Tag Archive for: ethics

Mongolian Beef and the Moment of Truth

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We all face moments of truth.  What do yours reveal about you?

 

This past Friday evening–at the end of what was a fantastic week–I decided to drop in on a local Chinese food restaurant for takeout before heading home to my family.

It was a regular drop in on a business I hadn’t been to in probably four months.  I placed a “robust” order to feed our family of 6, and then walked outside the restaurant to talk on the phone while my order was prepared.

When I walked back in, one earphone in my ear and the other dangling so that I could pick up my two sackfuls of Chinese goodness, the cook and proprietor of the restaurant pointed to the sacks and said “I made you a Mongolian Beef to make up for the one I missed last time.”

I was astounded.

“Last time,” as I noted above, had to have been four months ago.  I vaguely remembered, only after the cook pointed it out, that I had indeed arrived home one Mongolian Beef short of my full order on that trip.  I remember calling briefly and letting the shop know (without much fanfare…literally just “hey, wanted you to know we were short on this one…no big deal.”).

And the cook remembered better than me.

He, no doubt, had a moment of truth where his customer walked in, didn’t say a word about a past service miss, placed a big order, and then waited.  The moment of truth was that moment when he faced the choice of either to address a prior miss that hadn’t been remembered by the customer, or to just go with the flow and ignore it–banking on the customer’s ignorance.

On moments of truth

There’s a reality in customer service–all parts of business and life, really.  It’s that we all face moments of truth.  Moments of truth are moments that force us to reveal–at the very least to ourselves–who we really are.

It may be that moment when you ought to deliver hard feedback to a client but decide not to because it’s too, well, hard.

It may be that moment when you return that overpayment to your customer like it’s a hot potato because you are not about keeping your customers’ money.

And, yes, it may be that moment when you remember a customer issue from four months ago and go the extra mile to mitigate it when the chance, finally, arises again.

We all have moments of truth in our lives. Moments of truth are moments of truth because we quite often have discretion about which way we go.

We can choose.

We can hide from the truth and reveal that we are, in fact, cowardly (like in my feedback example above).  Or, we can face the music and see where it takes us.

The question we all should consider is this:  When faced with my moment of truth, what will it reveal about me?

We should all hope for the revelation of strength of character in such moments.

What do you think?

When Your Karma Runs Over Your Dogma

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What goes around actually does come around every now and then. Choose your methods wisely.

 

The recent U.S. presidential election and the veritable smorgasbord of delicious irony–current and impending–has me thinking…

This is not a political blog.  But, it’s hard to ignore the very real strategic insights that come from an election that gives us:

  1. A winning candidate whose methods of winning have left a lot of scorched earth to recover–whether you think him a buffoon, a fighter, a genius, or simply a flawed person (like all of us).
  2. A media sector whose methods have demolished whatever trust remained in it for the time being, leading up to the New York Times editorial board needing to redouble its efforts on “reporting America and the world honestly” (an astounding non-admission if there ever was one).
  3. A set of supporters of the non-winning candidate who now realize that the methods of powers that were behind some of the biggest “wins” for their side (budget reconciliation, as a starter…) probably could be used against them once power passes to someone they simply don’t like.
  4. A vastly smaller set of people who have chosen to protest, riot, and in general cry foul while breaking things in response to what was a fair outcome (not policy outcomes…the person, mind you).

So, what’s the insight?

I’ll give it to you simply, and it’s nothing original.  It’s this:

If you live by the sword, be prepared to die by the sword.

If you live by bullying, shouting down, ignoring, and using unique devices to get your way, then just know that turnabout, while not always fair, is in play.  Yes, in this case I’m referring to the healthy proportion of Democrat Party supporters who have taken off their “open minded, tolerant” masks to show that actually, it was really just either “our way or broken glass.”

But, the truth is we all resort to such conveniences without thinking about it.

We all choose what our dogma says we should, and ignore the blow-back that is likely to come later.  in the 2000’s, U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan stemmed from a neoconservative dogma that everybody, eventually, responds to the big stick.  That dogma is flawed (and, ironically enough, proven wrong by the very existence of the United States of America).  The blow-back the U.S. has experienced both internally and externally since deciding to prosecute those wars is instructive of the flawed dogma.

The same is true in the private sector.

I know of multiple executives–some of whom are recently “returned to the market”–whose own arrogance, conspiracies, and secrecy-driven styles ultimately boomeranged on them.

The blow-back was real, and easily foreseeable for anyone who knew the nitty-gritty details.

One in particular was so dogmatic about a social Darwinist approach (and their own superiority to others within that worldview) that, when faced with feedback about their own behaviors and how such behavior could get them figuratively offed from the organization, just cruised right on into oblivion perilously ensconced in the calm self-confidence that such dogma can bring.

One might, in fact, call it karmic justice that the individual faced a sudden and unceremonious ouster from a cold, unfeeling, and similarly dogmatic (about other important character traits) boss.

It’s kind of like what we have witnessed in the “how could we be so wrong” set of 2016 election pollsters who were, in fact, so wrong about the election. The pollsters couldn’t measure the number of people in their polls who, uncomfortable with being called deplorable or bigoted for voicing their support for President Elect Trump (it’s still a stunning reality to write that, by the way), simply didn’t answer the polls correctly. The pollsters’ dogma was in the numbers and not the very real human elements of strategic prognostication.  Human character traits matter.

Sometimes, character traits that can only be measured in actions or lack of actions–not numbers–are the ones that carry the day. Executives who perform beautifully on the financial numbers but who ignore their own character flaws and how those might be viewed by other powerful people are similar.

They succumb to blind spots.

But, they are blind spots only to those who don’t understand the notion of living and dying by the sword.

If you are a strategic jerk–pitting customers and employees against one other for constant gain–then don’t be shocked when someone comes along and beats you at your own game.

If you are an organizational jerk–saying you hire and fire people for their performance but really only when you like and dislike them–then don’t be shocked when someone comes along and simply…doesn’t like you.

If you are a political jerk, using false promises and propanda to fool and lie to people in order to get them to follow you, then don’t be shocked when someone comes along and appropriates your own emotion driving style, and beats you at your own game.

The incoming Trump administration and pretty much any of us presiding as executives ought to take heed:  When your dogma gets run over by your karma…it ain’t pretty.

If you find yourself in a position of believing there is no way you are wrong, then you probably are already wrong.

Choose your methods wisely.

You’ve just taken the time to read this…now take the time to comment.  What do you think? 

 

They Believe in Good Ethics, Too!

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Just because leaders believe in ethical behavior doesn’t mean they partake. 

“You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this…” James 2:19 (NLT)

“We have a pool and a pond…the pond would be good for you.” – Ty Webb, Caddyshack

It’s not every day I get to mix a Caddyshack quote with a bible verse. But, hey, it’s Sunday.

Do you believe in a high ethical standard?

Good for you!

Did you know that the biggest espousers of ethical cultures are sometimes the biggest violators of the ethics they espouse?

Sounds dark and cynical, doesn’t it?

Stay with me. There’s perhaps some light at the other end of the tunnel that will save you from being run over by a train one day.

Ethical behaviors or any of its similar corporate recruiting poster cousins like “values” and “principles” are important. And, shockingly, ethical culture can grow up around an unethical individual, even if that individual is in a leadership position.

Why? Because for some unethical predators, having a roomful of highly predictable ethical brethren is a useful thing. And, as long as nobody’s really looking, the unethical leader can be on the take for years…

…all the while leading an ethical company or organization.

Just as patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, I’d propose that ethical cultures are the best hiding places for the unethical.

In some of the most ethical environments exist leaders who trade on inside information; discriminate based on race, gender, and age; make choices that destroy the environment and families; break non disclosure agreements; talk freely of petty felonies; and warm the books for personal gain in ways that leaders in less sterling environments could never get away with.

They cheat and steal when they can, usually under the cover of plausible deniability.

They may fall to the lowest legal standard when the ethical standard is much, much higher. They may fall far below the legal standard when they know nobody will suspect them.

Probably worse, and perhaps much worse, they stand by while others do these things–knowing that it’s suicidal to try to poke the bear.

I’m embarrassed to know that these are facts.

The point of this post is that we, as leaders with an enlightened code, have to know one thing:  even unethical leaders recognize the value and actively espouse the growth of ethical cultures, for such cultures are dense cover, and fertile hunting grounds.

I am not likely the world’s most ethical person. I know that, and that knowledge fuels a desire to watch out for dents.

Like James from the verse above, I find it important to know that just because I or someone else believe in something (one God or an ethical standard of behavior) doesn’t mean that I or they are on the good side of that belief.

Demons believe in one God, too.  Unethical executives love the cloak of an ethical culture.

They believe in ethics, too.

They just believe in ethics like Ty Webb believed in sharing his pool with Spackler. The pond will be just fine for the little people.

Be on guard when it comes to the espousers of ethical cultures, especially those who wear badges to signify their “success” at building one.

Some of them are unethical predators that depend on a herd of ethical animals.

What do you think?

Strategic synthesis: The art and corruption of brevity

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Pithy management insights have their place—and their perils.

Geoff Wilson

I dig synthesis. I mean, I really enjoy enlivening concepts by making them simple and direct. You say, “I want to have the best service, best product, best operations, and the best brand.” I say, “You want a delighted customer.”

See what I did there? Same concept, synthesized. But synthesis is a Goldilocks proposition: too much and you get burned; too little and you’re left cold. Take the above example. Is it sufficient feedback? I’m not sure. That mostly depends on the leadership team receiving the synthesis.

I know some leadership teams that would take “delighted customer” and turn it into a map of service, product, operations, brand, etc. And I know other leadership teams that would hear “delighted customer” and knuckle down on their customer service function. It’s obvious, right? Customer service is the function that delights customers … right? Wrong.

That’s where synthesis is dangerous. Excess synthesis make you pithy. Pithiness is useful in some contexts. Look at the typical internet meme and you’ll see pithiness writ large. But go too far down the pithy path and you end up at pithy’s dangerous neighbor: glibness.

If synthesis is a beautiful red wine, pithiness is a wine cooler, and glibness is a nasty bottle of Boone’s Farm. Dilettantes guzzle Boone’s until they suffer the consequences. Boone’s is cheap, shallow, and insincere—just like a glib statement.

boones

To wit, I’m struck by a meme that recently passed through my LinkedIn feed. It depicts Simon Sinek and a quote about hiring attributed to him:

sinek-skills

This statement epitomizes glib, dangerous advice. Would you select your surgeon based on demeanor? Or choose a mechanic based on attitude? Of course not.

The advice is so extremely context-driven as to be useless. It’s not pithy, it’s shallow—glib, even. Such thinking may apply to the most basic entry-level or noncritical jobs, but adopting the same philosophy to hire your CFO would not only be moronic but could also put you in jail.

While I’m not trying to disparage Sinek—I don’t even know if he approves of the use of this particular quotation—I am denigrating truthiness in management advice. Sinek, I suspect, may know better. Synthesis is an art of the highest order. It delivers precisely what you need when you need it.

Pithiness is an art, too, but it’s a corruptible one. Pithy bullshit sells. But that same pithy bullshit can also get you in deep trouble. Leaders, strategists, managers, and people of all sorts must be skilled at hearing a pitch, proverb, or proposal and searching for the bones beneath it.

If I tell you to “delight your customer,” you may be able to find the full skeleton of a well-built customer-value proposition. At that point, I may have done my job. But f I tell you to “delight your customer” and you then zero in on only the customer service function, I haven’t done enough. I’ve delivered you a wine cooler when you actually need more wine.

If Sinek tells you to hire for attitude and then teach skills, and you rightly ask how that works when hiring senior software engineers, you have properly looked for the bones that were never there. You’re calling bullshit on a tidy, pithy, pseudo-synthetic glass of glibness. Think Boone’s Farm.

Such swill is from the bottom shelf of management thinking—just like a $2 bottle of “strawberry-flavored citrus wine” (a description that sounds like the recipe for a bad hangover). You can live with a wine cooler now and then, but if you’re swigging Boone’s Farm, you’re in for a rough awakening.

What do you think?

A Song For Me at 23

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If I could tell my younger self what matters in professional life…I would tell him this.

I walked out of college a free man, but I didn’t know it.  I may have been a free man with a limp and a headache thanks to a few too many days on the football field, but I was free.

I had no money to speak of and drove my girlfriend’s car. Luckily, I now know, I also had no debt. Along with that, I think I had a healthy appreciation for hard work.

Still there are a lot of things I wish I had known at that age as they relate to business and executive life.  There are things you just don’t learn in school, and many of them relate to interpersonal or even personality-based observations. That’s why I’m writing this. I figured that I can put out a few points that I wish I had known at 23, and I figure they might help someone else along the way.

One thing is for sure, they will help you understand my professional worldview.  If you read this blog, you know that it’s about worldview, and these points represent scar tissue; none of them has been fatal (totally), and some of them represent processes that have made me the professional I am.  Read them, and then tell me where I’m wrong (or right).

____________________________

 

Dear 23-year-old self:

You are about to embark on a career.  It’s going to be fun, frustrating, and probably not as fast-moving as you would like, so I’m going to list a few suggestions here that will give you a leg up in your career, and perhaps in your life.  Many of them you won’t be able to understand until you’ve experienced the situations themselves, and that’s just life, but some of them might help you be better prepared for the situation.

  1. Invest the time on your own or in a class to learn principles of accounting and finance cold.  I know it’s an odd “reflection” to start with on a list like this one, but it’s true. Sure, your liberal arts education is valuable because it helps you to think…Sure, whatever.  But what’s really valuable is knowing how to assess organizations’ financial health, understand the time value of money, and peer into how decisions are made vs. how they should be made based on the numbers. No matter where you sit, knowing the numbers gives you a leg up, so you need the tools to learn how to know the numbers.  If you don’t know what a T-account is or can’t explain why a company would invest in a project that will lose money for five years, you need to go back to school.
  2. Acquire a healthy skepticism for title and wealth. These are not always an indication of the quality of person you are dealing with.  Like British accents, titles and wealth can lead you to a false sense of security that the person you’re working with is smart and accomplished, and that is in fact often the case, but not always, and the same goes for degrees and credentials–the guy with the engineering degree from State can often run circles around the Harvard MBA.
  3. Beware anyone who thinks work hours are defined by the calendar.  “My” holidays and “my” vacation are signs of a paycheck player.  If you’re on a professional track, opportunity comes at all times in all shapes.  That guy who calls you at 9 pm on a Friday?  He probably has something important to say.  I once had a manager answer the phone in Europe at 2 am local time when I called from the U.S.  I had no idea where he was, and he made no protest during the call.  I didn’t find out until later that week, after he had returned to the U.S., that he had even been in Europe when I called. I asked him why he answered, and you know his response?  “Might have been important.”  I love that guy.
  4. Working harder than other people does not guarantee you success or wealth.  It might provide you with some dignity, however.  Remember Boxer from Animal Farm?  He was the noble horse who always worked hard for the cause, no matter the direction.  The work didn’t take away from his nobility, but it did kill him–he literally worked himself to death.
  5. Learn and understand the snowdrift problem in game theory.  This one is kind of nerdy, but it’s real everywhere. There will always be people whose first move in a tough situation will be to wait for somebody else to do the hard work.  Be sure that you think about accountability carefully, and if you’re always the one shoveling snow, be bold enough to get out.
  6. Recognize that there are people without consciences, and they are probably better at the political game than you.  I once observed an executive execute the most deceptive game of bait and switch I’ve ever seen, and shortly after that, he offered advice and support to the person who had been baited.  The kicker?  The executive knew he was being deceptive–he offered his advice with the phrase “I don’t know why you would trust us, but here’s the advice.”  The nerve.
  7. Find a way to serve.
  8. Learn to manage for the short term, but get out of any situation that manages to only be short term, because your life will (hopefully) be long. It’s important to learn how to manage for the short term–to cut costs and rein in spending or maybe seek additional sales to cover a shortfall elsewhere. And it’s okay to manage to the short term–that’s where we all eat.  But it’s also important to realize that just as alcoholism is the diseased extreme of enjoying a good drink, short-termism is both a disease and a kind of addiction: The more you do it, the more it becomes insidious.
  9. Hotheads aren’t always bad.  I had a boss early in my career who was the greatest guy to ever throw his keyboard across a room; he was a tantrum machine, but he was also a guy who genuinely cared.  Know the difference between a grade-A jerk or asshole and a good person with a strong sense of duty but also a temper.  There is a difference.
  10. Where there’s no contract, there’s no contract.  Here’s a piece of advice that’s going to sound more cynical than it is.  No, I’m not saying “always have a contract”; I’ve negotiated multi-million dollar consulting engagements that were founded on the client’s trust and the consultant’s commitment to excellence, and I believe in the power of a person’s word and handshake. But, and this is an important but, many people like to use the ambiguity of no contract to gain advantage.  So my advice to you is to always know when there is no contract–know your counterparty/client/customer, and your boss (see what I did with that last one?), as well as you know yourself.  Don’t rely on contracts, but know when you don’t have one; no amount of flattery and gushy feelings at the start of a relationship will overcome the poor values of a counterparty who won’t define or fulfill commitments.
  11. Beware anyone who goes out of their way to say they are giving you friendly advice.  They probably are neither giving you advice nor being your friend.  True friends don’t have to reiterate the point; you know them by their deeds.
  12. Liquid net worth provides flexibility. Whether you’re a shop floor worker or a CEO, money is important, but it’s really liquid net worth that matters; I know plenty of senior executives who are miserable but completely locked down to a bad team, bad company, or bad leader due to their own financial choices.  Always keep enough liquidity on hand to be able to walk away without regret; that means you should accumulate a few thousand bucks when you’re just out of college, and it might mean hundreds of thousands of dollars once you’ve “made it.”  Financial handcuffs are tough, which brings me to my next point…
  13. People make really bad decisions when they’re under financial stress.  This can include executives cooking the books (or even “just” shading them surreptitiously) to make their bonuses, but it can also include things as innocuous as salespeople treating customers poorly or manufacturing workers doing their jobs poorly.  You really don’t want to have a workforce that’s worried about whether they can make their next grocery bill, and more than that, you don’t want a CFO who will make rotten financial and personnel decisions just to make a bonus.  The love of money is the root of all sorts of bad things–I read that somewhere.
  14. Care.  Yes, I mean that: Care.  You will be tempted (in fact, encouraged in some environments) to acquire social and emotional distance from the people some think you will have to hurt to be successful; it will come with the challenge to “do what it takes” to keep your job.  But don’t be fooled–care.  I was once offered a role that implicitly came with the need to fire a couple of people I had coached and mentored and whose capabilities were strong. It wasn’t the right thing to do, so I didn’t; I chose to leave.  On the way out, I was goosed with a comment and critique about not doing what it takes, but that’s just a consequence of caring.  You know what else is a consequence of caring?  Loyalty, love, the ability to sleep well at night.  In short, your life will be better because you took the time to care.
  15. Trust is cumulative…in both directions.  You will live life with a sense of trust in people you know you can rely on, but you have to learn to know when you have enough evidence to know you can trust someone, and also to know when you can’t. 
  16. Respect the dignity of other people.  There are a lot of instances in life when it’s easier to double cross, lie, shade the truth, and walk away–resist that temptation. Stripped bare, we all rely on others. So respect that, and you’ll go a long way.
  17. Life and business are not zero-sum games. You’ve made it through college, and maybe played some sports.  If so, you’ve gotten used to winners and losers, but life isn’t like that.  In life, there are winners of all sorts and losers of all sorts, and sometimes there are situations when everyone is a winner (or at least not losers).  Really effective executives I know think about when they are playing a zero-sum game and when they have the opportunity to grow the pie, so learn to realize the beauty of growing the pie.   Zero-sum games are in actuality very rare–we only make them common. On a related note,
  18. A spreadsheet can’t show you how to grow the pie.  Unfortunately, math without vision only leads to reductive incrementalism.  Very, very few spreadsheets would have predicted the rise of Standard Oil, the emergence of digital music, or the turnaround of Apple Computer. Numbers don’t lie, but they don’t think either. Vision has to be injected into that spreadsheet; don’t mistake tools and math for strategic vision.
  19. When it comes to people, where they (and you) stand depends on where they sit.  Upton Sinclair famously noted that it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his livelihood depends on his not understanding it. Perspective matters, and if you get good at taking different perspectives, you’ll start to understand how other people think, although it does take time and practice.  By altering where you sit and then thinking about where you stand, you start to think interesting thoughts when it comes to business strategy.  Funny thing is, you also start to think differently about the world.  Perhaps John D. Rockefeller (of Standard Oil) really did save the whales; perhaps Steve Jobs is actually the cause of a generation of hearing loss and an epidemic of traffic fatalities; and perhaps, just perhaps, what you’re being paid to do isn’t good for the organization or the world.  Get beyond your salary when it comes to what right and wrong look like. Stretch your thinking, and be bigger than your smallness.
  20. No matter how much garbage they eat, seagulls are not really good creatures to have around. Seagulls fly in, beg for food, take a dump, and then cackle a lot; some people are enamored with them, but in reality, they’re just rats with wings (as we used to say back home on the Gulf Coast).  Seagulls live at the beach and the dump, and in human form, they often live in corporate environments.  My advice for you is to learn to be a problem solver, not a problem finder; cultivate a constructive approach to life, not just an observational one. Justify your existence, and don’t be a seagull.
  21. Know how to incrementally assess situations.  The incidence of “good from far, but far from good” in people and companies is increasing because the channels of communication are increasing; it’s far easier for companies to cultivate high-profile brands that cover up lowlife cultures.  On the flip side, it’s far easier for motivated individuals to learn a lot about any situation in a short time frame. Learn to assess situations at first glance, after a few minutes, after a few days, and after months.  Learn to take the time to sleep on decisions, and do your due diligence, but also trust your gut.  This is especially true about people: If people look and smell unethical even though they’re wearing ethics as a badge, disregard the badge and go with look and feel.
  22. Don’t be a “yes” man, but realize that being a “no” man is just as bad.  Yes men are common in any culture; they go along to get along.  It’s a fact of life, but not a very edifying existence, so find a way to have your own point of view or else you’ll be redundant.  But the opposite position is equally bad; the “no” man rarely encourages growth or expansion.  Try to think about growth as coming from a combination of yesses and nos, and live in the mess between the absolutes.
  23. Be exceptionally careful about “following orders.”  Just following orders can give you a mental freedom that allows you to ignore basic ethical principles, and ultimately it can corrupt your values.  Have the self-respect to reflect on orders, and recognize that they shouldn’t supersede your humanity.
  24. Your network is everything, but you have to know what a network is.  A real network is not the number of people you’re connected to–it’s the number of people who will do something for you if you’re in need, and there is a huge difference between the two. In my early days, people thought networking was collecting business cards; nowadays it’s probably LinkedIn connections–but both are wrong. Networking is finding reciprocal relationships that help you by your helping others.
  25. If you’ve made it this far, you probably already know this, but reading is a highly underrated skill.  I’d argue it’s second only to listening.
  26. Finally, and perhaps as a wrapper…Preserve your self-respect.  There will be plenty of times in your career when you’ll be faced with choices that can erode your self-respect; sometimes it’s just as simple as taking a call in the middle of a family event, and sometimes it’s worse. You’ll find months of your career that are bad for your health–it is going to happen. But even if one day you find that you have to make a choice you know is wrong but you have to do it to preserve a broader agenda or position, just be sure you know the stakes.

I’m sure you’re off to a fantastic career.  Enjoy it, and maybe one of these points will save you from a scar or two.

Sincerely,

Your much older self

On Weaving Spiders

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How weaving spiders can destroy your career, your organization, and your strategy.

 

Imagine a set of dialogues that goes something like this:

Dialogue 1 – Hotel lounge at an industry conference: 

Jill (a senior manager with a well-known tight linkage to the CEO): “Hey Alex, I’ve been thinking about your career path and how I can be helpful.  We’re sitting here with time to kill… Tell me what you want to do with your life…Just among friends.”

Alex (a seasoned and high performing, but junior manager): “Jill, you know, it’s a tough one.  I love what I do today and could see my self doing this for years.  If it came to truly advancing my career, I would have a very hard time moving to another geography right now to take on a new role due to family concerns, and I certainly wouldn’t take a role that is lower than the one I have now…Just as friends, I’ll tell you that I would have to leave the company if that were the only set of options.”

Dialogue 2 – In the corporate office – 2 months later: 

Alex:  “Hey, Jill, how are things?”

Jill: “Pretty tough. Let me let you in on a secret, but you have to keep it confidential.  You know Bill, over in accounting?  He just got really upset about his lack of career options.  He used you as an example…He said he was a more senior guy than you when you both joined the company 5 years ago, and that he deserved to be advanced beyond you.  Can you believe the nerve of that guy? He’d better watch out.”

Alex:  “Really?  I’ve known him for years.  I’ll have to see what’s up.  Maybe I’ll drop by there to have a chat.”

Jill: “No way, Alex.  If anything, if you ever let him know that you know this, he’ll be even more upset. And besides, I’m telling you this in confidence…right?  Just as friends.”

Alex:  “Okay, but you know, that’s really out of character for Bill…”

Jill:  “Maybe you don’t know Bill the way I do.  Trust me.”

Dialogue 3 – On the telephone:

Alex:  “Hey, Bill…  I need to talk with you.  We’ve been friends for years and I just heard something that I can’t let come between us.

Bill: “Alex, of course.  What’s up?”

Alex:  “Bill, I just heard about your conversation with Jill. I have to apologize that I know about it, but it’s important to me that you and I are above board.  Are you really bothered by my career trajectory?  I mean, I know that you were more senior than me coming in, and I know that I have a more senior title now, but I also know that you are doing a great job and actually making more money than I am… So, I needed to know what gives….

Bill:  “What conversation with Jill?  She and I haven’t talked in more than 2 weeks.”

Alex: “She said you just talked…yesterday.”

Bill:  “Well, that would be tough as I was off yesterday for a colonoscopy.”

Alex: “And, you’ve had no conversation with Jill?”

Bill: “Not a word.  Sounds like somebody has some explaining to do…”

Dialogue 4 – The office hallway:

Jill: “Hello there, Alex,! Whew, I just got out of a meeting with Monica [the company’s CEO].  Wow there is a lot going on.”

Alex: “Jill, I have to ask you something.”

Jill: “Sure, what’s up? I’m always willing to help a friend.”

Alex: “Jill, you said that Bill was upset about me…and I had to ask him.  He said not only was he not upset, but that you hadn’t talked to him.”

Jill: “Alex, how dare you break confidence with me.  Of course he wouldn’t admit that to you.  Bill really does hate you, Alex.”

Alex: “Jill, I’ve been friends with Bill for a decade, you have to understand…”

Jill: “No, that’s not how this works…How dare you!  I trusted you!”

Jill walks away.

Dialogue 5 – The CEO’s office, 2 months later

Monica: “Alex, thanks for taking the time to meet.  We’ve been considering your career path, and I have a fantastic opportunity for you.  We have a role in Argentina championing a new change initiative. I wanted to tell you about it myself!  You can keep the same title, but it does require you to report to one of your peers. I’ve heard great things about you, your willingness to relocate, and your willingness to take a step back in the organization in order to move forward… and this is just the ticket for you!”

Alex: “Monica, I think there has been some mistake… I don’t think this is a good fit at all.”

Monica: “Oh, but this is a done deal.  We need you there. You’ve already said that this is what you want! Jill told me about your conversation…how you wanted new challenges and a faster career pace.  Besides, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.  I have to go now, but I want you to go consider it.”

Alex: “Ok…”

Dialogue 6 – On the telephone, moments later

Alex: “Hey Jill, what’s up?”

Jill: “Alex!  Did you get the word from Monica?  What a great opportunity for you!”

Alex: “Well, not really. And, I know you know why…I told you about my family constraints keeping me from taking a geographic move, and how unattractive a lateral move would be for me.”

Jill: “Hmmm, I guess you have a tough choice to make…I always hate it when people have to leave for the wrong reasons. Talk to you later…That’s Monica on the other line!”

Dialogue 7 – The CEO’s office, 2 months later

Monica:  It’s really unfortunate that we lost Alex.  I tried to give him exactly the career option that he wanted, just like you suggested.  I really liked the guy.  He could have helped us even if he had stayed in his old role!

Jill: Don’t be silly, Monica.  He had some nerve telling me he wanted to move to Latin America and would do anything to get it done then going to you and throwing the perfect opportunity back in your face.  You really don’t need such manipulative people in your midst.  Good riddance!

Monica: I guess you are right.  Thanks for having my back…

Jill: Are you kidding?  Our friendship is so important to me. Thank you for listening to me!

On disordered personalities in your workplace…

What just happened?  Who is the crazy one in the dialogues above?  And how often does this sort of thing go on in our organizations?

I’ll give you my simple answer:  Jill is a weaving spider.  They are more common than you think.

Alex was the mark, the dupe, the victim.  He was the guy who could either be extremely useful in Jill’s web of confidence or, and it happened suddenly when Jill tripped up by attempting to foment discord between Bill and Alex, he would become enemy number 1 because he was suddenly onto her.

The good news for Alex is he got out. Had it not been for his willingness to trust but verify, the revelation from Jill that Bill, his longtime friend, was upset with him might have left him feeling confused and thankful to Jill for unmasking Bill for the “bad guy” he was cast as in Jill’s game. Jill would have had another chip in the game with Alex. Only it backfired on Jill in a minor way.

Jill, instead of admitting her dishonesty when confronted by Alex, doubled down and then resorted to righteous indignation at Alex’s breach of “confidential” information.  She then went on the attack and, because she maintained a web of other “chips” in the game with many others who had not identified her tactics, particularly Monica, she engineered Alex’s exit via the “Great Opportunity.”

There are people, perhaps in your own organization, who thrive on discord.  They thrive on manipulating one person’s perception of another, and in some cases manipulating people into paranoia and instability.  There exists a set of tactics, known as gaslighting, that have been outlined in the research on mental abuse.  The term comes from a 1938 play (coincidentally titled “Gas Light”) about a husband who dispassionately manipulates his wife into believing she is mentally ill.

The tactics are in the toolkit of mental abusers the world over, even those in corporate environments. And, they are often based around manipulating another person’s sense of reality (“Bill really does hate you, Alex.”).  In an office setting, like any other, they depend entirely upon the confidence the mark has in the perpetrator.  In the case above, Alex broke Jill’s gaslighting chain by trusting his own judgment and going to Bill to have a discussion about Jill.  In fact, that single action revealed to Alex all that Jill was about.

Gaslighting is the realm of sociopaths who will manipulate, conceal, appeal to secrets, confidence, and friendship while collecting little tidbits of information (“chips” in their twisted game) that can be used for or against anyone…all while upholding an angry righteous indignation against anyone who questions their honesty or integrity.  Make no mistake, Jill has Monica duped as well, but Monica’s sense of reality is warped by Jill’s ability to keep others at bay and ensure Monica is focused on expediency (“Don’t be silly, Monica” being a great example… Jill might as well have said “Don’t think, Monica.”).

Why write about this?  Well, personalities like Jill’s are fantastic drains on organizational effectiveness. In the case above, Monica’s organization has lost a high potential talent. That is a huge piece of damage to an organization.  Bill will probably leave due to or be eliminated by Jill’s machinations soon as well. So, this is an important leadership and organizational effectiveness lesson in a few ways:

If you are Alex, Bill, or any other bystander, you need to be aware that this kind of personality exists.  When people around you appeal to your confidence for things that really ought to be handled in the open, it should make you wary.  Keep your eyes open for dishonesty and manipulation of all sorts, and challenge yourself not to be blind to it when you are not the mark.  In this case, Alex did the right thing by departing. Monica wasn’t interested in hearing his side of the story because decisions had been made.

If you are Monica, that is, a senior executive who may be being manipulated, the best way to guard against a destructively manipulative subordinate is to actually test for completeness.  Even a strong manipulator can only go so far, and usually, it’s the people deeper in the organization who know how truly dishonest an animal like Jill can be.  If you find yourself with a subordinate who more than a few times gets into “he said, she said” arguments (they will invariably call them “misunderstandings”) with others, you might feel a tinge of concern and go deeper. If you have a subordinate who never lets you out of their sight, you may have a spider near you.  Get a second opinion from someone who might tell you the truth, and be ready to hear the truth.

As a leader, you have to be prepared to hear the truth…Why do I hammer on that point?  Because, unfortunately, true manipulators like Jill are very good at creating self fulfilling prophecies that can make them seem almost clairvoyant about people.  You can bet your bottom dollar that Jill hinted to Monica that Alex was a departure risk before engineering the “Great Opportunity.” So, when Alex left, Jill looked like an expert with amazing organizational feel rather than a manipulative sociopath.  Monica, then, is likely to be blinded by her admiration for what she sees as Jill’s “sixth sense” instead of being justifiably horrified by the truth.

Manipulative, disordered personalities like Jill’s only exist in organizations because they are enabled by apathetic peers and ignorant or opportunistic superiors. The Jills of the world usually have fantastic capabilities (if Jill were not good at surreptitiously managing many people’s realities, then she wouldn’t have risen to senior management), but they foster discord in organizations and in personal lives and can and do lead to the downfall of both.

Be willing to speak up whether you are the CEO, the hapless mark, or an innocent bystander.  It’s time to turn off the gaslights in our organizations.

What do you think about this situation and leadership lesson?  Have you ever had an experience like Alex’s? How would you handle this if you were Monica?  Leave a comment…

Say Hello To Integrity Guy

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Here’s to Integrity Guy.  He has integrity.  Just ask him.

 

This one is simple.

Integrity is important. Talking about it?  Not so much.

Let me introduce you to “Integrity Guy.” You probably know him.  Hey, he might be you.

Who is “Integrity Guy”? He’s the guy who espouses integrity in everything he does.  He has it; just ask him.

He’s the one who will be sure to say things like “we never lie or cheat.” And “act with integrity.” And “those guys have no integrity.” And the always imploring, “we have to have integrity.”

In every easy instance, he holds out his integrity as impeccable.  When the chips are down, he especially  holds out his integrity as impeccable. But you’ll never be able to tell by looking at his actions.

Have you found him yet?  He’s probably working not far from you.

Integrity Guy.

He wears integrity pants to work every day, he drives an integrity car, and he sits at an integrity desk.

And what’s wrong with that? Well, nothing… Except let me tell you a little secret about Integrity Guy:  The more he lauds his own integrity, the less he’s aware that he actually lacks it.

Yep, you got it.  “I only act with integrity” is actually a risky mantra. Why?  Because cognitive dissonance being what it is, our minds are great at twisting our desires, deeds, and deductions to fit our own view of integrity.

In other words, if Integrity Guy goes around convincing himself of his integrity (or ethics, or good looks, or any other laudable quality) by repeating it to himself, he becomes blind to the times when he falls short of his lofty self image.

I stabbed my boss in the back?  Nah, I was just telling the truth to those other folks.  I have integrity, remember?

I sold out my friend?  No, no, no, personal gain had nothing to do with it.  You forget that I have integrity.

I’m not a team player?  Well, you’d better look at the rest of the team–they don’t deserve my integrity-laden presence.

I lied to close that deal? No, it wasn’t a lie; I just knew more than the other guy.  I have integrity, don’t you know?

Integrity Guy–all he needs is a trademark.

He often sits right next to I-Never-Lie-Guy and around the corner from I-Only-Do-The-Right-Thing Guy.   His desk is adjacent to the desk of Ethics Guy as well.

When we espouse Integrity, Ethics, doing the right thing, or any other categorical imperative, we can only do so with a heart that allows us to go home each night and ask ourselves if we really lived up to our own standard.

So now let me introduce you to I-Really-Want-To-Have-Integrity-Every-Day-But-Sometimes-Fail Guy.

He’s a good friend and businessperson, and you will know him by his actions.

Finding the Pony in the Pile

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Faced with adverse situations? Dig. 

 

I’ve written before on the benefits for strategists of finding strength and beauty, and you can look here for that.

But this post is a little different. This one is about finding strength from adversity. This is about the pony in the pile. If you don’t know the apocryphal story, here it is:

Once there were five-year-old twin boys,
one a pessimist and the other an optimist.
Wondering how two boys who seemed so alike could
be so different, their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist took the pessimist to a room piled high
with new toys, expecting the boy to be thrilled, but instead he burst into tears.

Puzzled, the psychiatrist asked, “Don’t you want to play with these toys?”
“Yes,” the little boy bawled,
“but if I did I’d only break them.”

Next the psychiatrist took the optimist to a room piled high with horse manure.

The boy yelped with delight, clambered to the top of the pile,

and joyfully dug out scoop after scoop,
tossing the manure into the air with glee.
“What on earth are you doing?” the psychiatrist asked.
“Well,” said the boy, beaming,

 “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

 

So that’s the pony in the pile in the traditional sense, but what about in your own professional life? How do you look for the pony in the piles of manure you’ve walked into?  Maybe the better question is, “Do you even look for the pony?” I can offer a few anecdotes that address my own stubborn growth on this topic.  I’ve reflected on these often.

About 12 years ago, I was an ambitious, strapping young lad who had just joined what many consider to be the most prestigious professional services firm in the world.  My second assignment as a member of this bastion of intellect and influence was to recommend elements of a massive downsizing for a struggling company.  It was not only a project that you had to swallow hard to take in the first place, it was also right in the middle of the holiday season. I have never hoped to have to say “Merry Christmas, you’re fired” to anyone as they are being laid off, but this was it. The pile of manure was tall, dark, and handsome, and to put it bluntly, I didn’t see a pony in sight.

It was, to most people involved, a distasteful project.

Then, about 9 years ago, I had the opportunity to lead a team in a gut-wrenching engagement to support the buy side of a highly complex, time-sensitive M&A transaction that involved multiple large corporations, multiple cultures, and a massive government component to boot. For all involved, it was an absolute mess of a project, and I got to sit right at the nexus. The pile of manure was standing tall once again.

These couple of instances of the “pile” and their separate trajectories through my life may be informative to you.

The first instance was dire, but it was clearly an opportunity to learn something I hadn’t learned before. Nobody was breaking ethical rules; the company was just sick and needed help. I was everything short of malcontent, and at some point, I even got there. But the work got done, I learned a ton, and to this day I believe that any young, self-righteously smart person ought to have to go through the effort of trying to turn around a dying company, even if only as an adviser. In short, here, the pony was staring me right in the face, and I only needed to look.

The second instance was exceptionally challenging. Through the hours, pressure, and politics, several people involved with the project struggled to recoup their professional lives after it was over. In that instance, I could sense that the learning experience would be a good one.  I could also sense–as the banker across the table from me fell asleep during the meeting–that the pain was shared across all parties; in other words, I didn’t have to dig too far to find the pony.  That was one of the most heartbreaking and energy-sucking projects I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of–one that I never want to relive–but the experience I gained from that roughly 10-week period of no sleep, constant travel, and absolute burnout strongly buttressed my professional outlook–although it left behind scar tissue that to this day has not gone away.

So why the serenade on heaps of manure and ponies? Really it’s because maybe somebody else can benefit from the little bit of perspective I’ve been able to accumulate.  Namely:

  • The worst experiences are often the best growth opportunities for your life, professional or otherwise.
  • Until you recognize adversity for the learning experience it is, it’s hard to look for the growth opportunity.
  • Many of us hide behind facades in order to avoid confronting the dung heap.
  • It’s better to start digging than to continue complaining.

I’ve never been accused of being an eternal optimist, but I have learned that when you’re presented with a pile of manure, dig for the pony.

How about you? You dig?

Google’s Team Traits and Your Executives

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On elite teams, it’s about honor, not safety

 

Google is an interesting company to say the least.

In the midst of a behemoth company that has a very thin historical record to draw from (seriously, the company is essentially 15 years old as a player on the global stage) lies a fascinating combination of entrepreneurship, hard-core, old-school competitive behavior, and analysis of people issues.

It’s that last thing that has me questioning whether Google has gotten something wrong.  A month or so ago, Google explained the traits that make its best teams click, and here’s an article that hits on the topic; it’s a quick read. The list is a little bit ho-hum for any active observer or participant in strategic management culture development—that is, clarity, purpose, dependability—except for one piece: Psychological safety.

Psychological safety. It sounds like the latest in a long line of management theory gobbledygook, but it’s not. Google (and any number of academic papers out there, and a TED talk here) basically says that people tend to stay and produce better when they believe their teams are safe places for intellectual exchange.

I have no problem with that notion—not one. In fact, it makes good sense. If I’m being listened to on my team and not belittled for the things I don’t know, I will like it better.  Makes good sense, right?

But as a practitioner who has worked at and continues to work at the top levels of organizations, I think Google’s prescription is only half right, which means partially wrong.  And the part that Google gets wrong is the part that matters to the strong functioning of the highest parts of complex organizations—the elite parts, if you will.

The higher you go, the less “psychological safety” matters…

 

Here’s the rub: In the run-of-the-mill team, psychological safety matters.  As you go higher in the organization, people worry less about “safety.”  Safety isn’t a big issue to the average executive, or at least, it shouldn’t be; an executive who is worried about safety probably is not confident enough to be in the role.

But what does matter? Honor.

In other words, this difference in perspective between that of a mid-level team member and that of an executive team member is like the difference between a weekend rock climber and a global mountaineer.  The weekend climber is signing up for an experience for which safety is key to the integrity of the experience, and death isn’t part of the deal.

The mountaineer, on the other hand, is signing up for a gig that involves making choices that could very well end in his or her death, and bad choices aren’t even necessary for the gig to end in death.  The most elite mountaineers in the world run into bad luck now and then, and death is actually a very real part of the integrity of the experience.

Thus, such is the difference between low-level and elite teams when it comes to “psychological safety.”  Low-level teams sign up for gigs that involve performance, but not necessarily at the peril of their careers if they are wrong about something. So, a safe environment for sharing encourages risk taking and less selfish political posturing, and these are important things.

Elite teams, however, with their high-stakes choices and high-level visibility, are inherently less “safe.” A career-limiting move is always possible for executives who are actually trying to get things done; safety might matter, but what really matters for these executives is that they are part of organizations—as part of the executive team or as a CEO with a board–that will act honorably on commitments and policies when things go poorly or opinions differ.

Honor, as in fulfilling agreements and obligations—that is, fair dealing in the face of adversity.

To extend the mountaineer example, a mountaineer’s mindset is to weigh risks in light of the physics of a situation.  Gravity pulls down, certain rocks have certain levels of traction, equipment holds certain loads, and muscles and bones perform in certain ways.  You want your mountaineers (and executives) to think this way.

Now imagine that the mountaineer makes a choice, but then in the middle of acting, the physics change.  Gravity suddenly pulls sideways, not down. That carabiner now only holds half a ton, not 2 tons.  The honor of the situation is compromised, and the mountaineer is doomed.

Think about the roots of effective elite team functioning as being similar to establishing the direction of gravity or the load rating of a carabiner. A fall is a fall, but a fall in which the carabiner breaks far short of its load rating and gravity dashes the climber into the rock wall at a diagonal is an entirely different matter: it can be deadly.

On an executive team, gravity is all about how things fall when there is a slip. Usually, gravity is set by policy and values, but it can also be set by the caprice of a specific executive.  There is no honor when elite leaders change the direction of gravity mid-course, unaccountably and, potentially, only for individual members of the team.

What this looks like in real life

 

Okay, so perhaps there is some interesting imagery around the mountaineer vs. the rock climber, but what does executive dishonor look like in real life?  I’ll list a few tactics, and perhaps you can take it from there.

The most common tactic is scapegoating.  It’s used by the most insecure leaders and is one of the more dishonorable moves, and it goes like this:  An executive team outlines a high-risk move for one individual to take.  The team agrees to it, and the stakes are known; that is, gravity is established for the team. Then, the individual takes the risk, and the individual takes the fall, and gravity has no effect on the rest of the team or the leader. This happens a dozen times a day in business culture.

A second tactic is the bait and switch. Gravity is established as one direction in order to elicit a decision, but it is then switched to another direction after the decision is made.  It’s a corrupt influencing tactic in any context, but is one that some executives resort to. A good example of this on a poorly functioning elite team is when the leader establishes implicit cover for a decision and then pulls the cover back after the decision is made.  It’s “I’ve got your back” writ small.  Usually, a bait-and-switch move at elite levels starts with “we agree” and ends up as “you agree.” “We agree” to spend millions of dollars on a change program slowly transforms to “you agreed” to spend the money. Gravity is switched, and only one team member falls.

Bait and switch tactics are common in recruiting and hiring—almost to the point of being the expectation vs. the exception. Some recruiters and executives will entice top talent with the promise of milk and honey—an aggressive agenda (or promise) focused on change and growth–only to reduce the talent to a real life of drudgery, order taking, and politics once the job starts. Executives who do this are typically small minded and posturing…not strategic and expansive.

The final tactic is the non-obligation move.  This one is really a test of values, and it encompasses all of the rest of honor as far as I can see: it’s the question of how organizations honor the gravity that has already been  established even when they don’t have to.  A good example of this is when executives allow ambiguity to overwhelm organizations during “good” times because they individually don’t “have” to clarify things.  All is well. The health of the organization suffers.  To paraphrase clergyman Eugene Peterson: Often the values of an organization can be measured by what its leaders do when they don’t have to do anything. Non-obligation moves are prevalent at all levels of organizations.

How to watch out for it

 

Do your due diligence, and ask around. Specifically, ask how organizations or individual teams honor their commitments to individuals over both the short and the long terms. Ask what would happen if an individual executive took a reasonable risk but failed.  Ask what the implicit contract will look like. Ask whether policies exist for tough circumstances (and whether they have been followed in the past when the circumstances arose).

In other words, be diligent.

Even more direct, and once you are actually in or around an elite team, observe.  As with all people and things, you will know (dis)honorable people by their fruit.  Watch for the hallmarks of dishonorable bureaucracies everywhere:  CYA as a course of business.  If senior executives constantly confirm their commitments and expectations, and reconfirm them in writing, but they don’t act without reciprocal confirmation, they are operating in a dishonorable senior culture. When senior executives constantly exchange explicit contracts—or say that they should have after getting burned—you can bet that the culture is one that is based on contracts and not honor.  An elite team should have the honor necessary not to have its individuals constantly protecting themselves from shifts in gravity.

So what?

 

This topic should be dear to any executive, particularly to those who want to either join or build cultures of honor.  I care deeply about this after having witnessed dozens of senior management teams, including a handful that could be categorized clearly as dishonorable.  The dishonorable ones have invariably struggled to attract and retain talent, and as a result, they have struggled to form and enact any semblance of a strategic approach to growth and improvement.

If you are reading this and are a part of a mid-management level team, you probably get the notion of psychological safety implicitly: Teams are effective when people feel like they can share without repercussions for them personally. Google at least got this right.

The danger lies at the elite levels, where the safety to share shouldn’t really matter; if a person is on an elite team and won’t share perspective, they aren’t elite in the first place and should be removed; at the elite level, honor matters, and even a choice well made can still result in removal from the team.  The world is a tricky place, but what matters to honorable executives is that they will be treated honorably in return, and Google may have gotten that wrong.

Elite executives don’t mind taking big risks, but they do mind when gravity can’t be estimated. Thus, the call to action on this one is simply this: Watch out.  It only takes an instance or two of dishonorable behavior to label an organization and its leaders as either actively or passively dishonorable. If you’re in a situation like this, know what you are getting, and if you’re contemplating going there, weigh your options closely: There are other fish in the sea.

In sum, if you are an executive leading an elite team, the answer is short:  Establish gravity and honor commitments.  Dishonorable executives are well known and can have long lives, but they have short reputations

On elite teams, it’s about honor, not safety. Now, go figure out which way is up.

Good Governance Depends on Whom You Ask…

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Want good governance?  Ask around.

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn’t exist.”

Roger “Verbal” Kint – The Usual Suspects

Do you sit in a position of power?  Do you, also, sit in a position of isolation?

Oddly, the two things can coalesce into one if you fail to remain vigilant.  One of the hallmarks of bad governance everywhere–from Teapot Dome to Barings Bank to Enron to, I’m sure, Volkswagen–is the existence of good people in powerful positions who have allowed themselves to become isolated from the facts on the ground.

Consider the case of Volkswagen…

VW has now lost upwards of 40% of its market capitalization since the emergence of the news that engineers and managers in the company conspired to cheat on international emissions standards in the company’s small diesel engines.  I won’t belabor the point, but I can assure you that there are powerful people in high places in the company…its board and senior management (possibly up to and including its now-resigned CEO) who would not have consented to such egregious white collar crime had they known the existence of it.

I won’t speak for all the executives or board members at VW, because I simply don’t know them; but I will speak for the consistently present minority (or even majority) in such situations who were elevated to high places and subsequently isolated from the reality of ethical and legal behavior on the ground.  They allowed themselves to be convinced that things were being done right.

But what’s the deal? 

It happens in most every situation of moral, ethical, or legal lapse within corporations: Good people at the board or senior management level–usually due to great performance of the organization they are called to lead or govern–stop asking questions.  They take the word of people whom they “have no reason not to trust.”

They, essentially, fall asleep at the switch.  And, to give some examples, the fallout looks rough.  Namely:

Unethical behavior surreptitiously drives performance (such as in the Teapot Dome bribery scandal of the early 20th century).

Low control of rogue elements destroys entire institutions (such as in the Barings Bank collapse of the 1990s).

Entire financial fictions are erected by complicit management and advisors (such as in the Enron case of the early 2000s).

And, in some cases, good companies are systematically disabled and functionally dismantled by management with incentives very different from boards and shareholders (which occurs in far too many companies worldwide).

None of the bad actors in the named scandals above gave outward reason to doubt their trustworthiness in the times leading up to the scandals; and in some cases they would have recoiled or lashed out with righteous indignation at their higher ups if they were, in fact, questioned.

That’s the refuge of ne’er do wells everywhere–righteous indignation.

Watch for it.

But what to do?

In every case, people in positions of fiduciary and ethical responsibility have the obligation to ask.  But, they have the obligation to ask those who actually can convey reality, not those who are charged with packaging reality for consumption by boards and senior management.

In his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Stanford University professor and author Robert Sapolsky coined a proverb that is quite powerful for people in positions of assurance everywhere… It goes like this:

“If you want to know if the elephant at the zoo has a stomachache, don’t ask the veterinarian, ask the cage cleaner.”

You get it? If you really want to know if something just isn’t right, don’t ask the so-called experts…they rarely have the task of cleaning up the mess.  Ask the people who witness and clean up messes.  Ask people lower down the ladder, whose credibility might not naturally be so high, but whose incentives might also not lead them to unnecessary spin or outright dishonesty.

In other words, ask around.  If you sit on a board or in senior management and find your interactions with rank and file people to be overly stage-managed, then ask some more.

You know why?

Because–with apologies to Verbal Kint–the greatest trick that bad actors pull is convincing the world that they aren’t bad actors.

Reality depends on whom you ask. So, ask around.

I welcome your questions and comments.