In honor of the return of Mr. Soprano

I'm a Sopranos rube, thus found this to be an interesting article. It shows that the "right" techniques and motives in terms of leadership can be separated from "effective" techniques.

http://www.businessknowhow.com/growth/soprano.htm

Tony Soprano’s Leadership Secrets
By Rob Spiegel
Business management gurus have long mined historical figures for guidance on the principles of effective leadership. You can find management instruction culled from the lives of history’s leaders such as Lincoln, Attila the Hun, even Jesus of Nazareth. Yet one of the best examples of leadership effectiveness comes from the world of make-believe: Tony Soprano.

Tony Soprano, crime-boss and family patriarch of HBO’s The Sopranos, demonstrates successful methods for leading a team and forging beneficial, productive long-term relationships. Here are just a small handful of winning leadership strategies Tony has utilized over the past four television seasons.
When in doubt, assert yourself. Tony is well aware that he doesn’t have all the answers, yet even in his uncertainty, he forges ahead with bold action. He proudly claims that more is lost by indecision than by wrong choices.
Relationships are everything. Tony is well aware that this principle swings both ways. Strong, positive relationships are a great asset in business as well as family. Likewise, weak, undefined and conflicted relationships can produce profoundly negative results. So, while he bolsters strong relationships, he also works to end or transform negative relationships.
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Be careful where you speak frankly. All conversations are not for all ears. A slip of the tongue, even casually, can foster misunderstandings and undermine the team’s confidence in its leader. In Tony’s case, loose lips can get you killed.
Manage by wandering around. Whether he is at the Bada Bing strip joint or eating dinner with the troops at Arte Bucco’s Vesuvio Restaurant, Tony checks in with his team and lends his hand in a wide range of management decisions simply by being available. He is also quick to create distance if any of his lieutenants or soldiers takes advantage of this access by leaning on him too heavily.
Mentor the young – they will support you in your old age. Tony mentors his nephew, Christopher Moltisanti, just as he was coached by Jackie Aprile. The process of coaching the next generation ensures a relatively smooth generational transition, and in Tony’s case, Christopher will help support his family if something unpleasant happens, just as Tony helps to support Jackie’s widow.
Trust the messages of your dreams. Before Tony decides to whack his betrayer, Big Pussy Bonpensiero, he has a series of nightmares that spell out in images what Tony has difficulty accepting consciously – Pussy is a snitch. Upon awakening from his dreams, Tony double-checks the validity of his suspicions, then takes care of Pussy. Our subconscious sometimes knows what our conscious mind refuses. Tony correctly trusts that his dreams are a key to deeper truths.
Go ahead and mix family with business. Immigrant families have long understood the power and trust available in family relations. Though Tony’s family is three generations beyond immigrant status, Tony still draws on family members as a source of reliable business associates.
Go ahead and mix business and pleasure. Though the idea is counter-intuitive, Tony uses the blend of business and pleasure activities to deepen team bonding. Besides, when your work consumes your life, as it does with Tony, if you don’t mix business with fun, you won’t have much opportunity to find pleasure in life.
Deny everything. As Groucho Marx once said, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” Tony has perfected his ability to deny his misdeeds with powerfully convincing indignation. This helps him smooth out difficult confrontations. Though the tactic doesn’t work in all cases, it works often enough to keep it in the management tool box.
Tony Soprano may be an unconventional business leader, but the success of his management methods are undeniable. His has created a multi-million dollar enterprise that is grounded in reliable principles of human relationships. Try them out and let us know whether they work to improve the quality of your own business endeavors.

CEO Reading Lists Have Fewer Celebrities and More Big Ideas

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117607481386363571.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

Don't expect a map to the future.
The latest business books, like those of prior years, promise to help managers do everything better -- from building strong teams and winning customers to achieving robust profits. But management reading lists this year don't include tomes by celebrity executives. Instead, readers are seeking advice on the nitty-gritty tasks of running companies, analyzing complex data to make smart decisions and expanding undervalued assets.
"We're in a back-to-basics era with the names of many of the same authors still on best-seller lists," says David Hathaway, a book buyer at Barnes & Noble in New York. "There's no book by a big personality like (former General Electric CEO) Jack Welch on the horizon, and it's a challenge trying to find the next big hit," he adds.
Some new titles, in fact, tend to debunk the myth of the superhero top executive. In "True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership," Bill George, a Harvard Business School professor and the former CEO of Medtronic, and his co-author Peter Sims, got 125 executives to talk about their failures and personal tragedies, and how these setbacks shaped them as leaders.
IN THE LEAD FORUM

Have any business books helped you in your career? Join the discussion with Carol and other readers.
Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella recalled how he spent years of his childhood in hospitals -- and consequently learned resilience and the need for empathy in health care. Kevin Sharer admitted how unhappy he felt when he quit GE for MCI, since acquired by Verizon, and realized he couldn't reverse that move. He learned patience -- and went on to become chairman of Amgen. The book's message to readers: acknowledge your weaknesses and don't aim for perfection.
In a similar vein, executive coach Ram Charan asserts in his latest book "Know-How: The 8 Skills that Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don't," that great leadership depends less on charisma or having a commanding presence than it does on knowing customer needs, changing ahead of rivals, and being willing to learn new things.
Executives who admit their vulnerabilities, however, may not survive long enough to be included in a business book. The revolving door of the corner office is proving problematic for some authors. In "Know-How," Mr. Charan cites Home Depot's former CEO Robert Nardelli's restructuring of the retail chain as an example of his leadership acumen. By the time "Know-How" was published early this year, Mr. Nardelli had been ousted for alienating shareholders and refusing to reduce his hefty pay package.
In recent years, management-oriented books have stressed the importance of being able to continuously improve results. Now, more books emphasize innovation over execution -- the principle and vision behind the plans. Among these, "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, tackles the question of how to come up with original and worthwhile ideas.
Private-equity investor and bankruptcy expert Wilbur Ross thinks business books tend to be geared toward people in their early careers who are learning how to get along with bosses, motivate employees and advance. He cautions even these readers not to follow rigid prescriptions by big names. "What worked for Jack Welch won't necessarily work in other cultures," says Mr. Ross, known for restructuring failed companies. "You can't isolate qualities of leadership that work in one place and transfer them wholesale."
Other CEOs, when asked which business books they're turning to, cite titles published several years ago. Tom Swidarski, CEO of Diebold, says he still refers to "Good to Great" by Jim Collins and "Wooden on Leadership," by UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.
"I have dozens of books in my offices, but these two are the ones I've underlined and written in the margins in" he says.
Although Mr. Wooden isn't a CEO or business professor, Mr. Swidarski adds, "he addresses issues I relate to, such as how to position a team or company and know your potential."
Maynard Webb, CEO of LiveOps, a Palo Alto, Calif., call-center outsourcing company, and former COO of eBay, says he was inspired by journalist Thomas Friedman's perennial best-seller "The World Is Flat," which explores the digital revolution and global economy. He also likes "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything," by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, which details how many apparent mysteries of everyday life can be understood through economics.
Readers currently are snapping up copies of "The No Asshole Rule," by Stanford University business professor Robert Sutton. The book, which evolved from a popular article in the Harvard Business Review, addresses bullies who "do their best to destroy employees at work."
Mr. Sutton offers numerous accounts of these destructive bosses. He asserts that companies that eliminate such bosses are more productive and profitable than those that tolerate them.
What's missing from bookstores, it seems, are more titles that show how executives have reshaped businesses so they don't become obsolete in the digital landscape, and ones that explain the new rules of the corner office, where CEOs must cater to an array of constituents.

The Best CEO's- Are they the Best Leaders

As recent events have proven, poor management can render an investment entirely worthless overnight. And great management can have long-term, positive effects.

Thus, many investors today have strong opinions about the best CEOs in the world and that is why Barron's is weighing in on the CEO debate for the third straight year by identifying 30 top corporate leaders from around the world.

See who the Best CEO's are at the Following link:




http://online.barrons.com/public/article/SB117469289796447454-RYz8qWE3C85u1j31K_IL4UZx7R8_20070423.html?mod=djm_BOLemailCEO

More on ROWE

Here is an update to the Best Buy ROWE post. It looks like Best Buy feels they can reduce turnover in the retail store with a system based on ROWE. Rethinking the Time Clock Business 2.0 Magazine, April 4, 2007

Bill George on Leadership

On April 1 ^st Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic and current professor at the Harvard Business School , presented his thoughts on leadership in downtown Minneapolis . The program was carried on Minnesota Public Radio, and an archived copy can be found here: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/mpr_presents .

As part of his research at HBS, George has been conducting a leadership survey over the past several years, the results which have just been published in his new book “True North.” According to George, only 22% of the public trusts the leadership of corporate America . He argues that this is not only deeply troubling, but is a recipe for disaster. To remedy this situation, George argues that leaders need to be authentic, and be true to themselves and their inner values. In somewhat of a contrast to Peters, George suggests that there is no “cookie cutter” winning formula leadership style. Rather, people trust leaders who are authentic, and who are truly themselves. This suggests that there are a myriad of successful leadership models. He states that there is no single profile or set of traits that set leaders apart, but rather that leaders are deeply shaped by their life experiences. He shares several examples from his research to substantiate this point (e.g., CEOs of Wells Fargo, Starbucks, Ecolab, Avon ).

George argues that leaders should not view the people in their companies as “the cost of doing business,” but rather as the essence of their organizations. He is troubled that leadership skills are referred to as “soft skills.” George argues that leadership skills are the hard skills, and that skills like finance and accounting, while quantitative, are not as hard as making decisions that impact the lives of thousands of employees (e.g., downsizing).

On a positive note, George suggests that there is a new generation of leadership (the post-Enron leadership), who acknowledge that corporate leaders need to be more authentic, and harmonize the needs to their companies with the needs of society at large. In conclusion, I thought that Bill George’s presentation was a thought-provoking analysis from someone who seemed to have a strong moral grounding.

Best Buy ROWE Flexible Work Schedule

Below is a link to an article with more details regarding the Best Buy ROWE flexible work schedule we discussed in class on 4/4/07.

http://www.benefitnews.com/detail.cfm?id=10160&terms=rowe

HBR Leadership Special Issue

The January 2007 issue of the Harvard business review appears to be largely devoted to leadership topics. There are a few interesting 1-2 page quick reads along with some more in-depth studies. This gives a number of interesting viewpoints on how we currently look at leadership and why.



The titles of some leadership related articles:

• Becoming the Boss
• Moments of Truth: Global Executives Talk About the Challenges That Shaped Them as Leaders
• How Leaders Create and Use Networks
• Courage as a Skill
• The CEO's Second Act
• Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters
• When a New Manager Takes Charge

These articles are available by visiting:

• Business source premier - http://www.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/bsp.cgi
• Click Publications
• Search for Harvard Business Review
• Select the Vol. 85 Issue 1 Jan 2007 issue