A trip to the beach last year included the obligatory task of making a sandcastle, except it wasn’t a sandcastle we built, it was…well…let your imagination run wild (but not too wild). Sandcastles aren’t a children’s activity anymore; the adults have taken over. There is even a U.S. Open Sandcastle Competition in San Diego with $21,000 of prize money. There are hundreds of competitions, usually fund raisers, in places without sand (Omaha) and places with lots of sand (Qatar). With so much at stake, a new occupation has washed up on the beach: Sandcastle Consultants. Whether it is a competition, fund raiser, or company picnic, people are willing to pay big bucks to get help building “world-class” sandcastles. It takes more than a blue plastic bucket and yellow shovel these days, you need a consultant.
Another childhood favorite, Jell-O, has also been taken over by adults. The Jell-O Mold Competition in Brooklyn, N.Y., featured gelatin sculptures like Jell-Obama, Jelly Fishin’ and Jelly Dogs (the grand prize winner, complete with bun, hotdog, mustard, relish and ketchup, all sculpted with Jell-O). Look it up on Google Images—you’ll be amazed. I couldn’t find any Jell-O consultants, but no doubt they are coming.
Sandcastles and Jell-O sculptures have a lot in common. They can’t withstand much stress. Even with the help of consultants, sandcastles are eroded slowly by small waves or wiped out by one big one. Put a little heat on gelatin and it falls apart and becomes unrecognizable.
One of a leader’s main jobs is to make sure his organization is built on something that won’t erode when the waves come, or fall apart when the heat is on. Organizations need a firm foundation, a clear purpose for existing:
“People get through tough times because they have a strong sense of…purpose.”
Kouzes & Posner in The Leadership Challenge
“This is who we are; this is what we stand for; this is what we’re all about.”
Jim Collins in Built To Last
(Chapter 3 of Built To Last is a great read about organizations with enduring purpose.)
Purposes that won’t survive waves and heat are:
◊ Profit: a shallow, meaningless purpose; organizations that exist primarily to make money never make enough
◊ Power: look at the mess in Washington; it’s all about power
◊ Self: a leader who makes it all about self ends up lonely, depressed and bewildered
◊ Size: Texas is bigger than Tennessee, but Alaska is bigger than Texas; so what?
Without a clear understanding of who you are and why you are taking up space in the first place, even a consultant can’t save you when the waves are high and the temperature hot.
By the way, it’s not just your organization that needs a clear purpose, you do too.
© Copyright 2011 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
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“Papa, we are going to see Cars 2 this afternoon!” My three grandson buddies were “some more pumped.” The 2006 version of Cars is one of their—and my—all-time favorites, so we had been looking forward to Cars 2 for weeks. Lightning McQueen and Mater (my hero) would be racing in Tokyo, Italy and London against the arrogant trash-talking Italian, Francesco Bernoulli. How could it get any better than that? When we walked out of the theatre at 6:00pm, $56 poorer, the answer was: it could get a lot better than that.
The Disney/Pixar partnership has had a stunning track record of success bringing animated stories for all ages to the big screen: Toy Story (1, 2 and 3), A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up and WALL-E. The stories were compelling, simple enough for children, creative enough for adults, and action packed. Up and Toy Story 3 were actually nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. My three buddies (4, 7, and 9 years old) have watched these movies over and over and aren’t tired of them yet. However, Cars 2 won’t make it to the DVD shelf. What happened? Disney/Pixar completely missed their target audience.
Cars 2 has a convoluted story line of broken relationships, lemon cars like the Hugo and Gremlin, spies, alternative fuels, the world’s largest untapped oil field, and…get the idea? Do you think my grandsons have any idea what a Hugo is? Though the animated action was spectacular, the plot was so complex and disjointed that the adults could barely figure it out and my buddies were lost completely. We walked out thinking what was that all about?
There are a couple of hard leadership lessons from the Cars 2 fiasco:
◊ Past success does not guarantee future success. Reputation may fill up the theatre, or worship center, or store aisles the first weekend, but they can be near-empty after that. (There were less than 50 people watching Cars 2 with us on a Saturday afternoon, holiday weekend.)
◊ Be clear about your target audience, customer, etc. I doubt if Disney will make this mistake again. Their next animated movie will be one that 7-year-olds can understand.
I hope there is a Cars 3. I want to see my hero Mater again with one of my buddies sitting in my lap, and both of us understanding and enjoying what is happening on that huge screen a few yards in front of us. I want to hear to them ask, “Papa, can we see it again?”
© Copyright 2011 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
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and my One Life To Live is over. Weekday afternoons will never be the same. ABC has announced the death of the two venerable soaps at the end of this season. Both have had long lives and slow deaths. Even Susan Lucci couldn’t save the children.
The story of the soaps began in 1951 when the Search For Tomorrow began—sitting in the #1 spot with a 16.1 rating. The search got a Guiding Light in 1956 and by 1958 there were seven soaps filling the after-lunch timeslots As The World Turns. (I suppose the rotation of earth was suspended on Saturday and Sunday.) By 1969, the field had grown to nineteen soaps, but the top rating had slipped a little to 13.6 (No doubt A World Apart was making it difficult for the world to turn).
There is a marketplace principle that having an increasing market share in a declining market is not an indication of success. Both All My Children and One Life To Live had their highest market share ever (>12%) last season. However, the overall market has decreased by over 80% since the two shows launched in the late 60’s, so their number of viewers was actually decreasing as the share was increasing. So instead of a Bright Promise for the future, a Secret Storm was casting Dark Shadows that even a trip to General Hospital couldn’t save.
Last week’s post was the story of the fast death of a market leader; this is the story of the slow death of market leaders. Both stories point out the deceptiveness of market share as a long-term measure of business health and continued success. Instead of asking “What is our market share?”, ask:
Is our total market growing?Is our product or service attracting new customers (and younger ones), or are we stuck in a diminishing demographic?
Are we trying to buck an inevitable trend (cars vs horses; digital vs analog; etc.) and if so, will we make it for only five years…or forty?
If what we are doing now isn’t working, why, and are we willing to change?
Leaders, don’t be deceived, change is coming and if you don’t get ready, The Edge Of Night will become turn out the lights.
© Copyright 2011 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
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The five-column headline was Stent Pioneer J&J to Exit Business (Wall Street Journal, 6/16/2011). You may be thinking, “So what, who cares?” Well, the 1000 people who work at the two plants that will close care. Further, you should care because it is a great example of the overnight POOF! that can happen to any business or ministry.
The J&J stent story began in 1994, less than 20 years ago, when Johnson & Johnson first entered and dominated the emerging coronary stent market. By 2006, the market had grown to more than $6B. J&J, with $2.6B in sales, owned more than 40% of the market. Then in less than five years (in 2010), J&J’s sales were down 75% to $627M and their market share had deteriorated to only 14%.
My point in this post is not to criticize or second guess J&J’s decision, or to analyze what happened. J&J has been around since 1886, yes…1886; they know what they are doing. J&J is a respected and successful company, one of the Built To Last companies in the now-classic Jim Collins/Jerry Porras book. No doubt, exiting the stent market was the correct decision for J&J. The key point here is not what happened, but how fast it happened.
POOF!…in less than five years…just like that…almost overnight…a major business segment goes from a 40+% market share to being shut down. Do things really change that fast? Yes! Competitors arise; technology advances; new products emerge and existing products and services decline; customer preferences change and so do congregation preferences. The iPad and Androids are taking out the once dominant Blackberry (yes, it’s happening), Netflix took out Blockbuster, and Oldsmobile/Pontiac/Saturn disappeared, all these in less than five years. Can it happen to your organization? Yes.
As a leader, you have two major responsibilities: deliver results in 2011 and get ready for 2015. Ignore either one at your own peril. I don’t know what you will need to do to be successful in 2015, but I know this for sure, it will be different than today. Start getting ready now so I won’t be reading your POOF! story in the WSJ.
Need another example to convince you? Author and historian Daniel J. Boorstin once said, “A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.” Hmmm, I have a computer screen I take to bed with me. It’s called a Kindle. By the way, the Kindle didn’t exist five years ago.
© Copyright 2011 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
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So how do you get pigeon poop out of your attic? A Wall Street Journal article reported on the futile efforts of the Select Board in a well known town in Massachusetts (unnamed to protect the guilty). Pigeon poop had piled up in the town hall attic and become a health hazard. The Select Board budgeted $125,000 to clean up the mess, but the lowest contractor bid was more than twice that. A group of citizens volunteered to clean up the mess for nothing, but that idea was nixed by the lawyers, fearing the city would be sued. Finally someone had a brilliant idea: “If we can’t clean it up, why don’t we at least make sure it doesn’t get worse by keeping the pigeons out? We could patch their entry hole in the attic window frame.” Duh.
This true story is a great example of an organization focused on the symptoms, not the problem. There are lots of other examples:
◊ Governments (guess who) that believe reducing the deficit is the same as reducing the debt
◊ Companies that drive sales by the deep discounting of outdated products instead of introducing innovative new products at a competitive price
◊ Maintenance managers that are applauded for fixing the HVAC system on a hot summer day, but never change the filters or clean the coils
We make the same mistake as individuals: heart patients go back to cheeseburgers soon after their quadruple bypass relieves the chest pain and golfers try to fix their swing by buying a new set of clubs (quitting would be smarter).
Why do we fall into this trap so often? Fixing symptoms is often easier and quicker than fixing the problem (but only in the short run). Once the symptoms are relieved, we move on to the next set of symptoms. Often we focus on the symptoms because we are in denial about the real problem—very common when the leader is the problem. Unidentified problems continue their hidden destructive work until they finally erupt into the open with sometimes fatal consequences.
Tired of relief? Want to actually fix the real problem? Do this:
◊ Patch the hole in the attic so the pigeons can’t get in, but don’t stop there
◊ Clean up the mess the pigeons left behind
◊ Ask someone if you are the pigeon
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© Copyright 2011 by Dick Wells, the Hard lessons Company
George Burns, the popular cigar smoking comedian of the WWII and Baby Boomer generations (yeah, I know, I’m dating myself), had this to say about advice:
Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.
He’s right. Sit in any barbershop on a busy Saturday morning and you’ll learn how to fix the government, which coach ought to be fired and which quarterback ought to be starting. You will also learn which is better, Chevrolets or Fords, and where to go for the best fried chicken (The Chicken House, New Albany, IN). Preachers can learn how to improve their sermons (shorter is better) and you’ll hear spirited debate about the virtues of John Deere (for real farmers) versus those “foreign” brands like Kubota (hobby farmers). Generally speaking, the barbershop mantra is “If I want your advice, I’ll give it to you.”
Eugene Peterson, paraphrasing Proverbs 15:22, says, “Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed.” The problem? It’s easy to get advice; not so easy to get good advice.
There are times, lots of times, when we all need advice. We are facing a hurdle, or an opportunity, and we aren’t quite sure what to do. We may have an idea and need confirmation, or we may have no idea at all. In either case, someone asks us, “Have you talked to…?”
An overall principle for seeking counsel is the old adage, consider the source. Here are some questions about the source that I ask:
Are they speaking from first-hand experience, not just theoretical or academic knowledge? I want to talk to people who have been on the front lines of leadership.
Do they have a personal agenda? Be careful if they have something significant to gain or lose.
Have they experienced some failure? The road to humility always has a failure marker or two. The best counsel will come from someone who is genuinely trying to help, not impress.
Do I know them personally? If I don’t, I seek input about them from people I do know and trust.
Are their values consistent with mine? Do they live and lead their organization in a way I am comfortable with?
A few concluding thoughts:
Getting a second—and third—opinion is always a good idea.
“Don’t do this” advice is often a lot more valuable than “do this” advice.
Don’t act on any advice that gives you a queasy feeling in your stomach.
In the end, you are responsible for the outcome. Gather as much input as you can; make the best decision you can; then man-up and accept responsibility for the results.
Not much has changed since Beowulf had to slay the dragons that were wreaking havoc in Denmark. First he struck down the dragon Grendal. Later he took out Grendal’s mother—half-human and half-dragon (trust me, she did not look like Angelina Jolie of the 2007 movie). However, one dragon remained to threaten Beowulf’s reign as king, and in end, it brought him down, proving that…
It never does to leave a live dragon out of the equation.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
Today, 1600 years later, leaders are still being brought down by unslain dragons. Almost every organization has one…or more. The dragon is the unspoken truth—the issue that most everyone knows about and fears. The dragon can stop change initiatives and sink morale. No one can do anything about the dragon except the leader. If the dragon has been around a long time, most people are resigned to the fact that the leader probably won’t do anything. So the best and brightest leave for greener pastures, and everyone else hunkers down, trying to be invisible to both the leader and the dragon.
Dragons are often people: turf shepherds, abusive managers, or relatives and close friends of the leader. The most dangerous situation is when the leader is the dragon. Dragons can also be incompetence in key positions, obsolete technology, products that are endangered species, or software that doesn’t work (probably sold to the organization by the leader’s nephew).
If your organization has a dragon—and it probably does—it will eventually bring you down if you don’t slay it. (Generally, dragons can’t be reformed; they have to be removed.) It is your job as the leader to get the unspoken truth on the table:
Leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted.
Jim Collins
What kind of climate does your organization have? Are the truth and brutal facts confronted, honestly confronted—even when they are about you? Are you the dragon? If you aren’t sure, get help. If you don’t, you may end up like Beowulf.
© Copyright 2011 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
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“The key to positive action is knowing the difference between a problem and a fact of life.
A problem is something that can be solved.
A fact of life is something that must be accepted.”
Fred SmithCEO of FedEx
One fact of life is Bob Dylan was right: The Times They Are A-Changin’.
Cars have replaced horse-drawn buggies (except with the Amish community). A growth strategy focused on buggy whips is certain to fail.
iPods have replaced CDs which replaced cassette tapes which replaced 8-track tapes which replaced vinyl records which replaced… (before my time). Something is going to replace iPods. Count on it.
Wireless-only telephone service was up to 23% last year and growing fast. AT&T is doing great, but not because of landlines.
B&W TV’s were replaced by color which are now in HD—LCD, plasma or LED—and 3D is moving up fast. I have a “tube TV” in my garage that is on its way to the recycle bin.
One out of five millennials claim no religious affiliation or belief whatever. That is 4 times as many as a couple of generations ago.
Millennials still involved in church are leaving the rock-band mega churches of their parents for candles, incense, stained glass, rituals and symbolism. Look around next Sunday. Where have the 20-somethings gone?
Whatever happened to snail mail, Blockbuster and Plymouth?
A fact of life is that significant change is inevitable. If not technology driven, it will be culture driven. Anne Mulcahy, who led the turn-around at Xerox, summed it up this way:
“Do not defend yourself against the inevitable.”
America’s Best Leaders, US News 2008
Organizations with leaders who resist, ignore or fear change will become irrelevant at some point in the future. When? I can’t say for sure. But why wait until it happens? Take action now so your organization doesn’t sink in the rising waters of change.
Come gather ’round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the boneIf your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.
Bob Dylan (verse 1 of The Times They Are A-Changin’)
©2011 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
Last week, my wife and I traveled by car to visit her sister in the North Carolina mountains. We left from Indiana, meandered across Kentucky, clipped the northeast corner of Tennessee, then climbed our way to their cabin on a 2400 foot high peak near Sunshine, N.C. The view was spectacular. The food and fellowship was even better. It was a five-day whirlwind trip, but well worth it.
Three times going and three times returning, our progress was marked by crossing a state line. If we were getting drowsy, or a little bored, the state line signs gave us a lift because they meant we were getting closer to our destination. That’s why a trip across Texas seems never-ending; no matter how long you’ve driven, it’s still a long way to the state line.
One way to shorten a trip is by using Walmarts instead of state lines to mark progress. There are almost 6000 Walmarts in the US, so Walmart spottings would be much more frequent than state line spottings. But it hasn’t always been that way. Sam Walton opened his first department store (Walton’s 5 & 10) in 1950 in Bentonville, Arkansas. It wasn’t until 1968 that he ventured across the state line to open stores (now called Walmart) in Oklahoma and Missouri—an 18 year journey. Walton must have felt like he was driving across Texas in those early years.
Are there any leadership lessons from this? Yes.
#1—Marking progress is an important part of any organization’s journey and the more markers the better. Markers are crucial to maintaining the motivation needed to keep going.
#2—Building an enduring and great organization is a long journey, not a whirlwind trip. It is tempting to speed on a trip, but it takes more gas, increases the chances for crashing, and may get you pulled over—stopped—in which case you will lose more time than you gained.
#3—Benjamin Franklin once said, “Make haste slowly.” It took Walmart 18 years to cross the state line and 31 years to cross the border into Mexico. Take Ben’s advice and follow Walmart’s example: don’t get in a hurry and don’t become discouraged or tired just because the journey is long.
See you at the state line—or Walmart—whichever comes up first.
In September of last year, my daughter, Cathy, accepted the position of Preschool Director at Graceland Baptist Church in New Albany, IN. Fearing we would set up roadblocks, she kidnapped our three grandsons and fled for Indiana in the middle of the night. Eventually, to keep from being disinherited, she called and confessed, we forgave her, and thus began a seven month saga of new jobs for her and Sam (the husband and co-conspirator), a new school for the boys, selling a Tennessee house, buying an Indiana house, loading trucks, trailers, a POD, etc., then unloading them all. The unloading was finished last Saturday, and that brings me to Scott, the subject of this post.
Scott is Pastor Scott Miller, the lead pastor at Graceland and Cathy’s boss, except he’s not a boss, he’s a servant leader. There is lot about Scott’s leadership I don’t know, but there are three things—very important things—I have observed and he gets bright red bold check marks for all three.
√#1 It is never about him. In 2003, Jim Collins identified his list of the TOP TEN CEOS OF ALL TIME (in Fortune magazine). They were very different except in this one regard:
“Much depended on them, but it was never about them.”
Scott Miller is the pastor of a large church; much depends on him, but it is never about him.
√#2 He supports his staff. Whatever is going on, even a preschool sock hop, Pastor Scott shows up. Not to interfere, take charge or grab the spotlight, but to let his staff know that he cares about their stuff as much as he does his own. (Sunday morning is his prime time.)
√#3 Back to unloading trucks and trailers, when a group of men showed up on a rainy Saturday morning to help Cathy and Sam move in, Pastor Scott was there too. He always does what he asks other people to do. There are no jobs “beneath” him.
If you are a leader of any type or size of organization, follow Pastor Scott’s example:
You’ll be a much better leader because:
“…people buy into the leader before they buy into a mission statement.”
James Hunter
The Servant
The Hard Lessons Company
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