I was thinking over the weekend (not sure why) about the state of our corporations today and the lack of leadership and a funny (sad too) experience came up from my second consulting gig about ten or so years ago. The company was a $1.8 billion retail manufacturer.
I was contracted to come in a lead a portion of the senior leadership team while they searched for a permanent person. That lasted six months and I got to know everyone, got along, delivered some results and watched while they were finishing their second year of trying to implement a new system (Peoplesoft). They were at the time two years and $30 million into this new program and had it implemented in HQ finance only. Pretty lame.
When they got a new person on board I was asked to then help get the Peoplesoft project to the field. We did a quick assessment and realized the senior team hadnt even looked at their $30 M investment in over six months. I arranged for us to get a whopping '30' minutes on the Friday morning agenda. And everyone knew you'd best not be the one to cause this meeting to go late because it was summer and they had a 'golf meeting' each friday afternoon.
I learned the hard way that if you want decisions, which we needed, you start the meeting out on slide one with a list of why you are there and what you want to accomplish. The head of IT was nervous about me, a consultant, presenting stuff that his group was 'supposed' to get done. So we go in the mahoganey boardroom, really, the long last supper table and the CEO is at the one end, the presenter is at the other and the other Senior staff members are strung around. I was sitting against the wall as a listener and supporter. We were told they wanted us to 'roll this out' to the western sales area in three months.
The IT leader began with my first slide and got about 2 of the 9 covered when the VP of Sales, a buddy from the 'old days' started whining to the CEO about how hard this was, and how distracting and how this and that - I wanted to slap him. All the while the CEO is sitting at the end of the table, cleaning his nails looking at the floor. Never engaged in the discussion from the IT guy, listening of course to the whining of his buddy. They had worked together over 30 years. It really is still a 'good ole boys network' with an occasional female thrown in these days.
Well, the VP of Sales his plea with "Why, -----, why do we have to do this." With that the CEO looked up from his nail clipping and says, and you can't make this stuff up ... "Why are we doing this Peoplesoft thing?" He was looking around at his staff. I was astounded at first as this group okayed the spending two years before and if they were to build a new plant in their industry it cost around $35 million and they'd be looking at that everyday ... crazy stuff.
I stood up and said, "Gentlemen, if you, around this table, dont know why you are doing this how do you expect us to implement this in three months?" There was silence all around and then the CEO, who was working on his nails again, looked up and said, "You know, Ed has a good point." He then told the CFO to get with me and work out why we were doing it before the implementation.
It wount be a surprise to you that the implementation was a failure, they were bought out later that year and, drum roll please, that CEO is now the CEO of an even bigger company in that industry.
The slide started in the early nineties and real leaders are few and far between.
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