Zelensky shows that Davos-man is dead

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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, the anti-Davos man, shows that respected leaders bring people together for the common good.

In his characteristic green t-shirt and boots, Zelensky told the U.S. Congress that support for Ukraine is an investment in the future, not charity. He comes across as authentic, confident, and self-aware: an underestimated former comedian who rallied the Ukrainian people to repel the Russian onslaught, gained military support from the West and remains firmly in charge of the war. When offered evacuation, Zelensky famously replied that he wanted more ammunition, not a ride.

Compare Zelensky to Peter Goodman’s Davos-man, the well-coiffed, self-dealing elitist who comes each year to the Swiss resort town to hobnob with kindred spirits and tell people how to live their lives in ways that enrich other Davos-men. Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani came to embody this persona. When the Taliban marched toward Kabul, Ghani and his senior officials reportedly took the money and ran. The Afghan military, which other Davos-men claimed was capable, disintegrated.

Davos-man wasn’t always corrupt and self-serving. Governing elites brought unprecedented prosperity to their constituents, won the Cold War, founded companies that created information-age economies, and advanced human rights across the globe. By the early 1990s, popular trust in leaders and institutions was high, but hubris and corruption set in.

Faith in leaders and institutions waned as calamities stacked up: the housing crisis, financial crisis, the Afghanistan and Iraq fiascos, the bungling response to COVID, and the hypocrisy of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do lockdowns and mandates. Davos-man always seemed to escape accountability, laughing all the way to the bank.

Sensing their moment, China, Russia, and others made aggressive moves to undermine post-WWII institutions and agreements that they claimed protected western advantage to others’ detriment. Putin calculated that Davos-man would buckle and Kyiv would fall like Kabul.

Zelensky was no Davos-man. He rallied Ukraine, stiffened Western backbone, and, remarkably, brought Americans together (scolds like Fox’s Tucker Carlson aside).

It’s too soon to call Zelensky another Churchill — it’s a short walk from the penthouse to the outhouse. Ukraine’s government may revert to kleptocratic behavior once the shooting stops and re-building money pours in. Ukraine’s recent strike into Russia may signal a willingness for Zelensky to overreach. Time will tell.



Nonetheless, Z-man — straightforward, unpretentious, self-aware, comfortable in his own skin, and willing to exemplify Ukraine’s standards and values — is a breath of fresh air and capable of inspiring respect.

The Davos-man’s fall and the ensuing chaos show that companies must safeguard trust in leaders and systems. It’s easy to get complacent, and you can create perverse incentives that reward selfishness and duplicity in the name of growth. Tribalism results when people lose faith in leaders and systems, which tears companies apart even faster than societies.

To avoid this problem, monitor the extent to which your employees believe that the leaders in your company exemplify your values and standards and whether they think that people are held accountable for their actions.

If the answers are not what you hope, the first place to look is in the mirror. Do your actions exemplify your values and standards, or do people believe you have a Davos-man snobbery that rules only apply to the masses?

Are you holding people accountable for practicing the values, or do you look the other way at Toxic Tom because he’s got good numbers or talks a good game? Does Kiss-up Kevin get special treatment?

Do you communicate plainly so that your employees know what awesome, acceptable, and awful look like?

Nip problems in the bud when your subordinates stray. Avoid platitudes and be very clear on the behaviors you expect of them. Correcting poor leadership actions early on is far easier than addressing them after they’ve become habits. Davos-man went from public servant to self-dealing elitist, paving the way for demagogues and tribalism.

Zelensky shows the uniting power of leaders willing to walk the talk, exemplify courage, and serve the common good. You don’t need a fancy degree, an expensive suit, or a massive bank account to be a respected leader.

Happy New Year

Forecasts: 2022 and Beyond, for Consultants, Experts, and Leaders

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consultants

Here’s my 2022 scorecard…… Wishing you and your loved ones a happy holiday and a prosperous 2023!


1. The Inflation bubble bursts. Due to employee turnover and inflation, small businesses will fail at a historic rate. COVID has decreased tolerance of bad bosses and poor work environments. Inflation rises to 4% if (Build Back Better) BBB fails and 6% if BBB passes, forcing many poorly led, low-margin small businesses to close. High-margin solo and expert businesses will thrive.

I nailed this one, even as the Biden administration said inflation was temporary. Prices rose more sharply than I expected, reaching double digits for the first time since the early 1980s. You were wise to pay off variable-rate loans and increase supplies.

2. Landgrabs. Russia and China seek to time moves against Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, on signals that President Biden’s health fails. Iran and North Korea will do the same with their nuclear weapons and missile programs. A gulf state reveals its atomic weapons program in response to Iran’s.

Russia moved against Ukraine, and China made provocative moves in the Taiwan Strait. Thankfully, President Biden’s health has remained good.

3. Change for a BitCoin? Countries will begin to adopt crypto as alternate reserve currencies in response to America’s increasing weaponization of the dollar; investors will add crypto to their portfolios to hedge against inflation.

Crypto climbed the year’s first half and then collapsed under the weight of FTX’s catastrophe. China wants the yuan to be a global currency; others have sought the same for the Euro. The dollar will be tough to replace, but the urgency will increase if the U.S. weaponizes currency.

4. Trades strike back. Companies will lose confidence in supply chains that include overseas vendors. Local manufacturing and storage will rebound. Elite snobbery that the only road to a dignified professional life is an expensive 4-year degree will reduce. More people will enter trades and find substantial prosperity, independence, and joy.

Nailed it. This trend will continue.

5. Waking up to Woke. Businesses stop hiring consultants who pedal revenge racism and begin hiring advisors who improve teamwork. The best companies will hold CEOs and line managers responsible for diversity and inclusion; women and non-whites will gain a more significant share of P&L roles.

These trends will continue. Companies and stakeholders benefit by bringing better diversity to boards and c-suites.

6. 280 characters fewer. Trust in conventional news outlets, experts, and punditry will continue declining, forcing at least one primary news channel, newspaper, and social media platform to close. People will turn increasingly to trusted advisers for perspective.

Elon Musk took over Twitter, and the platform is teetering. Meta laid off 10,000 employees.

7. Revenge of the Nerds. Zillow Offers is the tip of the iceberg. Businesses that rely on AI platforms for customer relations and marketing will face significant setbacks because they act as a blunt instrument when customers expect concierge service. Hackers will learn to spoof AI decision-making tools by acting more like humans and luring machine decisions into unproductive corners.

AI tools are getting better. ChatGPT is a breakthrough technology, and Ukraine’s cyber defenses have thwarted Russian attacks. Still, AI is spoofable, and most people can detect bots.

8. AC Anyone? Climate change debates will shift towards alleviating the effects of rising sea levels and warmer temperatures. Wisconsin’s climate by 2040 will be like Tennessee’s in 2010.

No one likes pollution; let’s rally people around cleaning up the environment and practical actions to safeguard people.

9. Rolling Green-outs. Fossil fuels and nuclear power will make a comeback as a reliable base for energy supply. During extreme weather events, cities that rely on renewables face significant power outages. Global predators will intensify cyberattacks against vulnerable power grids.

Europe awoke to Russia’s weaponizing energy; Germany will maintain nuclear power. Russian cyberattacks against Ukrainian power grids have had a temporary effect.

10. The open office is dead. Hybrid workplaces are here to stay. The most innovative companies will create in-office requirements based on need rather than arbitrary percentages. The most talented will seek jobs with those companies.

Nailed it.


11. COVID theater closes. Companies will reduce wasteful activities that do little or nothing to stop the spread of COVID. The major media will reduce COVID-hype. The vaccinated will begin to revolt against COVID-control mandates because the virus is spread overwhelmingly by the unvaccinated and the vaccinated are tired of feeling punished. More businesses will require proof of vaccination or infection within the past six months for entry and employment. Vaccine boosters will be annual as COVID becomes endemic.

Nailed it.

12. Big Red Resurgence. The Nebraska Cornhuskers football team will go to the BIG 10 championship game in 2022.

The college football Huskers broke my heart again.

Coming soon: my 2023 forecasts

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leaders

Leadership: What Britney Griner’s Prisoner Exchange shows

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Leadership: Leaders play favorites, and for many good reasons.

You bring people into your circle that you trust and who provide unique value and exclude others who lack those qualities. Any sensible leader follows this practice.

There’s a difference between this approach and one that only allows people into your inner circle because they look, think, or act as you do. You might enjoy having those people around you because they make you feel good, but tribalism creates blindspots that will damage your organization.

Playing favorites based on bias convinces people that no matter how well they perform, they won’t be recognized and appreciated. That’s why talented people vote with their feet for other companies.

Great leaders consciously include those who look, think, and have significantly different experiences. These leaders help inner circle members find their voice, make sure they are heard, and take action on their input. Gaining diverse perspectives improves decision-making and helps leaders avoid getting high from their own gas. The fabled emperor with no clothes is as much a tale about sycophantic advisors as it is about self-deception.

The best leaders rotate who’s in the inner circle based on their value to the leader and organization.

People who believe they’ll always be favored get lazy and protective of their turf. The result is you get worse advice and higher tension. You’ll find yourself refereeing more disputes and missing invaluable perspectives. You have to bring in the fresh air.

It’s too bad the Biden administration could not secure the release of both Americans in Russian captivity. Leaders make decisions among difficult choices. Griner is pledging her support for Whelan’s release.

Who’s in your inner circle, and what value are they providing?

Feedback is one of the best ways to understand what’s going right and wrong and make accurate adjustments that respond to vital needs. Most leaders and organizations manage feedback poorly, and 360s tend to be poorly designed and worthless.

Respond well to feedback, and your credibility grows substantially. Your credibility diminishes if you respond poorly or act on bad advice.

Giving feedback is one of the essential roles of a leader, but it can be the most uncomfortable.

The best leaders give feedback that heightens productivity; many leaders, however, inadvertently create resentment.

The good news is that there are behaviors you can adopt that increase your credibility in giving, getting, and responding to feedback.

After this live discussion, you will be able to give feedback that increases performance without creating resentment, gain and respond to feedback in ways that boost your credibility and enhance productivity, and learn when to ignore input altogether.

Change; How to deal with its Resistance

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chaange

Cui Bono — Who Benefits?

Asking “who benefits” is the best way to understand what appears to be strange behavior, which becomes your key to addressing resistance to innovation and change. Those responsible for specific actions are most likely to gain from them.

China’s waning zero-COVID policy is a classic example. Overwhelming scientific evidence suggests that high-quality vaccines plus natural immunity while protecting the most vulnerable is the most viable path to harmonizing safety and well-being.

China has access to this information, so why the persistent zero-COVID policy that has damaged the Chinese economy, undermined their citizens’ well-being and disrupted global supply chains?

Who benefits, and what makes them better off? Xi Jinping. Zero-COVID allowed him to create the world’s most sophisticated police state through smartphone apps that track every aspect of people’s lives. Concurrently, he used the crisis to complete his seizure of power, eliminate rivals, and get himself installed as dictator for life. With those objectives secured, he’s using the ongoing protests to pivot from zero-COVID.

Change: How do I apply it?

Asking who benefits and what makes them better off helps you uncover why people resist change and to address it.

“That’s not how we’ve always done it” signals resistance to a new process or idea. People want to avoid leaving their comfort zones, especially if the status quo seems beneficial.

Loud complaining, gaslighting, and sabotage escalate the resistance. Strong-willed people will do their best to make you uncomfortable promoting the change; flying off the handle and creating a groundswell of opposition is their way of convincing you to leave them alone. You undermine your credibility and increase your costs when you tolerate this behavior.

Slow-rolling is the tactic of stalling and hoping the boss either goes away or kills the new idea. Slow-rollers cite the obstacles they are encountering, complain about inadequate resources even when they have enough, and cite higher priorities that require their attention.

The most insidious involves telling the boss what they want to hear while continuing to do what you want. Graduate-level resistance makes you look foolish because everyone thinks you believe the smokescreen.

Most people practicing these tactics are not evil actors. They get comfortable with routines because they use less mental and emotional energy when performing tasks they know well. They may honestly believe that the status quo is the better path. Sometimes that’s the case, but knee-jerk resistance to innovation is a fast track to failure. Familiarity leads to inertia, inertia creates resistance to change, and unwillingness to innovate generates complacency. You can only drift in one direction — downhill. Ask Sears, ToysRUs, and FTX.

There’s a myth about the military that you can order someone to do something, no matter how ridiculous, and they’ll do it. I encountered these forms of resistance on active duty and had to get good at addressing them.

Buy-in is the shortest path to success, and people buy in when they believe they are better off doing so. You need self-interest on your side.

People change their behavior based on three factors: fear that they’ll suffer adverse consequences, interest: they decide that they are better off by changing, or honor: that continued resistance to change will harm others. Historians will recognize these three powerful motives from Thucydides.

Successful leaders find the right levers to pull.

You’re back on track with:

  • Jim, I’ve heard your point of view and given you why I believe innovation is vital to our success. Here are three steps I need you to take to implement the decision. What additional resources or guidance do you need?
  • Susan, I’m considering a new initiative. May I get your views on how this makes you and your team better off and what downsides we need to address?
  • Tony, I know you prefer to continue using the process that you developed. The problem is that no one else uses it, and the company would have to suck down the costs of allowing everyone to do their own thing. Standardizing our processes saves us $ 2 million annually, which we can apply to bonuses and investments in people.   

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If you are a veteran coach or consultant, Thursday’s live discussion is for you.

Sales are the heartbeat of your business. I’ll discuss how to gain great clients without feeling pushy or uncomfortable.

After participating in this discussion, you will have the tools to have successful business development calls based on my Gets Me – Gots Me – Helps Me process.

  • Gain action steps so you can execute the process with your prospects.
  • Avoid coming across as pushy or with “sales breath” when you meet people.
  • Differentiate between intro and business calls, so you avoid coming across using bait-and-switch tactics.
  • Stop wasting time and burning bridges trying the crazy tactics you see used (unsuccessfully) on social media.
  • Avoid the colossal waste of time and money on ads and internet marketing.
  • Have business development calls that are comfortable, joyful, and successful.

The discussion starts at 3:30 pm US Central on December 15. I’ll provide 30 minutes of actionable content followed by 30 minutes of Q&A.

Reply to this email for the calendar invitation, or create your own and dial in with this zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/2829958553.

Please share this opportunity with two or three others who would benefit from the discussion.

diversity

What the Collapse of FTX tells us about Diversity; and shows Leaders where they can do Better

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leaders

Samuel Bankman-Fried, by work standards, had a diverse inner circle, but groupthink and lack of perspective sank his company, FTX, and cost people billions. Skin-deep diversity is a fast track to failure.

Diversity

Diversity, Shallow and Deep

The head of a Milwaukee consulting firm that trains women for participation in corporate governance told an audience last week that having two women on a board of directors leads to better decisions. A (male) spectator noted that the speaker’s board of directors consisted of women only and wondered if the presence of two men would be helpful.

The NASDAQ stock exchange has directed its participating companies to have two diverse board directors, including one who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+,” or explain to shareholders why they’ve fallen short.

As I’ll discuss below, physical diversity is important for legitimacy. Tokenism is shallow, and so is having the deck stacked against you because of your chromosomes.

FTX’s collapse shows that skin-deep diversity is insufficient, and this HBR study shows why it could damage your company.

Courageous leaders broaden participation and recognize that unisex, monochrome boards lack legitimacy. They surround themselves with people who look and think differently and have different life experiences.

Diversity is an iceberg; what you see above the waterline represents a fraction of its mass. Below the surface lies the iceberg’s bulk. Ignore that and wind up like the Titanic.

Physical diversity — what you can see — is the tip; cognitive and experiential diversity occupy the depths.

Leadership

Cognitive diversity occurs when you surround yourself with people who think differently. Their natural contributions provide you with alternative capacities. Some are tactical innovators willing to rock the boat, while others build consensus and keep people on board. Big-picture strategists help you solve complex challenges, but somebody’s got to manage the details. My PROM Archetypes® give you a framework for cognitive diversity. You can take the self-assessment here.

Experiential diversity includes education, development, and life experiences that provide perspective. Math and science nerds who’ve lived their entire lives in leafy suburbs, regardless of their chromosomes, are likely to have monochrome views. In contrast, people who might look the same but have varied socio-economic backgrounds, experiences, and education will enrich discussion and decision-making.

You Need All Three

Physical, cognitive, and experiential diversity gives you the capacity for good governance. Without physical diversity, your organization lacks legitimacy in the eyes of your stakeholders. If you don’t have cognitive diversity, you’ll get groupthink. Inadequate experiential diversity undermines the perspective you need to deal with complexity and uncertainty.

FTX had only tip-of-the-iceberg diversity.

Diversity in-depth, combined with a commitment to the common good, creates a board of directors or leadership team that will take your organization to new heights.

Back on Track

  • Our board looks very different than our stakeholders; what perspectives are we missing?
  • We’ve got fantastic ideas, but we keep falling short on execution. Do we have the cognitive diversity we need to be successful?
  • I feel a natural connection with everyone on this all-Ivy-Leaguer board, but we’ve missed the points of view of the people we’re serving.   
  • We agree on everything. When everyone thinks alike, it means that no one is thinking. Let’s bring in the fresh air.

Are you okay with shallow diversity?

Accountability Masterclass

This complementary masterclass on December 7 at 3:30 pm U.S. Central focuses on accountability. By the end of this masterclass, you will be able to:

* Provide feedback that improves performance and reduces awkwardness.

* Use proactive accountability to improve success dramatically.

* Enact a 3-level accountability system that increases buy-in and lowers your burden.

* Avoid common pitfalls that erode accountability and increase tension while leaving you feeling like you are the only one vested in success.

Here is the link to the masterclass on December 7 at 3:30 pm U.S. Central

Share this opportunity with one or two others you think would benefit from the discussion.