I'm challenging anyone here reading this to take their kids into their office (not on "Take You Son/Daughter to Work Day") and measure the response of peers and executives.
Who's up for the challenge?
LOVE this.
Now if we could only figure out a way for CEOs to be sent to their room without supper.
I once joked to a client that it would be great if I could put my kids into their office to see what they thought of their work. Maybe I should try again (then again, what are the laws about putting kids to work at a young age?).
Always thinking, Asa. Always thinking....
The power of imagination
AskAsa
7/5/2011 1:53:10 PM
Maybe one of the best things the C-suite can learn from kids is to capitalize on creativity, to be imaginative and to have the audacity to dream. In the board room, it's called innovation. In the play room, it's just called pretending. But either way, it can go a long way to creating a new perspective on reality.
Now that CEOs are having their pay tied to performance -- much like many kids who get an allowance -- perhaps they'll learn some better behaviors.
Re: culture difference
Value Hiker
7/4/2011 12:43:41 PM
Michael, you are right. Business owners in Asia tends to take personal responsibility for business failure, sometime even suicides. I don't know it is good or bad. But at least it gains sympathy and respect from customers, suppliers, and shareholders.
It is interesting to compare the Toyoda family and Hewlett family during crisis handling. In 2005, Mr. Toyoda, disgruntled with the Mr. Okuda's new direction for the company, only gave an unpublicized, internal speech questioning the new direction. It did not change anything, and the disaster stoke several years later.
In 2001, When HP planed to acquire the compaq, Hewlett Family openly opposed the merger, finally Walter Hewlett involved a proxy fight with Carly Fiorina. I held small amount HP shares at that time, and HP investor relationship department kept calling me at home, trying to gain my support. That is the first time, a fortune 100 company ever asked me for a favor. :-) Even Hewlett family lost the battle, the whole incident contributed to the final removal of Fiorina.
Personally I prefer a outspoken Founding family, actively monitoring the direction of the company. The reason is simple, the founding family cares about the long term success of the firm more than these professional managers, who are more interested in short term gains.
Re: what trumps what?
Jacob
7/4/2011 1:52:41 AM
Kids are the best way to learn for adults and CEOs. The way they are taking each steps, curiosity to hear and learn, the way they are adopting things etc. At the same time, their life in bounded in and around a small radius. So, when they are growing up this radius is increasing and it seems that the principles are diluting. That could be one of the reasons, where we peoples are becomes fail at least in some of the key areas. I mean we are not expecting the response and behavior we had learned through our child hood days.
Re: what trumps what?
tokyogai
7/3/2011 4:11:56 PM
I think they can, but it is the rare case not the norm. You have to do a little more looking to find morals with performance.
have more sense and patience than these CEO's, so understandably they can make better decisions. I just hope that the CEO's decisions don't continue to bring our country down
Driven,
Thank you for hitting the nail on the head; your point about how old and new can come together is more than the $64,000 Question.
Ideally, the discussions we have here are about ethics, i.e., the study of managerial conflict and how much of the black and the white converge to make gray. Here's the kicker--everyone has his own definition of what gray matter is.
A good friend of mine believes that companies that show kindness toward its influencers, i.e., that no one customer is treated differently than another, that no one shareholder is different than another, et.al., makes a difference in how today's companies operate. I think there is something to that line of thinking. So is his old school thinking about gray matter any less or more relevant or important than the company who is successful yet acts like an a..hole to its stakeholders?
I would also encourage you to review reports from the Ewing Kauffman Center on Entrepreneurship, where they cite records about how companies and executives who are strong people can be strong CEOs as well. Is their old-school thinking about treating people differently any different/better/worse than someone else's? That's all about ethics in my book.
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