What do Capital Radio 604, Eskimo pies and Take Twos have in common?

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” -Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

Napoleon Bonaparte is a fascinating character in the history of the evolution of war.  His understanding of how to upset the balance of power between nations remains fundamental to understanding the theory of International Relations and helps us to understand the recent behaviour of countries like Iran in the Middle East and Venezuela in South America.

Interestingly, his theory of war also informs business school teaching in something called ‘game-theoretic’ accounts of business. Game theory is basically the idea that where someone benefits they do so at the expense of someone else.

All things being equal, the best for both parties, is to maintain equilibrium, a balance between the different players.

Think about market share for a moment.

Assuming the market size remains constant then the only way to grow market share would be at the expense of someone else. Many strategies are designed to ‘take’ market share from competitors and then to hold on to it when they retaliate. Sounds a bit like warfare right?

Napoleon’s quotation above leads to some interesting lessons when applied to the world of business. Over the next couple of weeks let’s chat about these in some more detail.

Lesson 1- Glory is not forever.

How many companies who appeared on the first Fortune 500 list in 1955 are still there today? 71.

That means, in 54 years, 86% have disappeared off the list completely.

Nearly 2000 companies have appeared on the list since it started and many are long gone.

What then does appearing on the list say about a company’s chances of enduring?

Think about Bear Stearns, previously 156 on the list, and gone in a weekend?

Think for a moment of other iconic brands here in SA that have over time surrendered their independence or disappeared completely: Springbok Radio, Capital 604, Eskimo Pie (ice lolly), Chipstix, Take Two (chocolate), Allied, UBS, NBS, FlightStar, Health & Racquet?

But if the alternative is obscurity, isn’t it better to have experienced glory for a short period even if you know you will lose it in the future.

Leadership is inspiring.  Be inspired.

Nothing on but the radio

A couple of years ago I enjoyed quoting a stat concerning the greatest selling artists of all time. 

Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and the Beatles would be in the top three slots depending on who you talked to but number four was almost always a surprise—a country mega star by the name of Garth Brooks whose popularity remains such that he performed at the Obama Inaugural Concert—yup he was the guy in the cowboy hat you had probably never heard of.  Even so, most of the adult contemporary stations in SA have placed his songs ‘The River’ and ‘Into the fire’ in their Top 10 at some point in time. 

The commercial reality though is that Elvis Presley became far more popular in death, as did the Beatles after the assassination of John Lennon, than they ever were in life. 

The same will probably be said for the King of Pop himself Michael Jackson and, although I never did a moonwalk myself, as an 80’s teenager I cannot remember a party or night club that didn’t include an ‘eek’ or a ‘ooh’ by him or his Jackson Five brothers.

One of the greatest influences Garth Brooks had though was that he realised that it was possible to be a cross over artist—country to pop—which would increase an artist’s commerciality. 

He set the scene for artists like Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Leanne Rhymes and more recently Taylor Swift. 

Someone like Ronan Keating (or Ronan Cheating as I call him) simply took hits from the country charts and repackaged them for Pop.  ’If tomorrow never comes’ was a hit for Alison Krausse and  the  Union Station six years before it was for him. 

Looking at the back to back coverage that Michael Jackson’s death received on everything from Sky and eTV to CNN and Al Jazeera I am struck by how inadequate TV is. 

Yes it can place the reporters on scene and you have the same screen shot of a coroner’s van leaving the LA County Coroner’s office 20 times over but to get a real sense of Michael Jackson the artist you have to switch on the radio.  

Michael Jackson lives in our minds—each song brings back a memory that plays an important role in our lives be it ‘Beat it’ or ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Heal the world’ or the spookiness of ‘Thriller’.

Gary Allen, another hot country star right now, has a song I enjoy no end—it’s called ‘Nothing on but the radio’ – imagine the play on words. One moment he is thinking about having dinner with the love of his life with ‘Nothing on but the radio’ and in another … well you get the picture. 

If we were looking for a radio anthem I couldn’t think of anything better than ‘Nothing on but the radio’. 

Can you? 

Now imagine if the only memory we had of Michael Jackson was what we heard him sing on the radio?  No tabloid stories, no LA County Court House shots. 

Nothing on but the radio. 

Stephen Covey asks each of us to think about the eulogy we would like people to deliver at our funeral one day.  His point is we should live our lives the way we would like to be remembered. 

Good point. Have a great week.

How to be a good boss in a bad economy

How to be a good boss in a bad economy is the main theme in a series of articles I have read recently.  They could just as well have been titled: How to be a good person in a bad economy.  The point is pretty much the same: 

As the economy gets tougher so the potential for unethical business practice grows. 

Salaries don’t go as far as they did—white collar crime goes up.  Customers demand more for less— service levels go down. 

The budget becomes unattainable—manipulation of the numbers by the executive becomes a hobby. 

Margins are placed under pressure—the marketing team goes into overdrive to explain how you only think you are getting less for more.  You know differently. 

Consumers start looking for someone to blame—the Competition Commission becomes more aggressive. 

People become more insecure—they head off to business school. 

And so the storyline develops but the principle of cause and effect becomes ever clearer as the economy tightens.  

Research shows that people in leadership positions become less mindful of others’ feelings and needs.  I wonder why that is? 

It could be the politicization of a conversation as you develop greater influence (here influence is the ability to make a difference).  This process of politicization makes you cynical to the point you don’t listen to people because they only want something from you. 

Maybe it is because you stop allowing yourself to be distracted by the day to day issues of the ‘little person’ because if you do you would never get anything done.  Or perhaps it is just a matter that you have learned that you are the sort of person who interrupts others who say something can’t be done by doing it yourself anyway.  Whatever it is this much I do know: 

People want to know you care. 

They want to know that they will be treated fairly, with compassion, with respect.  They want to know you trust them and want to know they can trust you.  Their fortunes are tied in with yours—if you fail as a leader they fail as a follower.  They are not always certain the reverse is true.

They want to know you are control even when you don’t feel you are. 

They want reassurance that things will get better.  Sometime. 

They want predictability and they want honesty. Me or you.  It doesn’t matter.  We both have people who depend on us—our families, our friends, our customers.  Maybe even that stranger whose life was made a little easier because of something you did.  The economy is tough—we know what people are looking for. 

We know what they want us to do.

Do we trust too much?

Do we trust too much? Broadly speaking opinions can be divided into two categories—category one consists of those people who, because of past experience, admit to not trusting enough. Implied is that this is not a good thing and has a negative effect on interpersonal relationships. Category two consists of those people who think we are way too gullible and accept people at face value when they have done nothing to deserve the trust we have placed in them. Implied here is that this is not a good thing either and it too has a negative effect on interpersonal relationships. Now I am pretty certain that the vast majority of people fall somewhere between these two poles and implied here is that we need to be ’discerning’ in whom we trust and whom we do not trust. Fair enough but I think too easy.

Trust is critical to human flourishing. We are born with an instinctive need to trust because we are helpless on our own. Babies have to rely on their mothers for survival. Children are brought up to trust that people in positions of authority are trustworthy. Is it any wonder that when you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up usually the response is they want to be a doctor, teacher, policemen, firemen, paramedic? Our survival as an adult however also depends on our willingness to trust each other. I have to trust that you will obey the rules of the road. It’s reciprocal trust borne out of a desire to stay alive. I have to trust that my neighbours are decent law abiding citizens who will be reasonable when it comes to areas of disagreement. If they aren’t, my life and that of my family, is less pleasant. When I employ someone I have to trust that they are honest in what they have placed in their CV and that the study they have completed has been evaluated appropriately by the conferring authority. If not, I will end up with someone who doesn’t have the technical skills to do the job. And then consider the world of media, advertising, marketing and sales. As a professional in these areas of business it is always humbling to realise how much people trust us. They trust us to adhere to the Electronic Communications Act, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission ‘guidelines’ and Advertising Standards Authority code of conduct. They trust us to enrich their lives.

Society, if you think about it, can only survive if we trust one another. I have to trust that when I turn on the tap clean, healthy water will come out of it. I have to trust that when I turn on the lights they come on and stay on. I have to trust that when I become a victim of crime that the authorities will do their job and bring the perpetrators to justice. And if I can’t trust then the implications for society are catastrophic. Now think about something as simple as me asking a stranger the time. I have to trust they will tell me the truth. Same for directions. Implied here is that I trust the person I am asking to tell the truth without even having spoken to them. Why is that? For one thing I have taken visual cues from them—what they look like and who they are. We trust people who look like us or who belong to our community and distrust those who are not. Consider the implications for business. Rarely do we work with people who look like us and often we don’t belong to the same community. We work in a microcosm of South African society with every gender, age, religion, race, language and sexual orientation imaginable. Same for our customers and other stakeholder groups. If we don’t look alike, and belong to different social groups, how are we supposed to trust? It starts with knowledge and respect. Once trust has been established we develop intimacy and collaboration—which is another word for teamwork.

So what does all this mean? Trust because it makes life better—for all of us. But take time to know someone who you are going to trust … starting with the people you work with.

The Birth of a Moral Leader

I was sent this by one of my friends in ‘low places’ (thank you Rina) and thought it was a well written opinion on why President Barack Obama represents a different type of moral leadership.

EnlightenNext magazine has entered the blogosphere, enabling us to share our perspective, in real time, on current events. A great example is executive editor Carter Phipps’s post on President Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East and Europe. Reflecting on the gritty business of global politics, Phipps suggests that Obama represents a new kind of moral leader:

Many of the moral heroes of the twentieth century were primarily defined not by their heroic use of power and office but by their inspired opposition to the powers that be—from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. to Nelson Mandela. Moral courage, in the last century, has often meant fighting against corrupt structures of power rather than embracing those same structures as a means to achieve positive change. Watching President Obama over the last week in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Buchenwald, and Normandy made me realize that we have crossed a threshold. Here is a progressive president who is directly engaged with some of the most delicate moral minefields of geopolitics. Yet, he is completely comfortable with power (but not enamored with it) and is turning morality and idealism into diplomatic tools of the best kind.

To tell us what you think about this, visit the EnlightenNext Editors’ Blog and post a comment!

Traditional media – you can smell the fear …

If ever there was an invitation list I wish I was on it’s this one:  Herb Allen and his boutique bank Allen & Company has for the past 27 years organised a ‘by invitation only’ retreat in Sun Valley (Idaho) for the who’s who of the world’s media.  This year is different though – you can smell the fear.  At least that’s what I am told.  Traditional media as we know it is dead.  The digital revolution is upon us and traditional media economies are no longer expected to be viable.  US advertising spend will decline by 1.2% per annum until 2013 (still around US$178Bn though which doesn’t sound so bad to me) and then who knows?  Not PwC whose data I am quoting.  By 2013 25% of US adspend will be online – compare that to SA internet spend of <1% and what do you have?  Even at <1% you can smell the fear here too. 

Why then am I so suspicious of the consensus that seems to exist that the media world as we know it is coming to an end?  Is it perhaps because there is ‘consensus’ – just as there was consensus that Y2K was going to shut down every business, airport, organization and household unless extreme interventions, costing billions of US$, were activated.  Or how about a worldwide pandemic of swine flu that activated nothing more than a worldwide pandemic of hysteria?  Or how about 120 million viewers of the singing sensation Susan Boyle who were absolutely certain she was going to win Britain’s Got Talent.  She didn’t.  Nope.  For me I can see far deeper issues up for discussion at Sun Valley that go way beyond where the next advertising dollar is coming from. 

Democracy exists only while there is a powerful independent media capable of content origination and dissemination.  Media relies on advertising revenue and subscription services to do that and without it media can’t and won’t exist.  No advertising, no media, no democracy.  And as for content aggregation and user generated content (UGC)?  Aggregation is nothing new – most news organizations around the world have been doing this for years.  Just ask SAPA. The only thing different is that technology makes it easier.  The easier it is the more organizations capable of doing it.  The greater the number with that capability the more of a commodity it becomes and the more one needs to differentiate oneself.  The more differentiated the more you can charge.  The more you can charge …. hey sounds like a revenue stream to me.  And as for UGC?  Have you taken a look at the rubbish out there?  The internet is fast becoming a victim of its own success.  Just try and separate fact from fiction.  But even more important than democracy however is the issue of privacy.  And there is no greater threat to privacy right now than social networking sites and user generated content.  Maybe that’s a subject for another time?  Leadership is inspiring.  Be inspired.

Big bigger biggest

We equate size with power—bigger is better, might is right, loud is better than quiet, large is preferable to small. We spend our lives in the realm of big, bigger and biggest. Think about this paradox though—just as we place greater emphasis on size so nanotechnology (nano=very small) has resulted in the miniaturization of our world. Everything from microchips, to receivers and transformers. Cell phones and computers are the smallest they have ever been and the miniaturization of surgical equipment means lives can now be saved when before they couldn’t. The better a hi-fi the smaller it is and forget those dials—now you have a remote control that does it all and you can crank the sound up to 11 if you like (check out my post on March 2, 2009).  Is it possible that ‘small’ is the new ‘big’ and that the future belongs to small smaller and smallest?  When you are on the right side of right size doesn’t count.  The majority doesn’t matter.  I suppose that the moral geniuses of our time know that …. maybe it’s time for the rest of us to catch up?

Idols 5 – what a farce

Let’s face it—SA Idols season 5 was a disaster before it even started.  First there was the announcement that in the judges opinion only 12 of the Top 24 were suitable to go through to the next level.  Anyone with the slightest understanding of how tough the media world is finding things right now would know the real reason was that the budget had been cut and this was the ‘spin’ the marketing team had come up with to sell to a gullible audience the reason for reducing the budget/number of shows/quality of the set.

 Then we had the offensive replacement of the Idols ‘face’ Colin Moss who had done a pretty decent job over the years of branding the show in a way that showed empathy without being patronizing.  But what to do when Colin decided he would rather pursue a career in movies?  Find a replacement and then ask the marketing team to come up with a suitable strategy for conveying to the audience the change.  Their response?  An offensive, tasteless and altogether without merit skit that showed Colin being hit by a car that looked like a taxi.  And instead of him carrying on where he left off he was replaced by Liezl van der Westhuizen.  What a ghastly way to replace someone.

 And now we have the debacle surrounding the counting of votes.  Talk about a public relations disaster.  So what does MNet do?  Call on the same incompetent marketing team to spin it yet again:  Get the CEO to explain to a disbelieving public how they couldn’t count less than 3 million votes in the time available and that there were no checks and balances to ensure that all the valid votes were counted.  (Idol in the USA had 46 million votes last week—that’s more than the entire South African population and they got it right).  So what does Patricia Scholtemeyer, the CEO of MNet say:  There was a problem and we have fixed it. The public will judge us on that basis. I can’t believe she actually believes that.  Calling a press conference doesn’t actually do anything for the brand when you decide to announce that … listen to this … as a world first we will now have two Idols!  How patronizing.  And she actually thinks that has solved something.  If I was Jason or Sasha-Lee I would tell them to shove it and then sell my story to make up the prize value.

I don’t get twitter

Ok I admit it:  I don’t get twitter.  Unless you are mega famous who cares what you are doing anyway?  And as for business executives using this ‘next best thing’ to communicate with employees, even 140 letters can constitute the most boring conversation ever.  Is this just another social networking site (fad?)  that finds it difficult to appeal to anyone other than the chronically idle or have I missed the plot?

Can business ever be ethical?

Can business ever be ethical?  This question is posed to me more often than any other and that’s because people are truly cynical about ethical business practice and the profit motive.  The premise here is that when profit is involved ethical business practice goes out the window.  I must admit to understanding such a point of view, particularly when you consider the dire straits the financial sector and economies around the world now find themselves in.  This crisis has nothing to do with criminality though and  everything to do with morality in the marketplace, or lack thereof.  That’s why I don’t buy the idea that ethical business practice and the profit motive are mutually exclusive.  Now that may not be a popular point of view in some quarters but some of the best advances in the history of human kind started with someone being persecuted for what the majority thought was a stupid idea.

Imagine what Moses must have encountered when he spoke of leading the Jewish nation into the land of Israel? Imagine the first person to say slavery was wrong? How about segregation, a united Europe, global warming, the end of Apartheid, Israel and Palestine in peaceful co existence? But also imagine what it must have been like for the first doctor to say he suspected there was something – invisible to the human eye – that made people get sick? He was talking about bacteria. Or that one day it would be possible to see through skin and muscle to look at a bone in something called an X-ray. Space travel? Walking on the moon? International space station? Or what about an Olympic games for disabled people? Imagine a business world where businesses have corporate social responsibility programmes? Pay for staff to educate themselves? Where a women would be paid at the same rate as a man? Or that a black woman could be the CEO of a company? Ethical business practice may or may not be something that business is ever capable of. But for now it makes me feel better about the world that it is a distinct possibility ……. look how much we have already achieved.  Leadership is inspiring.  Be inspired.