| Dear Reader,
The "featured leader" is George J. Mitchell, the US Senator, broker of peace in Northern Ireland, and the ex Chairman of Disney, I was lucky enough to spend time with Senator Mitchell at a lunch in California last month - his calm, objective view of things is always helpful and interesting.
The first article is "Judgment and Strength of a Leader" Ram Charan. The second article is "What Would My Mentor Do?"by Mark Goulston. This month's book review is on "Judgment", by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis.
LeaderValues offers a practical values driven approach to leadership development, based around the 4E's of Envision, Enable, Empower and Energize. You can study this model online or contact us for details of our Leadership programs, keynotes, workshops and assessments. We also welcome your articles and contributions for publication. Enjoy this issue!
| Judgment and Strength of a Leader |
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 The greatest psychological challenge in setting and acting on priorities has to do with resource allocation. Whether in a group meeting or through conventional budgeting and capital approval processes, you have to demonstrate judgment and courage in making resource allocation decisions that reflect your business priorities and in following through to ensure that the things that should be happening in fact are. You have to do the analytic work to separate out the facts and assess the opportunities and risks, but you also need to call upon your inner strength and judgment as John did as CEO of his company.
"You know I'm always behind you, John, but I think you're making a big mistake on this one," Art, one of the division presidents, told John during the usual bottom-up, top-down budgeting process. "My division contributes 65 percent of the company's profits and our brands need advertising support. If you think we're fighting for market share now, just watch what happens six months down the road when consumers forget who we are and we can't get on the shelves."
John listened intently to all that Art had to say. After all, Art was experienced, respected, and the strongest leader they had. It was true that Art's division brought in the lion's share of revenues and profits. The problem was that the division was not bringing in what the company needed most: profitable growth. All of the divisions had been hurt by soft markets and currency fluctuations, but Art's business was faced with especially intense competition that was pushing prices down, and it looked as if revenue and earnings would decline for the foreseeable future.
Cara's division, on the other hand, had good margins and was growing. John had combed through Cara's business plan and believed she had positioned the division well to grow faster than the market, but she would need ample resources to keep growing at the current rate.
Read more from Ram Charan.... »
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| What Would My Mentor Do? |
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 Good judgment is one of the four characteristics of successful leaders. But how do you know what the right thing to do is - and when to do it? Even with Sarbanes-Oxley and the pressure for leaders and boards to be, well, above board, we still live in ethically and morally challenged times. Nice guys may not finish last, but until there is clear evidence that some of them are finishing first and doing so because of their honesty, the needle is not going to move very far toward taking the high road instead of the low road.
Can you do the right thing before you know what the right thing is? Where does knowing the right thing come from? Is it instinctual and in our genes? Or is it learned and in how we were raised? Why do the right thing, when doing the wrong thing is sometimes so much easier, quicker, harder to detect -- and something everyone else is doing, too? Why bother making your life hard when you can make it easy?
Taking the time to learn the right thing to do in various circumstances -- and then do it -- is a matter of values more than anything else. If you value winning at any cost, how you play the game won't matter. But putting value on being the best you can be, testing your mettle against the best opponents, and then becoming even better because of it results in your having a winning life.
A couple of years ago I was a speaker at the Annual Association for Corporate Growth's (ACG) Middle Market Mergers & Acquisitions conference in Los Angeles. Arguably the most successful amongst the other perhaps more notable speakers was Michael Heisley, CEO and chairman of Chicago-based Heico Acquistions and owner of the NBA Memphis Grizzlies. Mike has made a career - and a bundle of money - buying underperforming companies and turning them around. The ACG hosted the guest speakers at a cocktail party at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Mike attracted people to him like bees around honey. Everyone wanted his attention. When it was my turn to greet him, something possessed me to ask, "How much of who you have become was due to your father?
Find out more from Mark Goulston.... »
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| Lessons and quotes |
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 "You know, the pessimism which exists now in the Middle East existed in Northern Ireland, but we stayed at it"
George Mitchell
"Although he's regularly asked to do so, God does not take sides in American politics"
George Mitchell
Leadership quotes.... »
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| Book Review from Mick Yates |
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 "Judgment" by Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis
A classic volume on a subject that is not covered enough in the literature, by two well-established leadership gurus. Skipping right to the end, a very helpful part of the book is the "how to manual" of judgment process models, organizing questions, self- evaluation tips and more. Literally a practical guide to improving one's own judgment.
Bennis and Tichy stress that only when the judgment has been executed in the organization or business can it be considered "good". Cato said "When Cicero spoke, people marvelled. When Ceasar spoke, people marched".
The authors suggest that judgment is a contextually- informed decision making encompassing three domains - people, strategy and crisis. In each domain, there is a three phase "judgment process", which starts with a preparatory/contextual phase, moves to making the call, and concludes with executional follow up. They also suggest that good judgment is supported by contextual knowledge of yourself, your social network and of organizational stakeholders. They thus argue against Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" hypothesis. Gladwell suggests that experts do not make decisions logically but use "instant intuition". By contrast Bennis and Tichy argue that relying on intuition has serious perils, and the most cogent decisions meld first impressions with deliberative analysis.
Discover more about this book ... »
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| George J. Mitchell |
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| George J. Mitchell, GBE, was born on August 20th 1933 in Waterville, Maine to George John Mitchell, a janitor of Irish descent, and Mary Saad, a textile worker of Lebanese descent. In 1954 he graduated from Bowdoin College before receiving his law degree at Georgetown University Law Center in 1961. Mitchell served as a trial attorney in the Antitrust division of the US Department of Justice in Washington from 1960- 62, and then as the executive assistant for Senator Edmund Muskie from 1962-65. He then practiced law for twelve years in Portland, Maine, serving for a while as assistant county attorney for Cumberland County.
His political career began in 1974 when he won the democratic nomination for Governor of Maine but lost in the general election to the independent candidate James B. Longley. In 1977, he was appointed as United States Attorney for Maine by President Carter, a post which he served for two years until appointed to the US District court for the District of Maine. Mitchell remained a federal judge until he was appointed to the Senate to complete an unfinished term left by Edmund Muskie. He was elected to his first full Senate term in 1982 where he remained until 1994. From 1989 until 1995 he served as Senate Majority leader and in 1994 he was offered a place on the Supreme Court by President Clinton. He declined this in order to focus on a health care plan that was before the Senate at the time.
After leaving the Senate, Mitchell continued to work in a variety of interesting positions, first returning to law at Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, Mcpherson and Hand (a firm for which he later became chairman). Here he received criticism for lobbying on behalf of the firm's Big Tobacco clients. Some of the work for which he is best known is as U.S. Special Envoy in the Northern Ireland peace process with which he has been involved since 1995. Mitchell began by leading a commission establishing principles on non-violence which all Northern Irish parties had to abide by. He subsequently chaired the all-party peace negotiations which led to the Belfast Peace Agreement signed on Good Friday 1998. His personal intervention was seen as vital to the eventual success of the talks. For this work Mitchell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1999) and the Liberty medal (1998).
Since 2002 Mitchell has been a Senior Fellow and Research Scholar at the Columbia University center for International Conflict Resolution where he is working to help avert and end conflicts between nations. Mitchell is also the founder of the Mitchell Institute in Portland, Maine which seeks to encourage young people from all communities to aspire to and achieve a college level of education.
In 2006 Mitchell headed an investigation into past steroid use by Major League Baseball players. He reported on this in 2007 - and it is fair to say that the report attracted controversy particularly from fans of the New York Yankees. The report included the names of 89 former and current players for whom it claimed that there was evidence of the use of steroids or other prohibited substances.
Adding to his impressive C.V. Mitchell was a member of the board of directors and subsequently Chairman of Disney. He was also a co- chairman for the Congressionally mandated task force on the United Nations, and, as of 2007, becoming a visiting professor in Leeds Metropolitan University's School for Applied Global Ethics. Leeds Met is also developing a Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution bearing his name.
These many achievements are a testament to Mitchell's leadership and (above all) listening skills which have helped him succeed in so many different areas of law and politics. He is truly an iconic and inspirational figure, especially in his vital involvement in globally critical peace negotiations. Will he play a role in some form in the new Obama administration?
Victoria Yates
George Mitchell ....
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