Like all CEOs, you seek to accomplish great things at the company you lead. You work hard to see your company prosper under your leadership. And to see your team achieve extraordinary results and hear great feedback from your customers, board, investors and team members. You tirelessly toil to build a more valuable enterprise. It’s on your shoulders to create a climate of innovation and entrepreneurship and a positive working climate so results can be achieved today and sustained for the longer term.

Yet there’s a huge problem that’s a cloud over your head. Most people don’t trust CEOs. The recently-released 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer shared that only 38% of respondents trust information about the company that comes from the CEO; that’s down 50% from last year. And even if you believe your people trust you, there’s another problem that many CEOs tell us the experience.

We continually hear of CEOs not making the progress they’d like, obtaining the desired results they work so hard for. And, if we’re honest, many are not getting the juice, the feeling of being in flow and experiencing the level of passion about their work they’d like. So if any of this resonates, what might you consider doing differently?

How about discovering and defining your authentic, unique, CEO Brand? You know how important a great brand is for your company and its products and services. Did you know that your personal brand as a CEO is equally as important? And you do indeed have a brand. Your unique CEO brand is your most important professional asset. As you well know, in business if you aren’t winning, you’re losing. It’s the same with your personal CEO brand. If it isn’t increasing in value, it’s decreasing.

CEO branding is not just for the celebrity CEOs like Donald Trump or Richard Branson – it’s for all of us. It’s about operating in a way that allows you to achieve the results you must, while ensuring your stakeholders have the desired emotional experiences when they interact with you. In a way that is authentic for you, feels right on you and gives you juice. Think it’s impossible? It’s not. There are seven steps for defining a great CEO brand. These are the steps for executive brand building I share in the course I created and instruct at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management for visiting executives. I also use these seven steps and as I work with CEOs individually in discovering and defining their unique CEO brands.

So whether you are CEO of an early stage company or a Fortune 15 powerhouse, whether you’re new in your role or have been in your job for a while, you need a strong CEO brand. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your CEO brand today? What would be the value to you, your company and stakeholders if your brand was a 9 or 10? Are you ready to discover and define that unique, distinctive CEO brand?

The CEO selected to lead this group of corporate all stars is CEO Ken Chenault of American Express, The COO is McDonald’s CEO, Jim Skinner. Other players to round out the line up include; Anne Mulcahy of Xerox, Jonathan Ive of Apple, Rob Carter of FedEx, Carlos Brito of Anheuser Busch InBev, Jim Stengel of P&G and Susan Chambers, chief people officer of Wal-Mart.

Put this crew of heavyweights on the field and watch them dominate any industry – like the 1927 NY Yankees.

Really, would that be true?

My suspicion is if you just pulled together this group of high priced talent and threw them on the proverbial business field, it would be a mess of the highest order.

There are plenty of examples where All Star teams faltered when competing against teams that may have had lesser talent individually, but when put together to work
as a team, had greater collective intelligence. Think Team USA in the World
Baseball Classic in 2006 losing to Korea, Canada and Mexico. The USA men’s basketball team of 2004 losing the gold medal to Argentina. And the French World Cup soccer team in 2010 that had so much dysfunction they were called out by President Nikolas Sarkozy and the country’s soccer federation was reorganized.

For a top team – or any business team – to succeed, the leader needs to put in place a number of conditions. Teams need great clarity. They need norms of expected behavior. They need their purpose defined, which issues they’ll address and how they will discuss them, raise and resolve conflict make and make decisions.

Great teams – like athletes – need to work on building their capabilities – both individually and collectively – such as how they give and receive feedback. They need to talk straight and collaborate collegially. They need not only the skill to perform as top athletes and a team; they need the will to do it, too. (Hint: many top individual executives have no will to truly work with others as team members if they can’t be the leader. And if that’s the case, they need to be removed from the team).

And great teams are committed to one another; they develop trust in one another and develop solid working relationships with one another. They have each other’s backs and know they can safely raise any issue.

The most important factor for any top team is the leader. If the leader doesn’t get it, and many don’t, about what’s required to a top team to thrive, the team will have an uphill battle to perform. The sad fact is that most top teams do not work well together and do not deliver the results they need to.

By creating clarity, building capabilities, and increasing commitment, the top team becomes more cohesive and supportive, able to perform at a higher level, sharing similar expectation of high individual and team performance. An extraordinary top team is a catalyst for winning in any market, which can be a very powerful competitive advantage that cannot be duplicated. Even by a group of business all stars.

Unfortunately, many executives believe because they work for corporations with well-defined brands, they don’t need to define their executive brands. They may think if they support their company’s brand, that’s good enough. While they recognize the need for clear brands at their companies or for their organization’s products or services, they fail to recognize they also need to be a brand. Yet without a unique, authentic, distinctive brand, we’re just commodities. In today’s economy, where globalization, innovation and technology make the world flat and fast, failing to define yourself as a unique brand can have disastrous consequences.

Just like Apple, Nike, Starbucks and McDonalds are brands, executives are also brands. And our brand is either increasing in value or decreasing in value. If we’re not actively managing our brand, it’s not likely that it is increasing in value. And if we’re not actively managing our executive brand, that means we leave it for others to manage our brands – and if that is the case, chances are our audience will perceive our brand differently from what we intend.

The good news is that with some reflection, a framework for creating our brands and work, we can create a unique, powerful brand that differentiates us from the pack. There are seven steps required to defining a unique executive brand and they are as follows:

Join me on September 13 in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management for my Optimizing Your Unique Executive Brand and you’ll learn what’s required to build an outstanding personal brand. For a preview of what to expect, see this short video:

To register for this 1/2 day course, Optimizing Your Unique Executive Brand click here:

http://www.csom.umn.edu/executive-education/optimizing-executive-brand.html

Hope to see you on the 13th. I look forward to assisting you in becoming your best as an executive, creating greater value for yourself and your company with a well-defined, unique executive brand.

The warning signs of defending the status quo.

When confronted with a new idea, do you:

• Consider the cost of switching before you consider the benefits?
• Highlight the pain to a few instead of the benefits for the many?
• Exaggerate how good things are now in order to reduce your fear of change?
• Undercut the credibility, authority or experience of people behind the change?
• Grab onto the rare thing that could go wrong instead of amplifying the likely thing that will go right?
• Focus on short-term costs instead of long-term benefits, because the short-term is more vivid for you?
• Fight to retain benefits and status earned only through tenure and longevity?
• Embrace an instinct to accept consistent ongoing costs instead of swallowing a one-time expense?
• Slow implementation and decision making down instead of speeding it up?
• Embrace sunk costs?
• Imagine that your competition is going to be as afraid of change as you are? Even the competition that hasn’t entered the market yet and has nothing to lose…
• Emphasize emergency preparation and the expense of a chronic and degenerative condition?

Calling it out when you see it might give your team the strength to make a leap.

Written by Seth Godin on August 29, 2011 in Seth’s Blog.

The August 15 Fortune article, What Happened at Pfizer: The Inside Story of Revenge, Betrayal and Power at the Top of the World’s Largest Drug Company is a sad commentary of the descent of a once great organization under a CEO who was ill-equipped to lead. In last week’s blog post, I commented how Pfizer’s former CEO Jeff Kindler’s individual performance could and should have been more visible to the Pfizer Board of Directors years before his forced departure. Had the Board used an annual CEO evaluation process that incorporated an independent expert to solicit feedback on the behaviors and operating styles used by Kindler, problems would have been identified years before the situation became untenable. In this post, I’ll focus on the Board’s miss by failing to understand the dynamics and performance of Kindler’s Executive Leadership Team (ELT).

For all but the smallest of businesses, in order to achieve results in a sustainable way, a top team of leaders is required that operates in a highly effective, interdependent way. This was not the case for Pfizer’s ELT. The Fortune article reported of a constant turmoil at Pfizer, where “…managers descended into behaviors that would make Machiavelli proud.” To make matters worse, Kindler’s HR chief, Mary McLeod, divided the executive staff instead of serving as a uniting force. Kindler took on his role in 2006 and was fired in December of 2010. He had four-and-a-half years to build a team; however, during his tenure he hired and fired three different R&D chiefs and spun his leadership team like a top with a revolving door that should have made the Board’s collective head spin. Clearly, Kindler did not have an appreciation or talent for building a strong executive team. He did not develop plans to identify and groom a successor, which is an important task for every CEO. His executive team was divided, there were significant trust issues within the team and it simply didn’t perform. His failure to build an executive team that performed irreparably harmed the company’s ability to achieve results and is an egregious performance shortfall that should also have been identified early in the game by the Board of Directors. Pfizer’s Board was clearly asleep at the switch about both Kindler’s individual performance as CEO and in his inability to build, develop and lead an executive team.

The Board could have monitored the health of Kindler’s executive team by requiring the use of an independent assessment that is tailored for top leadership teams. An assessment of this type, such as Top Team Check, is designed specifically for the senior executive team and is used to assess how the team functions from the perspective of the team leader (CEO) and direct reports. Team strengths and problem areas are identified, along with solutions that address the root causes of team performance shortfalls. An assessment of Kindler’s team would have clearly identified where the team performed and where it fell short, which team members worked supportively with their colleagues and who did not. This type of assessment would have been invaluable to both the CEO and the Board, providing feedback where improvements must be made and allowing for year-to-year progress to be tracked. The unfortunate fact is that most executive teams do not perform to their potential. Executives put together and asked to perform as a team typically struggle, but that need not be the case with the right process, conditions and expert coaching.

The dysfunction of the top team and the lack of visibility of the Board also impaired the Board’s ability to accurately identify and evaluate potential successors for the CEO. A critical job for every Board is succession planning for the CEO and other key executives. With a revolving door of executives and a CEO who used a “spoke and hub”, micro-managing style in running the company, the ability to plan for succession was seriously compromised.

In summary, CEOs need a strong, high performing top team. Their teams need clarity, need to be capable and need to be committed. If the CEO isn’t creating the conditions for the development of such a team, it is then the Board’s responsibility to mandate that he does. Smart CEOs want feedback to learn how the team sees itself performing and what must be improved. Smart CEOs also want feedback on what they must do to better help their teams perform at a high level. And smart Boards want this feedback, too, to know they’ve got a capable CEO who is leading for sustained results and a capable team behind him with a window into who should become tomorrow’s CEO.

In the four and one-half years Jeff Kindler was in the CEO role, Pfizer’s stock price fell from $49 to $17 and its drug pipeline dried up. Kindler’s leadership style was described as micro, micro-management and his abusive, over-the-top temperament as reported in the Fortune article caused the members of his top leadership team (Executive Leadership Team or ELT) to rebel. His management philosophy was described as, “Jeff Kindler seemed to believe he was the only smart guy in the room.”

Kindler was a trial lawyer by background who “sought knowledge through interrogation; he was skeptical of what he was told, even when it came from people who knew far more about a subject than he did; and he bored in relentlessly on small details, always searching for the sort of nuance that could make or break a legal case—but seemed trivial in other contexts. For all Kindler’s talents, he remained palpably insecure, acutely sensitive to anything or anyone he feared might undermine his standing.” He churned his executive team and, despite his lack of Pharma experience, didn’t seem to trust Pfizer executives who were experienced in the industry.

To make matters worse, the individual who should have played a key role in pulling the members of his ELT together and advising the CEO on the sensitive matters of team dynamics and performance, his senior vice president of human resources, Mary McLeod, was widely seen as divisive, dishonest and incompetent. An anonymous senior executive at Pfizer, concerned about the dysfunction of McLeod, Kindler and the ELT, reached out to the Board of Directors. The Board had concerns of their own and their investigation discovered several senior leaders ready to resign with no executive in full support of Kindler. When Kindler was confronted with the findings of the Board, it was apparent the only option was his resignation. Kindler left Pfizer in December of 2010 with $16 million in cash and stock and nearly $7 million in retirement benefits and other stock compensation.

So after nearly five years of billions lost in market capitalization, thousands of jobs shed and a new product pipeline that was barren, the Board of Directors fired their CEO. How could they have not known about the toxic impact their CEO had on the business beforehand?

The role of the Board of Directors of a publicly traded company is to protect the fiduciary interests of its shareholders. If the CEO leads in a toxic way, is unclear about his vision and strategies and paralyzes his executive team and company from operating effectively, how are the interests of shareholders served? Boards are required to annually review the performance of their CEOs. Unfortunately, this review is too often perfunctory. A better option would be to incorporate an approach to evaluate the CEO’s performance, behaviors and leadership annually, using an independent consultant to interview the CEO, his direct reports and each Board Member. This more thorough review would flag potential problems relatively early, allow the CEO to learn from the previous year’s performance and assist in establishing clear expectations for the upcoming year. Smart CEOs should advocate for such a process so they demonstrate to their key stakeholders they view their performance seriously and are open-minded to feedback on how they can become more effective in the future. And Boards should require such a process, to avoid simmering problems that can become major crises in the future. Incorporating our CEO Feedback Process is one way of meeting this objective.

Sadly, because the CEO performed ineffectively and the Board was slow to recognize and act, Pfizer investors lost billions, opportunities were missed, thousands of jobs were lost and a former iconic company has been greatly weakened. While Jeff Kindler had serious shortfalls as a CEO, the onus lies with the Board for their failure to appropriately understand and address how their CEO operated.

My Dad had died suddenly the year before. As an 8 year old, my world had been shaken. I never knew of anyone who had died. And the idea a parent could die was not a concept I had ever thought of. Since I was 6 or so, I had enjoyed playing catch in the backyard with my Dad when he got home from work. With his death, the game of catch abruptly stopped – a huge void for me.

With an older brother and sister who were away at college, my Mom was simply not going to allow me to not have a partner with whom to play catch. She jumped in to fill the void. My Dad’s beat up, tattered left-handed first baseman’s mitt with a rag in the inside wasn’t going to work for Mom, so she saved her stamps with an eye on that catcher’s mitt.

Once she had that mitt, the games of catch began again. Having been the only girl with four brothers, she was fearless. She hit it with gusto. Playing catch together lasted until I was about 11 and started throwing pretty hard and experimenting with curve balls and throwing sidearm. Fortunately, we had moved to suburban Chicago, where I could ride my bike to the park where our Little League games were played and there were plenty of catch partners. So when I was 11 and she was 51, we were both glad to see her retire that catcher’s mitt. It had served its purpose. And my Mom had gotten me over the baseball hump. I could now fly on my own.

Her support clearly didn’t end with hanging up the catcher’s mitt. From a baseball standpoint, she was my greatest fan. I can’t accurately guess the number of hours she sat on those uncomfortable stands watching Little League, Pony League, Babe Ruth, High School, Summer League, and traveling All Star games. And when I played in college and our team played anywhere close to Chicago at Illinois, Notre Dame, Indiana State, Eastern Illinois, University of Illinois-Chicago and other schools, she would always travel to see us play.

My Mom was truly my hero. Helen Bolton. She didn’t have it so easy. She was widowed at 48 with two children in college and me. She moved us to Chicago to take care of her aging parents. She went to work as a legal secretary to support us. She cared for her elderly mother and other relatives. And she was an incredible woman. I cannot remember her ever complaining. She was a leader. She was so kind and wise. Always inviting people to the house for dinner that were alone. Giving people who didn’t have rides, rides back and forth from church. She cared deeply for others. While she didn’t’ have a lot of free time, she volunteered for Red Cross and the United Way. She served on the Board of Directors of the United Way for Chicago in the ‘70s – how many legal secretaries served on Boards at that time? A life master bridge player. An excellent golfer who had her first hole-in-one at age 70. And she sure loved her kids and her grandkids. My greatest teacher. She died 19 years ago. I miss her every day.

When I tell the catcher’s mitt story, I can’t tell it without getting choked up. I am crying as I write it now! My Mom was a great mother; a great woman. I can only hope my kids feel that I’m the kind of parent my Mom was to me. While she helped me learn how to pitch, what she really did was help me learn how to handle life’s curveballs. That’s what Moms do. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

First posted for Mother’s Day in 2010, I really can’t think of a better way to tribute my Mom for being a great person than sharing my story again. And today, after church, I’ll drive to St. Paul and enjoy this sunny spring day by watching a doubleheader as the University of St. Thomas Tommies play my alma mater the Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota Cardinals. I’ll save a seat for you, Mom!

If you are smart, you’re reinventing yourself and how you create value for the future. If you aren’t learning anew and reinventing yourself, you are in much trouble. You are playing Russian Roulette with your career and livelihood. Not in these exact words, but President Obama addressed this issue last night in his State of Union address. Education, reinvention, hard work, discipline — make globalization, innovation and technology your friend. Embrace it. Change. There’s no other alternative.

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One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”

To stress his point he said to another guest; “You’re a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?”

Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, “You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, then began…)

“Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.

I make a C+ feel like the Order of Canada.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can’t make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental.

You want to know what I make? (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table)

I make kids wonder.

I make them question.

I make them apologize and mean it.

I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.
I teach them to write and then I make them write.. Keyboarding isn’t everything.

I make them read, read, read.

I make them show all their work in math. They use their God given brain, not the man-made calculator.

I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know about English while preserving their unique cultural identity.

I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life. (Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.)

Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money isn’t everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant. You want to know what I make? I MAKE A DIFFERENCE. What do you make Mr. CEO?

His jaw dropped, he went silent.

THIS IS WORTH SENDING TO EVERY TEACHER, EVERY CEO, EVERY PERSON YOU KNOW.

Even all your personal teachers like mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, coaches and your spiritual leaders/teachers.

A truly profound answer!!!

Teaching is…the profession that makes all other professions possible! Now, that’s an answer worthy of some reflection.

This story was shared with me by my friend Jim Phillips. Original author unknown.