Tag Archive for: ethics

#Likeagirl, Evidence, and Leadership

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Always asks us what it means to do things like a girl, and in the process illustrates a fascinating leadership concept.

If you watched the NFL’s Super Bowl tonight, you may have caught a glimpse of a commercial advertisement that doubtless cost millions of dollars to produce and present during the time of the world’s most expensive ad buy.

The ad is by Always, the maker of feminine products and a member of Procter & Gamble’s stable of brands. I learned within the last few minutes that the video is not new; but I just saw it.

If you’ve seen it, forgive my late-to-the-game reaction and thoughts; but I hope you’ll read on.

I can’t do the commercial justice, so I’m just going to link it here and hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch it.

The operative phrase in this spot is

A girl’s confidence plummets during puberty.

It is a call to action to support girls’ confidence and fight the “like a girl” stereotype.

The ad challenges us to understand that girls, prior to 10 years of age, have no idea that to be told they throw, run, or fight “like a girl” is an insult of the most dangerous kind–a socially acceptable one.

No, I don’t fit the mold of someone who opines on commercials by makers of feminine products. Nor do I represent the most likely demographic to jot down a post related to important women’s issues.

But I have a young daughter.

And this spot got me thinking.

If girls the world over–like my daughter–can go from thinking that they run, throw, and fight strong at age 10 to partaking in the general ethos that their actions are not only inferior, but comedic by age 12…

…what is happening to people’s confidence in so many other arenas due to similar social pressures?

It’s probable that we chase a significant proportion of young women out of arenas they may excel within because they “don’t fit the mold.” This has been studied repeatedly.

It’s a real failure of leadership.

And that’s not just a failure when it comes to leading young women…It’s a failure when it comes to people of all types.

I’ve written plenty on the need for evidence-based leadership.

This one is no different.

Show me how you throw. Show me how fast you run. Show me how you lead. Show me your ideas. Don’t succumb to stereotypes and prejudice.

Speak up.

Show up.

How many professionals, men and women, live with the lack of confidence that comes from these types of dismissals and this type of derision?

As someone in the “degreed” class who has been around a few organizations over time, I’ve witnessed countless dismissals of highly valid points of view due to educational background, national background, or lack of facility with a second language. I’ve seen it because of the way someone looks or dresses. I’ve even seen it because a person grew up in the wrong corporate function or attended the wrong college.

And, sadly, yes, I’ve seen it because of gender.

Such prejudice shuts people up…quickly. It stifles sharing of talents and in its worst guise amputates aspirations that could benefit most any enterprise.

What I’m saying is that in the professional arena, #likeagirl could also be #likeahighschoolgrad or #likeamanufacturingmanager or #likeanonenglishspeaker or #liketheydidntattendharvard.

In other words, they are insults that really shouldn’t be–choices and mindsets that divide and dismiss vs. listen and consider.

Always, with a very interesting ad, is just saying “watch it, because its insulting to imply that girls can’t accomplish these things.”

I’m saying the same thing.

As leaders, we could learn a lot from this video.

Look for evidence.

How to Assess Your Next Leader

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On objective measures, leaders can be easy to vet. Subjectively, I suggest one diligence question that trumps them all…

We talk and read a lot about professional values…Values that range from exceptional and humane performance to basic and simple ethics.

In many cases, it is just that: Talk and writing. Just like the platform I’m standing onright now, it’s far too easy these days to publish a bullet point list of things you thinkothers should do.

This article is for those who expect it to be more than words.

Leader evaluation…Some background

Having been a part of a few organizations that are styled more as talent markets–professional firms that dynamically mix management and subordinate talent into short term teams–than as classical hierarchical organizations, I’ve gained a point of view on leadership evaluation that is perhaps helpful to those who have spent their lives living in the lines and boxes world of static organizations.

One of the benefits of firms styled as talent markets is that people–particularly junior people–get to vote with their feet. They learn that working with a bad manager is not a bitter pill they have to swallow for career advancement.

Bad managers and leaders are weeded out either through formal processes (surveys, 360s, and feedback), or simply through word of mouth.

Another of the benefits is that people actually learn to do their due diligence on a leader. They learn to ask about style and substance in polite but penetrating ways, and to judge the reaction accordingly.

Most corporate environments operating with a hierarchical organization lack this component of “churn.” And, that can be a good thing. People become masters of their work more readily.

But, those same people can also become resigned to their own fate.

In a corporate environment, the vast majority of a person’s job satisfaction is based on the leader/manager/supervisor they work for. That can range from the CEO to a front-line supervisor leading a work team.

So, when considering a new job, a transfer, or a new company, employing some talent market-style due diligence tips can help you avoid a bad experience that can last a very long time.

The diligence list…

First, the basics of leader evaluation. All of us should investigate basic performance and ethical values before joining a new leader.

Ideally, we do it with a mix of people who currently work with the leader, and who have previously worked with the leader.

In today’s world, it’s very easy to track down a few people who have close knowledge of an individual leader through prior interaction.

Some of the basic questions to ask include the following:

  • Does the leader perform?
  • Is the leader accountable to others?
  • Does the leader develop people?
  • What’s the leader’s style in conflict?
  • How does the leader handle competing factions?
  • How does the leader manage big and small things?
  • What is the leader’s track record of advancing peoples’ careers?
  • How does the leader engender trust?
  • Is the leader a clear thinker and direct communicator?

These are all “good” questions that anyone considering a new job should ask.

But they all leave out the litmus test of leadership: The re-buy.

That’s where my best advice comes in.

The kicker…One question to rule them all…

Here is the critical question. You might say I’ve buried the lead in this one, because it really is the one that matters.

The question you should consider asking when evaluating a new boss is this:

Would you want your son or daughter to work for this leader?

That’s it. That’s the simple question.

Why?

It creates emotional distance for the person answering it: They don’t have to admit they are an idiot for choosing or staying in a bad situation directly. They get an ego “out” by being able to say how different their situation is than what they would want for others.

It overcomes the endowment effect that we all suffer from when evaluating our current circumstances: We value where we are right now more than we would value it if had a clean slate to choose from. It’s a proven psychological fact. We make excuses for why we stay with our bad leader.

It gets to a fundamental question of humane values: A lot of people will walk through fire to provide for their families, and they will make every excuse and fully martyr themselves on their way to it.

But.

When you ask them if they would put their kids through it, it gets personal and protective.

Most people look for better lives for their kids; not lives lived making up for bad leadership.

How to use the responses

Listen for the nuance in the response.

A lot of leader diligence is about the meta knowledge you will gain. The more senior you are, the more politically savvy the respondent, the more you have to listen.

Namely, if people cannot answer your questions or will not offer a reference, you should wonder why. It tells you something if a person, particularly a very senior person, refuses to give a perspective on prior leaders.

In that case, keep asking others who have been on the path.

One caution: You can always, of course, ask the question about whether a reference would work with the leader again; but remember that chemistry matters. Sometimes people leave for good reasons that don’t have to do with bad leadership.

A parting thought:

I’ve used this sort of litmus test question in countless diligence discussions; and it has been used on me in even more of them. I view both of those things as a good thing.

I’ve gone against poor “mood music” on this sort of question in only a couple of instances.

Knowing the outcome of those choices, I can only say:

Take my best advice.

The New England Patriots and Uncanny Perfection

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As the New England Patriots may be showing, the best evidence of a poseur, cheat, or a fraud is uncanny perfection.

This article is about how outlying behavior without explanation demands scrutiny. Perfection, or near perfection (especially if neatly calculated) is so uncommon as to be an indication of ill-dealing.

The NFL’s New England Patriots are only a prop. This applies to all of us.

Watch out for it.

Logical links to prior thoughts on this topic

Last year, I wrote on the use of Bayes’ Rule to uncover when enough evidence was enough to make a decision.

Link: When Enough is Enough

The thesis in that one was that one powerful indicator of deviant behavior or a long history of slight deviances were equally enough evidence to underpin a decision to promote, accelerate, or move on.

Last week, I wrote on the interesting (to me) ethical questions raised around the New England Patriot’s winning big while allegedly cheating in the AFC Championship game.

Link: Deflated Footballs and Minor Ethical Lapses

Many, many people claimed, and still claim, that the alleged cheating didn’t matter because it didn’t affect the outcome of the game.

My point was that process matters.

Nothing new there.

Now, there’s a fascinating bit of information on the New England Patriots that has come out that brings another ethical insight to light that combines these two theses.

Today, I get this link in my inbox. It’s an article picked up by Slate.com and written by a sports handicapper named Warren Sharp.

The link is to an analysis of team fumble rates in the NFL under different conditions. In a nutshell, it says that the New England Patriots have an uncanny and longstanding ability to avoid dropping the football. Here’s the operative quote:

Based on the assumption that fumbles per play follow a normal distribution, you’d expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the [fumble rate] results that the Patriots have gotten over this [2010 – 2014] period, once in 16,233.77 instances.

To quote Lloyd Christmas’ question: “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance?”

Yes, but a shockingly remote one.

The bigger chance is that the Patriots are different from other teams. They have figured out a competitive advantage. Conjoin that with the newest revelation of potential cheating by deflating balls, and a clear history of cheating in the franchise in the past, and?

The most likely explanation is that they have been cheating for years, acquiring a competitive advantage that is as immense as it is unlikely.

This isn’t about a single game whose outcome didn’t matter…But rather about longstanding, likely ill-gotten gains.

Sound familiar? Enough is enough.

Because it’s a global audience…a digression for the un-versed…

For those who aren’t versed in the cheating accusations against the Patriots, let me give the one sentence explanation:

The Patriot’s alleged use of deflated footballs would enable better grip by those players who handle the football, resulting in better control–especially in wet or slippery conditions–when throwing, catching, or running with the football and therefore a lower probability of drops, fumbles, and subsequently turnovers.

For those who don’t know, an American Football team’s turnover margin (that is the net number of times the ball is relinquished to or recovered from opponents through error) in a given game is an extremely powerful indicator of win likelihood. An advantage in grip on the ball is therefore significant.

The shocking, interesting, and applicable analysis

Mr. Sharp, in the midst of multiple cuts at the data, compiled this view of the NFL offenses’ fumble rates per play from scrimmage. I’m reproducing it here for commentary. The analysis is fully Mr. Warren Sharp’s.

Fumbles are the small circles, fumble rates (per play) are the orange boxes. New England is on the far right. Two things you notice immediately:

First, that New England (the far right side team) has a fumble per play rate that is in the stratosphere. They have a fumble every 187 plays. That’s truly exceptional (as the chart shows).

Second, as the article outlines, is that the next three best teams–the ones who even approach being outliers–are dome teams.

Not only is New England great at protecting the football, but they also do it better than teams with structural advantages that New England doesn’t have.

All of this is over a very long period of time (5 years) so “noise” should be shaken out of the analysis to a large degree.

Impressive? Yes. Fraudulent? Probably.

What the message is…

Such an analysis has real world applicability beyond the game of American Football. And, I’ll tell you why: If I told you that a team was so good at a key aspect of the game over the long run so as to be a near statistical impossibility, and then told you they had possibly been caught cheating in a way that would directly affect that aspect, what would be your conclusion?

The Patriots’ out-performance on fumbles is striking. Especially when you consider the conditions they often play under (in New England and outdoors). It’s akin to a company in a mature, commodity industry constantly and significantly outperforming companies in high value added, high growth industries. It can happen easily over the short term, and could possibly happen over the long term if the company were doing truly special things within the rules; but it deserves some scrutiny.

Statistical, financial, job performance, or any other kind of perfection should raise your fraud antenna in the first place. Combine it with observation of ethical “grayness” and you’d better watch out.

The message is that practical perfection should be applauded, but also scrutinized. The more perfect your investments, subordinates, or superiors are, the more you ought to ask the penetrating questions on why. The moment you observe lying, cheating, stealing, or (note this) aggressive isolation of people who decide to ask questions; you should be careful.

That isolation point is an important one: Remember when Jeff Skilling at Enron called an investment analyst an “asshole” on an investor conference call? The analyst only asked a practical question: Why couldn’t Enron produce a balance sheet?

Here’s a link to that episode.

It’s a fascinating moment in the unmasking of a fraud.

Interesting isn’t it?

This is especially important if you are the senior executive or board member who is benefitting from current ethical grayness.

Earnings look too perfect? Ask the question.

Reports on operations or people or sales too rosy? Ask the question.

I can assure you that Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, now wishes he would have asked a few questions over the past few years.

3 practical applications

I guess there’s a message here for people looking to ferret out or avoid being entangled within a fraud…Look for the quiet successes–individual or organizational–that lack any semblance of failure. Perfection is great, but not common.

A few more points:

  • Watch out for “tsk tsk” behavior by those who benefit from the perfection. Righteous indignation is the first and scariest refuge of the fraudster. When you ask someone about their methods, and they give you the “how dare you” act, you have a powerful indication. The Patriots tried this early last week, but the situation quickly got beyond their control.
  • Statistics matter. If someone is “perfect” or winning by a lot and can’t really explain what they are doing so well, take that as a hint. A “perfect” executive likely buries a lot of skeletons. A company with “perfect” financial performance likely carries a lot of fat or a lot of creative accounting. The Patriots’ statistics show how creative they are, we just don’t know how (yet).
  • Observations matter. Ask around. If others indicate ethical grayness exists in the historical record; or they simply won’t talk, you probably have your answer. Closed ranks or a history of crushed complaints provide you the indication you need. The Patriots were branded cheaters years ago, and such a track record will be in the record during this current “scandal.” If you are a board member or executive, all you have to do is ask, but you might have to ask the second order question… There have been no ethical complaints? What if the environment is such that nobody would dare complain? Go to the source at least once or twice at decade.

I have no particular axe to grind when it comes to the New England Patriots. I do, however, think that there are lessons to be learned from the “Deflategate” scandal both in the behaviors of the Patriots franchise and in the peculiar reactions to it by fans and pundits.

The Patriots’ statistical “perfection” is starting to look more and more like a fraud, and while it pales in comparison to famous frauds like Enron, Worldcom, Tyco International, or AIG; it provides some of the same human elements that all these others had in common.

The lesson? Be vigilant, especially when things are too perfect.

Deflated Footballs and Minor Ethical Lapses

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If a lapse of ethics can’t be connected to the outcome, does it matter at all?

There has been an interesting meme accompanying the “deflategate” news about the New England Patriots possibly cheating in the AFC Championship game by using under-inflated (and therefore easier to grip and catch) footballs. The Patriots won the match against the Indianapolis Colts in a rout.

The score was 45-7.

It wasn’t close.

The meme that is emerging on many commentaries on the situation goes something like this:

The Patriots still would have won, so anybody whining about cheating just doesn’t get it.

Translated a different way: An ethical lapse that underlies a big win doesn’t really matter if you can’t draw a direct line to the win.

I won’t pass judgment on the Patriots because the facts of the case are only just now trickling out. I suspect that there will be some grand repercussions if the current reports of 11/12ths of New England’s game balls being artfully deflated are fully confirmed.

However…

The meme deserves some discussion.

Practical Pillars of Ethical Behavior

There are really only a few practical pillars of ethical behavior. Ethical behavior really is simple enough for a child to understand.

In the simplest form, the Golden Rule suffices.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

A slightly more in-depth examination (and I’m musing with an hour to write this, not attending a philosophy class) brings a few more things to mind:

  • Informed Consent: Ensuring that the players at least know that it’s a game where cheating is possible. In the NFL case: The Colts knew cheating was possible and complained about a similar issue in November after losing to the Patriots 42-20.
  • Rule of Rules: When there is a social contract, a policy, a rule, or a law, it gets followed or changed. Enforcements and rule changes don’t happen ex post. The NFL rules are quite precise as to what compliant football inflation is.
  • Duty of Care: Leaders have a duty to uphold the same ethical and fiduciary standards that their leaders have. Senior leaders and boards rely on subordinates to uphold standards, not to secretly break them when it’s advantageous. The head coach and others will receive stiff fines and likely suspensions if violations are proven…Not just the ballboy and equipment manager.
  • Avoidance of Ignorance: The appearance of impropriety should be a motivation to know more, not less. Ignorance is not ethical bliss.Unfortunately, we already see some high profile Patriots glossing over the seriousness of the allegations. New England QB Tom Brady calls this burgeoning scandal the least of his worries and TE Rob Gronkowski made light of it with a joking tweet.

Note that I don’t bring “fairness” and “equality” into the mix of ethics. Power and comparative advantage are real things.

Live with it.

When to apply or not apply the pillars

With those things in mind, when is a minor or remote lapse of humane ethics ok? When does personal advantage trump the ethical duties outlined above?

Is it when the ethical slip is so small or far removed from the win that nobody can possibly link it to the win itself?

Is it when the actions are in secret? If contracts prevent others from talking about the ethical cracks that exist? If the people who know the truth are powerless or discredited?

When is it?

I’d argue that it’s worth examining one’s approach to life, profession, and leadership with these lenses; and working not only to be in alignment when them, but also in league with others whose ethics are similarly aligned.

Doing this examination, even (and especially) when in the midst of a big win is the mark of a humane leader.

But, why? Why not just take the win and shut up?

Why is it important to examine one’s self even when winning big?

The first reason is this: When ethical lapses are buried under big wins as “irrelevant,” they create cracks. Over time those cracks become holes you can drive a truck through. Those holes destroy lives, reputations, families, and organizations.

The Global Financial Crisis was allowed to reach its catastrophic crescendo because a profound number of “minor” ethical lapses in underwriting, ratings, and personal financial standards were ignored in the fantastical run-up to the crisis.

Thousands of people knew that the lapses present would result in a crash. Greed being what it is for all of us, it was too costly to examine the realities and step off the machine.

The second reason is this: When suspected ethical lapses are ignored due to organizational distance, plausible deniability, or other comfortable but specious buffers, they form the same cracks as knowingly buried lapses.

A fantastic example of this is evident in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme. No, not because of the deplorable Ponzi scheme itself. The learning comes from the the legions of people investing with Madoff. Many of them suspected that Madoff was doing something illegal or unethical. Some of those were warned outright by the likes of Harry Markopolos. However, they were far too comfortable with their clockwork-like 12 – 16% annual “investment” returns.

In the Madoff case, a cynic would say that the people benefiting from the scheme while it was running knew they were dealing with a crook. But, he was “their” crook. He was making “returns” for them that others couldn’t access.

A slightly more generous take would be that while people suspected wrongdoing, they had no evidence of it, and so all was well.

Some might say that there is no such thing as a minor ethical lapse. I disagree. I think there are minor ethical lapses all the time–many of them unconscious or inadvertent.

Absolute standards are hard to find in the world.

The disaster comes when the minor lapses are allowed to survive, replicate, and grow.

Back to the Beginning

I’ve probably whipsawed between two very different standards of ethical care in this quick article: Deflated footballs to trillion dollar systemic disasters.

The key point of this article is that if a dominant meme can emerge in a day or two that excuses an alleged break of a fundamental rule because “the Patriots would have won anyway;” then it’s worth stopping and examining whether that kind of thinking is pervasive in our own professional lives.

I’m not sure it’s possible to treat all people with every possible connection to us with the same, conscious approach to humane ethics. There’s always the next cause, care, or critique that will arise.

But, as Socrates said: The unexamined life is not worth living.

The End of Honesty?

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I came across this article by Victor Davis Hanson on the prevalence of lying to advance agendas of all sorts.

Link

I admit, it struck me as a very timely if somewhat political angle on a problem that is significant in our society.  Namely, the tendency of some leaders (and VDH is decidedly focused on the political realm, but this absolutely extends into the business and community realms) to lie with impunity when doing so aids their position.

Hanson coins the term “Painless Mendacity.”

It is brilliant.

He states that some among us believe that there is no downside to lying as long as it advances one’s agenda.

My belief on lying is very much like Bear Bryant’s view of quitting:  The first time you do it, it’s hard.  The second time, it gets easier.  The third time?  You don’t even think about it.

Upholding a standard of honesty and integrity is hard; especially when you have tacit permission to lie.

But then again, nobody said it would be easy.

Your turn.  Are we at the end of honesty? 

What’s Your White Whale?

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The types of goals we set, and the manner in which we pursue them, have consequences for us and for the people around us.

“…to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee…”

– Captain Ahab, in Moby Dick by Herman Melville

And like that, a captain lost his life, a ship, and all men aboard save one left to tell the tale.

Call him Ishmael.

Focus, intensity, and drive are all fantastic things. Identifying a goal and driving toward it can differentiate a professional in the earliest stages of their career. Such drive and focus is valuable for teams, organizations, and yes, families.

But it is in how we define our goals that we establish our course and set sail.

Sometimes…sometimes we choose goals that–when played out–are destructive to us and to those around us. They are outwardly worthy, and inwardly virulent.

The more senior we are, the more influence we have, the more damage we can do.

Ahab did this when he let a blinding, to-the-marrow hatred of a monstrous white whale cause him to lead his men to the edge of the earth and ultimately to death. He took his ship off its profitable whaling mission to pursue an obsession, a blood vendetta against a big mammal that took his leg.

Of course, you or I would never do that, right? Ahab is fiction.

Well, not really.

The way we define our goals–or help execute the goals others define for us–defines us; and the more driven we are in achieving misguided goals, the more destructive we can be. We might not kill our crew, but we could very well kill an organization, a partnership, or a marriage.

Take a moment and think: Do you harbor a goal like Ahab’s lust for killing the white whale?

Worse yet, have you, as a board member, senior executive, or manager, provided people with incentives to pursue a white whale goal?

A white whale goal is one of two things: In its first and simplest guise it’s an obsession. It is a goal that is so deeply held and so exclusively pursued that its pursuit alone is destructive to relationships, damaging to professionalism, and ultimately distracting from real performance. A foolish, simpleminded pursuit of money, power, position, prestige, image, “winning,” or–wait for it–the moral or intellectual high ground are all examples.

Yes, that last one is a doozy that we too often forget or forgive. Self-righteousness blows up as many relationships as most any other thing listed.

In its second guise, a white whale goal can be a misguided goal propagated by proxy, where boards and senior leaders provide a framework of thinking (for example “grow profits”) without guidance on and transparency in boundaries, value, or values; or with specious accounting and accountability.

This second version of the white whale can lead both to brutal decisions by middle managers “just doing their jobs” and to baffling decisions in the ranks where people struggle for clarity. All the while the board and senior managers maintain the real innocence of propagating “good” goals. Or, at least, they maintain plausible deniability.

The epitome of these two types of white whales playing out–an obsession that leads to a vicious goal by proxy–is the assassination of St. Thomas Beckett of Canterbury.

King Henry II, obsessed with the church as an interference, is reported to have said “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

After which, of course, somebody did; to the ignorance of the historical significance of the act.

But, the King didn’t order the martyrdom of a future saint…Did he?

You as a senior executive didn’t really order the curtailing of investment in pursuit of current earnings…Did you?

You didn’t handicap the sales team by introducing turgid administrative tasks in the name of greater openness and transparency…Did you?

You didn’t order leaders to take unacceptable safety and fire risk by curtailing costly planned outages and maintenance…Did you?

Surely, there are honest-to-goodness unintended consequences; and then there are white whales.  Sometimes they are hard to tell apart. Foolish or obsessive pursuit and propagation is the sin qua non of the white whale.

Remember Enron?

Consider the Enron scandal. The tragedy of Enron was equal parts a criminal lack of professionalism (which has been well publicized and rises to the level of obsession for some people involved) and a broad based propagation of and adherence to financial frameworks and incentives that many people in the ranks knew made no sense–misguided goals.

This second part gets missed and dismissed, especially as the Enron case recedes into memory as a quaint blip preceding the global financial crisis of 2007-’08.

The second aspect–the misguided goal set–is actually the most important aspect of the Enron case for professionals to consider these days.

A good example of the incentive issue was where “mark to market” thinking led leaders to be paid handsomely on the modeled Net Present Value of development projects, but not on the actual fulfillment of the projects themselves. Baffling? Yes. Still, senior management–operating within a framework endorsed by auditors, consultants, and board members–defined the goals. Those goals played a big part in destroying the company.

Sure, a few Enron employees went to jail and many professionals were sullied forever; but the true “crime” that gets missed is how top down incentives drove otherwise professional people toward behaviors that they wouldn’t have even paid themselves for.  They were white whale goals acted on by proxy.

That is perhaps the best test of a white whale by proxy. Would you pay yourself to fulfill the incentive set you have?

White whale goals by proxy are usually present when you hear people lament that they are “just doing their job,” or “doing what they are told,” or “doing what they get paid to do,” or in the worst of the worst cases “protecting the company.”

Massive autocracies and ignominious genocides stand on the shoulders of white whale goals by proxy, particularly when they are proxy to an obsessed leader. Let’s not participate in or propagate them.

What do some simpler ones look like?

To keep this closer to home, here are a few modern goals that can become white whales in our professional lives, and a brief explanation of why:

1. A superlative image and “personal brand” – The phony focus on image in the mold of “fake it ’til you make it.” If pursued as an end in itself, vs. an outcome of a life of substance, then…well, it’s a deleterious focus on a goal that is ultimately not merely self interested, but selfish in a harmful sense.

2. Great pains for small wins – The dominance of the clean desk, starched shirts, pursuit of dominance on every point in the negotiation. Basically, this is idealizing stuff that doesn’t matter. In WWII U.S. Army slang, foolish adherence to critical standards on things that didn’t matter to the mission was known as chickenshit. I’m not sure what it is called now, but whatever it is it’s damaging to the mission and morale.

3. Rent-seeking – Seeking wealth without the creation of wealth. Placing defense of title, position, and income ahead of principle and value. Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy puts in pithy words this white whale; and provides an explanation for countless managers’ sometimes oddball behaviors: They defend the bureaucracy at the expense of the mission. It’s a classic white whale. Similarly, acting purely on incentives without regard to the value they create (or destroy) can be a white whale goal as outlined in the Enron case. This is often the case when incentives are based on individual drivers (like revenue growth or headcount or output) in isolation that systemically create no value.

4. Temporal goal misalignment – Addressing the “now” without a focus on the “later” or vice versa. How often do we see short term decisions made that have a readily measurable, net negative long term impact; but that are characterized and lauded as magnificent wins. So, you closed the deal and got paid. Was it a good deal for shareholders and employees–the people who live with the longer term decisions? Interestingly, the opposite is the case as well: Many bankrupt companies lie foundered on the rocks of “long term investment.” How often do we see 5-year plans that lack a 1 or 2-year plan component?  The white whale lies in the lack of explicit balance.

5. Vengeance – I’m just going to go ahead and list it because, well, I started with Captain Ahab; and this was his issue. Pursuing personal vendettas, particularly those that drag your organization, family, or friends along with you; is the ultimate in white whale thinking. 9 times out of 10, the bitter pursuit of revenge against other people or other organizations only serves to take your eye off the ball. To be clear, this doesn’t mean simply the pursuit of crushing vengeance a la Ahab. It can also be as simple as an overweening need for one-upmanship or the constant need to be seen as ahead of the object of your bitterness. All this is wasted motion when it comes to life and performance.

So what?

Knowing whether you are pursuing a white whale is tough. Generally, the white whale looks like a worthy goal to the person obsessed with it.People who are genuinely obsessed can’t generally be reasoned with. But, they can be removed from their position…and, that’s worth pondering.

The best way to spot a white whale is to lay out the “True North” that everyone agrees to–what winning really looks like from a fiduciary, professional, and values standpoint; and then to identify how far off that azimuth your immediate goals are.

White whales pop out easily at that point as twisted and torqued visions of winning. They link to True North via paragraphs of logical backflips instead of a sentence fragment of concise clarity.

Like any other blind spot, these goals require reflection on your own part to spot. They also require willingness to tolerate a person or two in your midst who will challenge your view, your goals, your passions, and your obsessions. That person might be a trusted friend, a mentor, a pastor, or–if you are lucky–a spouse. In a really functional team, it can also be a subordinate or a peer.

In any event, you have to listen to them.

The gist of Melville’s story about Ahab and his hatred of the whale was that Ahab destroyed everything and everyone around him in pursuit of a definitively odd goal: Revenge against the single whale that took his leg.

There were many other whales in the ocean.

But, the white whale did him and his crew in. No–strike that–Ahab’s obsession with a white whale goal did it.

Don’t let a white whale–yours or somebody else’s–do you in.

What are some examples of white whales from your own professional, political, or personal lives?

Concussions, Settlements, Cynicism, and Standards

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The NFL’s concussion settlement might be more cynical than its decades-long deceptions on the topic.

While I have nothing to gain from the National Football League’s concussion settlement, I have been an interested observer. As I stated in an earlier commentary, I played the sport and understand its intensity. So, I take notice of big moves related to the concussion issue.

In a recent article in ESPN The Magazine, Peter Keating outlined how difficult it would be for a retired NFL player to be compensated under the NFL’s new concussion settlement the league is putting in place.

Just to put things in perspective, Keating writes the following:

First, to be eligible for compensation at any point, you must register with the settlement within 180 days of its final version’s being posted on its web site. Then, if you’re feeling symptoms, you must see a doctor approved by the settlement plan’s claims administrator. These basic hurdles, combined with athletes’ lack of awareness, will be enough to knock nearly 40 percent of potentially eligible players and families out of the deal, according to estimates by the NFL’s actuaries. That gets you from about 20,500 potentially eligible players to around 12,500, according to both sides.

Next, you will need to submit to a battery of 32 neurocognitive tests. Invented by the NFL, the players’ lawyers and their consultants, this scheme is new, untested and at points bizarre — one part is a 338-question exam about your psychological state and personality whose results won’t even be used to decide if you get compensation. Stern estimates that the whole thing will probably take you around five hours to complete, and if you give up or can’t finish — and remember, you are already feeling subpar; that’s why you’re getting yourself checked out — you are out of luck.

If you do get to the end of the assessment, you will need extraordinarily poor grades to qualify as neurocognitively impaired under the settlement. For eligibility, the deal requires players to score at least 1.7 standard deviations below expectations on multiple cognitive areas, including learning and memory and executive function. That’s worse than doctors often see in patients who already have moderate-stage dementia. “Most guys don’t realize how badly off you need to be,” says Stern. “You have to be really, really bad, basically unable to take care of yourself during the day.”

That’s not a settlement, it’s an insurance policy against payouts.

Basically, retired players are presented with a catch-22. In order to collect on the compensation offered, they have to be too impaired to complete the tests that are required in order to justify eligibility to collect.

Sometimes, cynicism is on display for all to see.

In this case, the NFL might have gone too far.

I write this because it involves a critical view of professional standards and their impact on the long term strategy of any organization. We all have to choose where we draw the line on supporting stakeholders of our brands, our organizations, and our communities. Some choices are more transparently cynical than others.

Kneecapping the retired performers its business depended on might not be the highest and healthiest long term play for the NFL.

What do you think?

 

 

NFL Actuaries and Defining Moments

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The National Football League’s release of actuarial estimates on long-term cognitive impairment among its players is a real defining moment.

This one hits close to home for me.

Those who know me know that I grew up playing (American) football. I played through the collegiate ranks and had a brief taste of the most elite level as a lineman in the NFL. I understand implicitly the difference in intensity that exists in the game between the high school, college, and professional ranks–they are, to me, orders of magnitude different. If the average intensity of a high school game in a competitive league is a 10, then the NFL is 1000. No kidding.

This week, the National Football League released actuarial documents that show that its players are likely to develop significant cognitive problems far more frequently and at younger ages than the surrounding population. This article in the New York Times summarizes it nicely. 28 percent of the player population will develop “compensable injuries.” That’s right–nearly a third. What is more striking is the comparison of rates of disease. From the article:

“[Actuaries’] calculations showed that players younger than 50 had an 0.8 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s or dementia, compared with less than 0.1 percent for the general population. For players ages 50 to 54, the rate was 1.4 percent, compared with less than 0.1 percent for the general population. The gap between the players and the general population grows wider with increasing age.”

Let’s be clear: That’s more than ten times the base rate of illness…with nearly a third of the player population likely to be affected. These are big, stark numbers that rise above the noise. Which brings me to my question: What is an ethical business leader to do when it is revealed that his or her product, which is creating social value for so many, is with statistical certainty destroying some of the lives involved in creating it?

We have what appears to be the NFL’s formula for action:

Step 1: Deny the link and glorify the at-risk population as “warriors for the cause.” Convince the warriors that they are part of something bigger in the moment. Argue that the already-affected stakeholders were compensated for the risk they took under contract.

Step 2: Isolate and make anecdotal the really egregious and sad cases (if you have free time, do an internet search for “Mike Webster Pittsburgh Steelers” on this topic). Make changes to working conditions and work rules to limit future injury (but without stating a link). Hand out pamphlets. “Study the problem.”

Step 3: Assess the litigation impact. Offer settlement. Release the actuarial data on a Friday. Get ready for Sunday’s games.

Is there a better way?

Perhaps, but the answer depends on where the affected stakeholders are in a business’ grand strategy. Sure, an organization can state that worker (or player, in the NFL’s instance) safety is a core value; but defining moments of a strategy occur when core values are in conflict.

Defining moments are when you, as a leader, have to choose between two “priorities.”

So far, the NFL appears to have chosen the “product” as its highest priority. If the product on the field is actually the result of a veritable meat grinder for the men playing it, then that’s what it takes. This is a rational, economically sound near term decision.

However, as its spectators and consumers start to see that they are cheering on the demolition of men’s minds to the tune of 7 out of the 22 men they are watching on the field, the NFL will face its next defining moment. That defining moment will be a choice between a quick profit strategy of cashing in on the remaining, dwindling fan and player base (boxing comes to mind as an analogy) versus a sustainable profit strategy that ameliorates the cause of stakeholder dissatisfaction–restructuring the game, equipment, and rules.

The NFL depends not only on its fans, but also on its product lifeblood in terms of a relatively diverse pipeline of player sources. As words gets out, both groups have higher potential to walk away–one could argue it is already happening at the margin. This is particularly true in the player source case, as the major feeders of talent to the NFL are colleges and universities who have no interest in propagating explicitly debilitating sports. In practical terms, the NFL should be going through a painful reordering of its hierarchy of core values (including product, health, sustainability, reputation, social value, etc.). The old hierarchy is obsolete over the intermediate term.

I’m not very old, but I grew up during the time when a guy getting concussed on the football field was kind of amusing–scary, yes, but not a life altering moment. Times have changed. The NFL has to change as well.

I’m not a lawyer and have no personal stake in the outcome of NFL litigation. This article is merely a reflection on the business implications of the NFL’s predicament. All errors as to action or timeline are my own.