Most people have heard the phrase “have a little hair of the dog that bit you” or some variation of it.  Not as many people know the origin of the phrase.  Long ago in the world of medicine it was believed that when a person had been bitten by a rabid dog, the step to take to prevent from getting rabies was for the “patient” to place a hair of the dog that bit them on the wound.  Really.  Of course one of the flaws of this approach (beyond the fact that it did not work) was the need to locate the dog and get a hair without also being bitten.

Thankfully the expression has outlived the bogus treatment, but I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read this article in the paper today.

It turns out that researchers studying how to cure heroin addiction have found that instead of giving addicts methadone (which I learned is the prevailing method of treatment), addicts given diacetylmorphine, the active ingredient in heroin, had a higher success rate than methadone.   So now the message is that prescription heroin is a better cure for heroin addiction than methadone.

This isn’t quite in the same category of how to put out a forest fire (you start a series of small fires in the path of a spreading fire so that when the larger fire gets there, there’s nothing for it to burn, so it is a lot easier to extinguish), but in the category of rethinking how to solve problems, sometimes adding additional measured doses of the same problem makes it easier to solve the larger problem.

Prescription heroin is not quite the same image of chasing down some mangy old rabid dug, but at least another way to keep that old expression alive.

-Ric

What was the sexual revolution of the 1960’s?  While I wasn’t old enough to really be aware of it, at its essence it changed the definition and etiquette of who it was OK to have sex with, right?  There’s a lot more to it than that, but that was one of the most basic and fundamental things that changed in that era, and after that shift happened, the definition and etiquette have continue to evolve  and different age groups and social groups have their own ideas, but the sexual revolution, which was also really a social revolution transformed culture.

When people talk about Facebook and myspace and Twitter and other social networking sites, a lot of people talk about how those sites will monetize social networking and those kinds of things in a more forward looking fashion.

Well I am here to tell you a second sexual, or at the very least a second social revolution, has already happened, and it’s as simple as what happened in the ’60s.

Facebook has changed the actual definition of the word “friend” for most people under 40, and a lot of people over 40.  By fundamentally changing the definition of the word friend, people are shifting their ideas about privacy and communications.  It has already happened.  What we don’t yet know is how that will transform our social work environments when 20-somethings have one set of standards and definitions of what is OK, communicating with a boss over 50 with a very different set of definitions and expectations of what’s OK, it’s going to be the 60’s all over again, though probably a lot less psychedelic.

There’s a new movie coming out next month called We Live In Public, it already won the best documentary at Sundance this year, and it’s in the running for the Oscar.  I have seen it and I really think it captures some of the good, as well as the dark side of this revolution. It’s such a watershed moment in our culture, I think this movie is going to wake everyone up to what has already happened and it’s going to force people to rethink where we are all headed.

The revolution has already happened.  Now we have to see what’s next.

-Ric

Two Sundays ago, the headline of the New York Times was “Climate Change Seen as Threat to US Security” in this article by John Broder.  While I stopped short of checking the date to see if it was April first.  It sounded like something more fitting for the tabloids, or at the very least page 18 instead of such an alarmist headline. Here’s the first paragraph:

“The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.”

So it got me thinking, with unemployment where it is, and the Iraq war winding down, we aren’t going to send all of the Iraq troops to Afghanistan, maybe declaring a war on global warming is the only way to continue to maintain, or grow, military spending.  The more practical side of me took some comfort in the fact that some folks in Washington really have their finger on the pulse of global warming and they see clearly on what is needed to prepare for it.

That comfort was blown out of the water when I read an article   in the paper today (click here) describing that 31 year-old Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, who was arrested for ecoterrorism (arson and destruction of property) on behalf of the group known as the Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, in January 2006 still has a valid pilot license.  How is that possible?

I remember back on September 11, 2001, back when we were still pretty naive about the risks of terrorism, we knew that some of the top terror suspects were in the country and we could have cross referenced several data bases to track them down.  Excusable then, perhaps, but that was eight years ago and we still haven’t cross-referenced the FAA data base with the F.B.I.’s most wanted list?  Incredible.

Now, I will grant you when it comes to high stakes terror, if someone commits a crime in an airplane, it’s not going to matter whether the person was, or wasn’t flying with a valid license.  That’s not my point.  My point is that if these seemingly simple and obvious data cross reference checks aren’t happening, what else isn’t happening?  How smart are we really about what the real risks are and where they are.

I don’t think there’s any need for a witch hunt, but really, someone in D.C. ought to really take a look at cross-referencing some of the criminal data bases with other key sources so our comfort level can go up a few notches when it comes to national security.

-Ric

It’s not like me to be wishy-washy about much of anything.  But today, I got a little wishy-washy on what the right answer is relative to fixing executive pay.  Sunday’s paper had an interesting article by Gretchen Morgenson that reported findings that executive pay changes in recent months have actually tilted more toward short term rewards, seeming to suggest that executives are going to be incented to take more of the same kinds of risks that contributed to getting us into the current financial mess. This editorial in the paper today about Ms. Morgenson’s piece says it pretty well in the title “More Business As Usual.”

Then as I made my way to the business section, I read this article about the new A.I.G. CEO who will be paid at least $7 million a year.  I was frustrated to read that Kenneth R. Feinberg, who heads up the oversight group on executive pay had given it preliminary approval.  Since the U.S. government now owns 80% of the insurance giant, I would have expected a lot lower base salary (it is $3 million) and much more of the long term incentives Ms. Morgenson wrote about.

I was pretty frustrated that the government would allow this, and that A.I.G., would have the arrogance to do this in broad daylight, or even hoped that this new CEO, Robert H. Benmosche might actually act in the best interests of his shareholders (which is, of course, his job) and suggest a different structure.

Then I looked at it the other way.  If Mr. Benmosche is guaranteed his base salary of $3 million, why on earth would he take any risk at all (risk being a big part of why A.I.G. and others got into so much trouble in the first place)?  Sure, it would be great if the stock held or improved and he would get his annual $4million in stock, but that’s just gravy.  A lot of gravy I will admit, but still gravy.

Now maybe Mr. Benmosche will get lazy and not do anything for his base of $3 million a year, but to the point of Ms. Morgenson’s article I expect that until we get a better handle on the best ways to motivate executives to drive shareholder value, we will see several experiments in exec pay before the pendulum stops swinging.

-Ric

Right now there’s a lot of attention on the health care system in the United States, and while I agree that is a big mess that needs fixing, this morning I couldn’t help but wonder about the justice system when I read this article in the paper this morning.

Like many of the topics that I write about, I am not an expert and I don’t pretend to be, but when I see something really obvious, I feel comfortable offering an opinion.

This was a case of banking fraud, and was well summarized in three sentences:

Eric Butler and an associate were charged with conducting “an illegal scheme in which they had falsely told clients their products were backed by federally guaranteed student loans and were a safe alternative to bank deposits. The products were actually linked to auction-rate securities.

John Nowak, an assistant United States attorney, told jurors in closing arguments that the two ran a high-stakes bait and switch, promising clients one product and delivering another to get higher commissions.”

That’s pretty clear in three sentences.  And if there’s clear evidence of this “bait and switch” it seems to me that this should be prosecuted pretty quickly.  But Mr. Butler was indicted last year (so at least eight months ago), and the guilty verdict they arrived at yesterday was the result of a three week jury trial.  Three weeks of time away from presumably productive lives to settle something Bloomberg News can summarize in three sentences?  Broken.

I am not saying securities fraud has much in common with a speeding ticket, but there are many things in the legal system like speeding tickets that are binary in the sense that you either did break the law, or you did not.  Innocent until proven guilty – if there’s evidence of guilt, you are guilty.  Pretty simple.  Speeding is a good example of that, as is driving under the influence of alcohol, since there’s a test for that.  There’s a clear pass/fail test and we tend to trust the police officers who cite people for these crimes, so the guilty parties pay the fine and move on, unless they think there was a mistake or extenuating circumstances, then you can request a hearing to be heard, though I was recently told even that option has gone away in my home state.  That part of the system works a high percentage of the time.

So why for more serious crimes do we essentially not trust the arresting officer in this case who indicted Mr. Butler?  If there’s evidence of something as clear as offering one product and selling another, why does it take a judge, a jury, probably at least two lawyers three weeks to sort that out?

I don’t know Mr. Butler and I honestly picked his case as a random example, but don’t you experts and non-experts agree there’s some rethinking to be done in the way we manage justice?

-Ric

Every Sunday in the paper’s business section there’s an interview with a leader talking about some of their best lessons learned and management tips.  The interview with Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn was no different.  He first points out the importance of keeping in touch with the actual employees and customers at the front lines so he can stay in touch with what’s really going on.  I agree with him that as simple as it sounds, it’s vital.

Though I agreed with his next big point, it did make me wonder.

He talked about how a family medical issue (his wife had breast cancer) helped him really focus on what is most important.  In the case of the medical issue, the most important thing was getting his wife and three kids through it.  He then went on to talk about how he applied this lesson to work:

“It changed me as a leader. I got really focused on: What are the big rocks that we need to move? I still can fall into some of the petty traps, but I worked really hard to say, is this really important or is this just like a little ego thing for me?”

My question after he said this was how he knows which “rocks” to pick?

When Bob Nardelli saw that he needed to lower costs at The Home Depot a few years back, that was in fact the correct outcome to focus on, but he went about it without really understanding which costs could, and could not, be cut and made some big mistakes.  He ended up ignoring what his customers valued, which was good advice from the store employees, so when he cut spending in benefits and the good employees left, so did the customers.  It was a disaster.

Interestingly, I think Dunn’s first point about staying in touch with the people on the front lines can help make sure he’s picking the right rocks, but I would suggest something with more rigor and discipline like one of the “heat” maps shown here is a way to significantly reduce the risk of picking the wrong rocks, while at the same time dramatically improving the transparency of  discussions about prioritization of work (“rocks” in Dunn-speak).  In every shape in this heat map, there are two elements, an “outline” color indicating how the work is performing (red is bad, green is good), and each shape is filled with a color indicating business value (red is high value, green is low value).  I build these maps by interviewing the people who do, and manage the work – it’s a great listening device.

What you can do with a map like this is really start to get into the details of where the real value is, and where things are performing well and not well.  Seeing parent/child relationships like these allows you to make (and test) assertions about which changes at the child level will cause the parent to change.   If you aren’t making decisions about what micro-level changes will change the macro areas, you are at great risk of picking the wrong “rocks.”

I would be very interested to know how Mr. Dunn is picking his rocks, and I hope for the sake of the Best Buy shareholders, he’s a lot better at it than Bob Nardelli.

-Ric