I am traveling a lot for work these days.  Traveling for work is not healthy.

You work very hard all day; after all you were paid to travel to this place to work….so you do it.

You live at a hotel, so there isn’t much to do once you get back…so you work there too (since there is always something to do).  So I would say I am working from sun up to sun down, with breaks to eat.

Ah…eating.  That is one of the few truly pleasurable things I do in a day.  Since the meals are expensed, I do eat well…which means I eat too much.  Then there is the fact of the stress of working all day…I usually drink with dinner (which is expensed as well).

Working all day means you can’t go to the hotel gym.  The stress and a bed that isn’t yours mean you don’t sleep that well.

I always thought it would be somewhat glamorous to travel for work.  It simply isn’t.  “How was Chicago,” you might ask….well I don’t know, unless you count O’Hare airport, a random office building, and/or the Marriott downtown.

Airports are a HUGE waste of time.  You wait in a bunch of lines, can’t do much in the way of work…the only thing good about airports is drinking before you get on the plane (that’s if you make it to the airport in time, since you always work till the last minute).

You might also think it is cool to be at the airport with your fancy clothes and laptop, going to nice hotels, eating out on the client.  No, it isn’t.

You just wish you were sitting in first class instead of trying to cram your carry-on into the overhead bin and sitting next to some smelly (either from cologne or not showering) yahoo that wants to talk to you the whole time and needs to lose 3o pounds (which is fine…unless you are sitting next to them on a cramped plane).

You wish you were waiting for the plane in the Club Room instead of hunting for some greasy seat to park it while you wait for the opportunity to wait again when you finally board the plane (which you could also avoid if you were a Medallion member).  You really just wish you were at home.

So…..you eat too much, don’t exercise, don’t get to talk to your loved ones much, work too much, drink often, are stressed, and don’t sleep well.

At least I have a job.  For that, I am truly grateful….really.

Its worth it for sure….seeing that I would be living on the streets otherwise.

You don’t even want to hear me complain about that!!!

People and their values.  Anyway, 1st up today is:

Energy Efficiency

It’s a red herring.  ENERGY EFFICIENCY WILL NOT AFFECT GLOBAL WARMING.  It will make it worse.

Econ 101:  If you make something more efficient people will use it MORE, not less.  Take the cotton gin….before it was invented, we separated the seeds from the cotton by hand…it took a long time, and it sucked.  “The growth of cotton production, enabled by Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, expanded by the bale from 750,000 in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850.  As a result of the ability to produce cotton faster, the South became even more dependent on plantations and slavery making it the largest area of the economy in the South.”  Get it?  Efficiency caused its use to explode!

Take the Printing Press.  Before books were made by hand, and only a few could read.  Then making books became faster and more efficient, and as a result there are so many books now people would laugh to think they were once scarce.  Getting better at making books simply means there will be more of them.

Take planes, trains, automobiles….whatever.  It doesn’t matter.  It will work the same.

Efficiency causes people to use something MORE, not less.  I fail to see how more efficient cars (or light bulbs or whatever) will change anything. It will not save energy.  In aggregate, it will use more energy (even if each individual unit uses less).

If you want people to use less energy we need to become less efficient at making it.  You could attempt to impose huge taxes to dissuade use, but people would create a gray/black market.  It wouldn’t make a difference in the end.

In short, there is pretty much nothing except population control or space ships (population control vis a vis leaving the planet) that will change what we’re doing.

As technology progresses forward we MUST use more energy.  There must be throughput.  It doesn’t go backwards.

Corporate Person-hood:

In court, Corporations often try to claim the same rights as we do.  They want free speech; they want to contribute openly to political campaigns; they do enjoy the right to contracts, to declare bankruptcy; they sue people/parties.  They behave in many ways like people, and when it suits them they claim any and all the rights entitled to people.

Here is the rub though:  Corporations aren’t people.  Primarily, corporations can’t die, and they can shift their definition of “person”.  You can put a person in jail.  You can punish them.  You can’t rightly punish an amorphous concept.  Arthur Anderson consulting just became Accenture.  Kill one, and it just shifts to something else.  No person enjoys shape-shifting immortality.

People are moral.  All of them are, even if their morality is not one we agree with.  Maybe better said, people HAVE morals.  Corporations do not…and they behave accordingly.

So what does this have to do with me?

Accountability:  I am thinking of a systemic solution, a single switch, to stop the seemingly runaway power of corporations:  make ONE person accountable.  Abolish the ability for the CEO and Board of Directors to hide behind corporate person-hood.  Make the CEO accountable.

Abolish corporate-person-hood…just one person at the top.  If you think the company has gotten too big for you personally to take responsibility for…then you need to spin-off a business. Sweat-shops….ONE person is responsible for that.  A corporation is not “following labor arbitrage to the lowest cost provider because “the market” (another non-human entity) demands it”….ONE person is supporting children working for nothing to make stuff we throw away after a few uses.  It affects that person’s morality.  It is the responsibility of that person.

Talk about a Renaissance of values: The only person it would make sense to hire in that case (when the actions of those you hire affect YOU personally)…..would be someone of impeccable values.

For instance, take the current banking crisis.  Tons of individual PEOPLE are underwater on their homes…they owe more than it is worth…yet they keep paying….because they have VALUES.  They made a promise to pay and they feel bad about not paying; they are affected by the guilt.

Corporations are NOT affected by any guilt or any morality.  They are also “underwater” on the derivatives of the homes…and yet they feel no compunction to pay.  They simply walk away, because they don’t care…in fact, they can’t care.  Not only that but they realize they’ll get more by lobbying Congress to get US, the people, to bail them out.  Why?  Because they can.

That kind of thinking, where you do something just because you can….is the same thinking sociopaths use. It is dangerous.

And yet these entities, who cannot feel, and for whose leaders we do not vote….rule most of our days.  We endure because they enable us a decent life (which I agree is the case); however, that does not change the fact that corporations enjoy near absolute authority:  They tell us how to dress, where to show up, what to say, what to do for most of our waking hours……is that not pretty much slavery?

The saving grace is that we can largely choose our job, which allows us to choose our slavery….a decent proposition I  think (I really do)….just align yourself with a corporation that largely shares your values……..Oops:  Corporations don’t have values.

Then again, most people don’t either when faced with survival.  Oh well.

Artificial Intelligence:

I had big hopes for this, in the sense that surely we need to be smarter than we are now…even if the robots take over?  Right?  Also, I thought it wasn’t that far away; I mean we can process the shit out of some shit with computers.  It won’t be long before we can simulate the processing of the human brain.

A few thoughts…..if we ever COULD simulate the processing of the human brain, how much energy would it take at this point?  Shit…my computer (one computer) requires a up-voltage converter, and runs so hot that it needs a heat sink to avoid melting the metal.

My brain runs at 98.6 degrees.  And it doesn’t require an up-converter at all.  I can shove a few beers and a slice of bread into it and it will run all day.  Imagine if you could shove a few leaves and a cup of water into your computer, and that was it?  That’s nuts!!!  The brain is, simply put, so far beyond anything we have now that its a joke.  Show me a computer that runs on beer and a plate of rice!?!?!!  Our brains are so energy efficient it is SICK.

Next:  Free Will

Isn’t that the issue?  Computers (despite their poor efficiency) can already process more than we can in most situations (though they aren’t as flexible).  But they can’t DECIDE to process something.  If they could I might simply stay at home and let my computer be curious about the data that I work with for a living.

So what is free will?  And why can’t processing devices (computers) that are already “smarter” than we are in some situations simply decide to do something?

Proposition:  The brain is a pattern recognition machine.  At its simplest, the brain stores information and turns it into patterns.  I didn’t invent this idea (see TED.com).  You have to take this one on belief somewhat.

Another Proposition:  The brain is leaky.  Computers work with 1s and 0s….and that is hard to do.  The smaller the circuits, the more the circuits leak…and 1s bleed into 0s.  The way you separate the feedback from the signal is to turn up the volume (energy throughput)…..so the smaller the processing circuits get, for the most part the larger we must turn up the energy to separate the signal from the noise.  This is true (no belief required).  The brain doesn’t work like that…it simply leaks, and trades accuracy for speed and efficiency….and the brain has trouble telling the noise from the signal.

WE ARE THE NOISE.

That is why there is no artificial intelligence, no free will in machines.  They don’t have enough noise;  they are TOO accurate.

Imagine a brain that is programmed to see patterns.  It sees lots of them, because the world is largely patterned (follows trends).  Because it errs though, it also sees trends where there aren’t any (optical illusions are an example).  It is well documented that the brain sees patterns where they don’t exist, it “fills in the blanks” where our sensory input doesn’t match previous patterns we’ve seen.

But there is one source of random noise that is always present….it is the leak in our brain circuits…the trade off between efficiency and accuracy.  From the day we are born the brain tries to process the ghost in our machine (the leak in our signal, which is completely random).  Because it is so good at seeing patterns…it invents a pattern….WE ARE THE PATTERN.…completely unique, un-reproducible, always shifting with new input (which produces new randomness, which causes us to shift more…but on the whole the brain creates a way to interpret that randomness, and refines that interpretation with time).  We tell ourselves to do different things in different situations (or the same situation) because it is somewhat random.  Free will is that randomness. We…are the randomness.

Anyway, that is my theory, and that is why there is no free will in computers, nor is there any “artificial intelligence” upcoming in computers:  they work too well.

To sum up:

While there is no apparent theme in my three topics…..the theme is that it pays to think about the things that go on around us.  If you take at face value all the information we’re fed…..you’re the same as dumb.

I read today about Obama chiding Wall Street for their reported $40 billion dollars in bonuses this year (even though they were down over the past few years).  It does offend one’s sensibilities, I certainly agree.

I mean…if risky mortgages are the source of the problem, then don’t bail out the banks, bail out the people…the banks get the money in the end anyway (since the people still have to pay the mortgage) and the people get to keep their homes.

If you bail out the banks…the banks get the money, the people still lose their homes…which then means the banks get the homes………so the banks get the homes AND the money:  And they were the ones responsible for the mess in the first place (to the losers go the spoils)!

Seems like they’re making out like bandits.  We lose our homes AND we pay to bail them out.  But whatever….that’s another conversation (the gist being that it really ISN’T the bad mortgages that are causing banks trouble, otherwise bailing out the people would be a more logical economic and political solution).

What the continuance of Wall Street bonuses really means is that pay for performance is a myth, and that is what it has to do with my job (HR Consulting).  Pay for performance is the idea that each is paid (in some measure) according to what they contribute.  If you do better, you get more.  A bonus (since it is a BONUS and not part of regular pay) would be linked to some performance measure and if you meet that measure then you get the bonus.

This is where it gets a little human on us:  The bonuses are largely paid out anyway (people set goals attainable within the normal flow of work, or managers “adjust” for externalities, etc.)  In effect, bonuses are not pay for performance (otherwise Wall Street wouldn’t get any)….they are really just a part of base pay.  In a good year you may earn 100% of a potential bonus; in a poor year you may still earn 75%.

Merit pay increases work the same way:  The average salary increase is 3.5% or so a year.  The average merit increase for good performers is 5%; top performers 7%.  In other words, there is only a 4% difference in pay increases between those who are just drawing paychecks, and those who are the best of the best (the best of the best do get promoted though).

Anyone who’s ever worked in corporate America knows the top performers are worth 10x or more than the average worker.

Of course there is the issue of measurement (how do you know how much more someone is worth?), and the issue of fairness (would you work next to someone doing your job that is making 10x more than you?), and the holdover from manufacturing/assembly line era of pay where a warm body is a warm body…anyone can pull a lever or start a machine, so everyone should make the same.  And then there is simplicity:  its easier to largely pay people the same.

Anyway, don’t blame Wall Street for their bonuses for the most part….its just part of salary.

At work things are good. I have a new job, which isn’t all that different from my last one. I enjoy coming to understand how work gets done though. Its a weird mix when people come together to do something and then a hierarchy emerges for who asks what to whom to get things done. I have learned a lesson I think about work. It might just apply to the technology development sector, but I suspect it applies to all large projects of a technical nature: coordination costs are HUGE.You have no idea the amount of effort that is spent trying to inform all relevant parties of stuff that other people already know…but you can’t ask those that already know because their calendars are already full the entire day. In other words, the cost of coordination have grown to the point that some people don’t do anything at all anymore…they just know general info that other people don’t have the time to know.

The value chain runs in a trickle from these people. They know what needs to be done…but because they’re in meetings all day, they can’t do anything really. They just trickle bits of relevant information to those below them, who further elaborate in trickles to those below them, until we actually get a usable output at the very bottom.

But those at the bottom aren’t even close to being equipped with the information to do it all on their own. It requires the small inputs of those above, in their small areas of expertise, to get to the bottom. The rub is that those above are only adding small values at each point in the chain. Each value add is small; which means each person at the top of the chain isn’t doing all that much, but their decisions require more and more information to make, which require more coordination costs…more meetings….more nothings.

All these people could be replaced by maybe two or three people that REALLY know how to do their work. This means people that have done perhaps all the jobs in the chain over a multiple year period. The problem is that these people don’t exist. No company can keep people working in a particular business long enough to staff the talent they need.

I always say, “Shit…I’ll take you, me and Johnny Smith…and we can do the work of all 15 of those clowns, and still go home at 3 o’clock everyday…and do it better.” And that’s true. But I could never get those three people to all work with me for any significant amount of time, because people that really know what they’re doing are in such demand that you can’t have a significant number of them working on the same project.

The staffing will always be terrible unless you find a way to pay (in some form, even if its not in $) these uber-producers. I don’t see any companies that are able to do that because its so hard to tease out who is actually driving the project. People know informally, but I’ve never seen a company that pays for it.

Imagine a low level manager where the pay is generally around $40,000…except some people, in the same job, are making $70,000…almost double. It’d never work. The other managers would get upset if they found out others were making so much. You’d need an airtight measurement system for incentives that everyone believed in. Most work is so fluid there is no way to measure that extra productivity…at least currently.

Here is a good idea for Google: they should try to figure out how to measure it.

Current metrics suck for large scale project related work. Its so hard to tease out who is driving results. Google had the same problem with the Internet: its so hard to tease out what someone means when they search for something. They figured out a better way.

They should figure out a better way to search for “who is driving results on this project”. Maybe it could be based on some weighted average formula of “number or emails sent to and from, number of meetings called/attended, number of rows of code written, number of phone calls to and from, number of mentions in other people’s emails, number of project tasks assigned, complexity of work (a tough one), # of positive mentions in the performance reviews, etc, etc”. Of course, the formula would have to be a secret or people would try to manipulate it (which happens with the current Google search). Regardless, its possible.

On all other fronts I am just chilling. I have posts coming on CYA, women and the workplace, and the placebo effect.

Making goals and working towards them is good right? Everyone says so. It is true that the goal oriented “get” more than others…that makes sense. Purposefully going in a direction will more likely get you in that direction that not trying at all. You’ll never accidentally end up with exactly what you’ve always wanted…right?

Well….maybe. It depends on where you want to go. Ever hear “You’re never lost if you don’t care where you are going.”? Travellers used to say that, and it worked quite well for me in those days.

I rarely fretted over how to tackle a new city; I didn’t worry whether I would see everything. In fact, a lot of times I didn’t try to see anything at all. In Paris, it is true I made a point to see the Louvre. But in Valencia, for instance, what exactly do you need to see? Most cities are more like Valencia than Paris.

I usually ate, and drank some coffee and when I felt good I would start walking and talk to people when they looked interesting. I didn’t miss anything in Valencia, because I never knew what there was to see. I just walked down a street and when it ceased to interest me I would turn and go down another street. Years later someone would ask, “Did you see La Catedral de Valencia while you were there?” My reply: “I don’t know. Show me a picture.” I haven’t the slightest idea what I saw and what I didn’t….although I likely saw alot (or maybe not).

So that is one extreme: The “you’re never lost if you don’t care where you’re going” camp.

The other extreme is: A goal achieved necessitates another goal planned….otherwise you have no goals. Ever read the myth of Sisyphus?

That’s the common wisdom: 1) State your goal to everyone that will listen, 2) make a detailed plan with a timeline including beginning, middle, and especially an end, 3) have short term achievable milestones that can be measured, and 4) find people to hold you accountable.

So I did that when I started the corporate life. I said I wanted to work in this Talent/HR Effectiveness consulting group. I told everyone, even the people I currently work with….which was weird to tell you boss and boss’s boss that you don’t really want to do what you’re doing…..but still, I didn’t care. I had a GOAL (which is what I’m supposed to have right?).

I slowly worked toward it, meeting everyone I could in consulting, asking them what kind of experience would help me, asking their story, trying to stay abreast of the business, learning when jobs came open, meeting the right HR people. I didn’t meet my original timeline, nor the next one…but I kept at it.

It is frustrating when most of it was out of my control: I can’t make positions open; I can’t make myself more qualified than the other candidates (since I can’t control what experience they have). In my current role I couldn’t get relevant experience (since the two businesses do very different things). I also cannot go outside the company to get the experience (if they won’t hire me within the company to do it where I know people and have a proven track record, what would make another company hire me without those things?). I was basically asking for a special favor (and businesses don’t often give out favors).

Regardless, I know how goals work. If you stick with them long enough, keep doing something/anything to move towards them, and are sincere in your efforts……something will happen.

And it did. After 3.5 years…..I caught a break. In January I’ll be transferring internally to work in consulting. The story of exactly how it happened after 3.5 years is actually a really good one…but I’ll save it for later, since that isn’t what this post is about.

Very, very few people have made the transition from what I do now (sort of tech project mgt) to HR Effectiveness consulting. Its like being a water treatment expert and wanting to move into politics. Not a logical jump. I had a lot working against me, and pretty much only persistence working for me. Also, I can’t recall ever having a stated goal like this and then it taking so long to achieve.

It should be all the sweeter then right? I overcame signficant obstacles. I’ve been wanting it for a long time. I got a little lucky. I get on a long term career path I think will suit me better.

Uhh…no. Actually, I don’t feel all that much better or different. I feel a bit anxious now that I have to “put up or shut up” so to speak. A lot of people stuck their necks out to get me the job over others who were probably more qualified on paper. I have to return to the bottom of the totem pole, which means working long hours, and getting all the shitty work. I didn’t really get a raise. It was a lateral move in that respect.

I also don’t think I will be any happier in a year or maybe even two. I might be a little happier; however, I could never be sure as I don’t know how happy I would’ve been had I stayed in the other job (I don’t know what the opportunity cost is). I think I will work with some smarter people (smarter in the way I want; I work with smart people now too.) and eventually do more interesting work, but again…there is no way for me to know the opportunity cost of what I left. My new line of business isn’t growing as fast as the one I’m in currently, so there won’t be as many promotional opportunities in my new job…..but its a great transferable skill to be in front of clients and have billable hours (you go from a cost to a profit center).

In short, there are some good things about it….and some bad things. That’s no different than life at most any juncture.

So what good is it to constantly struggle to achieve a goal if it makes you no better off? Well, it does sort of make me better off…in some ways…but what it doesn’t make me is any happier, or any more satisfied. And isn’t that what you’re aiming towards? I think it is.

When people say, “Yeah, but what good is your new car?” even if you answer something vacant like “It will get me hot women,”…the next question is “Ok, why do you want hot women?”…then you can say, “Because it’ll make me look cool (or whatever you want to answer),” then the next question is “Why do you want to look cool?”….the answer is “Because it makes me happy or more satisfied.” Happiness, contentment, satisfaction is at the root of most of your motivations (that don’t have to do with basic needs of food, shelther, etc.).

Happiness is a strange thing though. Everyone knows that I have a fascination with Happiness. I put it in capitals because I mean happiness as a science. My fascination stems from the knowledge that my life is pretty darn good, yet I seem unable to be happy with it….whatever “happy” might mean to me (which I’m not so sure about anymore….maybe I AM happy?). I think I can safely say I know as much about the study of Happiness as all but those who actually do research on it (psychologists, economists, sociologists, etc).

Happiness is circular in many cases. If you think a cool car will make you happy, then it likely will. It doesn’t matter that your motivations are shallow or even incorrect. It is a brain trick. Happiness is whatever you can tell yourself you’re happy with. Otherwise you’re on the hedonic treadmill and always keeping up with the Joneses.

Achievement is the hedonic treadmill. It is Sisyphus pushing his rock.

Humans acclimate very, very quickly to a change in circumstances. On the downside we don’t appreciate our ever improving lives (or even winning the lottery). On the upside, those who are crippled or blinded in adulthood quickly return to their previous average happiness level. Again on the downside, though we don’t really appreciate the incremental improvements all that much, we do become stressed by constant un-improvements.

So what did I enjoy over the last 3.5 years? I enjoyed being good at my job (my current one which I will no longer have). I enjoyed some of the people I worked with (who I will be leaving). I enjoyed playing tennis. I enjoyed food, music, and doing things with my friends. I like ice cream and cheesecake. I like my computer. I like singing.

So is there a point here? Yeah, a little bit.

I remember someone asked me one time in an interview, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” (yes, apparently people really do ask that question).

I said, “I don’t believe in 5 years plans because I don’t think anyone can plan that well. Life has too many variables You limit yourself by focusing too much on one outcome and disregarding other opportunities that may be beneficial.”

He replied, “Do you not have goals then?”

(Of course I did have goals, but that isn’t what I answered.) I said, “I believe in heuristics. Life is more like chess than an engineering project. In chess you know your end game…its checkmate. But when you start the game, you don’t know how you’re going to get there. You make a few moves, and then do whatever is best from that spot based on your rules of thumb: control the middle of the board, attack pinned pieces, don’t attack early with your queen, etc. Life is like that….identify a few useful rules that work for you, and stick with them….always re-evaluating where you are currently based on those rules.”

I repeat the answer now because I think it is the right one: Forget about your long term goals. You will achieve them (and be no happier) or you will not achieve them (and be stressed by your failure). Better to focus on what you like, and what you’re good at….then do more of that. The rest will take care of itself.

Ok, enough of that. I have said all these things before and yet I still make goals, maybe because it makes life more interesting even if not more satisfying. It is also empowering to think I have a say in my future. It will not, however, make me any happier.

Today I went to the bathroom to take a dump.  I thought back over the previous three and a half years I have worked in this building.  I have never seen a stopped up toilet here…ever.  How is that possible?  Toilets get stopped up.  It is a fact of life. 

The toilets here are the same as in other commercial buildings, bars, and restaurants.  It cannot be that these toilets get stopped up less than other toilets due to design or plumbing.

Also, I do not think that these toilets see less traffic.  In fact, due to the number of people I know work here and the fact that they are here all day (as opposed to a few hours for restaurtants, bars, shops, etc), I think these toilets see more traffic than most toilets that I see stopped up occasionally.

I do not think it is the case that these corporate toilets do get stopped up as often as other toilets in high traffic buildings…just that the maintenance crew cleans them up before I actually get to see the mess.  I would say toilets are paid more attention in bars, restaurants, shops, gas stations (unless you’re at the “lone highway” truckstop in the middle of nowhere.  These toilets are stopped up because people don’t care.  I think these types of gas stations are outliers.).  People who run restaurants, shops, and bars know that the toilets tend to get stopped up and check them often since an unusable toilet may mean a non-repeat customer.  For a corporate toilet, we have to use it everyday.  We have no choice.

I don’t think its that you eat or drink at other establishments (and so that causes messier toilets since your digestive system is involved).  People eat often before coming to work (both at breakfast and lunch).  They don’t drink before coming to work, but that really only causes puking, and so isn’t useful for other means of toilet blockage.

I also do not believe, and so am ruling out, other scenarios…like perhaps people are cleaning up their own mess in the corporate bathrooms, or that they call maintenance right after it happens because they are so conscientious.  I don’t think so.

I am left with only one plausible scenario:  Corporate employees are “better” shitters.  They do not stop up toilets.  They do not puke in toilets.  They do not use too much toilet tissue.  At least they don’t do so with the frequency of the people that habit the other establishments.

I am not really attempting to make a value judgment.  I can’t think of a great, compelling reason why corporate employees would be cleaner toilet users.  I’m not going to comment on the “why”s, just that this is the hypothesis that best meets the observed facts.

Perhaps its just at my company?  I don’t have the data for other companies.  Maybe if corporate employees went to other public restrooms they would be poor toilet users (that doesn’t sound right though)?  Do employees of private companies differ in any way in their toilet use (perhaps they are even better, although its hard to be a 3.5 year run of perfect)?  Anyway, the experiments needed to confirm my hypothesis are impossible to run and wasteful since it really doesn’t matter, but it is interesting.

I came to the conclusion that corporate employees are better shitters simply because I can’t think of any other conclusion that fits better.  Can you?

I participated in this research. It was alot of fun. I sat in on a few of the interviews with the companies themselves. I helped write up some of the summaries that the judges panel used to select the top companies. I got to sit in on a few of the internal meetings with the talent consultants where they talked about the findings/areas of interest in this year’s research vs past year’s.

I was amazed at how much some companies do to develop their employees. Of course, there is a lot of self interest involved there, since they aren’t really doing it for the employee’s benefit, but that’s fine…both parties are getting something out of it.

It also struck me that a lot of companies have the same programs and practices around developing leaders, yet the way it plays out is far different. Its like someone saying “Exercise is one of my top 3 priorities”. That may mean 1) its a top priority (as is winning the lottery), but you don’t do anything with it, 2) I exercise a few times a week, am fit, and put fitness below loved ones and work in my list of priorities (which means its up there, but not really all that much compared to the other two) or 3) I spend a significant amount of time (25% to 35%) on this priority and I bring it to the table as an important topic in all discussions.

Almost all the companies that participated in the study answered that Leadership was one of their top priorities, but very few of the companies actually spent alot of time on it (from senior leaders down to line employees), linked leadership development to measurable goals/financial incentives, and brought it to the table daily as an important topic.

Lots of companies have Leadership Development Programs (LDPs…so many companies have them that there is an acronym for it). A) Some just send some employees to a classroom for a week or a day to listen to current thinking on leadership. B) Some have senior leaders lead those discussions (which is more effective). C) Others (the best) have senior leaders bring real business issues to a hand-picked group of high potential employees. Those employees, with the senior leader business sponsor facilitating, are given time and company resources to map out a solution to the issues. They then implement it, write up a case study, and share results. The LDP has an alumni group ongoing that keeps in touch and provides support to current participants and each other.

Option C takes a lot of time and effort. The company I work for (which did the research) is probably somewhere between <non-existent> and <Option A> on the leadership continuum. As they say, “Those who cannot do, teach (or in this case: consult).”.