Steering out of this crisis requires the skills of both Moses and Aaron.
As we struggle to emerge from Wall Street’s nuclear winter, a new generation of business leaders may be forgiven for not solving all of the problems left on their doorsteps, but they won’t be forgiven for failing to offer a way of looking at what lies ahead.GE’s Jeff Immelt recently offered up a disquieting, but instructive, first take:
“There’s an expression we use that ‘past is prologue,’….That’s not true. You go through in your lives certain times when things change. And this is a time when things change. And one of the things that changes is what business leadership is going to be all about and what it’s going to mean for all of us personally and some of the things that we have to go do and we have to think about.”
This was said around the same time as the ‘Alan Greenspan Wasn’t God After All’ catharsis. Now—setting aside the obligatory Mother Goose pronouncements about trust, accountability, and how much corporations love puppies—it will be interesting to see how a 21st century business leader, an aspiring Pierpont Morgan, addresses Immelt’s challenge.
This is a time when things change. And one of the things that changes is what business leadership is going to be all about.
With the requisite caveat that there are factors in play that are beyond his or her personal control, I would offer two crisis management guideposts: Pierpont must be both the Moses, the force, and his brother Aaron, the PR man.
Pierpont’s main mission will be to show his company’s stakeholders—employees, clients, governments, media and opinion leaders—a way out of the wilderness. Moses needed to remind the squabbling Israelites that the hike across the desert was worthwhile because it was based on a central principle: Freedom—and maybe a little condo by the Dead Sea where they could tell the grandkids to stop running by the pool. Simple, attainable stuff. Eventually.
In an era where the marketplace demands instant gratification, Pierpont’s “Aaron instincts” will need to emphasize that there is a time to reap and a time to sow—disabusing the marketplace of the notion that double-digit returns will be the sole template going forward.
Tracy Quan's latest novel is Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, set in Provence and praised in The Nation as a "deft account of occupational rigors and anxieties before the crash." Tracy's debut, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, and the sequel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, are international bestsellers. A regular columnist for The Guardian, she has written for many publications including Cosmopolitan, The Financial Times, and The New York Times.
Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
Gerald Posner is the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism (www.posner.com). Posner lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
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Renata Espinosa is the New York editor of Fashion Wire Daily. She is also the co-founder of impressionistic fashion and art blog TheNuNu and a sometimes backup dancer for "The Anna Copa Cabanna Show."
Amanda Fortini has written for The New Yorker, Slate, Elle, and New York, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.
Eric Dezenhall co-founded the communications firm Dezenhall Resources, Ltd., and serves as its CEO. His first book, Nail 'em!: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Business, pioneered techniques for understanding and defusing crises.
Eric Dezenhall co-founded the communications firm Dezenhall Resources, Ltd., and serves as its CEO. His first book, Nail 'em!: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Business, pioneered techniques for understanding and defusing crises.
Eric Dezenhall co-founded the communications firm Dezenhall Resources, Ltd., and serves as its CEO. His first book, Nail 'em!: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Business, pioneered techniques for understanding and defusing crises.
Eric Dezenhall co-founded the communications firm Dezenhall Resources, Ltd., and serves as its CEO. His first book, Nail 'em!: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Business, pioneered techniques for understanding and defusing crises.
Amen!
This essay cautions us well. To attain the attainable might not stir our passions, but is seems likely that this advice -- call it straight talk? -- should guide us going forward.
Oh, and he's also right about not running by the pool ...
Thank you.
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