West Wing, Season 1, Episode 3. A Proportional Response

“West Wing” was a GREAT television series. It was well written; filled with enviable, collegial relationships, high drama and tension, humor and poignancy. The dialogue was fast paced and edgy. So fast at times, you might miss some really significant commentary, like this one between Josh Lyman, the Deputy White House Chief of Staff, and Donna Moss, his senior assistant, after she presents him with some copy:

Josh: “Donna, Insuccessful?”

Donna:  “What’s the problem?”

Josh: “I don’t think we’re allowed to make up our own words.”

Donna:  “Oh and like there’s no chance it’s a typo?”

Josh: “Change it, would you? Serious people are going to read that.”

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, when the subject of a program is our government, the president and his staff, and how political parties operate and handle critical issues ranging from world crises to serving its citizens at home, a line about typos may not seem like the most important focal point. That is, of course, unless you’re a writer, live by the written word, and hold good writing in high esteem.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m reading anything -- a book, a magazine article, a blog, an email – if I come upon a typo, it jumps out at me, I stumble, I can’t move on, at least for a good two seconds or more, which is a long time when you’re reading to relax, or trying to understand the meaning of someone’s thought which they took the time to document. I’m stunned, even appalled when this happens. And yes, guilty of perpetrating the same act on more occasions than I can count.

I am equally as appalled when I do this myself and discover an error after I’ve sent the email, issued the press release, or printed the brochure. Proofreading is an art in its own right, and even the best proofreader can certainly slip up. But come on, there’s even spell check to help us out now. I find myself rereading what I’ve written, even an email, repeatedly, trying to avoid this transgression. Some might say, “What a waste of time.”  Perhaps it is.

However, in my view, if anyone is going to take the time to read what I’ve written, I want it to be perfect. I want them to understand exactly what I’m saying. I take this very seriously, because serious people, many of whom I respect, often read what I write. I owe them the chance to read something all the way through, without stumbling and wasting their time on deciphering a typo.

How did Google become a verb?

As the “Stocks” app on my iPhone shows Apple approaching $500 per share, I can’t help but notice that Google has risen to over $600. I thought that kind of stock bubble had burst a long time ago and brought us all plunging down to reality in a most painful way. Still, it made me wonder – “How did Google become a verb?”

So I decided to take a closer look at how they’ve progressed over time. This quickly led me to their vision statement, one of my favorite topics when it comes to understanding how great companies evolve. I’ve written about corporate vision already in “Can You Say Where  You’re Going?” But as a great case in point, it seems to me that Google has nailed it: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

This is a great example of not just how clever or captivating a vision statement can be, but how effective it could become in a company’s trajectory. Effective as in, something that guides and shapes a company as it grows; something that tells employees how to think and what to care about even when no one is looking over their shoulder. Google is an example that illustrates how a well articulated vision can help a company grow into something truly remarkable, instead of just being one of the crowd.

When Google arrived on the scene, there were already a lot of Internet search engines in play. Infoseek, Overture, Excite and Netscape come to mind -- all of which either died on the vine or were absorbed by other search engines. Yahoo! was already around as well. But Google overtook them all through word of mouth because of a unique approach to search -- harness humans, through the presence of links on their web pages, to do what computers were bad at: rank the relevance of search results.

But let's face it, Google has become much more than a search engine.  And frankly, their vision statement played a big role in what they are today.  Originally, Google started as simply a better search engine.  Imagine if they had focused their energy solely on search, a la: "The internet is out there, and we're going to continue to find ways to search it. We'll crawl it faster, we'll discover new ways to rank the results, and we'll come up with creative ways to display the results."  You can imagine their leadership saying this in company meetings and in press releases.  And after years of talking like that they'd have...  a search engine.

But instead they put their finger on "organizing the world's information". Now they're not just satisfied to search the Web that's out there, they are insatiably collecting all the data they can get their hands on. They collect every search request, every keystroke, and every buying preference that comes their way. Not satisfied there, they scan books, newspapers and magazines in an effort to digitize all content that's ever been created. 

And they organize the data they collect. Take Google Maps. What does that have to do with search?  Not a whole lot, but it is a great way to organize the data after you've collected it.  Privacy concerns aside (which definitely have to be considered), these guys are collecting data in unexpected places and doing amazing things with it.  They can even track the flu faster than the CDC and are using that for the public good.  . Here’s a link to one article about how they’ve managed that feat; it appeared in Nature in 2009, “Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data.”   

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/archive/papers/detecting-influenza-epidemics.pdf

The list of examples seems endless when you consider all the Google products that are out there. But even more importantly -- at least for those of us who are interested in how articulating corporate vision can inspire and build greatness – almost all of Google’s products would not have been created had they only focused on search.  Almost none of them would have been created had they not started with a great vision for their company.

Why do CEOs fail?

Here’s a headline that should grab the attention of every CEO that stumbles upon it: “The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives.”  This provocative lead is from a recent Forbes article by Eric Johnson:
www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/02/the-seven-habits-of-spectacularly-unsuccessful-executives/

It is based on the research of Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He published his book “Why Smart Executives Fail” eight years ago. Eric Johnson goes on to warn that the seven habits, listed below, can be found in current leaders considered to have achieved wild success for their companies and themselves. Through the course of my career, I have witnessed many of these traits in CEOs. Sadly, some of these companies which had good products, and even more importantly, good people, essentially disintegrate.

The seven habits, with what I think are the key takeaways, are:

#1 They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment
Unlike successful leaders, failed leaders who never question their dominance fail to realize they are at the mercy of changing circumstances. They vastly overestimate the extent to which they actually control events and vastly underestimate the role of chance and circumstance in their success.

#2 They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests
Instead of treating companies as enterprises that they needed to nurture, failed leaders treated them as extensions of themselves.  And with that, a “private empire” mentality took hold.

#3  They think they have all the answers
Leaders who are invariably crisp and decisive tend to settle issues so quickly they have no opportunity to grasp the ramifications. Worse, because these leaders need to feel they have all the answers, they aren’t open to learning new ones.

#4   They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn't completely behind them
CEOs don’t need to have everyone unanimously endorse their vision to have it carried out successfully.  In fact, by eliminating all dissenting and contrasting viewpoints, destructive CEOs cut themselves off from their best chance of seeing and correcting problems as they arise.  

#5 They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company
Instead of actually accomplishing things, they often settle for the appearance of accomplishing things…When CEOs are obsessed with their image, they have little time for operational details.

#6  They underestimate obstacles
Part of the allure of being a CEO is the opportunity to espouse a vision. Yet, when CEOs become so enamored of their vision, they often overlook or underestimate the difficulty of actually getting there.

#7  They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past
Instead of considering a range of options that fit new circumstances, they use their own careers as the only point of reference and do the things that made them successful in the past.