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"...
Look at those Yoyo's , That's the Way you do it,
Money For Nothing, get your Chicks for Free..." - Dire
Straits
"Greed
is Good" - Michael Douglas in the movie "Wall Street``
"The
Rising Tide will Lift All Boats" - Classical rationalization
of Capitalism
"Capitalism
isn't Perfect, but it is Better than the Alternatives"
- unknown
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The global marketplace
has been shaken this past year, shaken to its core. The question
for senior leaders now however is: so what? So what have you fundamentally
reconsidered, rethought and redesigned in your organization, so
you can actually move your organization forward successfully in
the future?
As a first response,
big business and big government ran headlong into government stimulus
packages, corporate shedding of costs & employees, proposed
capping of executive salaries, and increasing regulations for transparency.
This is probably a normal first reaction - batten down the hatches,
keep propping up the current way of doing things the best we can,
fix the obvious outlandish practices, and use up our reserves of
the past to see us through "rainy season". But this global
shift is no rainy season to 'get through'. The whole basis of organizational
practices from mid 90's to mid 2000's have been ripped up. As if
to underscore this reality, world leaders have met recently yet
again to extend stimulus packages, with several Finance Ministers
declaring ultra low interest rates will remain in place through
2013! If you haven't done so yet, (in parallel to the 'hang on'
strategies) you had better hit the "reset" button soon;
and take a serious look at the fundamentals of your business, the
value proposition you offer to clients, the integrity of internal
processes, and your future innovation strategy.
We've actually
seen this coming for a couple of years now, and worked with our
clients around the world to better position themselves for the dynamic
shifts that were starting to show themselves. However, other indicators
have been ignored by our global communities:
- We stood
by as car companies, mortgage lending firms, investment hucksters,
advertising designers, and our own pension/retirement investment
expectations drove employees, consumers, government regulators
and average citizens way, way past their capacities to sustain
their spending;
- we witnessed
the revelation again and again, of doping/cheating in sports -
this time major league Baseball, last year the Olympics, and Tour
de France;
- we saw members
of government or proposed leaders from various countries being
exposed for not paying taxes or worse malfeasance, plus pathetic
immoral personal behaviour;
- we watched
in disbelief of disaster relief situations (Katrina, Palestine,
Africa, Indonesia, Afghanistan) with the massive abuse of aid
dollars, stealing of donated supplies, and lining of pockets of
tribal/corporate leaders;
- we have remained
relatively silent and stubborn to change, as individuals and organizations
have embraced the concept of "externalities" to offset
many of our real costs of living our lives and operating our organizations
onto the public purse and/or the future generations.
Seriously; What
is going on?
Well, we really
have a bunch of overspent systems in the world - working beyond
the breaking point for several years now. Additionally, we have
also seen some inexcusably BAD leaders and members of the social/governance
elite taking us past the point of "common sense". The
balance between the unbridled pursuit of personal benefit at the
cost of stability and benefit of the collective - our Ethical Framework
- has gone beyond the tipping point and finally crashed. This will
not get corrected without a realignment of the personal - community
benefit balance.
Seriously, when
will the rest of us use some moral fibre and good judgement to refuse
to accept such extremely irresponsible behaviour? Because still,
our leaders aren't addressing the really deep issues - we are still
treating symptoms. More 'stimulus' is NOT the answer - it is a temporary
stop-gap measure at best, and one that will need to be paid-back
by future generations.
This has been
a difficult article to write, one that has been troubling for months
to find the right 'angle' to approach; so forgive the 'straight
talk' - but the time for politeness has passed. This might be controversial,
but now let's get constructive and practical, and hard-nosed . .
.
What have
we Learned?
Amid the cacophony of desperate "patches" and "fixes"
to keep jobs, and protect national/personal property and interests;
very few seem to be asking the really important questions:
What
have we learned from this crisis, and what will we do differently
in the future?
If a
Fundamental re-shaping is dawning, what new "shape elements"
do we collectively envisage?
Realizing
that continually trying to "take" more than you "give"
is unsustainable, what is the basis for a sustainable new world
economic order?(Or at least YOUR sustainable order?)
If the
disgraced heroes that lied, cheated, and embezzled are now passé,
who are the New Heroes and role models for our youth and others
to follow? And what personal characteristics do WE aspire towards?
What Governance (political/corporate/charitable) standards are
owed?
It has been
long overdue, but now it is unquestionably time to hit the "Reset"
button!
To recalibrate the way we do things - rethinking the very foundation
of our products, programs, services, organizing values/principles
- "why" we should have the right to continue to exist?"
This will not
be easy to do. Re-configuring dynamic, complex systems of systems,
once they hit an inflection point, usually do not re-balance in
the form of the previous "stable" condition. This means
we will all need to expect, accept and actively redesign a new,
more sustainable economic, social, knowledge, business and government
network order - one we may not be able to fully envisage now.
However, this
is not totally without precedent. Some of you have done this before
and actually know how to do this!
- How many
of you have inherited a "broken" business, or "dysfunctional"
government department, or unappreciated NFP/Charitable organization;
and successfully turned it around?
- How many
of you have had their year's business plan go completely off-track
in the 1st/2nd quarter; then had to re-calibrate, dig deep, engage
the whole team to adjust to unexpected conditions, then bring
things back in line by end of the year?
- How many
of you have started up a new enterprise with no precedent, no
market penetration, no "brand" recognition, no clients;
and yet made an honest success of it?
Those of us
who have had the personal experience and good fortune to be successful
in the three above scenarios likely know many others as well. And,
there are thousands more out there too!
So, the time
is now upon us to step forward and lead the RESET challenge
the world faces.
It is also time for those in power or leadership without such experience
& understanding to ask for help and access this knowledge! Scrambling
to maintain the status quo is actually NOT an option.
Successful "Reset"
leadership requires what has often been referred to as a "zero-based"
approach.
Basically, you start with a fresh sheet of paper, you throw out
all assumptions of continued customers, client loyalty, and "right"
to exist. You question and rethink every element of your enterprise
from the beginning:
- Why do we
have the right to exist - in the future? (Past reputation is not
a right to go forward.)
- What is the
real basis of our value-proposition (product, program, service)
and how does it stack-up against other providers? Do we have a
sizeable community that values what we provide - into the future?
- Are we really
any good at what we do? If so, what are our unique "knowledge
recipes" that are excellent, valuable, and better than others?
If not, how do we improve - fast!?
- What do we
stop doing, in order to focus and leverage the real future
value?
- How can we
be making contribution to community betterment?
Yes, these can
be disturbing questions!
But, we know that the world is considerably disturbed at the moment,
so we must cut -with some plain talk and hard consideration of these
fundamentals:
- Where exactly
is the market need, or provision gap that we can fill and how
is it shifting?
- Who else
is able to serve some/all of these needs?
- What community/customer
expectations are there in the new conditions going forward?
- How do we
modify our products/programs/service? What Paradoxes do we see?
What innovations & productivity improvements are required?
- How do we
re-organize, re-tool, re-design our internal processes & systems
to be more efficient and effective in producing to the new expectations?
What partnership or alliance opportunities exist to help us re-shape
or better reach our marketplace/community?
- What do we
start doing differently next week?
Senior executives
must also add value to this process. This is where both your strategic
AND practical value is on the line. Are you blowing fluff - or do
you really have insight, and ability to motivationally facilitate
emergence of novel new ideas and breakthrough solutions? This kind
of change is a 'contact sport'! The executive leader is not dictating
in this situation (arguably if you knew all the answers you should
be fired for not implementing them before!) Instead, you must be
thinking, questioning and linking insight and information amongst
various parties, instigating new thoughts and collaborations.
You will be
exhausted from such a process! But it will also be reinvigorating.
Oh yes, and
you have to squeeze out as much possible sustained benefit (income,
service, funding) from the existing operations while you address
these changes in a parallel initiative.
Finally, you
must really be clear about the context - the values, the ethical
frameworks, and the guideposts for decision-making that you and
your team will follow in the Reset process.
"Reset" means going back to the beginning. Of course today
we need to BOTH "reset" and "update" - re-examine
the beginning principles of our business, then update them to a
new and evolving reality.
The Values of Capitalism, Democracy and other Frameworks for
civil society and economy
Do you believe in democracy? How about "capitalism"? Do
you believe in a higher power and teachings of a major Faith? Do
we even really know what these fundamental beliefs mean and how
they get acted upon in our day-to-day existence? Do we actually
have some common grounding and integrity?
Politics today
have made a blur of such things as democracy. The iPod world has
made us very insular and individualized at the expense of civil
society. "Conservatives", "Liberals", "Socialists",
these are labels and ideals of past, that few in our communities
actively pay attention to any more. A whole generation (GenY) are
driving communities forward without any idea of such concepts -
but then the Boomers and Grey-wavers seem to have lost touch with
these fundamentals too! Maybe it is a good thing to question or
abandon tradition that has divided as much as they have stabilized;
but then what forms in the vacuum?
The Economist
ran an article a few months ago (February 2009) called "Anatomy
of an Idea" which asked some very good questions. Many "Western
countries" have evolved in the past 100+ years around beliefs
in "Liberal Democracy" So as we hit Reset do we understand
what Liberal Democracy actually means and the implications of such
fundamental beliefs? As the article asked - which of the following
values do you espouse:
- Personal
freedom
- Rule of law
- Active but
accountable government
- Free but
responsible markets
- Mutual toleration
- Equal concern
for all
- Separation
of Church and State
These are the
tenets of modern Liberal Democracy. They are also the elements of
lost integrity within the current global economic crisis and basis
for the clash between different civilizations.
Now, how would
we rate our recent ability to live these tenets?
How much of our current failure and crisis comes from taking our
eyes off the balls of such foundations?
And, so what
if we are unsure, or maybe uncomfortable with the ideal pursuit
of Liberal Democracy - what are the alternatives? Well, the classical
alternatives have been societal structures such as:
- Theocracy
(as exemplified in Iran)
- Communism
(China, Cuba)
- Dictatorship
(benevolent or otherwise - Singapore, North Korea, Libya)
- Tribalism/Family
Kingdoms (UAE, Saudi Arabia)
Also, we have
seen relatively new forms of social-organizing:
- Transnational
companies
- Internet
networks
- Consumerism
- Communes
What about 'capitalism'?
What does this mean? Officially actually, 'capitalism' since its
inception in Britain/USA over 150 years ago, meant 'managed economy'
or regulated capitalism in most liberal democracies. A rash of deregulation
in the past 10 years, has allowed capitalism to self-regulate, and
unfortunately, this self-regulation ran amok!
In March 2009
on HarvardBusiness.org, Umair Haque wrote an edgy article entitled
"Why Ideals are the New Business Models. While his initial
article was interesting, the web dialogue that ensued was even more
fascinating. Umair urged business leaders to:
- Realize Business
Models aren't today's fundamental economic challenge;
- Creating
something valuable in the first place is;
- "Monetizing"
+ "Business Models" = Zombieconomy
- Forget Business
Models. Focus on Ideals"
For years now,
BEL/IITL has been developing Boards, Senior Executives and assisting
in development of organizational strategies that put 'real' Value
Creation at the centre of Leadership. We have observed that heavily
"packaged" and "hypermarketed" schlock, empty
promises and financial absurdity are simply unsustainable, and some
of the causal factors driving us into this mess! As senior leaders
we need to seek to provide authentic value - products, programs
& services that have real impact and positive contribution.
As one of the
bloggers on HarvardBusiness.org observed:
"What business models fail to predict time and again, is
the re-calibration of our ideals".
We are certainly
in a time of recalibration of ideals. For example:
- In television
& media, the audience (aided by technology) has access to
information of multiple sources, platforms, and formats. The reason
for the very existence of public broadcasters is now unclear;
and what audiences are "looking for" from any broadcaster
has a multifaceted set of answers. This business sector allowed
the 'value proposition' to become completely detached from the
consumer, relying on advertising or tax systems to create the
illusion of free. Now audience expects free; and now we worry
about copyright infringement as users manipulate the free content!
Now with the advertisers pulling back & redeploying, all needs
to be recalibrated.
- In health
care, the many stakeholder groups all seem to come (and fight)
from such different frames of reference, that one wonders if "care"
even remains as part of the system. Putting the patient and healthy
communities first will both shock the system and require a 'reset'
of privilege and power. The concept of universal coverage of everything,
needs recalibration.
- In oil &
gas, past inefficiencies and spillage/wastage is a source of both
future profit and improved environmental integrity. Imagine what
even a 5-10% improvement of yields from wells could unleash! The
uses of oil & gas are critical to our very existence, but
so is the environment around extraction sites, carbon sequestering
and safe transport. The growth demand by India & China as
well as other nations are forcing us to recalibrate expectations
for this industry.
Indeed the importance
of today's petrochemical-derived drugs, artificial body parts, community
infrastructure components and more, had the Saudi Minister of International
Trade declare recently in The Diplomat magazine: "Oil is too
valuable to be wasted on energy usage".
How will we
handle the future international access, distribution and sale of
ever more rare fresh water?
There is basically no community-wide or politically-facilitated
dialogue on this issue. 'Reframing', effective multi-interest engagement
and difficult exploration of ideals is urgently required.
These discussions
beg serious application questions. The answers will be different
too, based upon our chosen fundamental tenets. Within these complex
examinations/explorations, what is the role of Government? What
are the responsibilities of companies beyond simple provision of
product & profit? Wherein do our not-for profit organizations
contribute - what do they exist "for"? As an association
- professional, industry or other - what roles do you carry for
community dialogue/stability? We must also be sure to answer these
questions in the context of advancement and stabilization of a new
world order?
The RESET
Role for Government & Political Leaders
Government has evolved to embrace a multiplicity of roles. Most
have become so complex with layers of past policies and structures
without sunset expectation, that we have continued adding new departments
and programs and regulations without even fully realizing why we
established others in the first place.
A "reset" approach would require bravery to untangle the
situation.
It also MUST include an explicit dialogue about the fundamentals
and the tenets upon which the new decision are being made.
Government and
public service IS important to our communities. And it is important
to apply past principles to future context. We need government to:
- Create and
enforce a reconfigured, 'even' playing field for corporations
& knowledge economy
- Engage community
awareness, knowledge & dialogue about our key challenges
- Facilitate
or create the conditions for enhanced collaboration & innovation
- Protect &
enable social cohesion, community, and unique values and heritage
preservation
- Regulate
where self-regulation will not happen, and monitor compliance
- Challenge
the concept of 'externalities' and the practice of indebtedness
of future generations
- Balance Governance
that is Transparent, Outcomes-Focused, Accountable in advancing
community - with the inevitable Politics of different ideologies,
values, priorities.
In November
2008, the annual Public Policy Forum Osbaldeston Lecture, featured
both the namesake Gordon Osbaldeston, and the guest lecturer Dr.
John McLaughlin.
Osbaldeston,
an exemplary public servant and past Clerk of Privy Council, introduced
the evening with some sage remarks:
- "Canadians
expect that the public service will be innovative in proposing
policy and efficient and effective in delivering government services.
As such it is more imperative than ever to ensure that the public
service we have is the public service we need.
- The public
service, as an important player in both the economy and society,
must constantly re-examine itself to ensure it is able to meet
the needs of Canadians.
- To make good
policy, policy makers must better understand where the various
situations are situated relative to others, how they connect and
how they interact."
This demands a truly professional public service - appropriately
educated, trained and experienced to provide the policy development
leadership for elected governments.
Dr. John McLaughlin,
President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of New Brunswick,
is an engineer with a successful career in geomatics; he is a leader
combining experience in science, business, academia and public administration.
His lecture included the following points:
- "There
is a sense that as we go through this period of change, we are
not going to turn back the clock but are in fact on our way through
deep and profound change. Our leaders and our institutions are
frankly ill-prepared for the challenges that lay before us.
- This change
is so deep and so profound that the [appropriate] response will
only emerge through a real authentic and sustained engagement
with our communities. In other words, we don't have the solutions
and there isn't going to be a man or woman on a white horse who
will come in with the solutions. They are going to emerge and
evolve over time from deep conversations with our communities.
- ... what
passes as political discourse in this country is failing - absolutely
failing - to engage the community in any kind of meaningful conversations
about what these trends are, what these issues are and how we
respond... The political theatre we have today is from a different
era, and we have to move on. [We need] ... a new narrative and
who we can be as a people."
As Canadians
again ramp-up for our fourth federal election in 5 years, the citizens
are tired of the same old same old. We keep returning minority mandates,
because none of the parties have effectively engaged us in talking
about what really matters. The attempt to distract us with insignificant
topics that might stir emotion, is fully understood by an intelligent
electorate as, well, insignificant!
Politicians
have a responsibility to balance politics: the provision of compelling
alternative policy that addresses the 'reset' realities of today's
complex world; with governance: the effective facilitation of exploration
of critical issues, engaging multiple stakeholders and differences
of opinion in the process of solution-building and consensus-seeking.
The balance has slipped hugely into politics of insignificance and
away from governance of substance.
In support of
this, the public service must of course deliver its programs &
services efficiently and effectively; but it must also support the
engagement and facilitation of community dialogue - including the
appropriate research and education/briefing of the community so
it can in fact participate effectively in the dialogue and exploration.
THIS demands new skill sets, new behaviour, and new intelligence
from both politicians and public servant leaders together.
Our politicians
and public service leaders have much work to do.
The RESET
Role for Business Leaders
Business leaders get the immense privilege to operate an organization
built upon the 'capital' of shareholders - a combination of individuals
and more so today, pension/retirement funds looking for a decent
and sustainable return on their investment. Some businesses are
fortunate to operate and grow based upon the leader's own capital
and family funds. In either situation, the provision of resources,
products, services and/or products help individuals and other companies
advance their own needs, interests and ideals. Please excuse such
basic statements. But really, sometimes we get so caught up in 'the
game', that we forget fundamental principles.
If one doesn't
provide products or services, or resources or programs in a way
that customers can advance their own condition; or if YOUR versions
of such are not as good, helpful or quality or as valuable as other
providers, then the consumer switches to an alternative provider.
Today the alternative can come from anywhere on the planet.
Sometimes, we
get into incentives, leasing programs, tiered lending/financing
and more to make it easier for the customer to do business with
us. Sometimes we even get others to subsidize the purchase or otherwise
reduce the costs to the buyer. Sometimes our resources, products
etc. actually belong to community at large, and we are doing the
work to bring it to a useable/accessible form. Depending on these
more complex structures, we then owe accountability and regulatory
reporting to parties other than our end customer. Over time, some
of our businesses have become extremely complex webs of interdependencies,
accountabilities, and operational integration.
As we go into
'reset', businesses must thus be able to untangle the complexities,
pare back to a core understanding of purpose and value creation.
In 'reset', we must re-clarify the tenets of our existence not from
the past or tradition, but into a future context. This is very important.
Some past values may be valid into the future, others may well require
re-configuring. 'Reset' also requires us to re-examine our fundamental
value positioning into the future. This requires a few other 'hard'
explorations.
How will we:
- Create and
continuously innovate real, new, added value in products, programs,
services
- Raise our
productivity to enhance our real competitiveness (irrespective
of currency exchange)
- Export, grow,
enhance GDP, employment & community wealth
- Seek sustained
profit & ROI vs. maximized but cyclical profits and losses
- Live within
means - economically, environmentally, operationally
- Provide Governance
that is responsible, accountable and reliably accurate in reporting
- Adopt a risk
profile reflective of what we have learned lately
The sum of all
our businesses and their leadership decisions plus management/operational
integrity give us our real economy - the one that we have staring
at us now, after all the falsehood and foolish extensions have been
peeled back. Our real economy is also dependent on some undeniable
and advisedly un-ignorable realities such as:
- Demographics
- In much of the developed world our demographic bulge is the
baby boomer crowd, supported in-behind by a significantly smaller
and often shrinking Gen X, Y and Z. The Americas, Europe and most
of Asia have these well established population dynamics, and have
already become 'replacement economies' with shrinking demand.
Meanwhile, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Arab countries have a
different pyramid profile, with a growing younger population to
drive demand and consumption. They also have localized products
and competitive providers.
- Finite resources
- Oil, metal, water are all clearly finite and dwindling resources.
This compels us as businesses and buyers to find ways to recycle,
to improve our efficiencies, and to radically re-invent the usage
of these critical resources. With today's methods, we cannot even
support 1/3 of India's population consuming the same as USA. So
something has to 'give'. Actually, something has to be invented!
Innovation must be ramped-up and we must inescapably re-invent
the way we process resources into finished product, as well as
recycle them after they break.
- Non-Finite
Resources - Human capacity, innovation & knowledge advancement.
These lie at the very heart of potential growth and sustainability.
As leaders we must learn to better unleash these energies and
bring to market solid, helpful and valuable resultant products,
programs & services.
- Productivity
- employees, processes technologies simply have to improve efficiencies
& 'return'.
- Manageable
Debt - Whatever is borrowed by individuals or organizations has
to be able to be repaid within a reasonable period of time. Spinning
off obligations to children or grandchildren is inexcusable. Whether
this is done on the individual consumer level or on a grander
scale by businesses issuing long-term debt instruments, or engaging
in externalities of indeterminate time periods. We have to learn
from this 2008-09 experience! Someone earning 28,000 dollars,
euros, pesos, whatever; cannot hope to pay off a home loan of
300,000 dollars/euros/pesos. So, why would we think it appropriate
corporate or individual behaviour to encourage such obligation?
And why would we invest in portfolios of such instruments? (It's
like one massive corporate-led & government-supported ponzi
scheme!) There are thousands of examples of similar corporate
extensions into virtual reality in other industries. We should
all be taking lessons from the USA mortgage crisis, the Detroit
automobile melt-down, and today's externalized massive government
debts. (Indeed we are doing it again with stimulus packages!)
I really am
a capitalist at heart, but seriously, we all need to operate with
a better sense of perspective and reality, and responsibility for
our own actions.
In fact, a 'reset'
exercise by businesses will have to address some crushing realities
we have been avoiding for some time. How do we produce modest growth
in a replacement, potentially shrinking economy? How will we innovate
new value in the actual product or service itself directly connected
to the buyer and their reality. How will we re-educate our consumers
that nothing is "free" and they better be able to actually
pay for the things they use, consume and manipulate - full lifecycle
costing. Smart business leaders will creatively address these Free-economics
and externalities assumptions!
In the end,
business decisions that result in collapse of stock value every
10 years or so, or cause the company to be taken over by another,
or fall into bankruptcy simply aren't responsible. Businesses need
to be increasingly productive, sustainable and adaptive to changing
conditions. This is the call of real business leadership and appropriate
Board stewardship.
Our business
leaders and Board governors have much work to do.
The RESET
Role for Community, Social Services & Professions Leaders
Our Third Sector is comprised of many and varied institutions. Some
provide much needed direct services with a voluntary model that
reduces costs below what government could deliver and without the
profit motive that businesses require. Others exist to self-regulate
professionals such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, management
consultants, etc.; or represent the voice of interest groups, or
protect the community from potential threats; or to research and
educate community about things that individually we don't have time
or wherewithal to do ourselves.
In 'reset' these organizations must go beyond the "good"
work of today to a hard review of need and capacity and support.
In some cases these organizations today are facing significant need
but little capacity and/or support. As civilized societies though,
we need these organizations to be robust and effective. We must
both encourage and contribute to their success. 3rd Sector leaders
themselves have complex constituency and funding relationships to
master in order to be able deliver in today's conditions. We need
such organizations to:
- Provide commonly
needed services to advance the state of our communities of interest
- Rise above
jurisdictional or corporate self-interest to a greater common
good
- Promote/ensure
integrity of governments and industry
- Exemplify
good Governance and encourage us all to rise above our daily focus/personal
interests
The world has
become too populated and too interconnected to allow any of us to
conduct our affairs without consideration of the impact we have
on others around us, or ignorant of the sum of effects on our communities
and natural environments. Our 3rd sector organizations are called
upon to engage us to be better citizens and to contribute to raising
the standards for our local and global community.
You can also help us recognize the true Heroes of Tomorrow that
we desperately need to guide us into the new model.
Leaders in the
3rd sector have a particularly difficult 'reset' challenge. We have
to address the slipping, and in some cases fast-evaporating perceived
importance of the work they do. As individuals are destabilized,
as businesses destabilize, as governments unwrap their complexities,
our attentions understandably go inward. Yet critically, as we assess
our own conditions, we must do so with a context of the greater
community, indeed the greater world with which we must move into
the future.
Thus senior leaders of this sector must become excellent in enunciating
ideals, in demanding debate about the important issues, and help
us visualize a complete future context for our own decisions.
Wow - no small challenge!
Individuals,
governments and businesses will all probably avoid paying attention
to 3rd sector concerns. Such is the reality of dealing with change.
But you have to hold the tension! You must raise the creative dissonance
so we understand the important composites of our future societies.
- How will
we choose to care for our sick, disabled and terminal colleagues,
family members, neighbours? Does everyone fend for themselves,
or do we reinforce a social net? Where is the balance of competing
elements? What is publically supported; what is open to businesses;
what is personal responsibility? What options are sustainable?
- What are
appropriate personal voluntary or charitable contribution levels?
- How do we
plan and implement a greater safety and security environment against
natural, man-made accidental or intentionally aggressive assaults?
What operating standards do we adopt?
- How do we
ensure new knowledge & rising competency expectations are
applied by our professionals with whom we have invested significant
trust and self-regulation?
- How do we
better care for the environment, handle complex global warming
realities or ensure responsible development, extraction, disposal,
impact on biodiversity, etc.
- What interest
group perspectives, research, suggestions and contributions are
advised?
We cannot effectively
'reset' our world conditions without these perspectives reliably
and accurately represented. And we will need all sectors of community
engaged in dialogue about such issues.
Our 3rd sector
leaders have much work to do!
The RESET
Role for Individual Executive Leaders & Governors of Boards
There has never been a time of more individual, personal leadership
challenge to those who wear such mantles. As Frank Graves, President
of Ekos Research observed in a Globe and Mail editorial a few months
ago; "even though Canada technically emerged from the last
recession as early as 1991 … in fact it took roughly six more
years for the public to recover its sense of optimism. That lag
contributed to an echo recession, in which recovery was slower than
it might have been because of the public's reluctance to invest
and spend. Clearly the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alister
Darling must have been thinking the same thing when he declared
a couple of weeks ago that the 0.5% central bank rate in the UK
would stay at this level until the end of his term in 2013.
This is not
going to be a fast and easy recovery, as many of our leaders are
warning paradoxically at the same time as they are declaring the
recession technically over now. But here in September 2009, the
announcement of major layoffs in the auto industry and other areas,
have been made and taken into account somewhat by the stock market.
In reality, the workers have not yet been laid-off. These big layoffs
are still to come through the end of 2009. Wait until March or April
2010 as the full effects of these actions are really felt, and as
credit card balances become due.
Again to Frank
Graves' comments:
"But we do not need to despair in the face of this likely echo
recession…
One approach has been the noble lie. Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
President Barak Obama, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney and U.S.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have all been suggesting that
things are better - or will soon be better - than they manifestly
are…..
We also know that exaggerated risk perceptions are highest when
the source of fear is relatively alien or unfamiliar…
There is no magic bullet… but there are three things that we
can do…
- Shift away
from specious forecasts and conjecture… we need a distilled
summary of where we are today and week to week…
- We should
focus on stimulative spending on reconstructing our economy for
the 21st century… let's fill the pot holes, but let's also
construct a world-leading post-carbon economy…
- The crucial
mechanism for success in the 21st century will be knowledge and
innovation."
As senior leaders
we must appear confident with our people, but frankly avoid even
the noble lies.
We do need to engage our people with clarity about the current situation
and a frank and full exploration of customer/client potential plus
changing expectations. We must also facilitate an investment of
both time and financial resources in the reinvention of our business,
the innovation of new products, and the development of our skills
and knowledge required to adapt into the new realities. This is
active leadership, personal and interpersonal. This is engaging
leadership, adaptive and facilitative. This is energizing leadership,
focused and positive. This is entrepreneurial leadership, exploring
and initiating, perhaps even creating new 'rules' for the new environment
that is fast evolving.
We have much
work to do!
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