James Drogan

Not that we needed a reminder, but…

Nardelli Resigns as CEO, Chairman of Home Depot

By Ann Zimmerman, Mary Ellen Lloyd and Joann Lublin Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Word Count: 1,133 | Companies Featured in This Article: Home Depot, General Electric

Home Depot Inc. said its Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Nardelli agreed to resign after six years capped by controversy over his large compensation, his autocratic management style and Home Depot's lagging share performance.

Under his 2000 employment contract, Mr. Nardelli will take a $210 million severance package with him as he is replaced by Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President Frank Blake.

The news sent shares of the home-improvement retailer, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, up 3% in midday trading. The stock traded at $41.43, compared with Friday's closing price of $40.16. It was at $43.75 ...

America needs to get a handle on this outrageousness.

Further,  and perhaps more fundamentally, it may be that the B-schools and others, and the inculcation of culture that takes place in corporations, is insufficient to establish admirable character and honor in executives. 

This morning, Metafilter alerted me to145 educational lecture podcasts  available from Productive Strategies.  A quick scan shows suggests that many of these to be potentially useful.  For example, American Environmental and Cultural History ESPM 160AC from Berkeley.

Two things strike me about this.  First, the willingness of the university system to make learning freely available.  See MIT OpenCourseware for another example.  Second, the manner in which technology, especially podcasts, is transforming communications and learning.

Re Conversations with Dave 

One of the things I always want to do when thinking is to draw pictures. I suppose this comes from my degree in applied science, some experience in what one might loosely call the fine arts (water color painting), and my early efforts at systems engineering.

In this case I’m suggesting that an investment in time/effort results in the acquisition of knowledge and a subsequent return on the investment through the actions predicated on that knowledge.

The return line is anchored at the origin and rotates counterclockwise or clockwise depending upon one’s capacity (greater or lesser, respectively) to absorb and internalize the knowledge. The length of the line is a function of the commitment one makes to the investment. Lifetime learning is represented by long lines.

One could, I suppose draw, at worst, a horizontal line indicating the level of knowledge required to resolve certain issues. At best, I suspect this line probably rises as one goes from left to right. The three box model was satisfactory at one time, but the five box model is to be preferred, and someone has had had the temerity to suggest five is not enough.

The investment line suggests that there is a limit to the amount of investment that one is willing (boredom arrives) or able (the decision window has closed) to make.

In the second case, external forces are tending to push the limit set by the decision window to the left. Unless one changes the return line one will, over time, have less and less knowledge available to resolve increasingly complex issues. I think the decrease in the size of decision windows is an unstoppable force. The only thing that one can do to cope is to rotate the return line counterclockwise.

By the way, it ought to be obvious I’m making this up as I go along. I’m not exactly sure where this is going, but I hope to come back and remove this paragraph.

Hence, what we need is to find a way to rotate the return line counterclockwise. I understand the line may shorten (an implication to be worked through later).

I see only two ways to do this. Improving the K-12 educational system, at a minimum, but also extending this to improvement into higher education (at least to the Masters level). We have discussed this at some length.

The second way is to improve collaboration. Technology helps here, but there is also a change in mind set required. My experience is that you can dump a lot of pretty smart people into the SIDAL process, but they will not necessarily form a high performance team. The notion of collaboration ought to be on our discussion list.

Oops, a third way pops up. Increase the return by focusing only on relevant knowledge. That, of course, is what fact-based hypothesis-driven reasoning is all about. And this calls into question the value of the Great Books (this alone ought to provoke some sort of response from you). Eruditeness may, in fact, be a burden in the future world. On the other hand, those that traffic in imagination, to whom you refer in the last part of your note, may be of great value.

As to the matter of boredom, the option here is to find a way to make the seemingly boring actually exciting. That’s what good teachers are all about. I think we can agree we have too few of these.

However, I think there is and will always be the need for the person that understands the picture to be made from all the little pieces. Where are they to be found? How are they to be nurtured and retained?

Maybe Homer and Great Books do not fit with Modern Life.  This may be seen as in opposition to what I have often maintained prior to this note. Indeed, I think it may well be. If Homer and the Great Books can be considered as representative of the knowledge of the person that understands the picture to be made from all the little pieces, then I what I am leading towards this person as the composer, orchestrator, and maestro (COM; acronym is required because I sense I’m going to come back to this idea). We need more of these.

And we need the members of the orchestra, the specialists, for which Homer and the Great Books are not what is required.

Now the following should come as no great surprise.

Over time, as technology and our understanding of collaboration has developed, the COM (the single box) can direct an increasing number of specialists. Collaboration is not represented, in my mind, by blogger babble, but rather by such things as open source and wikipedia. The COMs must understand and must apply Homer and Great Books while the specialists should be content with the Red Books (IBMese).

What seems so straightforward, blissful even, is set upon by culture, Maslow’s Hierarchy, myopia, and all the related diseases that hinder our ability to pay attention, to listen and hear, to understand, to practice tolerance, to accept and, ultimately, to work in a more positive way for the common good. There are, as you have often pointed out, cures for the diseases if only the patients will be willing to take the waters.

So there you are. It’s all about incentive. Unfortunately, incentive generally arrives when one is under duress (think IBM in the early 90s). In the pace of today’s and tomorrow’s world that may well be too late. It becomes harder and harder to get on top and stay on top of the wave. I’m pretty sure that we in higher education are not dealing with this as effectively as we ought.

All this does not, in my mind, obsolete SIDAL.

It does suggest to me that we ought to moving towards structures characterized by a (large) number of small, fast SIDAL cycles operating in a collaborative, associative manner (much like the brain?), all under the direction of COM.

I think I can see this and how it would work. Doubtless there are existing examples of this construct. The critical issue is getting from here to there. I think this requires significant behavioral change on the part of a significant number of people. Ah, yes, there we have that word again – change.

Anyway, enough of this screed.

Re Conversations with Dave 

I think I was being too subtle (oops!) with ‘Why does “Interestingly and ironically it's still quite accurate, XML hasn't replaced EDI and levels of implementation and penetration are still very low not to mention building on the simple infrastructural foundation to actually change and improve the business process.” continue to be true?’

Let me be direct.  You tend to be very critical of how organizations and individuals perform in the sense that their approach is not aligned with what you would do.  The implication is that if they would only listen to you and implement your recommendations, then substantial improvement in performance would be possible.  I can’t avoid this either.  Mary reminded me one time that it is called Baruch College, not Drogan College.

They are a point A and you are at point B.  A hypothesis for this gap (by the way, have you ever read Stephen Donaldson’s gap series?) is that they may have very good reasons for not going to B.  In points 6 and 7 of your note you speculate on some of the not-so-good reasons.  But suppose they have taken a good, hard look at point B using generally accepted tools and techniques, and have concluded they don’t see the value that you see.  What would then be the basis for continued criticism?

Why aren’t the investment bankers lined up at your door?  Why aren’t senior staff and faculty waiting for me every morning when I get into the office?  If you and I are so damn good, why aren’t we running things?

John Travolta, playing Michael in the movie “Michael,” says something to the effect that that “angels can’t change the world, they can only work small miracles.”  Maybe we should be content with the small victories.  Ah yes, the starfish.

“Matters of business sytem assesment and change management are left as an exercise for the student” if the student has been properly prepared.  That’s our task as experienced wanderers of the world.  And our task is to find a way to break through, to open the mind, to open the soul, to the possibilities.  At times, the onus is on us to change our ways if we expect others to change their ways.

I remind my students of these Principles of Communication.

1.    The grammar and syntax of the messages being exchanged are understood.

2.    The information communicated in the messages is relevant.

3.    The medium of communication is acceptable.

4.    There is a desire to communicate.

5.    There is confirmation of understanding.

The way I see communications is that it’s passive and active, it’s inbound and outbound, and one’s responsibility in communication does not end with pushing the send button.  My communication failures (e.g., 12 of 20 students in my on-line MIS class received Incompletes this term.  A first.) can usually be traced to my forgetting one these principles.

Perhaps we lack a good comprehension of the risk/reward/pressure structure in which key decision makers operate.  And it is this poor comprehension that causes us to rant and rave.  Perhaps the reasons we cite for lack of progress are only symptoms of something deeper.

This prompts me to call to your attention the front page article from yesterday’s WSJ, Inside Mulally's 'War Room': A Radical Overhaul of Ford.  You and I would applaud, I think, Mulally’s attitude and actions.  Where are the other Mullalys of the world?  What is higher education and, even more importantly, business doing to develop executives of this caliber?

Here’s a chart from one of my lecture notes.

I draw your attention to the last line, especially the last word.  You and I would, I think, agree that the battles in which we engage are mainly being fought at the level of culture.  Fascinating, frustrating and something that I’m not sure I’ve suitable experience to properly contend with.  But I keep at it.  And every once in awhile, voila, a small miracle.

Today’s coda comes from the Bible; “Physician, heal thyself.”

This 0p-ed piece from today's new York Times was a revelation.

Perhaps the revelation was of my own naiveté.   That is that the politicians would pay influential and not-so-influential blogs to pander to them.

Some of these blogs I read on a regular basis and I don't recall any notion of fair disclosure on these blogs. 

Perhaps this is not illegal behavior, but surely it must be unethical. 

 This came in the mail on Friday.  This sort of marketing, introduced during the holiday season and in America, strikes me as a very sad.

More can be found at Despair, Inc. 

Earlier I had a brief blog entry regarding Dubai Posts World seeking to buy into American port operations.  Today's New York Times brings an article on a similar initiative by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund.

It will be interesting to watch the politicians at work again, particularly now that the Democrats are in power in Congress. 

The title of this post are the words that attracted me to an outrageously funny, very well written piece in the November 21, 2006 New York Times, p A4, Book Lovers See Lovers, Buttered or Plain.  If you like intelligently phrased irony, the sort frequently associated with the Brits, have a peek.

I'm also drawn to this, I suppose, by the discussions I'm having with my friends at the Schwartz Communication Institute, regarding styles of communication.

On the evening of November 21 I participated in a conversation with Baruch graduate students in Prof. Karl Lang's class on Globalization and Technology.  It was a wonderful experience for me, and I hope for them.  I always like interesting discussion with interesting people on interesting topics.

My preparatory notes for this discussion may be found here. 

While I'm not widely read, there are a hardy few that  tune in from time to time for the mutterings and musings of a meandering mind.

October was taken over by my family and deep emergence in institutional matters.

The nauseous run-up to the first Tuesday in November has dominated the news and has provided little stimulus for comment.  However, in retrospect, I wish I had kept all the campaign literature that had arrived at the house.  My sense is that it represented unhealthy values and behavior that,  sad to say, we citizens seems tolerate.  And, oh yes, there are those automated, soul-less telephone calls; "Hello, I am calling with information on..."  Why, oh why do we put up with this crap?

The real motivation for this post is to call attention to US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud, brought to my attention by Boing Boing.  Speeches from John Adams to W have been analyzed to indicate word usage.  It strikes me that that there is a fantastic history/culture/values lesson lying in wait.