Execupundit.com

Monday, February 19, 2007

Lincoln Portrait

Take a break:

Here's a video tribute to Abraham Lincoln, complete with Aaron Copland's composition and Gregory Peck's narration.

I've heard a lot of Boomers talk about the possibility of living out their retirement in Mexico.

Insidemex.com describes itself as the English speaker's guide to living in Mexico.

Of course, if retirement budgets become tighter, then get ready for Insidesudan.com.

Time to Drop Presidents' Day

Today is Presidents' Day in the United States.

No doubt large numbers of Americans will spend most of the day honoring the presidencies of Warren Harding and James Buchanan.

Right.

President's Day is a worthless excuse for a three day weekend and it should be abolished.

The old holidays celebrating the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln should be restored and there should be a serious effort to remember and teach about the greatness of those two leaders.

Quote of the Day

I have no expectation of making a hit every time I come to bat.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Big Brother as Health Coach

Many people may cheer upon reading this Business Week account of the way Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. monitors the health of its employees, but my reaction is negative; in fact, I think such programs are chilling.

Most of us dislike Orwellian Big Brother government.

Why should we embrace private sector Big Brothers?

Steyn on The Surge

Mark Steyn looks at the news media, panic, and Iraq. An excerpt:

The week's news from Iraq: According to the state television network, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was wounded in a clash with security forces just north of Baghdad. A senior deputy was killed.

Meanwhile, the punk cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has decided that discretion is the better part of mullahs and has temporarily relocated to Iran. That's right: The biggest troublemaker in Iraq is no longer in Iraq. It may be that his Persian vacation is only to marry a cousin or two and consult with the A-list ayatollahs, but the Mookster has always had highly sensitive antennae when it comes to his own physical security -- he likes being the guy who urges martyrdom on others rather than being just another schmuck who takes one for the team. So the fact that urgent business requires him to be out of town for the Big Surge is revealing at the very least of how American objectives in Iraq are not at the mercy of forces beyond their control; U.S. military and political muscle can shape conditions on the ground -- if they can demonstrate they're serious about doing so.

Read the rest here.

Book Review: The Go Point by Michael Useem

Michael Useem, a professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, grabs your attention early on in The Go Point: When It's Time to Decide. He analyzes the decisions behind the deaths of some highly experienced firefighters who'd been battling a blaze on Storm King Mountain in Colorado.

Useem's technique is to go on site and trace the key points in the decision trail. At one point, a group of firefighters who are studying the decisions are timed as they run over the same ground that the doomed firefighters had to traverse in their flight from the flames. Most don't make it to the top of the ridge that would have meant the difference between life and death.

Useem notes: However you word it, the odds are good that anyone who has been through the Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program will be far better prepared to deal with two of the three root causes of the suboptimal decisions that plagued leaders on Storm Mountain in July 1994: inadequate preparation for decision making and high stress. Separately, the fire service has attacked the third root cause - ambiguity of authority - by sharpening and better instilling the principles of unequivocal responsibility when on a fire line.

Useem's book contains other examples of decision making that go beyond the board room, such as Robert E. Lee's decision to order Pickett's Charge during the battle of Gettysburg and Roberto Canessa's decisions when he and other passengers struggled to survive the aftermath of a plane crash in the Andes in 1972.

One point that bothered me was Useem's willingness to embrace, in a "When All Else Fails" section, the use of nonanalytical log-jam breakers such as the use of signs. For example, Rick Pitino is trying to decide whether to leave the NBA and coach the University of Louisville Cardinals when a cardinal flies onto the porch and lands on the table in front of him. Pitino took that as a sign. Useem sees that interpretation as a recognition of what Pitino truly wanted to decide. Using signs could be a pretty sizable loophole in any decision making process if all else has not failed and yet, given Useem's condition that all other options have been exhausted, it may be a way of breaking through indecision.

Although Useem's book contains plenty of thought-provoking cases, the section that may be the most heavily used by executives and managers addresses what to do when authority is not bestowed, responsibilities are unfamiliar, analysis is bogged down, agreement is too rapid, thinking is constricted, failure is repeated, and warring factions exist. Michael Useem's templates provide real solutions.

If I were to recommend a single book on decision making, it would be The Go Point. The reasons are simple. Michael Useem has written an interesting, highly readable, non-academic, volume containing guidelines that can be applied to any workplace. His on-site case studies are memorable and, in some instances, haunting.