Posts from — August 2008

My first two years in the Navy were less than productive. As a young 18 year old, I was loud, obnoxious, and thought many things were funny that my supervisors didn’t. On the opposite end, I was also smart, eager and enthusiastic — but I asked a lot of questions and wanted to know the “why?” of what we were doing.

Larry, Michelle and George had been friends a long time. They met in college, and though they each went to work in different organizations, they committed to getting together once a year to discuss their careers, opportunities and challenges. Over the years they had each risen to senior leadership roles within their organizations. At their most recent annual retreat the topic of team commitment came up.

As it turned out, they were as puzzled after their conversation as they had been before they began. Why? Because they all believed that team commitment was important, and they all felt they had it, and yet the performance of their teams weren’t as strong as they hoped for or felt was possible.

A young executive recently said to me, “How can I worry about ethics when our company is involved in a hostile takeover and we’re fighting for our very existence?”

My answer was, “You don’t have to put ethics on the shelf while doing corporate battle. Without ethics, even if you win you lose.”

Every time we say or do something unethical we chip away at the foundations of our moral character and the reputation of our organization. If we’re going to make a difference we must set examples of high ethics for others to follow.

Many people regard the oak tree as one of the strongest. Actually, the oak tree began as a little nut that would not go away.

As business people, we need to take a lesson from the oak tree and be a little “nuts” ourselves in order to grow. Being “nuts” means that we must be willing “to go out there” once in a while. Why? Because very few organizational leaders have the vision to do so, which causes their teams to become boring and stale. Such a lack of vision is what ruins many companies.