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Jim Citrin Leadership by Example

Jim Citrin, Leadership by Example

Getting Back to Basics in 2009

by Jim Citrin

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Posted on Monday, December 29, 2008, 12:00AM

As 2008 comes to a close, "Slumdog Millionaire," the Oscar-contending film directed by Danny Boyle and based on the novel "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup, is perhaps the perfect antidote to the Bernie Madoff scandal and the economic crisis gripping the world.

While the film — which takes place in the most impoverished corners of India — won't put economies back on a growth track, recapitalize the banking sector, or recapture the millions of jobs lost in services and manufacturing, it serves as a poignant reminder of how tough things really can be in the world and what the most important things in life truly are.

Changing Priorities

Over the past couple of months, I've come to the conclusion that as difficult as the current economic predicament is (and how much harder it may still become), it provides the opportunity to reset our values and make necessary but long-ignored changes in our lives and work. That, I believe, is a worthwhile goal for 2009. With the new administration preparing to take over in a few weeks, the zeitgeist is all about getting back to basics and starting anew on a better track.

The era of unchecked consumerism and financial excess had the insidious effect of devaluing everything. Why save money when you could borrow to get whatever you wanted? Why hang on to clothes and appliances when you could just go to the store and buy new ones? Why make structural improvements to your business operations or deepen customer relationships when you could push more stuff to get the growth that Wall Street demanded?

In one fell swoop, these attitudes have ground to a halt. They've been replaced by millions of healthier conversations in conference rooms and around kitchen tables about how to save, conserve, and prioritize.

Making the Best of Bad Times

So, with all due respect and sensitivity to the devastation that the loss of jobs and savings means for retirees, workers, and families everywhere, I believe there's a genuine silver lining to this storm. While it's surely going to be a challenging year ahead, the question is how to turn the crisis into an opportunity. Here are three suggestions:

1. Take a fresh look at everything you do.

Replace some of the extraneous activities that have filled your time and refocus on making concrete improvements in areas where you may not have had the time or the will.

As an example, a president I spoke to recently has led his organization to carefully assess the company's current energy use and is implementing plans to maximize efficiency while minimizing the impact on the environment. By reducing energy consumption on the one hand — through changes in equipment and infrastructure — and increasing awareness of the importance of conservation on the other, the company has reduced consumption by over 10 percent from a year ago.

2. Re-engage with your customers and clients.

Take the time to truly understand what's important to them. Communicate with more empathy, authenticity, and consistency. Develop more compelling value propositions. I was struck, for example, by how one company has shifted the message of its marketing communications from its state-of-the-art products to how its offerings fit into improving family relationships.

You can write that off as simply an obvious adjustment of advertising to match the tenor of the market. But if these and similar attitudes are reflective of how people actually think, it will position you for improved business down the road.

3. Improve your organization and culture.

Rather than merely laying-off workers and ceasing new hiring, some companies are strategically assessing their talent needs and taking action. They are pruning the ranks of less productive employees and selectively recruiting stars that may have otherwise been impossible to bring on board in the past. Others are dedicating themselves to working together more constructively.

One CEO I know of wrote a communication to his entire company community laying out thoughtful plans for controlling spending this year and streamlining next year's budget. "Our ability to work together cooperatively and to show good will and thoughtfulness in the way we adjust to our new reality is a measure of our strength."

That is a powerful and productive message for 2009.

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65 Comments

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  • Jerry - Friday, February 20, 2009, 4:35AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    crisis? i'm interested in how we are making the poor richer or shall i say a fair prosper society. why beacuse i'm a bussiness man and i like the people to have money so that they can buy my products! that's why you idiot superrich who what u can think of is collecting money to your ubs bank accounts! so we all know that we need fair prosper society. and the big news is there are plenty of poor people, we just need to make the richer so that they can spent their money to pump up the economy? how we should do it , that's the jobs of the economists. me? i'm just going to sit at my office desk an see what u guys can do. the bad news is when all people around the world faired prosper. than there are going to be a hell of a market war out there!

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Tuesday, February 10, 2009, 1:34AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    nice article testing

  • Andrew - Monday, January 5, 2009, 11:23PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Being lean and mean is the answer. Possibly a good way to do that is through doing businee via the internet and getting rid of pesky overheads. (www.jwsgoldsilver.com)

  • Alice - Monday, January 5, 2009, 8:50PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Its all about customer service in a much too impersonal world. People like to be addressed by a human being with feelings and emotions and a caring attitude - HOW NOVEL!!

  • Tanya - Monday, January 5, 2009, 6:44PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    I'm thinking this would have been useful if written 1 year ago, when it was truely an argument to lead by Integrity.

  • Brian - Monday, January 5, 2009, 2:21PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    "Making the best of bad times" Most organizations are being forced to make changes like these. Call it what ever you want, but it is how the "fittest" organizations will survive this recession. These practices should engaged all the time, not just when it hurts. The ideas are great, although nothing new at all.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, January 5, 2009, 1:29PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    The Stock market has always been forward looking and we have been in a recession that should only last another 6 months tops so stocks are relatively cheap. It's a great time to buy in, everything is on sale.Buy Buy Buy!!

  • R A Bottens - Monday, January 5, 2009, 1:17PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    Leadership by what example. We have no good role models for good leadership. The banking leadership took their bonuses out of their bailout money. Thats real leadership. Bush and Paulson doled out billions without thinking how the money would be spent. First it was to bail out bad loans then all of a sudden it went to reward bad bank leadership. That is leadership you can depend on. If we must prune the ranks lets start with the overpaid ceo's who are driving companies into the ground and taking big bonuses for their incompetent leadership. If you want to improve the corporate culture put every corrupt CEO in a Federal Penitentary for the next 20 years and you will see a change in the corporate culture. This article overlooks much of the big picture. Crooks don't change crooks need to be thrown in prison. And after 20 years they might change just a little. A powerful and productive message for 2009 is: Revolution from the tyrannical forces that are destroying our country from the inside out.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, January 4, 2009, 4:42AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    In 2008, 1.6 million homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure. Ten percent of all home borrowers — and fully a third of subprime borrowers — are now at least one month behind in their mortgage payments. Even after reworking the mortgage in an attempt to prevent foreclosure about half go right back into failure. We are on track where approximately 5% of all borrowers will foreclose by the end of 2009. Unless there is massive job creation no amount of Dilbert-style chatter from CEOs is going to help. Without substantial job creation as bad as 2008 seemed, 2009 will be worse.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, January 3, 2009, 12:53AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    I can summarize your three suggestions is one sentence: Pretend to care about others.

  • onward - Friday, January 2, 2009, 11:26PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    It is a generational problem. Which is greedier? The CEO getting the giant bonus or the person taking out that mortgage for the giant house that he really can't afford? It is driven by the same weakness. The Greatest Generation gave rise to the Greediest Generation! Greed drives our politicians, our steroid using baseball players, our parents that hover over their kids, pushing them at young ages to do well at the expense of just letting them be kids, the list goes on and on. Greed (or at least the drive for progress) certainly can be good, a la Gordon Gekko, so long as you don't sell out your other values. Greed, at all levels, is the root cause of our problems today and eminates throughout most of this boomer generation. Until this generation ages and exits positions of responsibility in our society, we will make little progress.

  • John - Friday, January 2, 2009, 11:59AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    I agree with RSK and would add that we need fundamental government reforms that will remove some of the structural causes of government irresponsibility. One such reform would be a balanced budget amendment that would require the federal government to balance the budget, except in times of true crisis. We should have paid for the Iraq war as it was being fought, not pushing off the cost to future generations. The key is that the issue is structural and chronic, and not just a flaw in Bush's policy. It will keep happening. Who in government is talking about being responsible regarding Medicare and Social Security? No one I know. The problem will simply fester like sub-prime (only far worse).

  • Paul - Friday, January 2, 2009, 11:21AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Gas bag...

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Friday, January 2, 2009, 9:46AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    your article is all about the rich and not the poor

  • Randall - Friday, January 2, 2009, 9:14AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    These are fine ideas personally, but Congress and the new prez won't reset their values at all. The change being offered by the new administration is apparently that Mr. Bush did not spend enough, as in mo' bailouts baby and more social engineering schemes that will become a key part of our demise.

  • JB - Thursday, January 1, 2009, 8:47AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Just a lot of babble

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 1:44PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    The author repeats the myth of the benevolent business owner, nothing new here. Add this stuff to Laura Rowley's religionist assault on reason and we have a good formula for capitalist media propaganda and mental manipulation of the ignorant television-soaked and sports-drugged masses, brought to you courtesy of the rich. Guess I will get a goatee and a tatoo.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 1:32PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Gee, what nice and thoughtful guys CEOs are. Fool.

  • Gracias - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 1:27PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Wrong. We need more stability, not more change. Essays like these, using "we" (as in "we" overspent ourselves and "we" need to work together) assume "we" made mistakes, when the fact is "we" did not. Add to that the billionaire loser articles you see in today's headlines and you see more of the same media propaganda that reinforces the positive nature of the system and ignores the evils within it. How many jobs and careers do Americans need to have before they wise up and demand the stability that government is supposed to bring? Re-engage with customers? Clearly this article is not aligned with the needs of those who are already fully engaged taking customer complaints on the phone at those awful sales and service jobs--the ones that have not been outsourced. When the wealthy have lost our money, suddenly "we" are supposed to work together when all along they have been abusing our trust? This "change" theme is a dangerous distraction from the facts of life: we are out to get one another, to defeat each other, at least in this country. Well, the wealthy and well-connected have won again, haven't they?

  • John - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 1:23PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    Everyone should read this like the "Paulson is the man of the moment" one. Like there was no mention of Paulson urging greater leverage for investment banks that would ultimately result in their getting the equivalent of institutional margin-calls, pocketing $700 (m)illion from being CEO of Goldman Sachs, then jumping to Treasury and pulling a $700 (b)illion number out of a hat(?) - there is no attempt to address what is at the root of what ails the economy. Instead, the message is "Suck it up. You've been had, now make the best of it. Don't draw attention to the underlying problem - fix yourself." Like telling a man on the gallows his fly is open - big help.

  • DAVID - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 1:08PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Everyone should read this.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 11:55AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    it's pretty funny how these wannabe investors start to think that the worst is over. we on wall st thank you for your ignorance. but hey, you preach evolution and survival of the fittest. it's very true today.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 11:22AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Pretty boring article but better than most of the others posted by Yahoo!. At least it doesn't give advice that is 100% wrong. Robert K, Ben S are you listening?

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 10:30AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    I thought this was a pretty good article (at least compared to a lot of the junk that appears on the main page of Yahoo Finance. The thing that never ceases to amaze me is the number of people who give an article one star and then write a comment that has absolutely nothing to do with the article. They will consistently write something about President Bush or greedy CEOs when the article has nothing to do with any of those individuals. I guess that's what you get when you allow anyone and everyone to post on this site though. Back to the article itself though, I think America does need to change its priorities. Individuals need to stop trying to keep up the old cliched "Joneses" and corporations need to focus on running their business the right way, instead of engaging in the "race to the bottom" in desperate attempts to keep up with the competition in terms of profit seeking. We know now that many companies who participated in the all out war for profits did things the wrong way, and it has come back to bite many of them in the butt. Sadly, I don't think that any attitude change on the part of individuals or companies will last, if it happens at all. We've gone through periods like this before, and runaway capitalism and greed has always persevered. It will be interesting to see if anything changes this time around. I'm not holding my breath.

  • TomH - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 9:12AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Pretty good, but wow, a lot of bitterness in the responses. I think the point is simply not to bury your head in the sand and instead be proactive and involved. The more you are an asset to your family, your employer and your community the better off you and everyone around you will be

  • RobertM - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 9:00AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    Ignores the basic problem in that our so-called business "leaders" are great at the fluff items described below. A company I formerly worked for was greater at "non-monetary reward and recognition", paying lip service to family issues, and encouraging workers to become engaged in the community (but on their time), but in the end streamlining meant we all worked harder and the rewards of increased efficiency went to executive bonuses. Not matter how one wants to sugar coat it, our financial problems are due to management looking after number one (which is not the workers, society, and country), which means focusing on short term profits even though it means long-term collapse.

  • W - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 8:46AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    The greatest lessons to learn from 2008 are not how "leaders" led, but how they abused and continue to abuse their positions. The foundation of capitalism is destroyed when incompetent management is allowed to remain simply because they are politically connected. That is communism, not capitalism. To not confront them with their failures is to tacitly approve of their methods, and to set the stage for "no lessons learned". The focus should be less on those that have done right all along and more on cleansing the foundational rot that will undermine whatever honest companies built atop it.

  • Once a patriot - Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 12:04AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    ...also remember, get as much as you can for as long as you can. Lie,cheat,steal, ...etc. Now that all the con men have taken their boxes of loot, Congress is paying off the henchmen, and what do we get? Higher taxes, fees, utility bills, and not one...NOT ONE! of these rats have served one day of penance. Lesson is: get rich any way you can, and let the ignorant masses under you fight over the table scraps.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 10:46PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    We are a small CSA (community supported agriculture) and we are doing to our 10 year old business, just what you are saying. We are concentrating more on the COMMUNITY of our CSA and trying to meet the needs of our members better. Giving more of what they want, not just more food. We are allowing free choice on many vegetables now, rather than just giving larger quantities that overwelm members.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 10:27PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    4. Move to Japan or learn to live off the land.

Showing comments 6-35 of 65<< PreviousNext >>
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