Serve to Lead®

How I Came to Respect Bob McDonnell

Bob McDonnell's blow-out victory in the Virginia gubernatorial contest is, deservedly, making national news today.

I'm not acquainted with the governor-elect. I've not met him.

Nonetheless, I came to have great respect for him through a serendipitous encounter several years ago.

I was seated on the aisle of my row on a cross-country flight. The middle seat was empty. At the window was a young woman, in her twenties.

She was a person of manifestly high energy and intelligence. She was heading to meet up with a group of her girlfriends.

We began to talk, and I was fascinated by her experiences. She served in the military, in the Iraq War. She struck me as a person of memorable poise and equanimity.

She is Jeanine McDonnell, daughter of the governor-elect.

When I read the Washington Post reports during the late campaign, dredging up a school paper of McDonnell's--written more than a generation ago--I smiled at the memory of meeting his daughter. She is the best imaginable refutation of the implications of her father's adversaries, that he is at odds with strong, confident, accomplished women.

Jeanine McDonnell doubtless learned many important things from her parents; one expects that Bob McDonnell learned more than a few things from his daughters.

Congratulations to the McDonnell family on their day of electoral triumph. It would not be surprising if the nation hears more from them in the years ahead.

Highly Recommended: Adam Werbach's 'Strategy for Sustainability'

Adam Werbach has written an outstanding book on corporate sustainability strategies. I recommend it unreservedly for anyone interested in joining the conversation on this vital topic.

Werbach is a public relations executive with Saatchi & Saatchi, and a former advocate with the Sierra Club. This is reflected in the book's emphasis on stakeholder engagement.

Werbach eloquently argues that sustainability is best understood in the context of stakeholder engagement; as such, its implications are broader than sustainability per se (he characterizes this as expanding from "green" to "blue.").

In my view, Werbach is exactly on point. Understood in this way, effective sustainability strategies and the innovation they require and occasion, are most likely to be meet and exceed expectations when they are tightly aligned with stakeholders.

Werbach's book is subtitled "A Business Manifesto." This is accurate. It is not so much a cookbook, filled with ready to apply recipes. There are, to be sure, plenty of anecdotes included. Nonetheless, those looking for off-the-shelf corporate (and especially small business) programs may find other sources to be more pertinent.

Werbach's book adds value is in laying forth ways of thinking that underly effective sustainability strategies. If you are persuaded, as am I, that the most effective sustainability strategies are part and parcel of an enterprise's core value proposition--and are reliant on ever enhanced stakeholder engagement--you will likely welcome the evidence, passion and provocation of Werbach's entry in the increasing shelf of sustainability titles.  

Werbach ends at what I regard as the inevitable destination: sustainability as a leadership issue. I have more of my own thoughts on this coming out soon.

Highly Recommended: Andrew Winston's 'Green Recovery'

Andrew Winston is a corporate consultant and the co-author (along with my friend Dan Esty), of the well-received Green to Gold.

His new book, Green Recovery, is a welcome update. Winston positions his fine new offering as presenting the case that sustainability (that is, environmental and energy practices consistent with broader community responsibilities) is a key driver for the recovery from the current recession.

Winston offers four approaches to organize and prioritize green thinking:

--Get lean: Invest in energy efficiency, waste reduction and other quick-return strategies, and use the cost savings to fund innovation. 

--Get smart: Gather data on your environmental footprint throughout the value chain, and use the data to identify priorities, encourage creativity and support employee engagement. 

--Get creative: Encourage staff to ask heretical questions and implement strategies to nurture innovation.

--Get engaged: Galvanize your staff by making a real commitment to sustainability, and encourage alignment with core business goals by linking performance to key metrics.

With a plethora of actionable anecdotes illustrating the ongoing "greening" of corporations worldwide, Winston's book is useful for anyone in this field. Green Recovery may find a notably receptive audience among those seeking to awaken key management decision-makers to the sea change in attitudes toward energy and environmental issues underway among many of the most successful companies.

Smart coroporate sustainability strategies are, increasingly, not only a matter of corporate leadership, but survival. Winston adduces irrefutable evidence that enterprises who ignore or shortchange sustainability issues are doing damage to their shareholder value, in the near-term as well as long-term. 

I recommend this outstanding book most highly.

Should Management Have a Professional Code of Conduct? Angel Cabrera Weighs In.

Will teaching ethics in American business schools raise the standards of corporate conduct?

Is ethical conduct compatible with creating shareholder value?

In Business Week, Thunderbird Global School of Management President Angel Cabrera weighs in.

Breathtaking Interchange on Wall Street, Washington & the Citizens They "Serve"

A recent Bill Moyers programincludes a notable interchange between Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, and economist Simon Johnson, formerly of the International Monetary Fund and author of some widely read articles on the current financial crisis in The Atlantic.

What do you think?

HT/Patrick.net

Will Costco Find Competitive Advantage in Ground Beef Testing?

The recent New York Times series on the tragic consequences of E. coli risk from ground beef has prompted progress: Tyson, one of the nation's largest beef suppliers, has reached an accord with Costco.

Costco, as noted by the Times, has taken the step, apparently encouraged by not required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, of independently testing for E. coli after delivery.

Will Costco receive a competitive boost from the favorable publicity about its protective testing requirements?

Will its competitors--such as Wal-Mart--soon follow suit?

Here's betting they will follow suit.... and the corporate bean counters who doubtless discouraged such testing as unjustifiably costly may have to do some reconsideration.

In today's Information Age, good news travels fast and can create significant value--and missteps can be costly, even if technically not out of compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.

How is Social Networking Affecting Corporate Sustainability Functions?

Join the discussion at the National Association for Environmental Management Green Tie blog.

Brilliant NYT Column by David Brooks: How Best to Lead Innovation?

David Brooks' column in the New York Times today succinctly frames a fundamental fault-line in today's national debates: how to promote innovation.

Isn't this found also in differing approaches to management of all organizations?

In the 21st century, with information widely available and networks constantly created, this issue is becoming, if anything, more important, more universal.

Do you find that organizations--and those who head them--are most effective in gathering information, and coming up with solutions, responses? Or are they most effective when they foster management approaches that enable others to come up with solutions, responses?

In 21st Century, Small Aussie Town Can Lead World on Environmental Protection Strategy

A small Australian town bans appallingly wasteful plastic bottles of water from its shelves.

Now, via the Internet, stakeholders across the world will be roused--from local citizens, to government agencies, to politicians, to environmental groups, to bottled water purveyors, to plastic bottle manufacturers, recyclers, and all manner of creative entrepreneurs. 

This is very interesting--get ready for it to be emulated in America, as well as in nations with strong protections for local glass bottlers (including brewers) e.g. Germany. The capacity of a faraway town--in this case Bundanoon, Australia--to have a worldwide impact--is extraordinary in the digital age we're pioneering.

If they can do this today, what can you do?

In Terrific New Book, Luft & Korin Present Actionable Plans to Free USA from Strategic Dependency on Foreign Oil

One hundred and fifty years after the discovery of oil in the U.S. gave rise to the global oil industry, two of America’s leading energy security experts present a compelling plan to diminish the strategic value of oil through competition, fuel choice, removal of trade barriers on alternative fuels and other domestic and international free-market-based solutions.

In their provocative book Turning Oil into Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice, Gal Luft and Anne Korin, co-directors of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) and co-founders of the Set America Free Coalition, argue that energy independence is not a function of the amount of oil we consume or import; it's about turning oil from a strategic commodity second to none (as salt once was) to just another commodity (as salt is today.)

As the sole means of food preservation, salt once determined the course of world affairs. Technology - canning and refrigeration - stripped salt of its strategic status turning it into just another commodity, something to be bought and sold that no longer has geopolitical importance.  Turning Oil into Salt describes how we can do the same to oil, whose strategic status stems from its virtual monopoly over transportation fuel. The book addresses the following questions:  

• Why can't we drill or conserve our way to independence?
• How are China, Brazil, and Iran leapfrogging to energy independence and leaving America behind?
• Why do competition and the free market - rather than Soviet style central planning  - hold the key to independence?
• How can we bring down the cost of batteries?
• Ethanol: scam or panacea?
• How can we run our cars on CO2?
• What will be the strategic energy commodities of the post-oil era?

To order click here.

"The Bible for everyone who is serious about energy and national security. A seminal work." Robert C. McFarlane, former National Security Adviser  

"A small masterpiece -- right on the money both strategically and technically, witty, far-sighted, and barbeques a number of sacred cows. Absolutely do not miss this." R. James Woolsey, former CIA Director