Well, I am very uncomfortable with the state of leadership in the world today. I think it too often is appalling. The crisis I am referring to is due to semi-conscious people in powerful authority who have no visible sign of leadership perspective.

Greed and superficiality appear to be vogue. The threat of reprisal is commonplace. But, who are the so-called “leaders” kidding? I’m stumped. Who feels well-off with the current leadership collusion among C-Suites, Wall Street and Washington, DC – where current economic realities collide with human sensibility, and polarities enlarge?

What is a successful hedging strategy for this mess? Perhaps we should ask an acknowledged hedging master, the current chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. – and until recently, the darling of Wall Street. On a recent “Meet the Press” television program (MSNBC-TV), Jamie Dimon impressively defended his bank. Yet, speaking of the debate in Washington, he complained about attacks on successful people.

I’ve always found it distasteful when the word “success” is used as a synonym for being monetarily wealthy. The use of “success” in this way reflects a prejudice that distorts personal worth, social fairness, and collaborative spirit. This subtlety is at the heart of common “leadership” distortions. Dimon accepted over $20 Million in annual compensation and described himself as a strong believer in collaboration. We live in very strange times, indeed! Perhaps we need a neo-leadership language guide.

So, listen to yourself. (“She/He is very successful.”) Are you in a leadership role and you think “success” is being disproportionately rich? Try vetting that “success” with the teachers of America, or fire fighters, or the post-crisis asthmatic, or the homeless parent who holds a full-time job, or the Eagle Scout, or the kid who surprised his soldier father by walking into his arms.

If you study the quotes collected about success, few have the superficial – it’s-about-the-money-stupid – perspective. Even Success Magazine agrees. So, isn’t it frankly disturbing that so many high income and high net worth “leaders” fail to embrace a higher success standard?

When people in leadership positions fail to have adult perspectives, we are in a sea of philosophical poverty. Leadership is an adult endeavor. It is about worthy goals (i.e., worthy, not selfish) and core human values. When C-Suite executives rationalize “success” as mollifying money mania for “leaders,” we are in the company of adolescents.

You deserve better. Now, what are you prepared to do about it?

The rich getting richer during the Great Recession and the growing inequity tarnishing the American Dream are suck-sess. Let’s grow up and pull together! 

[Fritch Consulting facilitates business growth by collaborating with leaders who are striving with core-values to insightfully "do the right thing."  I write and speak out of my deep concern for the current crisis of integrity in leadership, with the hope of creating a more discerning conversation and promoting effective action. I encourage you to Comment (below) or contact me directly: bruce@fritchconsulting.com.  — Bruce W. Fritch]

I hustled him through his bedtime rituals, and soon, fresh from a bath and with clean teeth and a smile, he lay in bed. I held a book and he proudly practiced reading to me. Then: lights out, snuggle up, you are so great, you’re so very loved, sleep well…and he is off to dream about tomorrow. In the morning, we will go to his favorite place, a grand new art museum with a kids’ space for creative play. He fell asleep, a happy boy expecting a happy day.

Children ground us, remind us of our eternal purpose, and renew our lives. He is one of the reasons I feel like Benjamin Buttons. He plays with me, in my heart.

Contemplations, with uncanny timing, inhabit us in open-hearted moments. Thus, not long after kissing him good night and gently closing his bedroom door, I found myself reflecting on the families of children who were lost in horrible tragedies in recent days. Of children in Afghanistan, bluntly executed near their beds in the night, by an American soldier. Of a boy in Florida walking home and chatting up his girl friend on his cell phone, shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer who had been warned to not pursue the boy.

Life is, indeed, a series of divine training rooms, and we do not graduate from one without absorbing the lesson there, and demonstrating the requisite know how and skill. Some of the curricula is completely puzzling.

Why do children die so? Nothing can justify such aggression. They were conscious acts, the deliberate shooting of these children by adults. Were the killings the result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? Clearly, severe stress was way too present in those fateful, horrible last moments.

I imagine the boy in Florida had a nighttime ritual that included affectionate goodnight blessings with family, and hopes of a happy day to follow. I visualize the murdered Afghan kids being tucked lovingly into bed by parents, and told to sleep well…that tomorrow will be here soon.

Indeed, we are shocked by contrasts of our relatively peaceful lives and the tragedies we behold. And then — we’ve all seen it — the tragic story is no longer “news” and it fades into oblivion. There is a part of me that wants to move on to the “new news,” too. But, these stories keep arising in my awareness, in my thoughts, in my gut. I really don’t want to forget these children who were so brutally stopped, so savagely and so very, very soon.

In the morning, at the new Mint Museum in Charlotte, I will watch my grandson with greater sensitivity, more alert to the nuance of his experience. I will hold his hand with new respect for who he is, not just for who he is becoming. I will take the witnessing of children as a privilege. I will learn from them in present moments, not casting my gaze to their older days. Now is the time of intrinsic blessings, like silence in a stand of Redwoods. You may have known that. I will live more consciously, now. I am so looking forward to his smile in the morning!

What is the presence of PTSD in your life? In your family? In your midst? I see most people are unaware of their trauma, and what they acknowledge goes untreated. Personally, it is something I am dealing with very seriously. It can only be treated consciously, with skill and sensitivity. 

Proper treatment of PTSD works miracles. Let me know if you’d like to learn more.

[Fritch Consulting facilitates business growth by collaborating with leaders who are striving with core-values to insightfully "do the right thing."  I write and speak out of my deep concern for the current crisis of integrity in leadership, with the hope of creating a more discerning conversation and promoting effective action. I encourage you to Comment (below) or contact me directly: bruce@fritchconsulting.com.  — Bruce W. Fritch]

Now, what are the most remarkable products? That’s a list we can name with specific goods or services that surge to the front of our experience. They are probably recently used and nearby, truly distinctive, solidly competent, work exceptionally well with flares of insight about what pleases me, and are viserally rewarding to use. They might be expensive, but are so wonderful they are relatively value-priced.

My list might include the Suunto Core sports watch, Audi automobiles, uni-ball Impact RT Retractable Bold Point Gel Pens, Tumi luggage, Nikon D7000 DSLR camera with Nikon 50mm f1:1.4G lens, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, BlenderBottles, and Pandora.com. Then, again, Apple has its own product lineup on my “best” list: MacBook Air computer and Thunderbolt Display, iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and AppleTV (the best value in fun tech/gadgetwear for $100!). [No, I was not paid to mention any of these products. I am delighted to do so.]

Each of these products was designed specifically for me — or, so it seems! Let me put it this way: None of these products was designed by innovators who passionately believe the stockholder is more important than the customer — I’m sure of that!

A revealing article appeared in the New York Times today, written by Greg Smith, entitled “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs.” Mr. Smith appears to be an example of someone who retained perspective about customers and stockholders, long after the erosion of  core values in his midst.

Such is the stuff of greatness when applied to product development and leadership. Powerfully resolving the three key buyer questions and designing absurdly great may look naive to business cynics, but this is the cutlass-in-the-teeth commitment of those who know how to reap robust referrals in the marketplace.

When it comes to product development, the delight, loyalty and robust referrals of customers must be the focus!  Is your product development team sufficiently clear about that? 

[Fritch Consulting facilitates business growth by collaborating with leaders who are striving with core-values to insightfully "do the right thing."  I write and speak out of my deep concern for the current crisis of integrity in leadership, with the hope of creating a more discerning conversation and promoting effective action. I encourage you to Comment (below) or contact me directly: bruce@fritchconsulting.com.  — Bruce W. Fritch]

Never underestimate the value of talent for creating insanely great anything.

In the story of Steve Jobs’ obsession with “insanely great products,” we may be struck by the unusual insistence he applied to “getting it right.” There was the account of Jobs’ father, who showed the formative young Steve that work quality and integrity counts, and it is important that the back of the fence be finished as smartly as the visible side.

Later, there was the time when Apple Inc. was on the brink of failure, and the unremarkable call would have been to cut back and milk the existing products. Instead of draining prevailing products or hastily bringing new products to market, Jobs defined core product lines, eliminated the misfits, and insisted on product design that was truly and remarkably distinguishing.

Jobs did everything possible to assure the new products would merit robust referrals in the marketplace, and he did not take the cheap route. He intended to create insanely great products, and so there was an obsession with getting it right.

Today, there is an attitude infecting some new product development thinking that assures mediocrity rather than excellence. This thinking seeks an easy way out of the hard work of innovation and design, and the end in mind is blind, contracted and selfish. It is not limited to fat cats and dopers. Today even clean-cut, well-intentioned entrepreneurs who are foolishly naive are practicing it. It is a form of entitlement mentality – a moral blindness – and it robs innovation of elevation in the marketplace.

Here are secrets that can help you avoid this trap:

• Set your new product development sights on creating insanely great knock-your-socks-off service, and jaw dropping, awe-inspiring customer experiences. Aim high and work hard; if you fall short you will probably eclipse the result of mediocre thinking.
• Be willing to make a significant new product development investment to get it right. It generally goes very badly when the authority financing new product development does not understand the implications of insanely great. 
• Set new product development budgets based on insanely great rather than insanely shallow. Found money may be directed to new product development, but the venture will fail if the easy money is insufficient to develop the product’s potential. It is far more business-like to conscientiously budget the resources needed to reach the insanely great goal. To illustrate, if the upside potential for an insanely great product is over, say, $3,500,000, it may be non-sense (i.e., short sighted or greed biased) to limit the new product development budget to the $50,000 a customer is willing to pay for a pilot.
• Make a fair estimate of the budget required to get the product up to the insanely great level, and be willing to augment found money with additional cash investments to get it right.
• Be very alert to the insightful brilliance, vision and tenacity of the product development talent needed to successfully reach insanely great. In my experience, this is not a training problem: so it is in their DNA, or it is not. If not, you have a talent-recruitment problem. Alternatively, if so (blessedly), you will have a talent-retention problem after the Champagne and confetti are cleaned up. Always opt for a talent retention problem.
• Never forget this: Being cheap, disrespectful, ungrateful or abusive with talent that is capable of insanely great is the most foolish and convincing way to learn the inevitability of karma – whether you scoffed at it previously or not.

Leadership is about worthy goals and being of service. Practice makes permanent. If you cheap out on innovation of all kinds – and new product development, specifically – you will set the cultural auto-pilot to “Mediocrity.” 

How do you lead your culture on the trajectory to insanely great? What’s your speed and bearing?

[Fritch Consulting facilitates business growth by collaborating with leaders who are striving with core-values to insightfully "do the right thing."  I write and speak out of my deep concern for the current crisis of integrity in leadership, with the hope of creating a more discerning conversation and promoting effective action. I encourage you to Comment (below) or contact me directly: bruce@fritchconsulting.com.  — Bruce W. Fritch]

I believe the global economic recovery will take longer than is forecast and longer than any normal person desires. Politically, we are witnessing acts that resemble the presumptive choreography of circus clowns, but nothing that indicates leadership for creation and implementation of a “righting arm.” Sustainable economic recovery is possible, but it will require large amounts of new business innovation and viable market demand.

Let’s begin to review the requirements in practical terms for new business innovation that triggers market demand.

For the design and development of new lines of business, fundamentally the aim is to stimulate and move the market demand curve for the new product. This entails assuring that the three key “buyer questions” associated with any purchase decision are resolved satisfactorily:

1. Awareness of need: Why buy?
2. Awareness of solution: Why by from you?
3. Motivation to take action: Why buy now?

The demand [curve] for anything is based on buyers’ perception, and action to shape the relevant perception is framed in the three buyer questions, above. The most powerful way to amplify perception that moves market demand is with voluntary, glowing and robust referrals from happy customers.

The referral is the prospect or customer’s testimony about the distinction perceived in the purchase experience, the product experience, and the related service experience.

The most savvy product innovation and design begins with this “end” in mind, and works to merit and motivate those generative, robust referrals. Optimally, innovative product design and marketing planning occur simultaneously. This is fun, energetic, creative work, with a generative process and outcome. In fact, if we aren’t having fun when we visualize, characterize and act out the robust referrals we wish to create, the result may miss the mark, and we will fail to create a marketing plan with the sufficiency of insight and lift needed to shift market demand. Here, insight, empathy and persistence are essential for the achievement of truly great products.

Are you limited by the naivety of quick rewards and superficial means?  Has disproportional income made you lazy?  Or, are you prepared to persist to the point of empathic understanding and insight necessary to design a great new product and successfully introduce it to the marketplace?

We will continue to examine what it takes to increase the probability of success with new product innovation and design. 

[Fritch Consulting facilitates business growth by collaborating with leaders who are striving with core-values to insightfully "do the right thing."  I write and speak out of my deep concern for the current crisis of integrity in leadership, with the hope of creating a more discerning conversation and promoting effective action. I encourage you to Comment (below) or contact me directly: bruce@fritchconsulting.com.  — Bruce W. Fritch]

The main drag, Bridgeway, parallels the sailboat festooned marina. On a conspicuous street corner is the popular Taste of Rome café. There, on a morning, one orders breakfast or coffee served by Brittany, the most remarkable barista de café on the planet. She is strikingly, humanly, an attraction! She delivers excellent food and beverages, but it is her attitude that attracts people — draws them magnetically — into the place.

If smiles, gestures and talk were luminous threads of gold, she weaves experiences of heart-filled distinction for each customer. No one is ignored her grace. The woman is a dynamo of cheer that triggers reciprocity. I ordered a medium very chocolate mocha (“You got it!” she said, like I owned the place) and it triggered a relational appreciation that was infectious long into my day.

Later, I spoke with my host — a dear friend who lives in architectural splendor on hillside stilts — about the woman who serves at the café, and before I could finish my friend extolled recollection and appreciation about the Paragon of Attitude. Clearly, I’d discovered a known treasure.

The next day, my host and I took a morning stroll on the boardwalk by the marina, and intent on stopping for coffees, we burst into appreciation for the treasured woman at the café. We could have spent the time otherwise.

On entering the café, I saw the woman was being of service, balancing lattes and bagels, and so I greeted her. She’d served me only once before, and in the same sentence convinced me I was recognized and told my friend that she’d start “her favorite” — a medium extra wet latte — and the woman was quick, and accurate. As we chatted with The Most Remarkable Barista on the Planet, a burly Russian Sausalitan witnessed the scene appreciatively, and said he was allergic to caffeine and the only reason he comes there each morning is the woman who serves black coffee and new possibilities.

She told us it flows from her choice of awareness at the start of every day. She chooses indomitable heartfulness. Really large, with extra foam! “You got it!!!”

Inside us all is a pulse like her’s…this being of service heart that transforms days and visions. 

How do you influence such possibilities in people? What is your strategy for generative action?

Sadly, reverence is somewhere off-stage today, jammed into a box in some civic storage facility for a social fee. There, we keep the nostalgic things, and stuff we are just too lazy to handle but we suspect still have value. Like reverence.

You remember reverence, don’t you? It’s about deep respect for someone or something. Somehow, we’ve lost respect for the word, and “reverence” makes us feel uncomfortable outside of a religious context. We live in a world lacking respect. Respect is due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others: respect for human rights.

“Leaders” who cause trauma are partly to blame. Yet, if we aren’t practicing a strong set of core social values (like fairness and reciprocity) that preempt gregarious greed, we play a role in this, too. When people imitate arrogant, selfish leaders, they get what they deserve, and this is very difficult to reverse.

We must be discerning about the company we keep and where we place our reverence. Lofty aspirations are less important than attending to worthy and virtuous actions. The company we keep and the discernment we bring to our attention and attendance is of primary and disproportionate importance.

Feeling deep reverence for your politicians or corporate executives, lately?

If so, write and tell me who they are and what supports your reverence. I’d like to feature them appreciatively.

[Fritch Consulting facilitates business growth by collaborating with leaders who are striving with core-values to insightfully "do the right thing."  I write and speak out of my deep concern for the current crisis of integrity in leadership, with the hope of creating a more discerning conversation and promoting effective action.  Your viewpoints are appreciated and I would be happy to continue the conversation — so I encourage you to Comment (below) or contact me directly: bruce@fritchconsulting.com.  — Bruce W. Fritch]

Each of us has the ability right now to discern context in the table talk that shapes our leadership year. Context is “what it is about” — it is the space being filled, the theology for the thought or act or deed, the background that gives perspective and meaning, the paradigm. Context gives reason to intention. It is a consequential conversation in 365 parts.

Contextual clarity is a prerequisite to leadership effectiveness.

We may have the ability to stop supporting the context of corruption. We can choose to support organizations and leaders that pursue appropriate mission and vision with appropriate contextual perspective. The so-called Arab Spring appears to be about this shift of support. So does the success of Apple, on the one hand, and the trials of Bank of America and the U.S. Congress, in contrast.

The truth can assemble itself in self-justifying stacks. We so desperately want our leaders to be meritorious, that we actively indulge in truth-bending political correctness to make their stack appear noble or innocent or righteous, when too often they are simply selfish and corrupt. Is it any wonder that their stack gets larger and larger, while others fail to grow proportionately.

The culture of any organization is a series of coincidental agreements, and some of these are unconscious. While the C-Suites of American businesses and national governments everywhere may be regarded as overly adolescent, the responsibility is shared.

What are you willing to do to support leaders who do the right thing? Will you hang in there if they fail while honestly trying? What’s your 2012 leadership resolution?

When we are more committed as human beings to being of service to others and the Earth, our actions will emanate from a helpful spirit — and, naturally, from a constructive and truthful context.

[Adapted from the column, Life In The C-Suite in Charlatan Magazine (www.charlatanmagazine.com). My full article is entitled: “Occupy Context: Religion in the Office!”]

Mission – be it organizational or personal – is mystifying to many. And yet, a mission that is well conceived and well executed can be purposeful, differentiating and profitable. When mission powerfully informs action, it is a vital tool for success.

Most people favor mission statements that are brief, to the point, and memorable. I agree, yet every mission statement regardless of length should trigger curiosity and prompt conversation.

My mission is to support extraordinary leadership. Since you are reading this, my guess is: we are well matched.

A simple test of mission-orientation is congruence over the course of time.

What is your mission?

Consider this: Mission is the difference one intends to make in the lives of those one serves. If you wish, you can write me about your mission. My email address is bruce@fritchconsulting.com.

So, his commentary on the December 18th broadcast was an arrow to the heart of the matter, a bullseye shot, well earned and well delivered. You can view it here — all one minute and 45 seconds of it.

It begins: “After watching Congress flounder around for an entire year and manage to accomplish nothing, I’ve come up with my own reform plan: Just create a Second Congress…”

Realizing how the self-justification of personal greed and status grandiosity corrupts, Schieffer gets rid of these motivations entirely. His highly focused and functional Second Congress would do the work that desperately needs to be done, while the current Congress — stripped of all authority — would continue to devote itself to ”finding ways to avoid doing anything that actually mattered to anyone but them.”

Do you presume your “constituents” appreciate your leadership? Do you know? How can you be sure? 

Have a competent, incorruptible, third-party researcher conduct a “leadership 360 study.” The feedback you receive from this data obtained confidentially from your boss, peers and direct reports will give you the truth and the consequences, with recommendations for improving your leadership effectiveness.