|
 2007 Hopkins and Company, LLC
Note
re: links---certain hyperlinks assume that you are registered as a subscriber
to the site. If you are not a subscriber to certain sites, the links will
fail. If you register, the links should work. Also, certain hyperlinks expire
and may not be available when you try to go to the site.
Attention
“Attention
must be paid.” Arthur Miller chose
Willy Loman’s wife, Linda, to speak that line in Death of a Salesman. She saw what was
happening to Willy, and wanted her sons and others to acknowledge reality as
she saw it. The demand for attention occupies vast amounts of executive time;
separating the important from the urgent can be challenging. Executives also
demand that attention be paid to their company’s products and services, and
look for ways to accomplish that effectively. Familiarity and homogeneity can
lead to an organization’s insularity, and some major changes can be
overlooked unless attention is paid to what might be different. Breaks in
behavior patterns can lead to greater attention to what’s been overlooked.
The stories in this issue all create an opportunity for readers to pay
attention to the topic of attention, and reflect on how attention can be
improved. So, pay attention!
Fifteen new books
are rated in this issue, beginning on page 5. Three books received highly
recommended four-star ratings; eleven books are rated three-stars, and one
book is mildly recommended with a two-star rating. Visit our 2007 bookshelf
at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/2007books.html
and see the rating table explained as well as explore links to all 375 books
read or those being considered this year, including 21 that were added to the
list in May. If there’s something missing from the bookshelf that you think
we should be considering or if there’s a book lingering on the Shelf of
Possibility that you think we should read and review sooner rather than
later, let us know by sending a message to books@hopkinsandcompany.com.
You can also check out all the books we’ve ever listed at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/All
Books.html.
Dope
Experienced executives
understand that what is presented to them as fact is often a matter of bias
packaged with data that supports one point of view. In looking to find out
the real dope, an executive needs to gather information from multiple
sources, and make an independent judgment in the best interest of the
organization and its stakeholders. The complexity of this process hit home in
recent days when memories of the risk alarms about the drug Vioxx returned after a May 21 online article in The New England Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMoa072761)
about GlaxoSmithKline’s popular
diabetes drug Avandia. The article warned about
cardiovascular risk, and an accompanying editorial (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMe078099)
opined that because of the risk, a Food
and Drug Administration regulatory action was needed. The FDA issued a
warning on 5/21 (http://www.gsk.com/media/press-kits/avandia-fda-statement-alert-23may2007.pdf).
Glaxo issued a statement that disagreed with the
NEJM article (http://www.gsk.com/media/press-kits/avandia-21may2007.pdf),
saying, in part, “The totality of the data show that Avandia
has a comparable cardiovascular profile to other oral antidiabetic
medicines.” The business and popular press picked up on the story and more
than a few of the six million users of the drug since 1999 probably made a
call to their doctor. It took a few days for The New York Times to publish on May 24 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/business/24drug.html)
the results of a reporter’s search of the FDA and GlaxoSmithKline databases.
From that article, you can read about Dr.
John B. Buse, chief of endocrinology at the University of North Carolina in
Chapel Hill, who wrote a warning letter in 2000 (http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/00/apr00/040500/c01.pdf)
to the FDA about this problem. According to the Times, “Dr.
Buse said yesterday that he wrote the letter in
2000 in response to an FDA petition filed by Dr. Sidney Wolfe, a consumer activist, who had asked the agency
to place warning labels on Rezulin, Avandia and Actos. Dr. Wolfe’s Health Research Group, a part of Public Citizen, has long warned
patients not to use any of those drugs. At the time, the FDA was considering
removing Rezulin from the market, and Dr. Buse objected. Rezulin was made
by Parke-Davis, a division of the Warner Lambert Company.” Marketing
practices attempt to differentiate one company’s product from another, and
present a version of the facts that favor the company’s product. You can read
the FDA’s warning letter to Glaxo’s CEO about
marketing practices of Avandia in 2001 (http://www.fda.gov/cder/warn/2001/10215.pdf).
There’s a huge clinical database that Glaxo
maintains and that researchers can use, and from which analysts, regulators
and corporate executives can draw differing conclusions. Buse
and others want head-to-head studies of all the antidibetic
drugs. Consumers in such trials are now dropping out because of health
concerns. Read any or all of these documents and think about how you might
have paid attention, and acted in ways similar to or different from others.
If you were at the FDA, how would you have reconciled all the different
views? If at Glaxo, would the marketing practices have
been different as a result of your involvement? Would your response to the
new study have been the same?
Are you receiving multiple points of
view about the facts that are critical to your organization’s success? Do
those who present your products to the market make claims and representations
that are supported by facts? Is there another set of facts that would lead to
other claims that show risks to your product? Are those risks disclosed?
Pssst!
Organizations look to
chief marketing officers (CMOs) to brand, position,
and present products to the marketplace. An article (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/116/next-most-dangerous-job-in-business.html)
in the June issue of Fast Company
called the CMO the most dangerous job in American business, especially at
consumer products companies. “For the past three years, an annual survey conducted by
executive-search firm SpencerStuart
has shown that the tenure for CMOs at the top-100
consumer-branded companies has averaged a scant 23 months. (By contrast, CEOs
hang on to their jobs for 54 months.) Some sector averages are particularly
grim: If you're in telecommunications, you're looking at 15 months; in the
food industry, you've got about a year.” What are fired marketing executives doing to attract
attention? In the ongoing litigation between Wal-Mart and its fired marketing executive Julie Roehm, she filed a motion in
court (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/walmart-roehm20070525.pdf)
that got a lot of attention because it said, in part, “However, regardless of
Wal-Mart’s Statement of Ethics (“Statement”), many Wal-Mart executives do not
abide by Wal-Mart’s allegedly ‘firm’ policy forbidding conflicts of
interest.” The motion used
examples of behavior by CEO H. Lee
Scott, Jr. allegedly in violation of the policy. The company denies her
allegations. What are CMOs doing to attract the
attention of consumers? The Heath brothers’ Made to Stick column in the same issue of Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/116/column-made-to-stick.html)
talked about word of mouth marketing, and how to turn it into a discipline.
They recommend, “Fostering
the conversation you want customers to have about your products should be an
explicit part of product development.”
YouTube
is one place where those conversations can take place. We read in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/26/business/26content.ready.html)
that some companies that are inviting consumers to make free commercials for
their products are getting interesting results. Heinz has gotten over a hundred ketchup videos in a competition
for a $57,000 prize for the best television commercial. What dialogue is
taking place? Contestant # 138, Dan
Burke, set this strategy: “I just thought to myself, ‘What is the single
strangest thing I can do with ketchup?’”
He chose to brush his teeth and shave with ketchup, then
added it to his coffee. Yummy. You can watch his video at the Times article link above. We read
“Gouging for Eyeballs” in Slate on
5/24 about the huge investments in online advertising (http://www.slate.com/id/2166979/fr/flyout),
“So, the
question for people who invest in the stocks of online-advertising
companies—as Google, WPP, and Microsoft have just done—isn't just whether online ads are the
way to reach consumers today. No, the question is whether online ads will be
among the best ways to reach consumers in five and 10 years, when today's twentysomethings will be buying cars and houses and
kitchen appliances and pharmaceuticals. More important, in 2012 it's possible
to imagine that the brand managers and executives responsible for making
advertising-spending decisions will be people who grew up with the medium,
who didn't need a consultant to tell them how it works. It's a reasonable
expectation that online advertising will continue to gain market share and
that more and more capital will slosh into this sector. The big companies
paying top dollar for online ad firms have just bought some expensive
buckets.”
How successful is marketing for your organization? What
conversations do the users of your products and services have about your
company and its offerings? What do you do to foster those conversations? Are
fired employees creating distractions for your company? How do you deal with
that attention? Are you alert to the ways in which all of your executive
behavior is noticed by others? Are there firm policies at your company that
are selectively enforced? Could your behavior be interpreted in ways that
don’t match your intentions?
Expectations
Unless your workplace is stagnant,
chances are you’ve noticed something different about the workers in their 20s
who are about to dominate the workforce. The May 28 issue of Fortune (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033934/)
contains a field guide to these young workers that merits your attention. “They're
ambitious, they're demanding and they question everything, so if there isn't
a good reason for that long commute or late night, don't expect them to do it.
When it comes to loyalty, the companies they work for are last on their list
- behind their families, their friends, their communities, their
co-workers and, of course, themselves. … ‘This is the most high-maintenance
workforce in the history of the world,’ says Bruce Tulgan, the founder of leading
generational-research firm RainmakerThinking. ‘The good news is they're also going to
be the most high-performing workforce in the history of the world. They walk
in with more information in their heads, more information at their fingertips
- and, sure, they have high expectations, but they have the highest
expectations first and foremost for themselves.’ … they were not promised a
healthy, happy tomorrow. So they're determined to live their best lives now.”
How well do these twentysomethings
fit into your workplace? Are your expectations and theirs aligned?
Noise
The 17-year
cicadas are starting to arrive in the Midwest.
These harmless insects emerge from the ground, mate, lay eggs and create a
lot of noise. Step outside, and you can’t help but pay attention.
How loud does something need to be to get your
attention? Do you step outside enough?
Follow-up
Here’s an
update on stories covered in prior issues of Executive
Times:
Ø
We
passed along in the November 1999
issue of Executive Times the joke
from a reader about how they pronounce “Daimler-Chrysler”
at the German headquarters: the Chrysler is silent. In the March 2007
issue of Executive Times, we noted that a “for sale” sign was put
on Chrysler. We read everywhere in recent weeks that the private equity firm Cerebus Capital Management is acquiring
80.1% of Chrysler under terms that show Daimler received nothing but losses
from the merger. Who’s silent now?
Ø
In
many issues of Executive Times we’ve presented perspectives about talent
management and defining organizational roles. We’ve noted that many senior
executives don’t pay much attention to organizational design and its impact
on results. In the 2007 Number 2 issue of McKinsey
Quarterly, there’s a fine article (http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_abstract.aspx?ar=1991&L2=21)
by Lowell Bryan and Claudia Joyce titled “Better Strategy Through Organizational Design,” that presents a fine case
for spending more time in this area. The article is adapted from their new
book Mobilizing
Minds that we added to our Shelf of Possibility a few months ago.
Legacy
Voice
Some
executives gain attention whenever they speak. One individual gave voice to the
unspoken concerns of millions, and encountered controversy almost every time
he spoke. At the time of his recent death at age 73, Reverend Jerry Falwell
was remembered for both voice and controversy. The Lynchburg, Virginia
Baptist preacher spread his voice with a daily radio show, “The Old-Time
Gospel Hour,” that later moved to television. He founded Liberty University
in 1971 to become a national school for fundamentalist Christians. He founded
the lobbying organization Moral
Majority in 1979, by drawing a line in the sand on social issues
(claiming virtue on his side, vice on the other), and attracted individuals
from many religious traditions to join with him on a broad agenda of
pro-life, pro-American, pro-moral values, as Falwell
defined them. The Reagan election in 1980 and the conservatives elected to
other offices that year have been credited in large part to the work of Falwell and the religious right in getting conservative
Christians to register and then vote for the candidates who concur with their
moral values. Moral Majority fizzled away after a decade, perhaps because it
never represented a majority. Falwell was a
lightening rod for critics, and his comments often invited controversy. In
1999, he told an evangelical conference that the Antichrist was a male Jew
who was probably already alive. He warned parents that a character on Teletubbies was a gay role model and morally
damaging to children. A few days after September 11, 2001, Falwell blamed gays, feminists and liberals for bringing
on the attack by their immoral behavior. He later apologized. In short news
cycles, the missteps can become more important than the institutions founded
and the changes initiated. Falwell’s legacy has
been in giving voice to evangelicals, and showing them a way to engage in
public arenas. His missteps have also shown others how they need to avoid
certain controversies in order for their voices to be heard. Attention can
bring both help and harm. Voices with positions different from Falwell’s and who consider their views moral are also
speaking and voting. There’s a lesson there for all.
Latest
Books Read and Reviewed:
(Note: readers of the web version of Executive Times can click on the book covers to
order copies directly from amazon.com.
When you order through these links, Hopkins & Company receives a
small payment from amazon.com. Click
on the title to read the review or visit our 2007 bookshelf at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/2007books.html).
|
Title (Link to
Review)
|
Author
|
Rating
|
Review Summary
|
Purchase
|
|
A
Perfect Mess
|
Abrahamson,
Eric and David H. Freedman
|
***
|
Tidy. Authors meander through a premise
that things may be done better through disorder rather than via neatness
and order. Readers fixated on one way of acting will learn that
alternatives can work better.
|
|
|
The
Alexandria Link
|
Berry,
Steve
|
**
|
Sham.
Mind-disengaging summer
reading with fast moving plot, if readers can overlook inaccurate history,
preposterous premises and poor character development.
|
|
|
Mysteries
of the Middle Ages
|
Cahill,
Thomas
|
***
|
Guide. Like a wise history teacher, Cahill
presents in this primer patterns and trends to show the foundation in
medieval Europe of treating women with
dignity, the scientific method and realism in art.
|
|
|
Sick
|
Cohn,
Jonathan
|
***
|
Personal. New
Republic editor chronicles the stories of citizens for whom the health
care system hasn’t worked, and illustrates why changes must be made.
|
|
|
The
Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel
|
Crais, Robert
|
***
|
Protector. In this fast-paced crime thriller,
the sidekick from earlier novels takes center stage as he agrees to pay off
an old debt by protecting an heiress from harm.
|
|
|
Inheritance
|
Danford, Natalie
|
***
|
Unraveling. Fine debut novel full of descriptive
language and engaging characters alternates between past and present as a
daughter unravels her father’s secrets after his death, and decides what
they mean for her.
|
|
|
Napoleon’s
Pyramids
|
Dietrich,
William
|
****
|
Adventure.
Packed with
historical accuracy of Napoleon’s campaign to Egypt, this is a fine
historical novel packed with action and entertaining adventure, not meant
to be taken so seriously as to be boring.
|
|
|
Bento
Box in the Heartland
|
Furiya, Linda
|
***
|
Nourishing. Memories and recipes of the foods
from childhood that lead to the recollection of stories of the child of
immigrant Japanese parents growing up in Indiana in the 1960s.
|
|
|
Fragile
Things
|
Gaiman, Neil
|
***
|
Prolific. Collection of 32 stories and poems
that display the author’s originality, imagination, and ability to write in
the style of others.
|
|
|
Better: A
Surgeon’s Notes on Performance
|
Gawande, Atul
|
***
|
Practices. Essay collection provides insight
and depth into the practices that can lead to improved medical performance
in a variety of areas.
|
|
|
Practical
Negotiating
|
Gosselin,
Thomas B.
|
****
|
Systematic. A workshop on negotiation in print
form, field tested by the author through decades of experience. Change your
thinking and actions on negotiating after reading this useful book.
|
|
|
The
Carrot Principle
|
Gostick, Adrian and Chester Elton
|
***
|
Recognition. Packed with loads of ideas, based on
research results about what works, on how to make workplace recognition
effective.
|
|
|
The
Senator and the Priest
|
Greeley,
Andrew M.
|
***
|
Siblings. Prolific and life-affirming novelist
presents the rivalry between a freshman liberal senator and his older
brother, a conservative priest, as an opportunity for healing in a family.
|
|
|
Heart-Shaped
Box
|
Hill, Joe
|
***
|
Justice. Skilled and restrained debut novel provides
suspense, horror, developed characters, and creativity. Characters are
motivated to achieve justice, one way or another.
|
|
|
Deep
Economy
|
McKibben, Bill
|
****
|
Changes. Our economy built on “more” is
leading to environment crises, so author proposes ways to promote
sustainability, an economy built on “better.”
|
|
|