There are a lot of books about leadership. Most of them offer decent advice. Why another one? This is the second volume of Notes from the Corporate Underground. It's a collection of essays about the realities of leadership, not the theoretical. There are no simple models offered here and no easy answers. Just real life. After reading this volume, you might decide not to pursue a path of leadership, and you would be wise to do so if what you find here causes you to pause in your pursuit of advancement. Leadership is about selflessness, when it's done right. But if you do get it right, then you could work for a jerk and truly enjoy it, because that jerk would be you.
Notes from the Corporate Underground
Volume II: Work for a Jerk and Love It!
By Stan SewitchTrafford Publishing
Copyright © 201 Stan Sewitch
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-6570-9Contents
Introduction, ix,
My Thanks, 1,
An Exploration in Accountability, 2,
Be a Tall Poppy, Not a Black Hole, 7,
A Small Case With a Big Lesson for Management, 10,
Back on the Soapbox about Coaching, 13,
Black and Blue, Tried and True, 16,
CEOs Need Love Too, 19,
Company Culture is Found in the Kitchen, 22,
The Tragedy of Self-Pity, 25,
The Danger of Adjectives, 28,
The Myth of Self-directed Teams, 32,
Strategic Slothfulness, 37,
The Mystery of Choice, 41,
Employee Development Made Simple, 44,
Donkeys and Carrots, 48,
Dysfunction in the Ranks: Staff Officers vs. Line Officers, 53,
Principles are the Compass of Entrepreneurial Sailing, 56,
Group Grope, 59,
Just Try to Make a Habit of it, 63,
Can't Wait for Monday, 66,
Is Hierarchy the Only Choice?, 69,
Hiring Your Boss, 72,
"Human Capital Management" (Gag), 76,
Emotional Infection, 80,
Innovation Isn't a Water Faucet, 84,
A Friendly Wake-Up Call From Ben, 87,
It's a Matter of Choice, 90,
Give it to Them Straight, 94,
It's Not About Us, 98,
Become Yourself, 101,
Developing Leadership: A Matter of Programming?, 104,
Leadership on the Edge, 108,
Leadership is About Influence, 112,
"Breakthrough, transformative, dynamic states of the sixteen highly effective power secrets for integrated energy leadership", 116,
Not Your Average Business Book, 119,
The Census Doesn't Count Them, 122,
Millennials Schmillennials ..., 125,
The Myth of Growth, 128,
Personality Testing Fallacies, 131,
Performance Reviews Revisited, 135,
Offline, 138,
The Open and Shut Case of the "Open Book", 141,
Reductionist Organizational Development, 144,
Organizational Inflammation, 147,
The Paradox of Leadership, 151,
Passing the Baton, 154,
Gazing Past Apogee, 157,
The Power of the Holdout, 160,
The Price of Respect, 164,
Providence, 167,
Sage Advice for Sages, 170,
The Psychology of Inclusion, 174,
Just the Right Seasoning, 178,
Shipping Out Tomorrow, Ma, 182,
The Word Everyone Uses and Few Understand, 185,
Success Came When You Weren't Looking, 189,
Somebody Took the Responsibility, 192,
Team Building Doesn't Happen Offsite, 195,
The Old Gunfighter, 199,
The Owner's Attitude, 203,
The Truth about Coaching, 206,
Who's on Your Team?, 210,
Teamwork Erupts on Commuter Train No News Media Present to Record Event,
Conference Planners Dubious, 214,
The 83 Steps to Entrepreneurial Excellence, 218,
The Buddha Nature of Vietnam, 221,
You Get What You Measure, 224,
The Leader's Secret Weapon: Admitting Ignorance, 228,
The "What" and the "How", 231,
Throwing a Bell Curve, 235,
"Tough, not rough", 239,
Death by Triangulation, 242,
Unintended Consequences of Efficiency, 245,
Aretha Franklin Was Right, 248,
What Should I Pay For?, 251,
Why Do You Want to Lead?, 254,
Words of Wisdom, 257,
A Small Town Called Earth, 260,
Ya Just Gotta Care, 263,
Yet Another Course in Leadership, 267,
Why I'm At WD-40 Company, 270,
Work For a Jerk, and Love It, 273,
Leadership and Negative Emotions, 276,
Whose Decision Is It Anyway?, 279,
Leaders Look Ahead, 282,
The Goldfish Ponders its Existence, 285,
The Limits of Organizational Design, 288,
The Myth of Rewarding Employees, 291,
When to Shut Up, 294,
First You Learn How to Follow, 297,
"How do I earn an A+?", 300,
Leadership and Mental Illness, 303,
The Influence of Emotions in Decision-making, 306,
Why am I Talking?, 310,
Revisiting "Open Book" Management, 314,
The Romans Weren't Great at Everything, 317,
Quit Looking for the Perfect Fit, 320,
About the Author, 323,
CHAPTER 1
My Thanks
As a teenager I aspired to be a journalist, and was able to fulfill that early dream through becoming an editor for the Teen Page of the Vallejo Times Herald, where I went to high school.
I changed my major from journalism to psychology but never lost my desire to write, to offer new or different perspectives that might be of use to others somehow. The editors and staff of the San Diego Daily Transcript gave me that opportunity in 2003 when they invited me to write a weekly column on, well, anything I wanted to write about.
Those of you who write for a living know just how precious it is to have that literary freedom. And you also know how valuable editorial advice and guidance is to making a writer better.
So this book is dedicated to my three editors and the many staff members who helped me continually challenge myself to get better at authorship, but who never constrained my range of topics.
Thank you, San Diego Daily Transcript, for your gift to me and to our community. It is sad and yet a sign of the times that your 130 year old newspaper is no more. May all of the staff there go on to adventures and contributions at least equal to what you have done for the San Diego community, for so many years
CHAPTER 2
An Exploration in Accountability
"What does 'accountability' mean to you?" the facilitator asked the group of earnest managers, gathered to hear about the subject and hopefully apply it in daily work life.
One brave soul offered, "Being responsible."
Another spoke up, "Saying what you mean."
A third contributed, "It's really being the person that receives the consequences when something goes wrong."
"Accountability is the act of owning the results one is expected to contribute, no matter what may have affected his or her ability to accomplish those expectations," suggested someone else. Now we're getting to the kernel.
"Let's take a short quiz," the facilitator said. (Alright, I'll admit it. I said it.)
"You get a letter from your lender stating your mortgage check bounced. The lender is assessing a late fee and demanding payment. You are surprised since your checking account receives your pay as direct deposit and you wrote the lender's mortgage payment a week after payday. So you call the bank and discover that they had a software problem and your account balance was erroneously debited. They fixed the problem already.
"If you had to pick just one action out of the following three, what would it be:
• You write another check to the lender explaining what happened, pay the late fee, and then ask your bank to reimburse you the fee.
• You pay the mortgage amount only, sending an explanation to the lender as to why the check bounced.
• You pay the mortgage amount, and write a letter asking the lender to reverse the fee and explain what happened."
Like all little quizzes of this sort, the purpose is to generate discussion and to explore the idea being presented. In this workshop, I offered five of these scenarios. This particular one seemed to get the folks riled up the most. Now that you've made your mental selection, I'll tell you that the most accountable response is number one. When told of this, the group was quite animated in its discussion, challenging the selection and debating what accountability...
