04/7/20

The Gratification Of Personal Development, CEO Transformation

There is nothing as gratifying in my CEO coaching than watching hardworking CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs blossom and develop.

Right now is a time whereat a CEO is exposed to the business friction of the COVID19 saga. In this friction, one finds the revealed strength of CEOs. Frankly, not everyone has it while everyone needs it.

When you see a CEO with whom you have worked blossom and rise to the occasion, it is extraordinarily gratifying and just makes you want to sing Hosanna!

Amongst the characteristics I see with this subset are the following:

 1. The CEOs who undergo transformation to a higher level of performance in times of crisis have done the work, day in day out over a protracted period of time. There are no overnight success stories. Sorry.

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04/4/20

Understanding The Chain of Command — Aircraft Carrier Commander Relieved

The military is an organization designed to operate under the most trying situations — combat with America’s enemies. It is a hard warrior culture.

Men are given command of meaningful warfighting assets — aircraft carriers, fighter wings, divisions, landing forces — within a chain of command that goes both up (superiors) and down (subordinates).

Any commander knows this reality when they receive command — they are given it by their immediate superior.

When I commanded a combat engineer company, the battalion commander handed me the company guidon and empowered me to run the unit within the guidelines of his orders.

I knew the deal. He knew the deal.

If I had a question, I asked the battalion commander. If he wanted me to do something, he gave me an order and I then passed it along to my platoon leaders, the first sergeant, and the men. We then accomplished the assigned mission.

If I had a beef with the battalion commander, I was welcome to state it, but once he made a decision, I saluted and carried out the order. If I did not accomplish the mission or if I refused to undertake the order, I expected to be relieved.

The Army, the military, only works in times of distress if and only if subordinates carry out the orders of their superiors.

A subordinate commander has a responsibility to inform his superior as to the status of  any mission on a continuing basis.

The Army mantra is: Shoot, Move, Communicate.

The Aircraft Carrier

The USS Theodore Roosevelt is one of ten of Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carriers. It is at the core of an attack carrier group and is a powerful extension of American force.

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04/3/20

Paycheck Protection Program Interim Report Card — A+++

Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said he would get money to eligible persons as soon as possible.

“My name is Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and I have money for YOU! Come on down, amigos. Get some. Get yours. Let’s get busy.”

But, of course, he’s the “government” and — yawn — who believes the GOVERNMENT?

First day report:

Loans made — 1,926 (as of today at 11:00 AM EST)

Funds disbursed — $756,985,761

Participating lenders — 245 banks

This element of the rescue is dealing with Main Street not Wall Street and your Big Red Car has to say: “Well played, Federal Government. Well played, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. Well played indeed!”

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04/3/20

Fifty Fights — COVID19 War

The United States is a big country with fifty states. These individual states are the distinct battlegrounds in which the COVID19 War is being waged.

Some areas — the NY-NJ-Conn Tri-State Area — are linked at the hip, but the rest of the country is seeing a series of individual fights that may have different regional outcomes based on the elemental nature of their population density — urban/dense and rural/sparse — and the way the fight is undertaken.

There is good news and bad news:

 1. The good news — individual states, cities, counties will rise to the occasion and, through superior execution, conduct an effective campaign and bear a lighter burden.

 2. The bad news — the individual states, cities, counties who do well will become domestic immigration targets. People will start moving from high risk areas to these lower risk areas, thereby importing — potentially — the COVID19.

The phenomenon of the Manhattan Beautiful Persons moving out to their Hamptons homes is a real thing and will overwhelm the small hospitals thereat.

In addition to the political subdivision fights, there is the personal fight — you and me. We need to do our individual duty to ensure we are not the target of COVID19 and that we do not spread it.

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04/2/20

Moving Markets — President Trump And Global Oil

We are living in interesting times. We are facing a pandemic, an economic crisis, a stock market brouhaha, and an oil bust.

Today, we focus on the oil bust. In case you haven’t been following things, the Russians and the Saudis got into a pissing contest as to the level of oil output by the OPEC + bunch.

OPEC + is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries which has been around since 1960 and is in the oil pricing manipulation business. The + means Russia is in the talks.

The result of the Saudi Arabia v Russia pissing contest — the Russians would not agree to reduce production levels — was a collapse in global oil prices with some incredibly low prices — 1950s prices — which then translated into lower gasoline prices.

These two clowns wrecked the global oil business in an amateurish “who has the bigger dick” contest.

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04/1/20

Fair Comparisons — WutangCurse By The Numbers

Public opinion is driven by emotion. Emotion should be based on facts, but we suffer from an inadequate body of data and an unwillingness by the media to report the facts fairly and accurately.

Honestly, I think the media is not smart enough to be able to make the right comparisons and the lens held up to evaluate the problem is too shaky and biased.

How is the US doing v the WutangCurse?

Let me make a comparison: the United States v the European Union (a roughly comparable equivalent).

USA v EU

The United States has 331,000,000 people.

The European Union has 341,000,000 people.

[This is a subset of the European Union which is being used for comparison purposes and doesn’t include all the twenty-eight European Union countries. This is the same subset used by World O Meter from which all the numbers are taken as of 00:00 GMT, 3-31-2020.]

The US has 188,592 total cases of the WutangCurse and has suffered 4,055 deaths.

The EU has 363,150 total cases and has suffered 25,318 deaths.

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03/27/20

Profiteering — The SEIU And The N95 Mask

When is something considered profiteering in the big business of filling the essential needs generated by the WutangCurse for critical supplies such as the N95 mask?

Comes now the story of the SEIU — the Service Employees International Union, a powerful trade union that supports a number of leftist causes — which reports it has located 39,000,000 N95 masks, the type of mask that is in hot pursuit by everyone.

“Bravo,” said I, until I got a whiff of the backstory.

 

This little jewel is made by 3M which is currently producing 35,000,000 of these babies a month. The SEIU says they have identified a supplier for the 39,000,000 who can also produce 20,000,000 per week.

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