I’m reading the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, recommended to me by my conservative friend Lea. The book talks about “Level 5 leadership” being one of the required conditions for a company to achieve greatness.
Level 5 leadership isn’t at all what you’d expect it to be. Level 5 leaders are humble, a little awkward when it comes to slick media sound bites. But behind the scene, they demonstrate single-minded determination to achieve solid results. Once exceptional results are achieved, they tend to be leaders who give credit to their employees or even luck. They build things that are solid, that last. They’re the best of what American capitalism offers. They’re kind of American like apple pie.
According to Collins:
The recent spate of boards enamored with charismatic CEO’s especially rock star celebrity types is one of the most damaging trends for the long term health of companies and if this trend persists – if we see a triumph of celebrity over leadership and we maintain our misguided mix-up between those two concepts – we will see very few great institutions the next century.
It occurred to me as I read this passage that this zillionaire show-off CEO is substantially part of the picture I think many liberals have in their brain when they think of big business. They notice what’s wrong with big business, not what’s right with it… not the “Level 5 leadership” that’s out there and does capitalism proud. Slick zillionaire leader boy (or girl) isn’t good for anyone, if you follow Collins thinking; not for America, not for capitalism, not even for their company. This person is a distortion, an aberration, an example of the excess that tends to always create trouble (in River City, that starts with “t” that rhymes with “p” that stands with pool).
That got me thinking that maybe liberals tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when they’re talking what’s wrong with big business. They develop a hostile tick about “big business.” And I’m thinking that conservatives tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when they’re talking what’s wrong with government… “big government.”
All this baby throwing out when really the problem we all share isn’t either the business or the government but the excess that exists in both?
What would happen if liberals attended to the excess that exists in government and conservatives attended to the excess that exists in corporate America? What would happen if we demonstrated “Level 5 leadership”, reaching for greatness within our own general sphere of influence? Where might we be then?
Today’s New York Times features a tale of bipartisan love by self-described lefty Ann Hood, author of “The Knitting Circle.” Describing her husband-to-be, a Republican:
Whatever his current politics, it was too late: I had already fallen in love with his combination of whimsy and steadfastness, his ability to fix broken doors…
Last presidential election, I volunteered some time for the Kerry campaign – on election day, I was tasked with standing outside a precinct with election hotline information in case there were problems like there were in 2000. There wasn’t a single problem so I pretty much just stood there for 2 or 3 hours.
Regardless of your party affiliation, anyone who has ever spent any time at a polling place has had the wonderful experience of standing at the pulse of democracy for a time.
One great sight that day was a mom who came in to vote with her 5 kids, all different ages. I smiled at her and made a comment about what a wonderful opportunity she was giving her kids to participate. She gave me something like a “you need to die, now” look, which I took to mean she was voting for Bush? After she voted, I thought a friendly “have a nice day” might be safe, but her answer to that was a brusk “I support George W. Bush.”
Last week on the day of the Florida primary, my friend Lea honored us by sharing the deep family roots voting has for her. Lea voted in the Republican primary that day, I voted in the Democratic primary. It’s pretty unlikely we’ll be voting for the same candidate come November, but we will both show up as a part of the American family, exercising what is both our duty and our privilege. By doing so, we become a part of the conversation the Founding Fathers knew we’d have to keep having.
The mom with 5 kids, I think, had fallen victim to the hate-peddlers who are making it impossible to have that conversation (even, apparently, to make small talk with “the enemy”).
If you’re in a state that votes today, I say it matters far less which candidate wins than it does that the hate-peddlers lose. I want you to pause for a moment and look around at the others voting nearby. They are Lea who left her sick mother’s bedside to vote, as she knew her mother would want her to. They are citizens who have accepted the Founders high bar to show up for the conversation.
We’d be nothing without them, even if they didn’t vote our way.
Former Florida Senator Bob Graham wrote this week about the imperative of crossing the hyper-partisan divide in order to effectively – get this – govern. He pointed to the very real consequences of putting party ahead of country:
• Almost seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, we still have huge gaps in national and homeland security. Our military is stretched thin and our nation remains vulnerable to catastrophic terrorism.
• Nearly 50 million Americans still have no health insurance, and the number of the uninsured rises every year.
• As evidenced by the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last August and the crumbling levees in New Orleans, we have recklessly neglected our infrastructure.
• Gas prices remain high, but we still have no real energy policy.
Graham says the next president “has an opportunity — and an obligation — to attack the disease of partisan hostility and to set the tone during this election.”
On January 7, Senator Graham met with other national leaders concerned about the cost of our partisanship. Some of the recommendations arising from that meeting:
• Congress must restore and modernize the campaign finance reforms enacted after Watergate. Today, a presidential candidate accepts public financing at the risk of being discounted as weak and irrelevant.
• The media must insist that future presidential debates each focus on a single issue. Candidates can hide behind sound bites when a debate covers every and all subjects. But when candidates must spend a full 90 minutes discussing health care or national defense, voters will learn who is for real and who isn’t.
• Political parties must fundamentally reform the dysfunctional presidential primary system. We need a better process in 2012 — one that empowers all Americans. My preference would be four regional primaries, held at three- to four-week intervals from January to April.
• Our citizens must be educated to use their powers for effective participation in the political process. Democracy was never intended to be a spectator sport.
“Democracy was never intended to be a spectator sport.”
Thanks to Anthony, a Dinner at the Square participant for giving me the heads-up on The Rocky Mountain Institute. Find their thoughts on energy here:
End-Use/Least-Cost Thinking
A Watt Saved is a Watt Earned/Demand-Side Management
What Exists is Possible
Systems Thinking
Tunnel Through the Cost Barrier
Market-Oriented Solutions
Regulatory Change
Small is Profitable
Stay tuned for the February edition of our newsletter, The Crier, for our draft recommendations list from our Dinner 2 conversation on Energy Alternatives a la carte.
i am going to vote after i finish typing this. i am going to vote with
a heavy heart.
my mother is in ICU after a stroke on thursday. she most likely will
not live to see the results of today’s election in florida. yet, i am
making time to leave her side and vote. because it matters. to me and
to her. she would want all of her family to be at her bedside with
those little stickers “i voted”. i remember going with her to vote
when i was still a child and being so excited to be a part of the
process with her.
as of yesterday, i really didn’t know who i was voting for, i had
looked at each angle, evaluated each person the best way that i could,
but there wasn’t one that stuck out to me as “THIS IS IT” until today
(despite the THOUSANDS of phone calls in the past three days, really
people STOP CALLING ME, i am not listening to your recorded phone
spiel).
i am voting for the man most like my father. the man who i think would
stand by his wife’s side and hold her hand while she lay in that
hospital bed. a man who wouldn’t want to cry in front of his children,
but does sometimes. a man who has worked every day of his life to make
this world better for his children and others around him. a business
man who never put making a living ahead of making a life. i hope the
man i vote for is half the man that my father is. this country would
be better off if he was and if he wins the election.
my mother is an excellent american, she is a strong southern gal with
half my size and twice my spirit. she leaves this country of great
freedom for a place that is better. she leaves us for the One Who
truly made her Free. voting to me today is a matter of life and
death… today i tend to the dying and i care for the living. and i
vote because that is part of caring for the living.
For the purpose of argument, I’m going to say that the democratic process, at some level, is about who gets candy and who gets cod liver oil. When one group gets their way, they’ve almost never asked for fish oil.
Although it may elude children, adults know in the long run who the winner will be on the health front, and it’s not the recipient of the candy.
While you won’t actually see “candy and cod liver oil” on the ballot, I’ve learned through three conversations on property taxes sponsored by The Village Square this year, that’s partly what Florida’s January 29th vote will be about.
We invited politically diverse speakers who are knowledgeable on the property tax issue to educate us. Then rather than arguing, we listened.
While there was substantial disagreement on just how many teaspoons of cod liver oil (in the form of budget cuts) government should take, there was wide agreement on some fundamentals.
It seems that Florida is having a bit of a chow down lately courtesy of “Save Our Homes” and we’re starting to pay the price.
Before “Save Our Homes” passed in 1992, capping the property tax increase for homesteaded property owners at 3%, we all paid our fair share. After “Save Our Homes” we have kept taxes low for the majority on the backs of the minority. Blessed with the sunshine people want, Florida has until recently been able to make ends meet because new residents, first-time homebuyers, snowbirds, renters and those wanting to do business in this great state remained willing to foot the bills.
But now these people are carrying pitchforks over the taxes they are paying; there just aren’t enough of them numerically to prevail at the ballot box. Sooner or later though, and it may be sooner in the form of decreased tourism and a slowed real estate market, these villagers are going to poke us with their pitchforks.
As if that weren’t enough, “Save Our Homes” has had another unintended consequence.
When local governments make spending decisions, it is fundamental to representative democracy that they have to run the gauntlet with citizens to raise taxes. But because the burden of increases has been borne by the minority, most of us never felt it in our pocketbooks so we never showed up at “city hall”. Spending, as a result, tended to creep up.
Like most legislative results of the democratic process, Amendment 1 imperfectly attempts to tackle the problem. Non-homesteaded property owners will have a 10% cap on tax increases, businesses get tangible personal property exemptions, and the 3% annual homestead tax increase cap will be portable to a new home (if it passes constitutional muster). Making the amendment attractive to more voters is a doubling of the homestead exemption (less the percentage dedicated to schools).
Many feel what will ultimately be required to restore tax fairness to Florida, along with cuts in spending, is to either abandon the wildly popular “Save Our Homes” or make it more equitable. But with Amendment 1 giving most of us our dessert now – in the form of portability and doubling the homestead exemption – it might become impossible for 60% of Floridians to vote to take the prescribed medicine later.
One of the forum’s speakers, Florida TaxWatch President and CEO Dominic Calabro evoked Walt Kelly’s long-running comic strip Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
There has been a time or two in history (think Rome) when the people’s demand for “candy” has gotten the better of them and the whole civilization came crashing down. I, for one, think this particular democracy is capable of better.
You know, now they make cod liver oil in pills that don’t give you fish-burp.
Did you know that while there are regulations on the veracity of advertising regarding the cereal you eat or the juice you drink, there is absolutely nothing regulating truth in political advertising?
Brooks Jackson, from the organization Facts.org offers us a bottom line: “If all you know about candidates in an election is what you see in their ads, you are going to cast a very poorly informed vote.”
The first amendment gives the press in this country and that includes broadcast outlet terrific freedom which is used to make a lot of money. But it’s there because the voters need information to base a sound decision on. And I think In too many cases broadcasters and cable outlets are making huge amounts of money from running these political ads which in many cases are false and misleading and they’re putting very little of that money back into some reporting that would inform their viewers about when they’re being scammed…
…If you think commercial advertising is misleading, you’ve got to realize it’s the wild wild west when it comes to political advertising.
So as campaign 2008 ramps up, remember “let the buyer beware.”
I just caught this rerun of ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters,” a drama about a diverse family politically. Kitty (Calista Flockheart), the conservative daughter of a liberal mom (Sally Fields), is about to marry a Republican candidate for president (Rob Lowe) and the campaign is heading into Iowa.
Liz’s blog was the like adding dessert to some reading I had been
doing over the long weekend. If only it had actually come WITH a
dessert, perhaps something chocolate… oh, i digress already.
I have been reading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins about why
some companies become great and others don’t seem to make that leap.
And I found so many useful life lessons in this book and so many
applications to who might or might not be a good president that it
almost makes my head spin.
Collins makes the point that the great companies all had CEO with this
one thing in common… they were humble & willful, modest & fearless.
He compares them to President Lincoln, personal humility & willful
strength to get it done. Now if only I could find a candidate with
that fabulous combination of seemingly opposite characteristics. But
it does make me evaluate candidates with a different set of criteria.
Do I see them as an either OR personality, or do they posses that
elusive & within their soul…
Another great story he tells is of Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was
imprisoned for 8 years in the “Hanoi Hilton” prison of war camp.
Stockdale managed to survive because he believed 2 seemingly
contradictory things at the same time (again with the contradictory
&). He retained faith that he would prevail in the end, regardless of
the difficulties & he confronted the most brutal facts of his current
reality, whatever they were.
Businesses that do this become great. They know what is wrong and see
clearly what they need to correct & they know that they can overcome
it and become great at some undetermined point in the future. I think
countries and political parties and ordinary people can use this
“Stockdale paradox” to motivate them to make the necessary changes to
become great.
The power of &…
So many times we think things are __________ OR __________, when in
reality we need the &. We don’t need a country that is Republican OR
Democrat, we need both Republican & Democrat to make a great county.
I mean Liz is great on her own, but put Liz & Lea together blogging
and all I can say is WOW.
Diet & exercise, good & plenty, peanut butter & jelly, freedom &
responsibility, give & take, tastes great & less filling, saving &
spending wisely, helping others & taking some time for yourself, cream
& sugar. So many things are better with the & in the middle instead of
the OR.
We need to stop focusing so much on the OR these days and embrace the
& whenever we can. We have a good country, but let’s be totally
honest, it has flaws. And there are some big ones that need hard work
and someone tough enough to take on that job.
Let’s take an honest look at our challenges without the blame game
(which takes a lot of humility) and see what lies before us & let’s
unwaveringly believe that we can do it, that we will prevail, that we
will take our lives and the lives of other Americans into the
GREATness that is in our future.
OK, got to go off to the gym to face the brutal facts & the harness
the power of hope for a smaller jean size tomorrow. Now that is the
power of the & at work….
This week brought us a typical brain-dead political discussion about who did what in the civil rights movement. King! Johnson! King! Johnson!
Politics played to our lizard brains, replayed endlessly in incomplete soundbites on the 24-hour cable news do-loop station of your choice, repeatedly asks us to pick “either/or”.
As this day ends, the day we set aside to honor Dr. King, if I don’t miss my bet, he would have been all about sharing credit with President Johnson… possibly with one or two others…
Here’s to what real leadership is all about.
Moyers on the signing of the 1965 Civil Right Act:
Martin Luther King had marched and preached and witnessed for this day. Countless ordinary people had put their bodies on the line for it; been berated, bullied and beaten, only to rise and organize and struggle on against the dogs, the guns, the bias and burning crosses. Take nothing from them. Their courage is their legacy.
But take nothing from the President who once had seen the light, but dimly, as through a dark glass and now did the right thing. Lyndon Johnson threw the full weight of his office on the side of justice.
Of course the movement had come first, watered by the blood of so many championed bravely now by the preacher-turned-prophet who would himself soon be martyred. But there is no inevitability to history. Someone has to seize and turn it. With these words, at the right moment – “We shall overcome” – Lyndon Johnson transcended race and color – and history too – reminding us that a president matters.
Oh my gosh, it is really here…. the primary in FLORIDA? ugh, I am
not good at voting and I finally figured out why. It has to do with my
test taking competencies (or my lack of those skills)…
You see, the election (the big one next november) is like a true false
test. You only pick one side out of two sides. TRUE or FALSE. I was
never good at true/false tests…. yes, there is that sense that you
have a 50% chance of getting it right, but I always lingered on some
questions like “is this really really true all of the time or only in
months that have a ‘R’ in them?” and “isn’t that just a tiny bit false
with some truth on the sides to decorate it?”
And the primaries are like a multiple choice test. and again… not my
strongest test taking skill area. “Umm, I like A but only if you mix
in a bit of B, take C totally out of the equation, and use D as your
back up in case of power failure” or “None of the above, but I will
pick a bit from each answer and make a brand new E”. And if I settled
on one answer, I always looked back over all the choices and thought
about how it might have really been one of those and what was I
missing out on. Yeah, you did not want to be sitting next to me during
the S.A.T. Saturday.
The election should be one long essay (bloggers must have been the
kids in school that LOVED essay tests). You can even give me a word
limit (and really, you should give me a word limit because without
it… I shudder to think…) I should get to write all the things I
want and all the things I don’t want in a president and then suddenly
that perfect person would appear and I could pencil in the little oval
thing next to his name. Now that would be some election reform.
