18 Months

Congratulations! You've just been hired to head a company as its CEO or become the executive of a major division or subsidiary. You've been selected to lead the company or division because the business is under-performing or, worse, is in trouble. Competition abounds. The Board of Directors is impatient. Your hiring is a bold move and trumpets -- to the investment community, the market, internal leadership and employees alike -- that winning is a priority, that compromise is passe, and that hope for the future is bright.

Your job: Turn the business around. Fast.

Indeed, while no one says so explicitly, the clock has already started. And even while the communication regarding your appointment suggests that "This reflects our long-term commitment to our shareholders and key stakeholders" and, "This is a very large ship that will take time -- and all of us working together -- to turn around", a diverse set of constituents has begun a timer. A timer that does not count infinitely, but, instead, only to 18. As in months.

Because, regardless of the beautiful steed you rode in on, you've got only about 18 months to effect change.

Think this unfair? Do you think to yourself that it took years for the company or division to have developed these problems; years to have fallen behind in technology, production capabilities, employee development; years to have failed to develop adequate leaders and sufficient bench strength; years to have devolved an elegant organization structure into something that resembles the scribbling of a toddler; years to have destroyed the culture that attracted top talent, supported high-performing teams and accelerated growth; years to have tarnished our once proud and dominant brand?

All true. Even so, you still have only about 18 months to turn things around. Nobody said life was fair. Fun, yes. Fair, no.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a brief timeout. (Not to worry. This will only be a 30-second timeout.) We need a moment to grapple with something important, namely:

What's the deal with new leaders only having 18 months to make change?

Good question. Not terribly surprising, our work, supported by just about every study on the topic, suggests that individuals brought in to fix problems have between 12 - 18 months before patience for change wears thin. This is regardless of the magnitude of the problems inherited. It turns out that while we as humans will tolerate long, slow, painful declines, we have a short fuse when it comes to fixes. Think of weight gain. (Okay, don't. But it is a good example.) We'll tolerate a slow and steady expansion of the waist. But when we're finally ready to act, the damn diet and work out regimen better work and fast! If they don't, we'll try something else. And then something else yet again.

The same holds true for leadership. A year, for most of us, is a fair amount of time to allow you, our new leader, to develop and implement plans to make appropriate change. And, hey, given vacations and summer, we'll let that 1-year deadline slide a bit. Generous of us, no? But if we haven't seen a new direction and, critically, results in 18 months, we may have to start looking for someone who can get the job done.

We are, indeed, an incredibly impatient animal.

Time in. Back to the action.

With widespread support and great fanfare, you've been selected to fix huge problems that have taken years to develop. And despite the contract you signed, specifying salary and years, you should know that a clock is ticking. A peculiar clock it is, too, as the ticking grows increasingly loud as it approaches and passes the 1-year mark.

Sound familiar? It should. Because we're witnessing a stunning example of this dynamic right before our eyes. President Obama has been in office only several days beyond a year and is already dealing with the impatience of the American people. Fixed the economy yet? Delivered health care reform? Guantanamo closed as you said it would be? Oh, and what about those two wars we're fighting? Dude, what have you been up to?

The defining moment -- regardless of its direct relevance -- was the Republican victory in the Massachusetts race for the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy. The immediate outcome, of course, was 3-fold:

• Elimination of the 60-40 Democrat-Republican split in the Senate that prevented Republican filibustering and ensured the passage of any bill supported by the Democrats

• Wind in the sails of the Republicans, who could now, for the first time in months, claim victory for something they did (rather that something they prevented), and

• A backing off of the health care reform debate by the Democrats.

In the midst of this, could you hear the ever-increasing volume of that 18-month clock? Tick tock, indeed.

Too bad Obama didn't think to call us. Had he, we would have told him the same thing we tell all new executives hired to make substantive change:

1. Define a vision for the enterprise
   
2. Clearly articulate 'success', identifying a short list of accomplishments that must be achieved in the next 12-18 months.
   
3. Create a leadership team that you trust, that will achieve the vision, and that will operate in your style.
   
4. Identify individuals who can support the leadership team and who will operate in your style. (You'll need them for special projects and key leadership roles.)
   
5. Invite others in the organization to join you in your quest. Accept those who can perform to your standards and who will operate in your style. Ask all others to seek work elsewhere.
6. Outline a plan to achieve the short list of accomplishments that you established.
7. Measure your progress monthly during your first 18 months. Quarterly thereafter.

And we could have showed him how to do this.

President Obama, enough with the compromise. Enough with your penchant for 'reaching across the aisle'. Enough with your inclusiveness-to-a-fault style. (I mean, really. You invited, of all people, George W. to help with Haiti? Isn't he the guy who didn't seem all that interested in saving his own people after Katrina?) It's time to get tough with your own party. What have they been doing with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that 60 votes in the Senate affords?

You're the President. You've got the big stick. It's time to use it.

Tick tock. Tick TOCK. TICK TOCK.

Bad Assumptions

We're entering only the 3rd week of the new year and it's fair to say that we're not off to a great start. The incomprehensible devastation that is Haiti tops the list. If you haven't already done so, please consider donating anything you can to Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, or any organization you think might get supplies and services to Haiti quickly. Even easier, text 'Haiti' to 90999 from your cell phone to make an automatic $10 donation to the Red Cross. Text often. Please.

This is when we, as a citizenry, shine. We're often good at opening our hearts and wallets when people near us are undone by nature. And make no mistake about it: Haiti has been undone. As a result, opportunities to contribute abound. Organizations are coming forward -- including, among many others, the National Football League -- to donate help to these people who are in desperate need. Even many of the television networks are coming together Friday evening to raise money for Haiti.

Yet, in the midst of the rush to provide whatever assistance we can, there's the other Rush who, in yet another amazingly insensitive, ignorant, inhumane and, what?, brutish display urged his listeners not to help Haiti in any way. Is this the lack of drugs talking (detox is a bitch, right Rush?) or was the man dropped on his head two or three times too often as a child? Regardless, Rush Limbaugh's actions are a reminder that evolution is a slow and painful process.

And then there's Pat Robertson's assertion that Haiti's plight was sealed years ago as a result of a 'pact with the devil'. The 'curse', according to Pat, is a 'true story'. While another wonderful example of buffoonery in all of its splendor, at least Pat made this claim while seeking to raise relief money for Haiti. At least that.

Please join me in proving that humanity trumps ignorance. Choose to help rather than to judge or scorn. Send whatever cash you can. You'll feel good while helping others.

Speaking of galling ignorance -- one of our favorite topics -- it's time to introduce Bad Assumptions, the game where things sound right, until you see that something's wrong. Often terribly wrong. Watch and you'll see.

Let's start easy. NBC. Can we assume that the leadership of this once-great television network has the first clue about how to reinvent itself? If we do, it's a bad assumption.

Leno at 10? Leno now at 11:30? Conan gone? The brunt of jokes from far and wide?

First of all, like anyone cares.

Secondly, what were they thinking in the first place?

A horrendously bad assumption.

Last week, Mark McGwire, in what looked to be a bold and soul-cleansing move, announced to the world what most baseball fans long-suspected: That he had indulged regularly in performance-enhancing drugs during many of his ball playing years. Not only that, but Mark admitted juicing during the year when he broke Roger Maris's single-season home run record. (Was their a soul on Earth who was surprised? I think not.) On a positive note, he did do an honorable thing by calling the widow of Roger Maris to apologize. But, can we assume Mark came clean, so to speak? For even in his admission, Mark rejected the notion that the performance-enhancing drugs he took actually enhanced his performance! Instead, he gave credit repeatedly to 'the man upstairs' for giving him homerun-hitting gifts. (Did his drug source live above him?) Mark, the drugs may not have enhanced your eye-hand coordination. But, dude, the drugs undoubtedly made you stronger and, in the process, helped balls you hit travel farther than they would have under normal circumstances. Good try, Mark. But it's a bad assumption to believe you truly came clean.

Given all of the talk about steriods in the game, many assume that major league baseball (read: the Commissioner, the owners) actually cares about running a clean league. That would be a bad assumption. Bud Selig -- who has the street sense of someone who has no clue about reality -- now believes that baseball has accomplished its mission of ridding the league of performance-enhancing drugs. Keep in mind that our beloved Bud was one of many baseball team owners who reaped the rewards of stadia filled because of juiced ball players. Hard to tell what he really thinks (the photo here likely gives us a strong hint), but it would be a bad assumption to believe he's sufficiently concerned about the integrity of the game -- and the health of the players -- to do anything substantive about it. There's simply too much money in home runs.

And then there's Fox News. As we wrote in August of last year ("Walter, We Need You More Than Ever"), the vast number of people who watch Fox News believe they're receiving actual news. After all, the channel is called Fox News. But it's a bad assumption to believe that the network provides the news. Need proof? Just last week Fox News announced that none other than Sarah Palin will join their team. Sarah Palin, News Commentator. 'nuff said?

Yet despite the abundance of bad assumptions we can make as 2010 begins, let's take a moment to remember the passion and intelligence that was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we honor this week. A remarkable man during a remarkable era in this country's history. Arguably one of the most influential people in the 20th century. We have a great deal to thank him for. And like most who seek change in the face of undaunting challenge, we can only wonder how things would be different had he lived to reach old age.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King! We remember. We'll always remember.

Cal Should Learn From Jack

Jack Welch was right about a lot of things. It was Jack who said:

If you don't have a competitive advantage don't compete.

And:

The team with the best players wins.

He was also clear about adaptability:

An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.

Lastly, at least for now, Jack was steadfast about winning. His mantra while at GE was that 'success' could be defined as being the #1 or #2 player in your market. Anything else was failure. Businesses Jack ran that failed to become and remain the #1 or #2 player in their market were either sold or disbanded.

A great teacher, a believer in the power of people, an inspiring leader.

Too bad my alma mater hasn't learned a thing from him.

The University of California at Berkeley is, arguably, one of the top 5 public universities in the United States. U.S. News & World Report last year proclaimed Cal the top public university in the country. Its Graduate School Survey stated that Berkeley was the only university to achieve top 5 rankings in all of the Ph.D. disciplines included in the study.

The faculty, researchers and alumni account for 65 Nobel Laureates. Teams led at Berkeley by Glenn T. Seaborg (Ph.D., Berkeley, 1937) have discovered, at last count, 12 chemical elements, including Americium, Berkelium and Californium. (A nice tradition among physicists: Discover an element and you name it.) Indeed, nearly all of the elements filling the bottom row of the Periodic Table were discovered at Berkeley or by Berkeley-educated physicists.

Berkeley, of course, has also been the hotbed of political thinking. From Mario Savio leading the Free Speech Movement in the '60s to the protests against our involvement in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and the People's Park riots of the '70s, Berkeley is synonymous with radicalism or, as we who know the university well prefer to think, a willingness to speak out and act when speaking out and acting are needed.

And speaking of acting, Gregory Peck was a Berkeley alum. As was Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. As were the founders or co-founders of such companies as: Apple, Intel, LSI Logic, The Gap, MySpace, PowerBar, Chez Panisse, MoveOn.org, Scharffen Berger Chocolate, Sun Microsystems, and The Learning Company.

Unfortunately, Cal's tradition of academic excellence is not matched -- not even remotely -- by its performance in athletics. Aside from its men's rugby club (with 24 national championships) and its men's water polo team (with 13), the university has a long and deep history of failure in sports. Actually, 'failure' doesn't even begin to describe it when the two big money sports -- football and basketball -- are considered. 'Woeful inadequacy' comes closer. Better yet is 'heart-ripped-painfully-and-traumatically-from-one's-chest-every-damn-year'.

Of what do I speak? Cal plays in the Pac 10, competing with 9 other schools in the conference. The winner of the conference plays in the Rose Bowl. Cal's last appearance in the Rose Bowl? 1959, losing to Iowa. The last time they won the Rose Bowl? 1938 against Alabama.

Think about that for a minute. All things equal, what are the odds of a team ending the season at the top of a 10-team conference? Right. 1 in 10. So, all things equal, you might expect a team to win the conference every 10 years or so. (Of course all things are not equal. The Pac 10 also contains USC, the only remaining professional football team in Los Angeles. Watch the news over the next week or two. You'll see yet again to what I refer.) But the Pac 10 didn't always contain 10 teams. It used to have only 8, significantly improving the probability of any one team winning the conference. Even so, Cal's last Pac 10 championship and appearance in the Rose Bowl was over 50 years ago.

And what about national championships? The last time Cal football was a national champion was, ready?, in 1922 when it shared the honor with none other than Cornell and Princeton. What good times those must have been when Cal, Cornell and Princeton -- top academic institutions -- were the kings of football!

The story of Cal's men's basketball program is only slightly better. Cal last won the conference in 1960 -- when it was the Pac 8! The previous year, a Pete Newell-led Cal team won the National Championship beating West Virginia 71-70.

Cal certainly had things going in sports in 1959. Too bad they've done almost nothing in the last 50 years.

And that's precisely to my point. Jack was right. If you can't become and remain a #1 or #2 player in the market, get out. It's time Cal listened. It's time Cal got out of the business of football and basketball.

Admit it Cal, you just don't know how to produce winners in football and basketball. You can't even produce teams that regularly finish #2. You've had 50 years to learn this important lesson. How much longer do you need? And as painful as it is for me to say this, being a football season ticket holder since I taught at Berkeley in the '80s, it's time to hang up the football spikes and basketball sneakers.

Do the right thing, Cal. Put a fork in your football and basketball programs. Save the money you're investing in athletes who continue to graduate with degrees in 'American Studies', whatever that is, should they even stay that long before transferring, dropping out or opting for the NFL draft. Save the money you're paying coaches who have not gotten the best players, have not adapted, and, as a result, do not have a competitive advantage.

And consider this: Memorial Stadium, the home of my beloved California Golden Bear football team, is being torn in half by the Hayward Fault. The fault runs downs the middle of the field from end zone to end zone and is slowly but surely pulling the east side of the stadium in the opposite direction from the west side of the stadium. Talk about an absolutely clear and unavoidable sign that the program was not meant to be!

There's no shame in trying and failing, Cal. There is shame in being too stupid to learn from 50 years of futility. Put us all out of our misery. Please. Even real golden bears exhibit greater intelligence.

Unless, of course, you can produce a winner sometime during my lifetime.

Resolutions

Welcome to 2010! A new year, a new decade, another chance to get things rights.

It's in that spirit of new beginnings that we offer a list of resolutions, one we've worked hard to keep short. Long lists, after all, are rarely achieved, possibly because we're all such gifted rationalizers. Not surprisingly, our ability to avoid taking action -- even on things that might improve our health -- tends to increase with the number of recommendations. Case in point: Your doctor telling you to lose weight, exercise, stop smoking, drink less, get more sleep, and avoid daytime television. (If you ask me, it's time for a new doctor!) Given the depth and breadth of the doctor's directives, many of us will avoid taking meaningful steps to achieve any of them -- largely due to our powers of rationalization.

Ah, but if the list is short we humans -- and I'm only speaking to the humans among us -- find it more difficult to create and maintain useful rationalizations to avoid taking action. Not impossible, just more difficult. It's for this reason, that the following list is short. Quite short, as a matter of fact. Maybe this will help us accomplish them.

So, for this new year of 2010 (and, of course, it's 20-10; you don't refer to the year 1910 as 1,910 now do you?) we offer the following resolutions:

• We will walk, bike and take public transportation whenever possible, avoiding the use of automobiles. Think this is silly? Low-hanging fruit? It may be. But check out the impact we can have by doing this. 'nuff said.
  

• We will learn a new culture. The planet is too small for us not to know more about the many rich cultures that exist here. Greater understanding of and sensitivities to the lifestyle of others are essential if we're to develop mutual respect and support for each other. Pick a culture you know little about and become your local expert, maybe mastering a bit of that culture's language. Start by learning how that culture says 'Please', 'Thank you' and 'You're welcome'. It will tell you a ton about their people.

• We will improve the workplace. We all spend way too many hours at work for it not to be more satisfying. In every place of work, there are 1 or 2 things that can be done to make it more productive, more successful. Actions that can accelerate growth. Our bet is that you already know what those things are. Do something about them in 2010, ideally soon. Your coworkers and your customers will thank you.

That's our list. Short, sweet and imminently doable. We've already signed up and committed. Possible for you to join us? We'd be honored to have you with us.

Have fun as you dig out from under the enormous pile of e- and voice mails. Figuring this will take the better part of the week, we'll leave you alone until next Monday.

And, again, happy New Year! May the year be filled with health, happiness and good wine.