Who will you follow in tomorrow's world?
- Bernie Maddoff, once held up as a role model of old-fashioned values on Wall Street, turns out to be the biggest scamster in history.
- Ramalinga Raju (Asia Business Leader Award 2002), the revered and celebrated CEO of India's software superstar Satyam, brings his career and his company to shame and disgrace.
- 2 of the most respected CEOs on Wall Street - Dick Fuld and Sam O'Neal drive their firms straight into a train smash
I can go on, but you get the drift.
So, who do you trust? If the smartest and cleanest corporate leaders are turning out to be common crooks, who will you choose to follow?
As I watched Jamie Dimon (CEO of JPM) accept the 'Legend in Leadership' award from Yale School of Management, I couldn't help but wonder - is he really ...
We are heading into a severe crisis of trust - in leadership. In 2007, before the current crisis emerged, Harvard University carried out a study to explore the level of trust that people had in their leaders.
On a scale of 1(none at all), 2 (not much), 3(moderate amount) and 4 (great deal), they found the following.
- Only Military (3.15) and Medical (3.02) leaders managed to breach a score of 3.
- The worst sector for leadership was the press (2.26)
- Business leaders were 5th from the bottom at 2.75
Overall, 77% of Americans believed that the country is facing a crisis of leadership.
... and this was before the real crisis even surfaced !!! I shudder to think what results we will see if they were to carry out the same study this year.
Now, almost everything I've said so far is intuitive ... sad, but intuitive. What's not so intuitive, though, is the fountain of hope that drives followership in the world. Its the irrational, downright naive view that otherwise smart people take ... that the world and our leaders will be better in the future.
In the same Harvard study in 2007, when asked the question "Compared to today, do you think that 20 years in the future we will have better leaders or worse leaders?", a whopping 59% of respondents said 'better leaders'.
This is the cool-ade induced view that gives Barrack Obama a 68% confidence rating from the same American people who have just gone through 8 years of the worst president ever. Hope is not audacious, its just the only thing we have.
Something tells me that followership will be alive and well in the post-crisis era as well. We are simply 'eternal suckers' for a smooth voice, a message of hope and optimism, and a nicely tailored suit.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Possible Ways to Make Money in 2009
Whatever benchmarks you may take, 2009 will be awful. Whether you subscribe to the second Great Depression view of Olivier Blanchard (IMF Economist) or the audacity of a trillion dollar fiscal stimuli (Barrack O), it doesn't take away from the fact that we are in for a rough ride.
Recently, I was wondering what I'd do if I were to lose my job (hopefully with a reasonable severance). Where would I put my money? What venture (s) would make sense in this environment? So, I sat down to make a list of the things I would like to do if my career were to be 'freed up'.
Thankfully, I haven't lost my job (yet). But I wanted to share the list anyways. Quick caveat : if you burn your fingers at any of these, don't blame me.
Investment banking memorabilia: could range from photocopies of bonus cheques issued to senior managers over the last 3 years to autographed ex-CxO picture cards with total personal earnings, value destroyed for the company and a range of other trivia at the back. Also includes things like Lehman Brothers door signs, fully discounted CDO certificates and other collectibles.
Bad news re-packaging service: helping senior leaders figure out ways to communicate bad news in upbeat language. The idea is that the company will send us the bad news that they want to communicate to employees and we will put a positive spin on the message to make it sound like a good thing. The service could then be extended to creating upbeat logos for layoffs and pay-cuts and eventually producing speeches, videos, posters, mouse pads, micro-sites and t-shirts etc to communicate the worst news in the best possible way.
Discreet management off-sites: this service will be a great hit with the likes of AIG - we will plan and execute super discreet management meetings in remote but gorgeous islands (like in the Maldives or Seychelles) while ensuring that no-one gets to know of the event. All members of the management team will be taking synchronized leave of absence for the period of the meeting. They will then be whisked away from their homes in top secret vehicles under cover of the night and then transported by unlisted private jets to undisclosed locations for the offsite. At the end of the process, all evidence of the offiste will be destroyed and the managers will be back in office without a clue of where they went. The invoice for our services will read 'miscellaneous charges'.
The online trading game: this is a video game that will be targeted at out-of-job traders itching to make big bold trades but with no real money to do them. The game will simulate a real trading floor environment and will be a multi-player game with an online currency system. The 'central bank' will keep auto-generating 'liquidity' into the gaming environment and players will be able to leverage themselves as wildly as they wish to make huge bets on everything from the price of oil to the temperature at the north pole. Once a player goes 'bust', he will simply be knocked off the system and the 'bank' will monetize his losses immediately in the system. He can then come back into the game with a different user id. Winners will get massive bragging rights and will be elevated to the level of "Big Swinging Dicks" with their avatars splashed all over the site.
Recycling facility for private jets - this facility will take apart private jets sold off by companies getting a bailout from the government and trading the spare parts with commercial airline manufacturers, auto companies (those that survive), university aerospace labs, odd-ball collectors and London's Tate Gallery of modern art.
Hope you like these ideas. If you do, hope you will lose your job in time to execute some of them and make lots of money :-)
Recently, I was wondering what I'd do if I were to lose my job (hopefully with a reasonable severance). Where would I put my money? What venture (s) would make sense in this environment? So, I sat down to make a list of the things I would like to do if my career were to be 'freed up'.
Thankfully, I haven't lost my job (yet). But I wanted to share the list anyways. Quick caveat : if you burn your fingers at any of these, don't blame me.
Investment banking memorabilia: could range from photocopies of bonus cheques issued to senior managers over the last 3 years to autographed ex-CxO picture cards with total personal earnings, value destroyed for the company and a range of other trivia at the back. Also includes things like Lehman Brothers door signs, fully discounted CDO certificates and other collectibles.
Bad news re-packaging service: helping senior leaders figure out ways to communicate bad news in upbeat language. The idea is that the company will send us the bad news that they want to communicate to employees and we will put a positive spin on the message to make it sound like a good thing. The service could then be extended to creating upbeat logos for layoffs and pay-cuts and eventually producing speeches, videos, posters, mouse pads, micro-sites and t-shirts etc to communicate the worst news in the best possible way.
Discreet management off-sites: this service will be a great hit with the likes of AIG - we will plan and execute super discreet management meetings in remote but gorgeous islands (like in the Maldives or Seychelles) while ensuring that no-one gets to know of the event. All members of the management team will be taking synchronized leave of absence for the period of the meeting. They will then be whisked away from their homes in top secret vehicles under cover of the night and then transported by unlisted private jets to undisclosed locations for the offsite. At the end of the process, all evidence of the offiste will be destroyed and the managers will be back in office without a clue of where they went. The invoice for our services will read 'miscellaneous charges'.
The online trading game: this is a video game that will be targeted at out-of-job traders itching to make big bold trades but with no real money to do them. The game will simulate a real trading floor environment and will be a multi-player game with an online currency system. The 'central bank' will keep auto-generating 'liquidity' into the gaming environment and players will be able to leverage themselves as wildly as they wish to make huge bets on everything from the price of oil to the temperature at the north pole. Once a player goes 'bust', he will simply be knocked off the system and the 'bank' will monetize his losses immediately in the system. He can then come back into the game with a different user id. Winners will get massive bragging rights and will be elevated to the level of "Big Swinging Dicks" with their avatars splashed all over the site.
Recycling facility for private jets - this facility will take apart private jets sold off by companies getting a bailout from the government and trading the spare parts with commercial airline manufacturers, auto companies (those that survive), university aerospace labs, odd-ball collectors and London's Tate Gallery of modern art.
Hope you like these ideas. If you do, hope you will lose your job in time to execute some of them and make lots of money :-)
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