In this Issue:

• Finding Joy in the Maelstrom
• Davos Days, Part 2.

FINDING JOY IN THE MAELSTROM

Maelstrom : 1. Any dangerous or irresistible force, or a place where it prevails. 2. A whirlpool

The topic of a recent strategy session was, once again, how to do business in a world where people don't respond...not to calls, emails, letters...very little. Proper follow through seems to be an obscure art these days. What's the matter with everyone? Don't these people have the decency to get back to you? Unfortunately, not often. However, a closer look at this phenomena, reveals that it may have little or nothing to do with 'decency' and more with awareness, energy and time.

We, as individuals and organizations, are in a place we don't completely recognize right now. We are over-committed, lacking in effective and productive leadership much of the time, (a recent survey of 400 Fortune 1,000 companies conducted by the Conference Board revealed that only 8% of respondents rated their company's leadership as excellent and nearly 50% rated their leadership capacity as fair to poor), and we are up against paradox at every turn. We are constantly faced with decisions or situations that have no real long-term solution. This requires keeping two or more opposing or conflicting forces in balance. Who has time for that? How do you even do that? No wonder people don't respond!

Is it possible to find joy in this maelstrom? This too will pass? What do we do until it does or to get through it? As consultants we are faced with these questions daily. We have a couple of suggestions.

Sing Your Blues

Yes, sing. When groups of professionals write and sing blues songs about their work in an innovative MetaSystem Consulting Group (MCG) organization development program called Beyond The Blues, the number one theme is workload/lack of resources/multiple demands/increasing expectations, etc.

My calendar's full, my daytimer's frayed,
My voicemail's overloaded, I feel way underpaid;
Got tons overdue, several deadlines to meet,
The only thing workin' are my two left feet...

- from Overcommitted Blues, by Paul Duffy
Face The Music Publishing
www.facethemusicblues.com

The organizational systems the people in these sessions are in are being driven harder without changing the systems themselves. In other words, they are not really doing anything differently, just more of the same, faster. "We know that," they respond. "But there's no time to work on changing the system." A classic management paradox. Being faced with a situation that requires keeping two or more opposing or conflicting forces in balance. In recent intake interviews MCG conducted at a major pharmaceutical company, people named more resources as the number one need, but in further questioning, they estimated that gains of 25-40% in efficiency were possible if processes were streamlined, redundancies eliminated, and reporting structures were modified. So which one is it: more resources or changing the way the system works? Or both?

As enlightened medicos know, pain is not the enemy -- it's there to tell the body what needs to be changed in its system in order to operate at full health end efficiency. Writing and singing your blues may be an unexpected answer to going beyond them. As big Joe Williams said, "What made the real blues singers so great is that they were able to state all the problems they had, but at the same time, they used the blues to stand outside of them where they could look at them. And in that way, they had the blues beat. It's a mistake to try to get inside the blues, forgetting that those old singers used them to get outside their troubles."

Lead from the Inside Out

The most important thing we have found is that true leadership begins with yourself. This includes self-discipline in or out of the office. You are your own law in a world that is too complex, too contradictory and too ambiguous to 'go by the rules'. When 'the facts' can't make the decision for you, you have to rely on what you already know; your values, beliefs and what you stand for. This requires you to rethink how you lead; yourself, your team and/or your organization. Can you afford to do that??? How much time, money and energy is it costing you NOT to do this? Albert Einstein's definition of insanity goes something like "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". In other words, if you want things to be different, you have to do something differently. Leading from the inside out, the real you, is a place to start.

Overwhelmed? Overcommitted? Rely on what you already know and lead from the inside out. And remember, what makes a difference in creating the future -- your future -- isn't just the cards you have been dealt, but how you play them.

DAVOS DAYS: PART TWO
THE WORLD IN 2014: RETHINKING THE CORPORATION

In support of our theme of over commitment and doing things differently, we thought this session from the World Economic Forum's annual Davos meeting in January on what corporations can do differently would be of value.

The business enterprise has been a defining factor in the development of civilization for the past 500 years, said Lawrence H. Summers, President, Harvard University, USA. Yet the enterprise's relationship with capital -- physical, financial and human -- is in flux. How, Summers asked the panelists, will that relationship change over the next decade?

Michael E. Porter, Bishop William Lawrence Professor, Harvard Business School, USA, said there are three major trends that will catalyze the corporation’s evolution. First, he said, is the relentless internationalization of economic activity, with global demand shifting toward the developing world. Second is technological progress. And third is demographics, which will create labor shortages, especially among highly trained workers. These trends will likely force four major changes upon corporations, he said. First, companies will strive for distinction in innovation instead of size or diversification. Second, companies will spread their value chains, but will invest more deeply and meaningfully in fewer locations. Third, the scarcity of skilled workers will force companies to pay greater attention to retaining and motivating employees. Lastly, corporations will have to respond more effectively to the community.

Physical assets are already diminishing in importance relative to physical capital and intellectual property, said Carly Fiorina, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, HP, USA. In the next decade, she said, maintaining competitiveness will require companies to seek out talented individuals worldwide. As technology renders more processes digital, mobile and virtual, corporations will restructure. Companies will shift from vertically oriented organizations with vertical chains of commands into horizontally oriented organizations based on partnerships. Companies will also be held to new standards of behavior. "The floor of what is acceptable character is rising every day," she said. Enlightened self-interest will compel companies to engage their communities more deeply, a move that will also help develop markets, employees and partners.

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Nestlé, Switzerland, said demographics are the most important trend affecting the corporation. The human population is getting larger and older. The most important question for chief executive officers is not how to restructure or re-engineer, but what are their dreams? Companies have to have a strong set of values. And CEOs have to balance a variety of imperatives: growth vs. profitability, expanding a core business vs. diversification, and obtaining new information vs. focusing on the big picture.

Noting the tremendous change the Internet has wrought on the corporation when ten years ago it was largely unknown in the workplace, Nobuyuki Idei, Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer, Sony Corporation, Japan; Member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum expressed concern that new technologies are overwhelming the Internet. "Today's architecture won't survive the next decade," he said. "We need a quantum leap." With technology forcing many industries to converge, new competition will force companies to think harder about how to develop their brand.

Despite a desire by companies and governments to close the chapter on corporate scandals, Guy Ryder, General Secretary, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Brussels, predicted that there will be renewed interest in the question of corporate governance. Efforts by corporations to regulate themselves by adopting corporate social responsibility policies have failed, he said. Society cannot leave it up to companies to decide what values should drive business, he said. That is up to society. Nowadays, companies are shifting to locations where workers' rights are repressed or denied, he said. Regulations should be used to set a floor under corporate labor policies so that companies that do the right thing aren't driven out of business by companies that do not. Companies need to embrace such regulations appropriate to establishing fair competition. "Those that don't want that are only fuelling anti-globalization sentiment," Ryder said. "And they'll place in jeopardy the future of a sustained global economy."

Free offering:

Just email us at pkwiecinski@hvc.rr.com and we will send you a free MP3 copy of The Overcommitted Blues

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