Hitler: Not the Right Management Guru for India

There was disturbing report at the beginning of the week which said that Mein Kampf was flying off the bookshelves in New Delhi, fueled by demand from students “who see it as a self-improvement and management strategy guide for aspiring business leaders, and who were happy to cite it as an inspiration.”
I don’t think so.
In my view, this is merely the latest round in the political extremism which is being fomented by groups like the BJP and thugs like Varun Gandhi.
When politicians use race, religion, and background to divide people and win votes, you know we’re in a bad place. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Republicans or the BJP using these tactics, it’s just plain evil.
We don’t need another Sanjay Gandhi.
There are plenty of candidates out there vying to be India’s Hitler. The question is: where is India’s Obama?
Tata Nano or not, India still has a long way to go to get to Satyameva Jayate
Will a real Gandhi please stand up?

Backlash: How Early Adopters React When the Mass Market Embraces a New Brand


David Reibstein‘s theory holds true online as well. Let’s look at an example of how this works with online communities, knowledge – based communities in particular. Let’s say we build an online community around a specific topic. When the site starts up, we attract the early adopters – some of them thought leaders in their fields. The posts, articles, and debates are generally led by a handful of these thinkers, and they attract a following. The newbies, as they engage with the community start off by learning, asking questions, sometimes just lurking. The quality of these early debates is typically high and participation intense and invigorating.
So what happens when the community suddenly experiences growth – massive numbers of the hoi-pollloi descend on the site and suddenly the quality of discussions takes on a Twitter-like feelstupid and stupider. The old school rebels, first through silence, and second by disengaging. This takeover by the wisdom of the masses can be avoided, through ruthless editorial direction and skilled moderators. And every once in while, the new participants challenge assumptions that deserve to be challenged, and are given their space in the sun.
So how do we manage this growth and stay true to the community’s intent?
Three options come to my mind:
1) Manage membership – simply keep the community at growing in a measured way – firing the “bottom” 10% each year, and bringing in a fresh crop of participants at 20%… This is the surest way to sustainable growth.
2) Create a merit-based aristocacy – with tiered membership based on the value of the participant’s contributions.
3) Create a feeder community which is built for the masses and an elite community for the thought leaders and their followers. Moderate the interaction between these groups with the possibility of upward migration based on peer-based invitations.
You’ll notice I am not advocating open communities where everyone has an equal voice. That’s because I’m not talking about social communities, but communities of practice where respect is reserved for the competent.

Cloning Your Milk (Why the FDA is Out to Lunch)

I was stunned to see this ad today:
cloned milk advertisement
At first, I thought it was joke, but then, after seeing this site I wasn’t so sure:
cloned milk company
It seemed like a spoof – note the “Clone Zone” with the “Fun Facts on Cloning.
My hilarity turned sour when I realized they were serious.
Now I’m asking you, do you really believe the FDA when they tell you it’s safe?
Not these crooks.
Obama needs to weed out the Bush appointees, quickly.
Who knows what they’ll approve next? And the worst thing, they aren’t even required to label cloned products.
Let’s hope they’re not cloning mad cows.
And who is Linda?
cloned milk company

Killing Creativity at Google

Goodbye Google, says Douglas Bowman.
Apparently the engineers at Google have killed his creativity.
Is this the triumph of data-driven decision-making?
In my view, and I do like data, this is a minor symptom of Google losing its soul. When petty data kills the poet, you know its time to hit the eject button.
Head for the hills, Douglas!
Sidenote: this reminds me of a Peter Drucker story. Drucker insisted, during one of those waste/cost-cutting-witch-hunting exercises, that the consultants should not go after every last penny. Doing so, in his mind, would destroy the soul of the company. Sure there’s a little waste, but you still have an engaged workforce.
Another way to say this is: “Detroititis.”
The nerds at Google still have a lot to learn.

Liz Sidoti: Smear Journalism at the Associated Press

How low has the Associated Press fallen?
Or maybe the question should be: how low will they go?
I just caught site of an article by Liz Sidoti which seemed rather vicious in tone and decided to check up on who she was.
Here’s what came up: AP’s Sidoti smears Obama
Then I decided to do a search on Media Matters.
Hello! Here we go again. The media attack dogs are back. I wonder who is funding them? The Heritage Foundation?
But it’s not just Sidoti, it’s the AP, period.
And newspapers still wonder why no one reads them anymore? Keep buying that AP feed, Mr. Editor.
UPDATE: Thanks, Joseph! Apparently Liz Sidoti was a donut donor to the failed McCain campaign:

Wow, wow and wow.

World of Ends: Another Manifesto from Doc Searls and David Weinberger

The Cluetrain posse continues their journey:
1. The Internet isn’t complicated
2. The Internet isn’t a thing. It’s an agreement.
3. The Internet is stupid.
4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
5. All the Internet’s value grows on its edges.
6. Money moves to the suburbs.
7. The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends.
8. The Internet’s three virtues:
a. No one owns it
b. Everyone can use it
c. Anyone can improve it
9. If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it?
10. Some mistakes we can stop making already
Details >>

What Happened to Forrester Research?

It looks like Forrester Research has gone off the deep end. Either that, or their website designers aren’t reading their own reports. Like the ones on creating personas for the audience that visits your site…
forresteraudience.jpg
Apparently these are the types of people who are visiting the Forrester website these days. Note the sour faces, forced smiles, and abject hand wringing – a definite sign that the recession is taking hold…
P.S. Instead of spending money on inauthentic website design, Forrester should’ve just spent the money and hung on to Charlene Li. Too bad.

Who would Jesus Shoot? The Growth of Church Extremism

What happened to love, mercy, and forgiveness?
Everywhere you look, the churches of the world are turning their backs on Jesus, choosing social and political power over service to the poor.
The extremism of the Catholic church rears its ugly head again in Brazil, where a nine-year old girl gets excommunicated for getting an abortion to save her life.
Meanwhile in the American South we’ve got Christian militants ramping up, bringing their guns to church as a they build their christian security network.
The Talibanization of Christianity is not surprising when you look at the mindset of these people. They preach the gospel of fear, not love. If it was up to them, the apostles would be armed and dangerous, protecting Jesus by shooting anyone who came too close.
And when these same people start inciting violence, it’s time for reason to step in.
Who would Jesus shoot?
Really, … ask that question, and put away your guns.

Globalization and Corporate Taxes

If corporations want to be treated like persons, then they will have to pay their taxes like normal people. That’s just another founding principle in the ongoing war on corporatism.
If I go work overseas, I still have to pay US taxes – as long as I’m a US citizen. So why should the corporations be any different?
The tax experts may question this line of thinking, but let’s remember who pays them.
The Hindu has an article on the issue which seems fair and balanced.
Of course, more and more companies are choosing to move to Dubai, where, under a dicatator, they enjoy more freedoms than here in the US. More on Halliburton and KBR here>>
Who needs democracy when you can have bigger profits instead?
It’s all about the size and share of the pie
Funny thing, Dubai is not weathering the global financial as well as might be expected. Many of these offshore companies will come back or disappear. No bails-outs for them! Good luck Dubai.
For individual tax dodgers, watch the weasels squirm as Swiss bank accounts become more transparent. First Switzerland, then Panama and Singapore.
What’s my point in all this raving? Pretty simple really: businesses and individuals have a responsibility to all their constituents, not just shareholders. And the sooner they wake up to that reality, the sooner they will truly become “good citizens of the world.” It’s capitalism 2.0 versus police state 2.0 – which do you prefer?

Midnight in the Garden of Evil

The idea that deregulation is a good thing is perhaps the most destructive legacy of Bush’s Republican agenda. Here’s are some of the midnight de-regulations the Republicans need to be held accountable for:
– A rule that relaxes enforcement against factory-farm runoff
– A rule that permits more waste from mountaintop mining to be dumped into waterways
– A rule seemingly designed to protect pharmaceutical companies from being held liable for marketing products they know are unsafe
– A rule that makes it more difficult for workers to take advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act
– A rule that reduces access of Medicaid beneficiaries to services such as dental and vision care
– A rule that could limit women’s access to reproductive health services.
Read all about it in this report from the Center for American Progress (not funded by Exxon or Peabody).
Speaking of Peabody, here’s more on how Peabody is forcing the Navajos off Big Mountain >>
The business lobbyists that have been of the deregulation gravy train are now going to have to deal with transparency and accountability – starting with official sites like recovery.gov, along with netroots activism. The time for crooked corporatism is over.

The Business Value of Bedtime Stories

Once upon a time, my pet lion (who lived in the attic) started practicing customer-driven innovation. But then he began to challenge his assumptions and now he won’t listen to anything I say.
My 8-year old daughter told me this story last night before she fell asleep.
I’ve really got to start going down to the office when I take those work calls…

The Republican Response: Barney Fife Deputizes Bobby Jindal

After watching the brilliant Republican response by Bobby Jindal, here’s what my wife came up with:

Some husbands admit that their wives are smarter than they are, but this proves my wife is also way funnier than me. Her sense of humor is on display at globeschooling.com >>
UPDATE
HBR: Don’t “Bobby Jindal” Your Next Big Speech
WAPO: How Bad Was Jindal?
NYTimes: Governor Jindal, Rising GOP Star, Plummets After Speech
AP: Republicans, Democrats criticize Jindal’s speech

Gary Hamel: Moonlight Madness or Management Moonshots?

Gary Hamel‘s at it again.
This time he’s got 25 moonshots for management:
1. Ensure that management’s work serves a higher purpose. Management, both in theory and practice, must orient itself to the achievement of noble, socially significant goals.
2. Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems. There’s a need for processes and practices that reflect the interdependence of all stakeholder groups.
3. Reconstruct management’s philosophical foundations. To build organizations that are more than merely efficient, we will need to draw lessons from such fields as biology and theology, and from such concepts as democracies and markets.
4. Eliminate the pathologies of formal hierarchy. There are advantages to natural hierarchies, where power flows up from the bottom and leaders emerge instead of being appointed.
5. Reduce fear and increase trust. Mistrust and fear are toxic to innovation and engagement and must be wrung out of tomorrow’s management systems.
6. Reinvent the means of control. To transcend the discipline-versus-freedom trade-off, control systems will have to encourage control from within rather than constraints from without.
7. Redefine the work of leadership. The notion of the leader as a heroic decision maker is untenable. Leaders must be recast as social-systems architects who enable innovation and collaboration.
8. Expand and exploit diversity. We must create a management system that values diversity, disagreement, and divergence as much as conformance, consensus, and cohesion.
9. Reinvent strategy-making as an emergent process. In a turbulent world, strategy making must reflect the biological principles of variety, selection, and retention.
10. De-structure and disaggregate the organization. To become more adaptable and innovative, large entities must be disaggregated into smaller, more malleable units.
11. Dramatically reduce the pull of the past. Existing management systems often mindlessly reinforce the status quo. In the future, they must facilitate innovation and change.
12. Share the work of setting direction. To engender commitment, the responsibility for goal setting must be distributed through a process where share of voice is a function of insight, not power.
13. Develop holistic performance measures. Existing performance metrics must be recast, since they give inadequate attention to the critical human capabilities that drive success in the creative economy.
14. Stretch executive time frames and perspectives. Discover alternatives to compensation and reward systems that encourage managers to sacrifice long-term goals for short-term gains.
15. Create a democracy of information. Companies need holographic information systems that equip every employee to act in the interests of the entire enterprise.
16. Empower the renegades and disarm the reactionaries. Management systems must give more power to employees whose emotional equity is invested in the future rather than in the past.
17. Expand the scope of employee autonomy. Management systems must be redesigned to facilitate grassroots initiatives and local experimentation.
18. Create internal markets for ideas, talent, and resources. Markets are better than hierarchies at allocating resources, and companies’ resource allocation processes need to reflect this fact.
19. Depoliticize decision-making. Decision processes must be free of positional biases and should exploit the collective wisdom of the entire organization.
20. Better optimize trade-offs. Management systems tend to force either-or choices. What’s needed are hybrid systems that subtly optimize key trade-offs.
21. Further unleash human imagination. Much is known about what engenders human creativity. This knowledge must be better applied in the design of management systems.
22. Enable communities of passion. To maximize employee engagement, management systems must facilitate the formation of self-defining communities of passion.
23. Retool management for an open world. Value-creating networks often transcend the company’s boundaries and render traditional power-based management tools ineffective. New management tools are needed for building complex ecosystems.
24. Humanize the language and practice of business. Tomorrow’s management systems must give as much credence to such timeless human ideals as beauty, justice and community as they do to the traditional goals of efficiency, advantage, and profit.
25. Retrain managerial minds. Managers’ traditional deductive and analytical skills must be complemented by conceptual and systems-thinking skills.
Fine. I think I get it. The real question is how many of our bail-out CEOs will get this Capitalism 2.0?

The War on Greed

In trying times, executive behavior and more importantly, executive compensation becomes a public issue. Here’s an example of what to expect in the weeks and months ahead – warongreed.org has targeted Goldman Sachs for the “reckless” bonuses they handed out to their financial staff – after receiving a $6.5 billion bailout from taxpayers.
Apparently, if Goldman Sachs had shared its bailout billions with their rank-and-file workers at Burger King, they’d have handed out $18,000 to each employee. I must say I’m getting a strong French Revolution 2.0 vibe:

The Truth about Executive Pay

There’s a line of reasoning being echoed in the Obama administration that if we cap CEO pay for bailed-out companies in the financial markets, the best and brightest will leave, seeking greener pastures with foreign companies which don’t have similar restrictions.
This is false reasoning.
Executive pay must be tied to long-term performance if anything is going to change. Here’s some thinking on the issue from Stephen F. O’Byrne and S. David Young in HBR:
The justification for maintaining pay competitiveness is that it reduces the risk of losing good managers, who could be costly to replace. Corporate boards could also argue that it minimizes the risk of seriously overpaying managers as a consequence of large, windfall gains from surging share prices. In short, the claim is that competitive pay policies not only help lower retention risk but also impose limits on shareholder cost. This is false logic. By causing companies to overpay underperforming managers and underpay star performers, a competitive pay policy will actually increase retention risk. The poor performers stay on and the good ones go. What’s more, it ignores the potential wealth-creating effects of strong financial incentives.
Despite their commitment to competitive pay policies, compensation committees sometimes do act to strengthen incentives by increasing option grant shares after a year of strong stock-price performance or decreasing them after a bad year. On the surface, this appears to be good news. But such moves have little overall impact because directors tend to reverse their actions in the following year. In other words, an option grant that rewards good performance or penalizes poor performance is followed, almost half the time, by a grant that penalizes good performance or rewards poor performance. On balance, therefore, ad hoc adjustments by boards contribute almost nothing to wealth leverage.
If companies are serious about rewarding performance and retaining star performers, they will first have to wean themselves off competitive pay. They should give managers fixed-share interests in stock appreciation and economic profit improvement, thereby increasing the impact of future pay on executive wealth. Perhaps most important, they need to review vesting and holding requirements to prevent managers from unilaterally cashing out share-based pay, which also reduces the sensitivity of their wealth to company value.

Secondly, we know the financial sector is grossly overpaid. Even the Chinese will tell you this. I blogged earlier about China’s Gao Xiqing, president of the China Investment Corporation:
– “If you look at every one of these [derivative] products, they make sense. But in aggregate, they are bullshit. They are crap. They serve to cheat people.
– “I have to say it: you have to do something about pay in the financial system. People in this field have way too much money. And this is not right.”
He’s not mincing words, and neither is the Economist >>
I say let them go. It’s time these executives we came back to Earth. If they want to risk their own money great, but why should we subsidize irresponsible management practices?
I’m with Warren Buffet when he says in this letter:
“CEO perks at one company are quickly copied elsewhere. “All the other kids have one” may seem a thought too juvenile to use as a rationale in the boardroom. But consultants employ precisely this argument, phrased more elegantly of course, when they make recommendations to comp committees.
Irrational and excessive comp practices will not be materially changed by disclosure or by “independent” comp committee members. Indeed, I think it’s likely that the reason I was rejected for service on so many comp committees was that I was regarded as too independent. Compensation reform will only occur if the largest institutional shareholders – it would only take a few – demand a fresh look at the whole system. The consultants’ present drill of deftly selecting “peer” companies to compare with their clients will only perpetuate present excesses.”
No one is saying we should stop paying for performance. What we’re saying is let’s stop rewarding unsustainable business practices and outright fraud.
Where are we going to find low-cost, competent CEOs? That’s a business GE should look into. A CEO-for-Hire profit center. Training grounds? India and China, of course.

Cut Capital Expenditures, Not People

When executives want to boost profitability, their first target is often their “most valuable asset” (ha!) – people. But a better way to find value is to bring increased discipline to the capital budgeting process for small items.
Check out Tom Copeland‘s 2000 article in HBRCutting Costs Without Drawing Blood.
Here’s what he says:
… a company can almost always create far more sustainable value by sensibly reducing its capital expenditures. How? Not by postponing or eliminating big spending projects, which are usually less than 20% of the budget anyway, but by conducting a rigorous, disciplined evaluation of the small-ticket items that usually get rubber-stamped. Those “little” requests often prove to be unnecessary—in some cases they duplicate other requests—or gold plated. But few managers have the time, energy, or inclination to ask about them. They should.
and:
You get more bang for the buck—or perhaps more buck for the bang—by cutting capex dollars than by cutting payroll. According to my estimates, the increased market valuation that resulted from Kodak’s $400 million payroll cuts could have been achieved by a $280 million reduction in capital spending. The reason for the difference, of course, is that a company has to make severance payments—$600 million in Kodak’s case—to people it has laid off. (There is no severance pay for capital.) The table compares recent payroll savings at Kodak and several other corporations with my estimated value-equivalent capex cuts.
Something to think about very, very carefully.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter on Simplicity

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is one of my favorite business gurus, the “female Peter Drucker,” as I tell people when I recommend they read her book Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End.
In her latest blog post at HBR, she tells us that the next big trend is simple: to simplify.
Among her observations:
Companies sow the seeds of their own decline in adding too many things — product variations, business units, independent subsidiaries — without integrating them. They create complexity, which makes costs increase faster than the potential gains from the new parts.
“Just why did General Motors need 47 brands of cars? Was that responsible for its top-heavy load of managers? Or for cannibalization within the company?”
and this brilliant line:
When everyone else suffers from over-complexity, there is a market for products and services that simplify life.
More here >>

Business Models for Short Attention Spans

I wrote once on another blog, that no one has time to read Harvard Business Review, or listen to an entire music CD, or watch the whole movie.
Our attention span is somewhere between 3 to 5 minutes. And that’s the size your idea-bite has to be if you’re going get heard at all. See Twitter, YouTube, CNN, et. al. We’re getting dumber second by second by second.
How do you build a business model for short attention spans? I think this is the key challenge for online publications – from newspapers, to blogs, to forums. Perhaps the key is enticing readers to return over and over – let’s say twenty times a day! So online journals must be updated very often (compare HuffPost with the NYTimes) with corresponding micro-blogging on the same topics.
And the revenue will come not for selling ads, but selling products and services. And sometimes, you may just sell them the longer version of your story.

Heart Disease and Indian Politics

India Today gives us a cardio-pulmonary view of the political pulse of India.
I suppose it is pretty stressful being a politician in India and all…
The article also mentions the inevitability of “Rahul Gandhi happening.”
Good luck, Rahul. I hope you’re ready to “happen!”

Hunger and Republican Values

To get a better idea of what it’s like to live on a food stamp budget, CNN’s Sean Callebs decided to eat for a month on $176 and blog about it >>
What is depressing is the rising number of people going hungry in this, the “land of plenty.”
I’m just sick at the Republicans – first they get us in this mess, then they go obstruct everything. Their idea of a stimulus is more tax cuts for their friends who live in the top 2% – otherwise, nix!
The Republican party stands for one thing: lies and more lies. And the corporate media is just as guilty.
More here about what life is like for an increasing number of people on Main Street>>

The Politics of Evolution

From the Economist:
Darwin.jpg
The US – last – except for Turkey… this is what happens when science education is guided by the politics of faith.
I wonder how many of these same people believe in faith-based open-heart surgery?

Coffee, Dementia, and Other Ramblings

Here’s some news you can use:
“…scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less.”
That “scientific report” prompted me to tell my wife that I needed to drink 5 cups of cold coffee a day to avoid dementia.
My wife’s quick answer: “Too bad it’s not retroactive.”

Susan Solomon: “Global Warming is Irreversible”

Now what?
Our carbon drain is clogged, and we’re going to drown in our own bathtub.
Here’s the bad news:
“People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we’re showing here is that’s not right. It’s essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years,” says Susan Solomon on NPR
Are you ready for long droughts and rising seas? While some environmentalists are worried about the extinction of polar bears and emperor penguins, or the dying oceans, I’m thinking about human extinction. As usual, the poor will be hit the hardest.
Poor Al Gore keeps trying to wake us up:

This is a national security issue which makes Al-Qaeda look like the Peanuts.
Meanwhile, the Republicans, led by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are still on their “global warming is a hoax” bandwagon.

The Nazi Pope Shows his True Colors

This is just disgusting. More from Jesusland
Can the Catholic church be saved from itself? Not likely. YouTube or no YouTube, we’re not going to see Catholicism 2.0 anytime soon. As I’ve said before, if Jesus was around he’s kick these bozos out of the Temple…
BTW, isn’t it funny there are NO comments on any of the Vatican’s YouTube videos? That’s what they call an ecumenical dialog!

BBC Documentary: What Now Mr. President? (Wake Up, Everybody!)

Here’s a documentary from the BBC’s Panorama.
Here’s how they pitch it:
“Barack Obama takes over as US President with a promise to dramatically change America and make it a fairer place. He is inheriting the worst economic crisis in almost a century, and a country so unequal that 23,000 people die every year because they cannot afford basic healthcare. To close the gap between rich and poor Obama will have to take on the might of the corporate world, which wields enormous influence in Washington. Can he change the world’s most powerful country, and should he?”



Question: ever wonder why this kind of a documentary never makes it to US television?
Wake Up, Everybody! Check out Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes:

The Two Sides of Google

Even as Jeff JarvisWhat Would Google Do? hits the market, there’s another side of Google we should be aware of.
Michael Arrington has posted a thread from former-Google employees talking about why they left. Sure, disgruntled employees are not always fair and balanced, but it’s interesting to learn that Google does have issues with management, bureaucracy, low pay, poor mentoring, and all the other foibles of corporate stupidity.
So what will Google do about it? Let’s watch.

Friedman: “It’s five to midnight…”

Tom Friedman‘s latest:
“It’s five to midnight and before the clock strikes 12 all we need to do is rebuild Fatah, merge it with Hamas, elect an Israeli government that can freeze settlements, court Syria and engage Iran — while preventing it from going nuclear — just so we can get the parties to start talking.”
There’s no point blaming Dubya for the mess other than taking note of his administration’s deliberate incompetence. Obama’s appointment of former senator George Mitchell to head the peace initiative shows he’s serious.
In my opinion, the tragedy is that Israel is not ready for peace. Israel’s leaders are just as delusional as Dubya.
And no matter who wins the February election, we’re not going to see the end of settlements.
Friedman paints the picture of what Israel’s fate looks like: “…without a stable two-state solution, what you will have is an Israel hiding behind a high wall, defending itself from a Hamas-run failed state in Gaza, a Hezbollah-run failed state in south Lebanon and a Fatah-run failed state in Ramallah. Have a nice day.”
So where is Israel’s Obama? Will no one stand up for reality?