Only allow those who are willing to work very hard, raise millions to conduct elections and not worry about personal wealth to run.  There are some very qualified candidates who fit into that  category.  Not enough though.  Some state legislatures follow this model.  Of course the candidate quality might be a bit less that what would be appropriate for the US Congress.

Or, we could increase the salary, keep the pensions generous, make the elections less costly and try and take the wealth building factor out of the congressional races and motivation.

Term limits would also help.  Two terms for Senators, maybe four for representatives would allow enough time to learn the way to be an effective legislator but eliminate the career factor.

Of course we (the voters) have that capability now.  It is just that we fail to use it and keep reelecting the same people over and over.  We have met the enemy and they is us.

Over the past two years or more the City Manager’s job in Scottsdale, Arizona has been a risky postion.  The former City Manager, Jan Dolan, was fired by the City Council in early 2008 and the Assistant, John Little, eventually was appointed City Manager.  Within a few months of being appointed with full council backing, he was fired.  So, did this 20 year veteran, praised and recognized as being an outstanding contributor to Scottsdale, turn incompetent with the appointment as City Manager?

Probably not.

From my five decades of observing the goings on in large and small organizations, my conclusion in these situations is that it is often not the fault of the fired CEO but rather the fault lies with those doing the firing.

Another organization with which I’ve worked has seen turnover in the CEO position every four to six years.  Only extremely smart, extremely energetic, highly motivated and innovative strategists are hired.  By year two or three these folks have apparently gotten a lot dumber, less innovative, less motivated and are under attack.  By year four, most are figuring out what they are going to do next.  Some resign, some are fired.

A colleague from my early days at Honeywell left to join a fast growing company on the East Coast.  Within three years he resigned rather than being fired and joined another fast growing company.  Three years later, the same situation developed.

He called it “the Founder’s Disease.”  The founder works hard on nurturing his or her idea and it finally takes off, the founder becomes rich, decides the 70+ hour weeks aren’t as much fun and is advised to hire a “professional” manager as a replacement.  Within a few months (a year or so at the most), the founder starts second guessing the professional manager.  Soon it becomes intolerable and one has to go.  The founder has more stock and/or more “juice” and the professional manager is told to leave.

Is there a solution?  Probably not.  Not for the City which has a City Council aching to get there hands on the day-to-day operations . . . in spite of what the City Charter says.  Not for the company where the founder has control and is willing to exercise this control, in spite of what the incredibly smart and capable CEO hired last year has contributed. 

As investors we need to understand the motivation of founders and boards and avoid investments in companies with symptoms of Founders Disease.  As members of boards, we need to separate our feeling that we could do it better from our responsibility to carefully select and nurture the company’s staff, removing only those who are not contributing, not those who aren’t doing things our way.

As residents of Cities we need to elect council members with the capability to act in strategic and policy situations and avoid the temptation to try and grab the day-to-day control from the city staff.

Over the weekend I received a note from a client outlining how she intended to bring some project status to the senior management.

Earlier we had exchanged some notes regarding ways to deliver information so that it would be received as intended and cause actions as needed.  Out of habit and years of repetition, the following almost automatically flowed to the screen:

“Tell them: this is what needs to be done, this is why we need to do it, it will cost (require resources) this much and we should see results by (date).”

“Package the messages in no more than three versions:  a 30 second version in case you only have their momentary attention, a three minute version in case they ask you to quickly bring them up to date and a thirty minute version should you be asked to explain things in full.”

“In nearly all cases, package the message so that all the senior execs have to do is say ‘yes, do it’ or send the draft email you have prepared for them which directs others to action.”

As is often the case, I received some push back.  “Yes but, they need to know what happens if . . .” is often the beginning of the rebuttal to my suggestion of communicating via “Bumper Stickers.”  (Or maybe the more contemporary analogy should be packaging as if you were sending a “Tweet.”)

In part breaking my own communication rules, my response was that the “why we need to do it” is the place for consequences of inaction.  The other factor is that the execs should have enough trust to say “yes” on most of your requests based past performance.

A near certain way of failing to communicate is to try to stuff 3 minutes of material into a 30 second window (or 30 minutes of material into a three minute window).  The second near certain way of failing is to only focus on the “why we need to do . . . something” when the action to fix the situation is not clearly stated, and stated first.

Or is this approach last season’s merchandise and today bosses are different?

Today I received a note in response to my gradual acceptance of Facebook.  A former client and current friend whom I hadn’t heard from for awhile said he was in the process of recovering from a serious illness and needed to look for a job with lower stress.  I’ll use an alias . . . “Barney,” so as to protect his privacy.  Barney is a hard working guy who gradually worked his way to become a CIO in several organizations.

And that is what he knows best.  Being a CIO or senior manager within an IT organization.  Although no advice or help was requested, there was an implicit request.  He thinks I helped him through some difficult times in one of his former positions and have provided some useful advice from time to time since.

It is a tough question.  What role would lower the stress level of a fellow who has thrived in high stress situations for the past 20 plus years?  O yes, there is the implicit conditions that it would have a similar compensation level.  Which would imply the role would use the skills and experience built up over the past two decades.

I like to respond to such requests with something useful.  So far, the options just haven’t presented themselves.

John Blair

For the past several years I have intended to start a blog.  There were two major barriers:  learning the mechanics and having something to say.  It appears that the mechanics are now so simple that it only leaves the content as an issue.

So lets see what happens!