As a result, books about the great leadership successes draw us like magnets. But Tim Irwin, Ph.D., looks at the discussion of leadership from the opposite perspective—leadership failures. That’s what makes “DERAILED: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership” such a compelling book.

Irwin examines the collapse of some of the biggest names in business: Robert Nardelli at Home Depot; Carly Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard; Durk Jager at Procter & Gamble; Steven Heyer at Starwood Hotels & Resorts & Worldwide; Frank Raines at Fannie Mae; and Dick “Richard” Fuld at Lehman Brothers.

Irwin points out that these are people who have been very successful but ultimately were fired by their boards of directors.

As he writes in this book, “Derailment and lack of success are different.”

Irwin suggests that there are similarities in the reasons why all those leaders were ousted. In none of these cases was fraud involved. As leaders, Irwin says we should look at these similarities in evaluating our own performances. In truth, this book is as much about us as the leaders profiled he says.

The five lessons identified in the book are:
1. Character Trumps Competence
2. Arrogance is the Mother of All Derailers
3. Lack of Self-Awareness is a Common Denominator of All Derailments
4. We are Always Who We Are, Especially Under Stress
5. Derailment is Not Inevitable, but without Attention to Development, it is Probable.

The first lesson, “Character Trumps Competence” is a challenging statement that really touches all of the others at some level. “Character” as Irwin describes it is not stealing money or sleeping with your executive assistant. It is about things like authenticity. Irwin says the reason authenticity is so important is that in repetitive research we learn that people want a leader they can trust. And if you can’t get people to follow you, by definition you’re not a leader.

Other aspects of “character” are related to things that are lacking– lack of self-management, humility and courage.

Behaviors that derail “self management” include being easily angered, undisciplined and inflexible. In the case of “humility” the behaviors causing derailment include arrogance, self-promotion and dismissiveness. Finally, with regard to “courage,” those derailing behaviors include conflict avoidance, micromanagement and an excessive need for approval.

Even before reading this book, you can find free personal risk assessment tool at www.DerailedLeader.com and it’s worth a visit.

Article By Paul J. Welsh

What does George know about leading in crisis that makes him an expert on the subject? It turns out quite a bit. As Medtronic CEO, George earned a reputation for managing with integrity and challenging people to think creatively when dealing with crises. That approach helped establish Medtronic as the world’s leading medical technology company that experienced explosive growth of nearly 35% per year. In addition, as a member of the Goldman Sachs Board of Directors, George had a front-row seat as the recent financial crisis rocked the world.

George’s lessons include: Face Reality, Starting with Yourself; Never Waste a Good Crisis; and Be Aggressive: This is Your Best Chance to Win in the Market. In addition to providing practical advice, George shares real-life stories, anecdotes and a wealth of wisdom for current and aspiring leaders. He says the natural reaction when facing a crisis is to “hunker down,” batten down the hatches and ride out the crisis.

Rather than running for cover, George believes every crisis provides an opportunity to emerge as a stronger, more vibrant company or individual on the other side.

“Winners are not those who just get through it. You do have to get through it, but the winners are those who figure out how we can position the opportunity to make our company a lot stronger,” he says. “In Chinese, ‘crisis’ is made up of two characters: Danger and Opportunity. We all know ‘danger,’ but winners find the ‘opportunity.’”

During difficult times, employees look to leaders to fill-in-the-blanks with answers and reassurance. George advises leaders to take a team approach to solving problems.

“Don’t be Atlas, get the world off your shoulders,” he says. “Do two things — bring your teammates in your organization ‘real close around you to get the very best minds and best energy you can addressing the problems’ and ‘get everyone committed to solving them with you’ while getting to the real root causes of the problems.”

Beyond that, George urges leaders to establish an external support network — a person or group of people they can be totally open with and to bring perspective to a situation. It isn’t a secret that crises are the true test of leaders. And George believes most effective leaders don’t wait until they’re in charge to learn how to deal with crises. George says he has seen a number of leaders fail because they didn’t have prior experience in leading a crisis.

Overall, the key quality of good leaders is adaptability. George says his experiences, and the experiences of others, have proven to him, that you have to be in the game to learn.

“The worst decision I ever made is the one I didn’t make,” he shares. “A crisis is a real test of a leader’s courage. Leaders who aren’t willing to take a risk, that don’t have the courage, will surely fail.”

For more information, please visit www.billgeorge.org for videos, and activities. Also, look for the study guide in the back of the book. It’s a great tool for small groups to use in working through the lessons together.

Article By Paul J. Welsh

At all levels of government and at most dinner tables, the high cost of energy and the options possible from the renewable sources of solar and wind are familiar conversations. The change in recent years, however, is those conversations have become increasingly the focus of policy and action, not just topics conjecture and speculation.

SunCarrier, a division a+f GmbH, a company in southern Germany, has been researching Kansas City and the region as sites for installation of their solar technology. Marc Reimer, Head of Project Development, explained that his company has been a leader in solar technology and efficiency for six years with a new fashion of solar installation that has shown great success in Germany and Spain. They now seek to try that same technology in what he terms as “less than optimal conditions,” namely the winters of Midwestern United States.

Germany has become the world’s leader in solar technology since its beginnings in the early 80’s and with dramatic growth happening at the end of 1990 after the creation of major incentives from the German government that made solar products “financially very interesting” according to Reimer.

Germany, like many countries, uses a system called “Feed-in Electricity Tariffs” to encourage the use and creation of new energy technologies by paying subsidies, in differing amounts dependent upon which renewable source from which the energy is created, to the utility companies, who are then obligated to buy power created from those sources of energy. Reimer explains that producers of power from renewable sources, including both industry and private residences, sell their power to the electrical “grid” thus recouping the cost of the initial investment which typically takes just 8-10 years, even without incentives in place. With energy costs rising at a level of 10 percent each year for the last 10 years, the creation of power from alternative sources is very attractive.

Reimer believes that even without the incentives people will gravitate increasingly toward installing renewable energy creation technologies; because after the initial investment is recovered it is all “free energy,” except for the maintenance.

SunCarrier has created a new more efficient solar technology with a much smaller geographic “footprint” and it works both differently and better than traditional solar capture methods. Reimer explains there are two philosophies with “tracked” systems: single axis and dual axis. SunCarrier utilizes the single axis system which he describes as “completely reliable.” Their technology turns on an east to west track “axis” to best capture the sun’s rays regardless of the season making it 35% more productive than fixed systems. During the night hours it, very slowly and with great efficiency of energy consumption, spins back to its starting position using an electronic clock to move the system precisely into place based on solar movement patterns. Additionally, their system has been built to withstand the conditions of high wind and snow load that are the most difficult for tracking systems to stand up against. The focus for SunCarrier, Marc relates, is not looking at their short term ROI, but in that they produce energy in the worst weather and do so for decades, 20, 30, 40 years, with only upkeep costs after installation cost recovery.

Germany’s experience has been already been replicated in Spain, a primary solar market, which followed largely the same pattern as Germany with incentives as well as Spain have a similar availability of raw sunlight that is also comparable to here in Kansas. Both Germany and Spain are on target to have 20% of their energy needs met by renewable sources by 2020, putting them way ahead of the U.S. and it is already a 235 billion (Euros) industry in Germany creating a large number of jobs.

With a 235 billion (Euros) industry creating those alternative energy “green jobs” so much the hot-topic of conversation here in the U.S., can German and Spanish style incentives be far behind? Reimer believes no. He also believes the most likely source for those incentives will be state governments rather than the federal level and many states are already doing so. States are best placed to move forward with the environmental and health based initiative dollars that will bring technologies like theirs quickly into place, according to Marc.

Where do Kansas and the Midwest fit into this you may ask? Isn’t this technology best suited for the deserts of Arizona and California? Reimer says yes and no. First, yes, for optimal weather conditions, the desert is the obvious choice; they already have experience in Dubai and the Middle East. However, there are, in SunCarrier’s opinion, great reasons for being here in the Midwest. First, the competition is not comparable to those areas. Second, they want to be able to show what their technology can do in difficult weather conditions including heavy snow and wind loads. He says those organizations in Kansas City, Lincoln and Omaha have been very receptive to both the idea and their technology and SunCarrier has been impressed by their receptiveness.

He says they have several options for their first installation in the region and already have crafted a team of partners. Their legal team is Husch, Blackwell and Sanders of Kansas City and they have supplier and subcontractor relationships established. NPPD (Nebraska Public Power District) in Norfolk, Nebraska is the probable site of their first regional installation. They have also met with other utilities including OPPD (Omaha Public Power District) as well as product developers at private companies like Chevron, who is a worldwide player in solar. He says they have been in close contact with U.S. manufacturing like Baylin Manufacturing in Columbus as well as Wellman, Inc., and their modules will most likely be purchased from Sun Power in San Francisco.

Many people are surprised by the idea of solar power generation in Kansas; after all, wouldn’t wind be more likely? Reimer explains that solar and wind are not in competition for the creation of renewable energy; in fact, they are highly complementary systems. In fact, he explains, those who currently have wind generation systems connected to the grid make ideal candidates for adding solar generation. The systems work separately but effectively side-by-side and don’t meet the energy needs all alone.

Wind is most efficient at night and during bad weather when solar is not available. Yet, the highest energy demands come during times when it is not windy. Wind is absent specifically when it is hot and clear with lots of sunshine present and our energy consumption demands sky-rocket due to the twin needs of air conditioning and refrigeration. Even without those high pressure calls for power, our energy usage is typically at its highest during the morning and late afternoon, precisely when solar tracking provides the most wattage. Wind is, by its very nature, difficult to predict yet there are long-standing, predictable solar tracking models to use for creation of calculations for solar energy production.

Finally, he points out the advantages inherent in solar as compared to wind, first and foremost being the environmental advantages with wind having a higher negative environmental impact on a number of fronts. First, visually wind towers impact the environment by standing typically 200 feet or more in height; second, the turbines create shadings from the blades; third, the noise created by the spinning turbines is often cited as a deterrent; and fourth, the maintenance is much more intense on the wind structures. The turbines are typically not found in areas where cranes that can reach 200 feet, as required to do the repairs, are located so they have to be transported in resulting in much longer downtimes, plus at costs approaching $250,000 (USD) for repairs.

Contrast that to, if there are issues solar can be back up and producing with less than 3 hours of repair. This points to another advantage of solar. Namely, the technology can be put into place in 2 to 3 weeks in order to create two megawatts of power; a huge advantage for an energy dependent and cost sensitive public.

A big dollar industry creating thousands of good-paying jobs using parts from American manufacturers resulting in the creation of renewable energy reducing our dependence on foreign sources of fuel that contaminate our planet? It sounds like solar is a match made in the heavens yet within our grasp.

Interview was conducted by Jay Liebenguth

1. Is this book is going to be preaching to the choir about addressing environmental and social issues? Will it be a studied treatment of the issues or a piece of propaganda?

2. It takes a bold author to first thank the Forward writer Darryl Vernon Poole for comparing him to Rachel Carson and Malcolm Gladwell. Then, proceed to compare himself to George Orwell. If he’s that good I need to read on.

This book is the latest update of a book called World Inc. (2007) which has received significant acclaim. And, as president and founder of the American Hazard Control Group, Dr. Piasecki has been consulting with major corporations on environmental corporate strategy since 1981. So his opinions are worth hearing, worth reading.

“Competition has created an industrial underbelly of pollution, climate change, resource depletion, new forms of economic imperialism, and regional wars over water, clean air, and trees,” says Dr.Piasecki.

He contends that today’s businesses must take responsibility for leading in the areas of social and environmental reform.

You can almost hear businesses asking, “What’s in it for us?” And Dr. Piasecki has an answer for them. He explains how responding to social needs will open markets, generate profits, and win investment capital. The examples he profiles in this book are from consulting he has provided to clients like Toyota, Suncor Energy and Hewlett-Packard.

Dr. Piasecki is very pro-capitalism. He just sees the need for capitalism to change, saying that traditional capitalism may be getting a bit senile. He believes that both corporations and individuals will need to adjust their bearing in a new terrain. Competing on price and quality alone are not sufficient anymore. Businesses, large and small, must also put social needs into the equation.

He talks about The S Frontier which he observes is already here. It includes the severity of market conditions, the swiftness of information, and social response to capitalism. And according to Dr. Piasecki, if companies don’t adjust, he predicts that the top 300 multinational companies will undergo tremendous change, and only a minority will be in business a few decades from now.

This is a surprising book because the radical changes Dr. Piasecki describes actually grow out of strong business fundamentals. It’s an uplifting book that defines the future of leadership. And the arrogance that seemed to jump out of the book before the first chapter may be justified based on the thinking the book advances.

Article By Paul J. Welsh

Interview was conducted by Jay Liebenguth

“Give me a country that is at war because the last President has been shot and I’ll figure out something to do to make money,” says Smith who is author of RICHES AMONG THE RUINS—Adventures in the Dark Corners of the Global Economy.

In this new book, Smith recounts his experiences risking not only his money, but his life, in war zones, dictatorships, and crime-ridden capitals in countries like El Salvador, Nigeria, Turkey, Russia and Iraq.

Smith sounds like he has a risky life, risking not only his investments but his life. But he doesn’t see it that way. He says he is risk adverse which he defines as always having an exit strategy for most of the bonds he invests in. He suggests that any time you invest in something that looks like it’s going bad, you should head to the exit. You’re better off taking a loss and living to fight another day.

For Smith that strategy has served him well except when it came to Russia. He rationalized that Russia was too big for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to let fail. In turn, he invested $20 million in Russian Government Bonds. But then on August 17, 1998 Smith says, “Russia gave the middle finger to the financial world and I was at the top of the finger.”

That lesson taught him to never bet on something just because it seems “too big to fail.” He contends that nothing—no company, business or country—is immune to failure. As examples in the United States he cites General Motors, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The first thing Smith will do when arriving in Damacus will be to try to identify a local partner he can trust. To find that person who can provide him with local insights he talks with everyone including the cab driver on the ride from the airport. But he says you need to be careful because resumes are more fraudulent today.

The countries that Smith predicts will be the rising stars for investors are Brazil, China, India and Russia in that order. He suggests if you’re buying a mutual fund you should look to see if those countries are included.

You can follow Smith’s thinking at www.richesamongtheruins.com

Article By Paul J. Welsh

Interview Conducted By Jay Liebenguth