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In the March 23rd, 2009 issue of Navy Times, I wrote an article entitled “A Failure of Leadership:  Broken, Bullying Command Structure May Be Behind Surface Fleet’s Many Problems.”  See the link:  http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/03/navy_horner_swoculture_031509/ .

The article was very well received by the surface community rank and file, both officers and enlisted sailors alike.  Predictably, the Navy brass didn’t care for the article much, suggesting that my views were an oversimplification of the complexities of command.  Overall, the response to the piece ran about 125:1 in favor of my argument and observations.

Well, I’ve commanded — lead — organizations.  A lot.  And, I can tell you there’s nothing complex about how leaders should treat subordinates.  It’s really quite simple:  when you routinely treat people poorly and create a toxic atmosphere based on fear and intimidation, bad things happen.  The remnants — the survivors — of this climate propagate the same climate in their commands.  What a surprise!   This is precisely what’s happening in the Navy’s surface warfare community. 

The result:  young surface warfare officers with options — and we know the better performers tend to have more options– LEAVE the surface warfare community and our Navy.  Those surface warfare officers that remain tend to be duds – or at least of known lesser quality.

Want further proof of my arguments?  See Bob Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule (Business Plus, 2007).

Want even more proof?  Read the article (below) from this week’s issue of TIME (March 3rd, 2010).

Dr. Donnie Horner // Davis Leadership Center

—–

Time.com

March 3, 2010

 The Rise And Fall Of A Female Captain Bligh

By Mark Thompson, Washington

 

Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that

it’s no longer news when they break through another barrier. Unfortunately,

the latest benchmark isn’t one to brag about: being booted as captain of a

billion-dollar warship for “cruelty and maltreatment” of her 400-member

crew. According to the Navy Inspector General’s report that triggered her

removal – and the accounts of officers who served with her – Captain Holly

Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy has to a female Capt. Bligh.

 

A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided

missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report

concludes that Graf “repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed

assault,” and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens

“for personal gain.” But old Navy hands tell TIME that those charges,

substantiated in the IG report, came about because of the poisonous

atmosphere she created aboard her ship.

 

The case has attracted wide notice inside the Navy and on Navy blogs, where

her removal has generated cheers from those who served with her since she

graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985. While many denounced Graf,

even greater anger seems directed at the Navy brass for promoting such an

officer to positions of ever-increasing responsibility. The Navy declined to

make Graf available for an interview.

 

While in command at sea – where a captain’s word is law and she or he has

the power to make or break careers – Graf swore like, well, a sailor. She

“creates an environment of fear and hostility [and] frequently humiliates

and belittles watch standers by screaming at them with profanities in front

of the Combat Information Center and bridge watch teams,” one crew member

told the IG. According to 29 of 36 members of the crew questioned for the

Navy’s report, Graf repeatedly dropped F-bombs on them. “Take your goddamn

attitude and shove it up your f—— ass and leave it there,” she allegedly

told an officer during a stressful maneuver aboard the 567-foot, 10,000-ton

vessel.

 

Junior officers seeking her guidance were rebuffed. “This is one of the

reasons I hate you,” she allegedly told one seeking her help. When another

officer visited her quarters to discuss an earlier heated discussion, her

response was terse: “Get the f— out of my stateroom.” She allegedly told a

male officer: “The only words I want to hear our of your mouth are ‘Yes

ma’am,’ or ‘You’re correct ma’am.’” She put a “well-respected Master Chief”

in “time out” – standing in the ship’s key control room doing nothing – “in

front of other watch standers of all ranks.”

 

While most witness statements contained in the IG report didn’t specify

whether the person testifying was male or female, the IG asked at least two

women officers whether or not they viewed Graf as a role model. One younger

woman recalled going to Graf to seek her help. “Don’t come to me with your

problems,” she said Graf responded. “You’re a f—— Department Head.” The

officer also said that Graf once told her: “I can’t express how mad you make

me without getting violent.”

 

A second female officer told the IG that Graf “is a terrible role model for

women in the Navy,” alleging that Graf had once told her and a fellow

officer on the bridge: “You two are f—— unbelievable. I would fire you

if I could but I can’t.”

 

The IG investigation, triggered last June by three anonymous complaints,

noted that while conducting interviews into Graf’s conduct at the Yokosuka

Navy base outside Tokyo, four crew members provided “unsolicited written

statements concerning what they perceived as abuse.” While curses are not

uncommon aboard Navy vessels, to have them repeatedly brandished like clubs

against subordinates – especially in front of more junior crew members – is

unusual. TIME obtained a copy of the IG report, from which names names had

been deleted, under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Graf told the IG she had “no recollection” of making such comments and

“appeared incredulous at the accusations.” She “repeatedly” emphasized her

“very high standards for my crew” and “repeatedly” spoke of a “groupthink

mentality” aboard her vessel. Graf said that “a small group of disgruntled

officers in Cowpens wardroom were spreading rumors throughout the crew and

convincing others that the command climate and [her] demeanor were far worse

than they actually were.” But she followed up with an e-mail. “Many times I

raised my tone (and used swear words) to ensure they knew this times, it was

no kidding,” she wrote. “I also did it on other occasions to intentionally

pressurize the situation.”

 

The lone witness supporting Graf in the 50-page report was an “unsolicited

e-mail” from a Navy colleague who had spent two weeks aboard Cowpens and

said Graf may be “blunt, but clearly [her] intent is readiness.” But the IG

came down firmly on the side of her crew. “The evidence shows” that Graf

violated Navy regulations “by demeaning, humiliating, publicly belittling

and verbally assaulting… subordinates while in command of Cowpens,” the

report concluded. Her actions “exceeded the firm methods needed to succeed

or even thrive” and her “harsh language and profanity were rarely followed

with any instruction.” Her repeated criticism of her officers, often in

front of lower-ranking crew members, humiliated subordinates and corroded

morale, “contrary to the best interests of the ship and the Navy.” The IG

also found she had failed to adequately train younger officers.

 

The report claims she grabbed several junior officers or sailors to get

their attention or move them elsewhere – usually while in a heated

discussion – and threw a wadded up piece of paper at one. It also says she

asked junior officers to play piano at her personal Christmas party and to

walk her dogs. These minor infractions might have been overlooked if

committed by a more even-keeled commander, but in Graf’s case they were used

to substantiate the charges of “assault” and the use of her “office for

personal gain” that led to her removal.

 

On one popular Navy blog there are 190 posts on Graf, nearly all negative

and most from those who served with her. There were only four supportive

posts, none apparently from anyone who had served with her at sea. “The only

way that Capt. Graf could have failed at being CO of the Cowpens was to try

to please all her sailors,” one backer wrote. “Leadership is lonely and not

for the faint-hearted.”

 

But many officers who served with Graf over the years were not surprised by

the IG’s findings. Paul Coco, a 2002 Naval Academy graduate, served as a the

gunnery officer under Graf aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Winston S. Churchill

from 2002 to 2004. “She would throw coffee cups at officers – ceramic not

foam,” he recalls, “spit in one officer’s face, throw binders and paperwork

at people, slam doors.” The hostile work environment led to a gallows humor

among the crew. “We all would joke that after Bush liberated Iraq, he would

next liberate Churchill,” he says. That day finally came in January 2004,

when Cmdr. Todd Leavitt arrived to replace Graf. “As soon as Cmdr. Leavitt

said ‘I relieve you’ to Cmdr. Graf, the whole ship, at attention, roared in

cheers.”

 

“I’m more upset that the Navy let this go on so long,” says Kirk Benson, who

retired from the Navy as a commander three years ago after a 20-year career.

Many complaints up the chain fell on “deaf ears,” he says. “When I think of

Holly Graf, even 12 years later, I shake,” he says of serving under her when

she was second-in-command on the destroyer U.S.S. Curtis Wilbur in 1997-98.

“She was so intimidating even to me, a 6-foot-4 guy.”

 

Nicole Waybright served as a junior officer for five years before leaving

the Navy in 2001, including a year with Graf on the Wilbur in 1997-98. “She

was a terrible ship handler,” Waybright recalls. “I was 23 years old and I

wanted to show, just by my actions, that women could do it, and just blend

in like the gray doors with the rest of the gray ship,” she said. “But she

betrayed our gender.” Waybright felt the Navy pushed women into command too

quickly at that time, but said Graf’s “sadistic cruelty” didn’t help.

 

Shawn Smith is a retired Navy captain who, along with her husband, also a

retired Navy captain, applauded their daughter’s decision to join the Navy

in 2007 after graduating from Notre Dame on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Erin

Smith was “seriously considering” making the Navy a career, like her

parents, until she was assigned to the Cowpens. “Her experiences with Capt.

Graf definitely helped form her decision to do her time and leave the Navy,”

her mother says. “I was appalled that this happened, guilty – I think she

went into the Navy because of us – and angry, because these kids did not

deserve this kind of leadership.”

 

Even though Graf comes from a Navy family – her sister and brother-in-law

are both admirals, and her father was a captain – there appears to have been

no “godfather” shielding her and greasing the skids for her promotion, Navy

officers say. Prior to the IG probe’s release, the Navy had tapped Graf for

a top job at the Pentagon following her Cowpens command. Now she’s being

shuffled off to a Navy weapons lab outside the capital. “Her career,” one

admiral says, “is over.”

 

Well, I guess my earlier op-ed / article in Navy Times actually got it right.  SWO culture tends to be noxious, toxic, and cultivates a command climate incompatible with good order and discipline.   The remnants — the survivors — of this climate propagate the same climate in their commands.  What a surprise! 

 

The result:  young officers with options — and we know the better performers tend to have more options– LEAVE the SWO community and our Navy.  Those SWOs left to command tend to be duds – or at least of known lesser quality.

 

See this week’s issue of TIME . . . and the article below.

 

Best,

Donnie

Mark your calendars for some upcoming events sponsored by the Davis Leadership Center.  We are sponsoring a WEBINAR . . . SENIOR LEADERSHIP FORUM . . . and . . . WORKSHOP in March!                                 

 

March 11th :  LIVE WEBINAR:  Building a Collaborative Team  presented by Edward Marshall – Center for Creative Leadership  

1:00 – 2:00 p.m. Jacksonville University Executive Training Room #159(Upon registration, a building & parking map will be emailed to you.)Cost: $5 pp/$12 for three – Cash, check (payable to DLC) or credit card accepted.

 To reserve seats, call 904.256.7456 or e-mail dlc@ju.edu

The Davis Leadership Center has a strict non-commercial policy at our events. Distribution of advertisings or solicitation of goods or services is prohibited. Violators will be excluded from future events. 

 

 

March 17th:  Excellence in Leadership: Expanding Today for Tomorrow’s Business / Senior Leadership Forum:    presented by Rick Ferrin – Jaxport . . . MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW!

 

 

March 24th WORKSHOP:  Doing Business in China presented by Larry Bernaski – eflorida. . . MORE DETAILS FORTHCOMING!

 

 

To register for the webinar or the Sr. Leadership Forum, call 256.7456 or email Program Director Ms. Becky Olivarez:   dlc@ju.edu  .  Upon registration, parking map/pass will be sent to you via email.

 

 

To register for the workshop, contact Larry Bernaski at lbernaski@eflorida.com

Mr. Ted Simendinger (aka "Ocean Palmer")

Mr. Ted Simendinger (aka "Ocean Palmer")

http://dolphinnetwork.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, February 24th, 18, 2010

Five questions with….

Ted Simendinger (Class of ’76) is a JU Distinguished Alumni that has done everything from professional sales to standup comedy. During his recent visit to campus as a part of the Alumni Speakers Series, he entertained and informed throughout the day, including a session at the Davis College of Business and his talk at the Ross Theatre. Despite a full schedule, Ted gave more of his time to answer a few questions to share with his fellow Dolphins:
1.    How did your time at Jacksonville University prepare you for your life immediately after college and beyond?

I worked my way through school as a full-time meat-cutter for Winn-Dixie and graduated on time in eight semesters. The time management processes and decision-making I was forced to embrace, plus a learned work ethic thanks to the fellows I worked with, especially a fellow with a grade-school education named Marvin Fisher, have carried forward with me every day since. I remain grateful the Davis family extended guys like me a chance to earn a diploma. The night before graduation I calculated that I had cut a quarter-million pork chops, over 13,000 t-bones, gotten 24 stitches (in both hands), and could completely dismember a whole chicken into nine pieces in 26 seconds. And all of it remains worthwhile.

2.    You develop teaching strategies that are grounded in life skills . What are some of the key attributes that people need to have to be successful?

These five can change a life:

  1. Time management. Waking hours pass one of four ways: they are wasted, spent, invested, or cherished. Successful people minimize the first two and maximize the last two (investment time and cherish time).
  2. Passion. Happy high-achievers also live and work with passion; achievement and personal growth can keep a person young forever. A sofa makes you old in a hurry.
  3. A great work/life balance. I pity burnouts, but celebrate positive people who continue to great things over time because they’re wired to safely do it. There’s a big difference between being busy and being productive. It’s vital to respect those differences and make behavioral choices that enable you to produce meaningful results that you’re proud of.
  4. It’s important to pursue what you want to be in life. Do you aspire to a role player or an impact player? A person who leaves footprints in the sands of time or buttprints? Someone who’s significant in the lives of others or not? Own it, chase it, and be proud of it.
  5. Manage the Worry Circle. Forty percent of what people worry about doesn’t belong in their heads at all. Manage this and life gets real easy, real fast. It takes about three hours to learn. Once you learn it, teach others you care about how to manage it, too.

3.    You have given motivational speeches, workshops and presentations all over the country, what are your thoughts on motivating in the current economic climate? Has it become more difficult to motivate people to reach for the brass ring?

Yes and no. Yes because no one motivates you except you, and with so many technology portals filling heads with noise of blathering doom and gloom, it’s tough for a lot of people to sort, sift, or block out noise. The reason the answer is “no” is because “stinkin’ thinkin’”(a negative, downtrodden attitude) is easily fixable. People simply need to learn a few vital life skills — which colleges do not teach and companies rarely do — in order to regain a positive outlook and reenergize what’s possible in life rather than mope about what’s wrong. This is the essence of the global gratification I’ve received from coaching people around the world. These things are doable, they work, and then the folks go on and teach others, too. There is a relentless battle for mindshare going on in the media, juxtaposed against technology’s direct impact on shaping and reshaping habits and behaviors. People must stay in control of their minds. Just because someone has access to the mind does not mean that he or she has the right to be there. When people own and balance these things, and they’re passionate about their pursuits, self-motivation is easy.

4.    A question we ask all participants in our “Five Question with….” series is when you were a college freshman, what did you think you would be doing when you were 30? What were you actually doing when you were 30?Are you kidding? Thirty was six light years away from seventeen. When I was a freshman, all I worried about was paying for school, finding cheap beer, and maybe convincing a nice girl to pity me enough to go on a date. My aspirations didn’t stretch too far beyond that. I worried about 30 when I was 29. What was I doing at 30? Hawking Xerox machines in Tampa, Florida. Got stuck with a bum territory but I soon segued into standup comedy and found happiness that way.

 

5.    What advice do you have for the JU class of 2010?

Chase what you love to do and the heck with everyone else. There are a lot more people in the world who know what they don’t want to do than what they truly do. Join the happy minority. If it works for you, chase it to the very best of your passionate ability. If money matters, you’ll figure out how to make it. If someone had told me on graduation day I’d have burnt through three passports, flown 2 million miles and shrunk the world to the size of a Superball, written ten books and had three stories optioned for movies, I’d have politely suggested they have me confused with someone who graduated in the top half of the class, not the midpoint. Life goes to those who persevere. So persevere and love every minute. Do that…..and you’re winning the game.

First Coast Connect with host Melissa Ross 

Today I was on “First Coast Connect” with WJCT’s Melissa Ross.  It was a fun experience.  Here’s the background of the interview.  Below that are links to the podcast and the WJCT website. 
ENJOY // Dr. Donnie Horner  
Melissa Ross:  Host of WJCT's "1st Coast Connect"

Melissa Ross: Host of WJCT's "1st Coast Connect"

BACKGROUND
Attached are the background info & materials provided to Melissa Ross as she prepared for the discussion on the 1993 ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.   

(1)  President Clinton’s joint interagency working group investigating sexual orientation and military service was formed on January 29th, 1993 shortly after the inauguration (’93), and continued to the summer of ’93.  The working group was chaired by Secretary of Defense Les Aspin.  It was disbanded in late July ’93, after the policy was changed by Presidential Executive Order from zero tolerance to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’  My documents show the order changed on July 15th, 1993. 

(2)  The organizational chart I retained shows 63 people served on the interagency working group. 

(3)  I was given the task of “becoming the Army’s expert on gays and lesbians” while I was a professor at West Point in Fall ’92 (late September) – even before President Clinton had been elected.  This was done in anticipation of the potential impact(s) that a Clinton election victory might have on the military.   The other services – Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard – had their own experts.  

(4)  Why me?  I had just finished my Ph.D. in Sociology at Stanford in June ’92.  I was a doctoral candidate at Stanford for 3-years while still on active duty as an Army Captain from ’89-‘92.  I got to West Point in June ’92, was promoted to Major, and was a new faculty member in the department of behavioral sciences & leadership.   Prior to attending Stanford, I had commanded an Army company in Panama and various platoons at other duty stations.  Bottom line:  the Stanford Ph.D. in Sociology and the prior military command experiences made me a suitable candidate to provide an educated, military perspective on the issue of integrating homosexuals into the American armed forces.  I crammed like crazy from October ’92 to January ’93 – I read everything I could get my hands on, studied the topic, talked to other experts in the field, and, by January ’93 was prepared for what came next. 

(5)  Service on the working group was a classified, ‘top secret’ effort.  We were sworn to secrecy for the duration of the event, wore civilian clothes – no uniforms – and rented an office building in downtown-D.C.  We lived at the Marriott Residence Inn in Foggy Bottom (D.C.)  Even with this heightened level of security, folks were generally aware of the working group.  

(6)  In one sense it was an honor to work on and contribute to such an important bit of policy making; in another sense it was ignominious – there was not a whole lot of support for what President Clinton had proposed for the military, and folks selected for the working group were looked upon with skepticism by other service members.  Regardless, I loved it and really enjoyed serving. 

(7)  Some great references on the topic: 

A.    Gays and Lesbians in the Military: Issues, Concerns, and Contrasts by Wilbur Scott (Editor), Sandra Stanley (Editor), Wilbur Scott (Editor). 

B.    “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy:  Inevitable Repeal” by Arthur M. Brown; see http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA479596&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf .

 C.    “Integration of Homosexuals into the Armed Forces:  Racial and Gender Integration as a Point of Departure.”   This is a published paper I wrote with Mike Anderson which I think you’ll find interesting.

http://www.wjct.org/first_coast_connect_podcast.xml

Thursday, February 4, 2010

In a recent discussion on LinkedIn, group members answered the question, “What is the biggest challenge you face when it comes to social media marketing?” Three major themes seemed to emerge:

  1. The amount of time involved
  2. Creating measurable value/ROI, and
  3. Developing a strategy for creating meaningful interaction.

I’d like to address this third challenge and share some thoughts on and experiences with effective approaches for creating meaningful experiences and interaction with customers through social media. As Kimberlee Lucas, Motion Pictures and Film professional from Los Angeles puts it: “Social marketing says ‘I care about the people I am interacting with. I believe in what I am doing and want to share it with them.’ If you like and care about people, then you will take the time to listen to them, find out what they need, and will help them.”

I recently read a blog posting in which marketing expert Bernie Borges noted that marketers whose content draws people into an experience will stand out in 2010. Brands that design content strategies and campaigns around bringing their audience into an experience will enjoy more brand loyalty and more positive actions. “Seems to me that social marketing requires experiences that seem “anti-marketing” to people tuned in,” says John Kaegi, Executive in Residence at Jacksonville University. “If you can draw people into experiences that align with their values (shared values) perhaps in entertaining or educating them in some fun way, then you get to permission-based marketing.” He adds that the apparent problem with social media “is in the delicacy and tenuousness of the approach – do anything that runs counter to those shared values and you undo everything.”

Following are some ideas for drawing people in, considering their shared values, and using social media marketing to create engaging customer experiences for propelling business.

  • Angie Schottmuller, Director of E-commerce & Interactive Marketing at Taymark in Minneapolis-St. Paul:  Relevance to customer interests / pain points is one key to generating content sharing for creating meaningful experience. Social discussions have been very helpful for our brands in terms of obtaining voice of the customer, but the number of discussions is nominal compared to the amount of ‘shared content’. The fact a customer (or reader) chose to share our content really shows that it made an impression, and by sharing the content we gain brand recognition with a virtual recommendation. Because “viral potential” is key to growing brand awareness/recognition, it’s beneficial to always include a unique concept or fresh/exciting idea in blog articles. The traditional ‘this our product and how to use it’ is not very likely to be shared. However, ‘this is our product and 7 uncanny ways to use it’ has a unique spin that’s more likely to inspire sharing.
     
  • Eric Goldman, Inbound Marketing Executive & CEO at Gossamar Inc. in Toronto:  Among our biggest challenges is findings ways to bring our clients into a community, which is about enriching your customer’s experience in using your company and its products and services. We have used these techniques to accomplish this, as well as raise awareness, for ourselves and for our clients: — Using Twitter for customer support – this forges an online community around the tweets and the forums/blogs linked to by them, while providing people with rapid response times to their queries. — Searching Twitter specifically, looking for people interesting in the same things we are (Inbound Marketing, Sales and Marketing Automation and all related subjects like SEO, SMM, PPC, etc.). — Using our SM monitoring toolset to trawl the social media space, looking for people who write about, or are written up and cited as experts, or participate in discussions, all centered about our subject area. If you would like to know more about how we do these things, this post describes the way we run our Social Media Marketing campaigns: http://bit.ly/SMMProcess
     
  • Zeke Camusio, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company in Aspen, Colorado:  You want your customers and fans to create “user generated content” (UGC). UGC provides you with a unique opportunity to hear what’s on the minds of your customers and prospective customers, and allows companies to monitor their online reputations and respond directly to positive and negative comments posted by customers. Some suggestions: — Actively engage in forums and discussion boards. Interact with your customers and fans and create a strong online presence. Don’t be passive and just blast out content and expect to have a following! You need to be active and consistent on these sites. — Create contests featuring customers who use your products/services. Ask customers to send in photos or videos and share their experiences. Post on video sharing sites such as YouTube. — Encourage customers and fans to share their feedback of your products on consumer/product review sites. If you are on top of your product quality and customer service, this is an easy way to monitor your reputation/branding on these sites. (See http://www.startupnation.com/articles/9477/1/customer-generated-social-media-marketing.htm )
     
  • Michelle Judd, Sr. Marketing Manager, Global Communications at Ergotron, Inc. in Minneapolis-St. Paul:  We recently ran a promotion through Twitter to help drive traffic to an event and to build brand awareness through our social media sites (@Ergotron – http://www.facebook.com/ergotroninchttp://blogs.ergotron.com/ ). We started tweeting before the show and directed people to a promo site that explained the details of the contest. We also used event PR as part of the mix, video blogging, and pre-and during the show blogging. Because we had a team of about six people tweeting/blogging, etc., the message was more personable because it was told through different voices. Let’s just say we learned a lot through the whole process of executing it. But what made it work, and what we got feedback on later, was that acknowledging the pain points to our followers and remaining “personable” throughout the campaign, we managed to “humanize the brand’ to the contestants. We gained more followers, created some fun around booth traffic, got the brand message out, and learned A LOT!

Rather than focusing on the content you want to deliver, focus on the experience you’re creating for the customer. “There’s a reason why social media is such a huge phenomenon,” says Camusio. It wouldn’t work without PEOPLE – your customers and fans! The biggest mistake companies make when launching social media campaigns is forgetting about the important role their customers/fans play.”

Acknowledgements: Thanks to my fellow members of professional networking groups, as well as fellow bloggers, for your insights and contributions, which are expressed and reflected in the content of this feature.

 

http://productmarket.blogspot.com/

I’ve been struck by our rapidly-gaining-speed economic transformation. Daniel Bell, the Harvard sociologist and writer, noted many years ago that we are in a “Post Industrial World” and others have noted the coming of “The Digital or Information Age.” More and more scholars and pundits are now noting the beginning of the “New Industrial Revolution.”

Many indicators of this transformation actually, but one I’ve watched happen just over the past five years is the replacement of Business Week by Wired Magazine as the harbinger of the future. Business Week is the establishment magazine, still reporting on the same industrial sectors as ever, often without any recognition that the earth is tilting on a new axis. Wired, along with the often look-alike magazine, Fast Company, are consistently reporting the new trends, technologies, and start-ups supporting them. The New Industrial Revolution is just as important as the first one since it is taking us away from a carbon-based economy toward one based on sustainable, diverse new energy sources and thoughtfully designed new products and services that support unmatched efficiency and creativity at the same time.

This is real and do not underestimate the speed and scale with which this is happening. The economic leadership of the world, if that is indeed still a viable goal in such a diverse emerging world economy, is up for grabs. Honestly, I have not heard the Obama administration talk enough about this, particularly when big chunks of the stimulus money are going to support our engagement with this future. Not enough, but still notable and the money is being linked, as in Ohio and Michigan, to jobs, jobs, jobs.

Where I see it happening at hand is through the Davis College of Business’ investment in Florida’s largest and longest-lasting “angel” investment fund – Springboard Capital. Yes, we have an actual financial stake in an early-stage investment fund with several notable investments already made. This is part of the Davis Student Investment Fund which currently manages about a $400k portfolio under the direction of Dr. Michael Adams. Students work with this stock portfolio in their investment finance class, but other students involved in the entrepreneurial finance course have opportunities to work on due diligence assignments for Springboard Capital. This is what students like about Davis – hands-on experience, side-by-side with successful private investors.

However, what is most notable about this opportunity for the students and us is that we get a sense of the “deal flow” happening in Florida and U.S. in terms of new entrepreneurial ideas. And more and more of those ideas take form in a huge variety of “green” shades – alternative energy products and services and potentially entirely new industries built upon different principles than in the past. You really don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing. Just pick up a magazine that is trying its best to describe and monitor the birth of the New Industrial Economy. As Fred Emery, a mentor, once noted in his book titled “Futures We Are In,” the future is all around us now, you just need to pay attention.

 Sales Leadership Workshop

Presented by Ted Simendinger (aka Ocean Palmer)     
 

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

 Ted is an internationally renowned thought leader who specializes in building high performance sales organizations that compete in value-based, “business to business” sales environments. His specialty is dissecting problems and constructing fixes that work quickly.  Globally respected, Ted has worked extensively throughout four continents with sales leaders and leadership teams. He is a subject matter expert in all elements of organizational selling performance. 

Mr. Ted Simendinger (aka "Ocean Palmer")

JU Alum "Ocean Palmer"

 Bring your sales problems/issues and Ted will provide coaching solutions and/or explain your options for handling them. 

Maximum Horsepower 10:30AM-12:00PM
 
Lunch 12:00PM-1:00PM
 
Managing the Worry Circle 1:00PM-2:30PM
 
Jacksonville University, 2800 University Blvd. North
Davis College of Business, Executive Meeting Room #159

OK OK . . . as if we needed any further evidence establishing the linkages between exercise and mental performance!  Great new study released just this week demonstrating that running stimulates brain growth and aids recollection.

Runners!  No more telling your spouse:  “I can’t remember.”  Hahahaha.  Enjoy the article. // Dr H

Start running and watch your brain grow, say scientists

• Aerobic exercise triggers new cell growth – study
• Region of brain affected linked to recollection 

The health benefits of a regular run have long been known, but scientists have never understood the curious ability of exercise to boost brain power.

Now researchers think they have the answer. Neuroscientists at Cambridge University have shown that running stimulates the brain to grow fresh grey matter and it has a big impact on mental ability.

A few days of running led to the growth of hundreds of thousands of new brain cells that improved the ability to recall memories without confusing them, a skill that is crucial for learning and other cognitive tasks, researchers said.

The new brain cells appeared in a region that is linked to the formation and recollection of memories. The work reveals why jogging and other aerobic exercise can improve memory and learning, and potentially slow down the deterioration of mental ability that happens with old age.

“We know exercise can be good for healthy brain function, but this work provides us with a mechanism for the effect,” said Timothy Bussey, a behavioural neuroscientist at Cambridge and a senior author on the study. The research builds on a growing body of work that suggests exercise plays a vital role in keeping the brain healthy by encouraging the growth of fresh brain cells.

Previous studies have shown that “neurogenesis” is limited in people with depression, but that their symptoms can improve if they exercise regularly. Some antidepressant drugs work by encouraging the growth of new brain cells.

Scientists are unsure why exercise triggers the growth of grey matter, but it may be linked to increased blood flow or higher levels of hormones that are released while exercising. Exercise might also reduce stress, which inhibits new brain cells through a hormone called cortisol.

The Cambridge researchers joined forces with colleagues at the US National Institute on Ageing in Maryland to investigate the effect of running.

They studied two groups of mice, one of which had unlimited access to a running wheel throughout. The other mice formed a control group. In a brief training session, the mice were put in front of a computer screen that displayed two identical squares side by side. If they nudged the one on the left with their nose they received a sugar pellet reward. If they nudged the one on the right, they got nothing.

After training the mice went on to do the memory test. The more they nudged the correct square, the better they scored. At the start of the test, the squares were 30cm apart, but got closer and closer together until they were almost touching. This part of the experiment was designed to test how good the mice were at separating two very similar memories. The human equivalent could be remembering what a person had for dinner yesterday and the day before, or where they parked on different trips to the supermarket.

The running mice clocked up an average of 15 miles (24km) a day. Their scores in the memory test were nearly twice as high as those of the control group. The greatest improvement was seen in the later stages of the experiment, when the two squares were so close they nearly touched, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“At this stage of the experiment, the two memories the mice are forming of the squares are very similar. It is when they have to distinguish between the two that these new brain cells really make a difference,” Bussey said.

The sedentary mice got steadily worse at the test because their memories became too similar to separate.

The scientists also tried to wrongfoot the mice by switching the square that produced a food reward. The running mice were quicker to catch on when scientists changed them around.

Brain tissue taken from the rodents showed that the running mice had grown fresh grey matter during the experiment. Tissue samples from the dentate gyrus part of the brain revealed on average 6,000 new brain cells in every cubic millimetre. The dentate gyrus is part of the hippocampus, one of the few regions of the adult brain that can grow fresh brain cells.

Running stories

“Running! If there’s any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can’t think of what it might be. In ­running the mind flees with the body, the mysterious efflorescence of language seems to pulse in the brain, in rhythm with our feet and the swinging of our arms.”

Joyce Carole Oates, American author and professor of creative writing at Princeton University:

“When I am running my mind empties itself. Everything I think while running is subordinate to the process. The thoughts that impose themselves on me while running are like light gusts of wind – they appear all of a sudden, disappear again and change nothing.”

Haruki Murakami, Japanese author

“When I run, I think about everything: physics, family problems, plans for the weekend. I haven’t made any big discoveries on a run, but it does give me time to think through problems. Some solutions are obvious, but they are only obvious when you are relaxed enough to find them.”

Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel prizewinning physicist, MIT

“Being a runner, to me, has made being depressed impossible. If ever I’m going through something emotional and just go outside for a run, you can rest assured that I’ll come back with clarity and empowerment.”

The poor CEO.  One recently published book, Senior Leadership Teams:  What It Takes to Make Them Great (2008)(Harvard Business School Press) recently lamented that CEOs as we’ve known them — or known the position — are dead.  The book’s first chapter is devoted to “the fall of the heroic CEO and the rise of the leadership team.”  Enough already.  You get the picture of what the authors wish to convey.

Yesterday, Forbes magazine published an article entitled “The State of the CEO in 2010.”  Though neither as dramatic nor sour a note for CEOs as the aformentioned book chapter, the outlook for CEOs in 2010 is, well, challenging.

Belt tightening.  Scrutiny.  Oversight.  No fun.  The article appears below.  // Dr H

———
Forbes.com

Leadership
The State Of The CEO In 2010
Helen Coster, 01.21.10, 1:39 PM ET

 

 

How will this year be different for the chief executives of American corporations? To begin with, in 2010 the corner office will see a lot more visitors as the CEOs of public companies adjust to increased scrutiny from board members and, in some cases, the government. As chiefs settle into the new year, they’ll of course face the age-old tension between short-term results and long-term shareholder value, but many will do so with restructured compensation packages altering their incentives. Others will face pressure to establish succession strategies that can actually work.

Public companies are entering a new era of government intervention, and many CEOs will start to view regulators as yet another constituency they have to serve. The level of government intervention and scrutiny will depend on the industry they’re in; the financial services sector will take center stage. “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 introduced one level of scrutiny, but today we have the potential for a much higher level of intervention,” says Stephen Miles, vice chairman and head of leadership advisory services at the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles. Miles says CEOs are focusing more on building relationships in Washington, hiring former regulators and working more with outside lobbying groups.

Many compensation committees are reacting to the public outcry over CEO compensation by taking a fresh look at the criteria they establish for different kinds of compensation. They’re moving away from quick big payouts to make sure that CEOs have to maintain some level of sustained performance before they can get paid. In 2010 CEOs may see stock awards with longer vesting schedules that reward them for long-term performance. “Compensation will continue to move in the direction of being much more performance-based,” says Joe Griesedieck, vice president and managing director of CEO services at the executive recruiter Korn/Ferry International. “To align the CEO’s interest with shareholder interest, there will be more of an emphasis on longer-term incentives.”

Boards are also looking for ways to shape their CEO compensation packages to discourage risky behavior. “There is a huge focus on avoiding compensation plans that encourage CEOs to take excessive risk,” says Edgar Atkins, a partner and the national tax officer at Grant Thornton, the accounting and consulting firm. For example, boards are moving away from bonuses driven entirely by the amount of revenue brought in by a set date, which can motivate CEOs to inflate that revenue by taking excessive risks.

CEOs are also interacting more with the members of their boards. That’s largely because boards themselves are facing heightened scrutiny from shareholders and are passing on that scrutiny to CEOs by digging more deeply into issues. Many CEOs are responding by building deeper relationships with board members and communicating with them outside of board meetings. “Before, board members were under a magnifying glass,” says Stephen Miles. “Now there’s an electron microscope on them, and they’re responding to the heat. From a CEO’s perspective, that’s another draw on his or her time that does not involve running the company.”

Last year’s revolving door of CEOs–and the attention paid to Bank of America’s struggle to replace its boss, Kenneth Lewis–put a renewed emphasis on succession planning. A board typically creates a list of potential successors without feeling confident that those people could actually run the company. Many CEOs tend to avoid the issue altogether. “Some CEOs think that if they start to invest in succession planning, they’ve put the timer on their own tenure,” Miles says. “As a result, some CEOs resist the whole notion of succession planning, or do it on a perfunctory level.” But in October the SEC issued Legal bulletin No. 14E on shareholder proposals, encouraging companies to adopt and disclose detailed CEO succession planning policies. Today boards are pushing to have operational succession plans that include a list of legitimately viable candidates. Joe Griesedieck says that he did four times as many succession planning projects in the first half of 2009 as in the first half of the year before. “Organizations are realizing that going outside to hire someone isn’t as easy as it used to be,” Griesedieck says. “Demand is high, but supply is not.”

With board members and regulators breathing down their necks, less cash in hand and pressure growing to identify possible replacements, public company CEOs definitely have to worry about their job security this year. As the economy improves and companies start to show top-line revenue growth, a chasm will develop between businesses that made hard decisions about productivity and efficiency in the economic downturn and ones that did not. “During the crisis, as a CEO you could do anything and get it through the company in a way that you never could before,” says Miles. “Some CEOs took advantage of that. Those who didn’t will be at risk.”

 

Yes, we know that the linkages between job satisfaction and job performance are not nearly as clean as we’d like them to be.  The research is muddled at best and minimally instructive at worst.  But, let’s face it:  most of us tend to believe that we perform better when we actually like our jobs.  Put differently, most folks implicitly believe that higher job satisfaction leads to higher (better) job performance.

With that in mind, check out these numbers — ouch.  The Associated Press’ story (below) shows that 65% of Americans are NOT HAPPY with their jobs.   One thing is for certain:  no one enjoys being around unhappy people.  With that in mind, it follows that the American workplace is socially toxic and ‘no fun.’  Read on . . . Dr H

Americans’ job satisfaction falls to record low

Survey says American workers can’t get no job satisfaction; recession partly to blame

ap

By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer , On Tuesday January 5, 2010, 7:34 am EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — We can’t get no job satisfaction.

Even Americans who are lucky enough to have work in this economy are becoming more unhappy with their jobs, according to a new survey that found only 45 percent of Americans are satisfied with their work.

That was the lowest level ever recorded by the Conference Board research group in more than 22 years of studying the issue. In 2008, 49 percent of those surveyed reported satisfaction with their jobs.

The drop in workers’ happiness can be partly blamed on the worst recession since the 1930s, which made it difficult for some people to find challenging and suitable jobs. But worker dissatisfaction has been on the rise for more than two decades.

“It says something troubling about work in America. It is not about the business cycle or one grumpy generation,” says Linda Barrington, managing director of human capital at the Conference Board, who helped write the report, which was released Tuesday.

Workers have grown steadily more unhappy for a variety of reasons:

– Fewer workers consider their jobs to be interesting.

– Incomes have not kept up with inflation.

– The soaring cost of health insurance has eaten into workers’ take-home pay.

If the job satisfaction trend is not reversed, economists say, it could stifle innovation and hurt America’s competitiveness and productivity. And it could make unhappy older workers less inclined to take the time to share their knowledge and skills with younger workers.

Nate Carrasco, 26, of Odessa, Texas, says he’s been pretty unhappy in most of his jobs, including his current one at an auto parts store.

“There is no sense of teamwork in most places any more,” Carrasco gripes.

When the Conference Board’s first survey was conducted in 1987, most workers — 61 percent — said they were happy in their jobs. The survey of 5,000 households was conducted for the Conference Board by TNS, a global market research company.

One clue that may explain workers’ growing dissatisfaction: Only 51 percent now find their jobs interesting — another low in the survey’s 22 years. In 1987, nearly 70 percent said they were interested in their work.

Workers who find their jobs interesting are more likely to be innovative and to take the calculated risks and the initiative that drive productivity and contribute to economic growth, Barrington says.

“What’s really disturbing about growing job dissatisfaction is the way it can play into the competitive nature of the U.S. work force down the road and on the growth of the U.S. economy — all in a negative way,” says Lynn Franco, another author of the report and director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center.

Conference Board officials and outside economists suggested that weak wage growth helps explain why workers’ unhappiness has been rising for more than 20 years. After growing in the 1980s and 1990s, average household incomes adjusted for inflation have been shrinking since 2000.

Also, compared with 1980, three times as many workers contribute to the cost of their health insurance — and those contributions have gone up. The average employee contribution for single-coverage medical care benefits rose from $48 a month to $76 a month between 1999 and 2006.

Workers under 25 expressed the highest level of dissatisfaction. Roughly 64 percent of workers under 25 say they were unhappy in their jobs. The recession has been especially hard on young workers, who face fewer opportunities now and lower wages, some analysts say.

The most satisfied were those ages 25 to 34, who may see some opportunities for upward mobility as baby boomers retire. Around 47 percent of workers 25 to 34 say they were happy in their jobs.

Some other key findings of the survey:

– Forty-three percent of workers feel secure in their jobs. In 2008, 47 percent said they feel secure in their jobs, while 59 percent felt that way in 1987.

– Fifty-six percent say they like their co-workers, slightly less than the 57 percent who said so last year but down from 68 percent in 1987.

– Fifty-six percent say they are satisfied with their commute to work even as commute times have grown longer over the years. That compares with 54 percent in 2008 and 63 percent in 1987.

– Fifty-one percent say their are satisfied with their boss. That’s down from 55 percent in 2008 and around 60 percent two decades ago.

Carrasco said he wishes his bosses would take time to listen to workers’ ideas — and their difficulties on the job.

“Most of the time they only listen to what their bosses are saying,” he says. “Bosses need to come down to the employee level more and see what actually goes on, versus what their paperwork tells them is happening in the stores.”

It wouldn’t be fair to blame low job satisfaction solely on bad bosses, Barrington says.

“It is two-way responsibility,” she says. “Workers also have to figure out what they should be doing to be the most engaged in their jobs and the most productive.”