Geraldo at Large: Bull Alert

If you've always wanted to see one of the Idiots on TV -- and frankly there hasn't been anything as riveting since the last National Geographic special on man-eating fungi of the Amazon basin -- tonight could be a huge moment for you. Tune in to Geraldo at Large on Fox News (fair and balanced!) on Wednesday, October 11th for this fine evening program. A team of editors has been busy improving my 40 minutes of interview responses down to 38 seconds or so, so it may be nothing more than a glimpse.

If you've bought and read our book, this could be a waste of time for you. However, I've found what I consider to be a top-notch dry cleaner, and hopefully you'll appreciate how my suit and favorite dress shirt came out.

EDIT: Link to the segment on the Fox News web site

Culture of Stretch

One of the big problems in the stampede to appear perfect is that the truth gets trampled. Ford Motor Company seems to be experiencing this, as the company has watched Toyota take the number two spot in auto sales. It's hard to say whether $80 SUV fill-ups or convoluted and self-deluding language are hurting the company more.

First off, "The Way Forward" slogan for this year's turnaround attempt has a kind of misty-eyed but committee-born aftertaste to it: it says nothing other than that the company rather optimistically expects to be around in the future based on F150 truck sales and occasional winners like the new Mustang. It also leaves us to wonder what's in it for the customer, other than the nice but unexciting prospect of having a company around to back its warranty claims. Compared to "The Ultimate Driving Machine," "The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection" and "There is No Substitute," "The Way Forward" implies a kind of desperate groping through the corridors of modern automaking, hoping for a light switch before we stumble in the dark and run into something. And no one has yet asked why Ford's embarrassing turnaround slogan is getting more media play than BMW and Lexus' product taglines.

I think, perhaps, Ford needs to stop making the inspired communicators park miles away in their imports. Clearly they're spending too much time trudging to the office and missing some important meetings.

Next, we talk a lot (maybe too much) in the Idiots book about the power of imperfection, and about how honesty is the Ultimate Attention Getter. It took a new CEO at Ford to get things warmed up a bit, but here's a frightening glimpse of a top executive experiencing this flash of insight, as reported by CNN/Moneyline:

Ford insiders told the paper that financial executives have traditionally had a broad say over the budget, including vehicle programs. That has spurred what some told the paper was a "culture of stretch," in which product-development executives overestimated sales volumes and revenues in order to get vehicle programs approved by finance.

Those unrealistic targets caused the company problems down the line, the paper reported.

"Now, we're being brutally honest," Cisco Codina, Ford's top sales executive, told the paper. "That's different from what we did a few months back."

Brilliant. Who would've thought that inflated sales volume estimates could be such a big deal? And what, in God's name, is a "culture of stretch"? Crap euphemisms like this are a sure sign that things aren't going too well, just as "report card image refurbishment" isn't something you'd want to hear from your oft-truant offspring. It turns out, with Toyota burying us, that we must now rein back a bit on the internal lying that, until quite recently, seemed like a reasonable way to run things.

I just watched the old Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt, a few weeks back, enjoying the classic '68 Mustang in its full chase-driven glory. It's time for the company that invented "cool" in the U.S. car market to bury the bull. Tell it like Steve would have.

Don't make it so hard

Whenever I run off and give a presentation at (insert company name here)'s big annual shindig, I always get one questioner who starts off acknowledging the brilliance of our book (dubious, to say the least) and then comes up with some sort of reality check: you can't really be expecting all of us to be honest, witty and entertaining during the work week, can you?

Well, yes. And just as you don't have to be a raving genius to write a book about the bull that passes for business communication -- and you don't, as you've undoubtedly noticed even poking around this site -- there are ample opportunities to rise above the mediocre and soar with the not-too-wretchedly-dull people. This being a blog, you probably want a useful example, and likely you want it for free. Seeing as our programmer is still on holiday and we can't figure out how to assault you with pop-ups for the new Bullfighter VISA Titanium card for the ostensibly rich, I will provide one without a pitch.

I was asked some months ago to help with a recruiting book for a consultancy. Not just any book, but the one geared toward the twentysomethings fresh out of college. Having seen the usual stuff that passes as brochure content, I urged the writers to go to the 'summer associates' (e.g., interns) and get them to write their impressions after a year spent working for my client (the consulting firm). This they did, and we ended up with a stack of candid mini-essays of the sort corporate marketing people have forgotten how to write - essays about being a bit nervous on Day One on the new job, nearly missing flights, mistaking youthful senior managers for newbies, and so on. Real human stuff.

Then marketing and graphics caught hold of this recruiting book and decided to add sidebar quotes to make it look nicer. Stop right here and ask what sorts of quotes you'd expect. Got it? All right then. True to form, the sidebar quotes pulled were the most typical, expected things you could imagine, among them: "When we have a deadline, we all work together to meet it."

If that doesn't have 20 year olds rushing to get into your company, what would?

Turns out the summer associates had said more human and interesting things in the course of telling their stories: "Seltzer exploded out of the bottle and landed all over his suit." Wonder what that's about? Most readers would. And that's the point of it. Sometimes, steering clear of things like the anonymity trap isn't so hard. It can be a matter of thinking about what the normal corporate person would expect, and then veering a bit off the familiar path.

I drew a heavy line through the dull "deadline" quote and circled the "seltzer" one. I didn't have to write a word or exercise too many neurons. Much like young Luke Skywalker, the power can be within you all along.

Dawn of the Dead Blog

No, it's not a blog about classic horror movies, although those zombies would undoubtedly be better presenters than many of our conference room tormenters: it's our first new entry since the end of the Britney Spears Era (or whatever was popular six months ago). Anyway, it would be unforgivable, except that what we've come up with here was well worth the wait. This mission statement came to us in a self-adoringly titled annual report for a company's internal research group, A Unique Competitive Advantage:

Our mission is to provide world-class thought
leadership and market insight that will foster
innovation and enable the successful pursuit of
client opportunities, while utilizing cutting-edge
knowledge management techniques to make this
information available to all practitioners.

Apart from being a load of -- er, well, a load -- the report was pathetic even in its concept. I can't say an annual report is a bad idea, but for an internal group to publish one is presumptuous at best. Worse still is the title, A Unique Competitive Advantage, which smacks of defensiveness and a need to justify the group's existence. Just as the star employees don't need to say "I am a star employee" or "I add value to the organization", we certainly don't need to hear the research team extol its own importance.

Perhaps at my next family get-together I'll introduce myself as Jon, the Son Who Achieved the Most in School. That should have all of the clan thronging about me during cocktails.

We devote a whole chapter of our book to the power of humility, candor and being your own harshest critic, and this isn't easy to do. But when stuff like the above bubbles up from the bureaucratic strata we're reminded of how oblivious people can be to something easy and basic. Yes, there's a time and place to toot your own horn. Using the car analogy, though, next time you're driving think about how delighted you are with the guy behind you laying on the horn and direct that road rage to your writing and editing.

Merry Holidays!

Idiocy continues to stampede the holidays (can't say which ones), as I received yet another seasonal festivities card with a picture of a snowperson and a winter scene on it and no reference whatsoever to those days that people like to celebrate during December. Needless to say I felt completely merry yet unoffended.

Had the card arrived with one of those ornamented pine trees intended to commemorate you-know-who's birthday, I was savvy enough to have my attorney on speed dial so we could convene an immediate powwow (er -- conference in the tradition of Native Americans) to discuss my emotional trauma over this egregious attack on my faith.

I get seasonal-but-inoffensive cards from my realtor, airlines, and all my friends that I've worked with at equal opportunity companies that embrace all religions, races, creeds and degrees of spinelessness. As a native Californian, I must point out that I find all of this emphasis on winter discriminatory, as people continue to denigrate my geography. I wince at this display of thinly-veiled contempt, but inwardly I know I can endure the pain in the hope that someday the cards sent during this month (you know which one) will depict the Pacific Coast Highway and palm trees. In the meantime, you can be sure that HR is getting a nasty-gram from yours truly.

Anyway, here's my cheerful yuletide disclaimer: I heard, from a friend of another persuasion, about that holiday that falls on December 25th. I know what the pine tree is about. Mangers don't offend me, although they're overpriced in California and bound to fall in price as mortgage rates rise. Santa-You-Know-Who isn't a symbol of persecution. Reindeer are fine. I can handle the symbolism. For this month only, I offer an exclusive no-lawsuit guarantee: you can acknowledge a religion on any non-taxpayer funded seasonal stationery without reprisal. In fact, I may even receive it with a cautiously positive response.

So, now you can go ahead and send me one of those cards for that late December holiday. You know, that one. That'll cheer me up.

Yogi

As the notorious author who ripped Scoble during a recent speech at Microsoft, it’s been interesting to watch the conversation unfurl. After extricating my size 9 ½ Nikes from their resting spot deep inside my oral cavity, I’ve had time to do some research (OK, OK – this should have come before my comments, not after). My real interest is not whether Scoble is a good guy (he is), whether he’s technically credible (he is), or whether he wears boxers or briefs (too much information). What I really care about is whether or not he’s actually good for Microsoft.

Let me start off with what’s not so good for Microsoft. One of my major issues is that sometimes it doesn’t make a lot of sense to air Microsoft dirty laundry in public. Sometimes, it’s better to keep things in the family, and Scoble (IMHO) has occasionally crossed the line here.

Scoble, you responded to this issue by referencing the recent Six Apart public apology for issues they were having. Agree – the Six Apart apology was a good thing for them to do. But the apology came from its founder and president. This represented the official view of the company, coming straight from the founder’s mouth. It didn’t come from a “technical evangelist” or some other random employee. The problem is when technical evangelists get themselves confused with founders and CEO’s. So when Scoble rails against MS for their anti-discrimination policy (for example), he’s a rogue voice (regardless of how you feel about the issue) who happens to have an oversized megaphone. Like a union organizer, he invites sympathetic voices to join him in his proletariat march. There are plenty of outsiders who will kindly do that for you, free of charge! I’m as new age as they come when it comes to corporate conversations, but no amount of dope from the Cluetrain pipe will convince me that this type of public issue mongering is good for any company. Sensitive issues sometimes need to stay at the family dinner table. It’s hard for me to see how backing leadership into a corner and forcing them to debate delicate internal issues in public is a good thing for MS. Scoble has created huge stature for himself, and with that stature comes a responsibility to, well, be responsible.

The tough thing for Scoble to do, and he seems to be doing it exceptionally well, is to walk the very fine line between constructive critique and destructive criticism. I worry that his credibility is somewhat reliant on his willingness to be critical – that creates some warped incentives. But Scoble seems to be very very skillful at navigating that narrow balance beam.

Having said all that, I looked at the impact of Scoble overall. When viewed in the aggregate, I must admit that what he is doing is good for the company. The main point of our speech at MS was around their need to develop more personality as they evolve. Feature and function superiority alone won’t cut it in a world craving humanity, meaning, candor, simplicity and authenticity. In a way, that actually describes what Scoble is all about. He has put a more human face on MS, and his straightforward and authentic voice seems to be changing conversations and attitudes at MS. He pushes the company to raise the bar with its products, but does so in a way that is positive. It is still unfolding, and much of what makes it work is Scoble’s personal prowess at doing what he does. So overall, I was wrong about his impact on Microsoft. It’s pretty clear that he is having a positive influence not only with the outside world, but perhaps more importantly inside MS.

As Yogi Berra so eloquently put it, I made a wrong mistake.

Brian Fugere

Sign me up NOW!!!

The field of learning -- formerly "training" but who wants to buy that -- and online learning is to bull what the IRS is to forms. From my inbox moments ago (We take freshness seriously here at fightthebull.com):

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I hope all goes well.

We are co-sponsoring a Brandon Hall webinar on Proactive Strategies for Capturing and Consuming Expert Knowledge, which you may find very interesting. The webinar is scheduled for...

In fact this was quite timely, because only this morning I had jotted "consume expert knowledge" at the top of my task list in my PDA. Actually I had said "consume expert knowledge capital," but I understand this is beyond the scope of the webinar. Icing on the cake: I may know nothing about the topic, but my colleague and friend (haven't met him, however) has assured me I'll find it interesting.

I do hope all goes well.

I mean, we all do, right?