The Corner Office

The first time I was considered for a CEO position I actually got the job, which surprised the heck out of me. When I asked the executive recruiter why I was chosen over what I thought were more experienced candidates, one of the things he said was that I had “CEO presence.”

Admittedly, I’m not 100 percent sure what that means. But I have worked with hundreds of CEOs and other executives, so I thought I’d take a stab at what constitutes “executive presence.” Whenever I attempt this sort of thing, the results are often counterintuitive, if not downright surprising. This is no exception.

One conclusion is that executive presence has nothing to do with polish, poise, sophistication, or even use of body language and gestures. In my opinion, executives with presence are just as likely to not posses those qualities. In this day and age, executive presence comes in lots of shapes and sizes, including some you wouldn’t intuitively recognize. 30 years ago, who would have thought a nerd like Bill Gates could have executive presence? But he does.

Another conclusion some may have a tough time swallowing: I don’t think any of these qualities are easy to learn or practice. I’m sure you can cognitively develop and improve some of them, but not by much. Not that anyone’s born with them; they develop over time with experience and maturity. (more…)

The most common career mistake managers make is taking a lesser job than they should. Personal issues aside, too many managers and professionals are too risk averse, pulling the trigger on that critical decision sooner than they should.

It’s a common enough story: a friend of mine - a director-level employee at a Fortune 500 company where he’s worked for 20 years - gets laid off. To me, this is a blessed event. After toiling in the agonizingly stifling and stagnant shadows of big-company middle management, he finally has a chance to shoot for a top job at a smaller company where he can really make a difference.

We chat for an hour or so about his options and opportunities, when I finally come to the most important point I want to get across to my friend: 

“Don, under no circumstances should you even consider a job beneath executive staff level.”

“Oh, really?” Don says, surprised. (more…)

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Not only is the writing on the wall - the writing has covered the wall and spilled over onto the floor, the ceiling … hell, it’s everywhere. Big government has come to America. Now what?

Do you suck it up and learn how to live in the new world order? Or is this just a short-term pendulum swing - an overreaction to the financial crisis and eight years of George W. Bush? In that case, just vote the creeps out and play “Don’t Get Fooled Again,” right? Well, not exactly.

You see, there’s new legislation on the table that, when coupled with the bills that have already been rammed through congress, may make it very difficult to get the big government pendulum to stop, let alone swing back the other way, at least in our lifetimes.  (more…)

President Obama’s White House communications folks have launched an all-out war on Fox News. On the surface, this would appear to be a classic PR blunder, i.e. “If you want to elevate your enemy, attack them publicly.” A smarter move would be to embrace them, as in “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

But a closer look reveals the work of a white house desperate to ensure that others didn’t follow in the cable network’s footsteps.

The first salvos came when, according to ABC’s Political Punch:

White House communications director Anita Dunn told TIME that FNC is “opinion journalism masquerading as news.”

“The reality of it is that FOX News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” Dunn said. “It really is not a news network at this point.” (more…)

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Updated 1:15pm PST: Just heard that the Northwest Airlines pilots who overshot the runway in Minneapolis last week were reportedly on their laptops and failed to notice all the control tower and control panel alarms and messages. I rest my case.

Last week, university researchers announced the results of a study on awareness: Just 8 percent of pedestrians talking on cellphones noticed a clown on a unicycle pedaling across a campus square, versus 60 percent of pedestrians talking with a friend.

The results are fascinating, but I think gadget and media-bombardment presents cognitive issues that go well beyond “distraction.”

A recent Stanford research study suggests that media multitasking or “high-tech juggling” between web browsing, emailing, and texting, for example, impairs cognitive control and is counterproductive. (more…)

When everything’s going well, people manage to find things to whine about. And when there really is something to whine about - like record unemployment, national debt, deficit spending, bonus pools for bank executives - look out below.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Complaining does give us all something to do instead of worrying, something to feel in control of even if we’re not. Which I guess is why we do it.  

And while it does afford us some amount of temporary relief, it doesn’t really change a thing except annoy everyone around us. Instead, you might consider actually doing something to help fix the economy and accelerate its return to normal, whatever that means.

No, I’m not talking about spending money or creating jobs. Anybody who tells you to do that is an idiot. You’re going to do that when you feel it’s in the best interest of your company, shareholders, family, whatever.

That said, there are three things each of us - as business leaders and managers - should be doing, actually need to do. Sure, they’re not easy, but none of the most important things in life are. Besides, we didn’t get to this point overnight, and we won’t recover overnight either. Just put one foot in front of the other, starting here: (more…)

On Friday the SEC arrested and charged a billionaire hedge-fund manager and five others - including high ranking executives from IBM, Intel Capital, and Mckinsey & Co. - with insider trading resulting in $25 million in illicit gains.

While it’s tempting to write this off as the work of a few greedy individuals, I don’t believe that’s the case. If the allegations are true, it would appear that the rampant conflicts of interest and insider trading of the tech bubble is still alive and well. The only difference is that, instead of investment banks, the instigators are now hedge funds.

Just look at the breadth and depth of the allegations that the feds used wiretaps and informants to uncover; this was no Mickey Mouse operation:

• It involves Robert Moffat - a senior VP and prime candidate to succeed IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, Rajiv Goel, a managing director at Intel Capital, and Anil Kumar, a director at McKinsey & Co.
• It involves confidential, inside information about earnings and acquisitions involving Google, Intel, Hilton, Clearwire, Sun, and Polycom.
• The linchpin is Raj Rajaratnam - a billionaire hedge-fund manager and former president of investment bank Needham & Co.   

Insider Trading: Past, Present and Future

(more…)

A survey of the nation’s top CEOs indicates business conditions are improving. I don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling it. So who, exactly, is benefiting from the bullish outlook?

If you work for Goldman Sachs, which today announced quarterly profits of $3.2 billion while setting aside $5.4 billion for compensation, you’re a happy camper. But if you’re among the 9.8 percent of Americans that are unemployed - a 25-year record - you’re probably not in the mood to celebrate just yet. (more…)

The other day I was watching a debate on CNBC starring a senior labor union official who said - with a straight face - that the UAW (United Auto Workers) had nothing to do with the demise of the U.S. automotive industry. Hard to believe, I know. 

There was a time when America needed labor unions to organize for worker’s rights, but federal and state laws prohibit workplace atrocities of the past. Moreover, the payoff for high-profile class action litigation is such that any large employee groups capable of getting the attention of union lawyers could just as easily get their own attorney to take the case.

I spent decades in the high-tech industry where unions had no traction. Over the years, there were issues involving worker safety in manufacturing facilities, but those were effectively dealt with in the courts. That aside, high-tech employees are typically treated well and if they’re not, there are always state labor boards and lawyers to intervene on employee’s behalf.

So here we are in the 21st century and we still have all these unions for teachers, nurses, truckers, airline employees, construction workers, and yes, automotive workers. But are they really needed? Do they really help employees? Or do they just diminish America’s competitiveness in an increasingly global marketplace? (more…)

On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize was, for the first time, awarded for words, intentions, and actions that haven’t even begun to deliver results. On the one hand, nobody would question President Obama’s desire for peace and diplomatic intentions toward that end.

But in the real world - diplomatic and business alike - elegant speeches and grand gestures simply do not correlate to desired results. By rewarding intentions instead of waiting for results, the Nobel Committee set an appalling example that takes leadership back to the stone ages.

How many times have leaders and managers captured the imagination of nations and companies but failed to deliver results or, worse still, their good intentions backfired? Carly Fiorina at HP, Jonathan Schwartz at Sun, and Jerry Yang at Yahoo are just a few CEOs who were hired with great fanfare but failed spectacularly to deliver results. (more…)