John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Eisenhower 1956

Issue No. 221 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a timely book for my U.S. readers as we approach the 4th of July. Timely--because, hmmm, Egypt is next to Libya...and Congress and the President disagree...and, oh yes, an election is coming. If you think you have it tough, read this hot-off-the-press book on President Eisenhower. And this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Ike’s White-knuckle Crisis

OK. I know this is a stretch to cajole you into reading a book about a dead president. But hang with me a minute—and let me try.

Two-term U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs that “October 20, 1956 was the start of the most crowded and demanding three weeks of my entire presidency.” And according to author David Nichols, “During this period, Eisenhower embodied the wisdom of his preachment that ‘plans are worthless but planning is everything,’ enabling him to ‘do the normal thing when everyone else is going nuts.’”

There’s one big reason you should read this book: crisis management (The Crisis Bucket).  Nichols summarizes this stunning account—and Eisenhower himself—on the book’s last page with this one-liner, “By any standard, his was a virtuoso presidential performance—an enduring model for effective crisis management.”

Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War is unlike any book I’ve read. It covers mostly one year, 1956, with the greatest focus on Ike’s most demanding three weeks of his presidency. (I study leaders. Ike was a leader, not just a general.)

For starters—have you ever had a couple of weeks like this?
   --Eisenhower couldn’t convince Congress to use foreign aid to fund Egypt’s proposed Aswan Dam project, so after a soft commitment to Egypt’s President Nasser, Ike pulled the plug on the deal.
   --In response, Egypt’s President Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal.
   --Oops! Western Europe is almost totally dependent on the flow of oil through the canal (with oil reserves of just 15 to 30 days).
   --Ike’s best friends—Britain and France, the nations he rescued in World War II—plotted secretly and devised clever smoke screens to keep the U.S. not just ill-informed but misinformed about their intentions. Read: bald-faced lies!
   --Britain, France and Israel go to war against Egypt.
   --Ike refuses to provide cover to his double-dealing, deceptive friends, and suggested they “be left to burn in their own oil.”
   --At one point, commenting on the flurry of cables between London and Washington, he quipped that it had turned into a “trans-Atlantic essay contest.”

Oh…and did I mention: The President had a heart attack on a trip in the fall of 1955, requiring seven weeks off in Denver, and then more surgery later in 1956 for a cancerous tumor the doctors and staff had kept from him.

Doctors told him to take it easy—and in that we get a humorous picture of Ike. He wrote a friend that he had been ordered “to avoid all situations that tend to bring about such reactions as irritation, frustration, anxiety, fear and, above all anger.” So he had snapped at the doctors, “Just what do you think the presidency is?”

Yet, he decides he’s healthy enough to run for a second term; Adlai Stevenson, his opponent, disagrees. Often. And quite publically!

“The real reason a President wants to run again,” suggested aide Sherman Adams, “is because he doesn’t think anybody else can do as good a job as he’s doing.”

Oops! Then during the campaign, the Soviet Union hustles tanks into Hungary.
 
So whatever your current leadership or management crisis is (you’ve had some doozies and will continue to have them), you gotta admit…it ain’t as challenging as Ike’s crises in 1956.  At one point he whined to his personal secretary, Ann Whitman, “why anyone would want such a job as that of the President.”

If you’re not a history buff or a dead presidents buff, you may find the first half of the book slow-going, even tedious perhaps—but the beauty of this one-year historical feast is the author’s amazing quilt of quotations he threads together from newly released sources like the top secret minutes of the National Security Council and Oval Office meetings.

But keep reading, because when Nichols (a former prof and academic dean) hits Ike’s three most demanding weeks of his life, it’s a page-turner—and I don’t use that phrase lightly. The crisis management insights and best practices are served up on almost every page. 

His campaign buttons announced, “I LIKE IKE.” Ditto. I was so sad when page 286 arrived that I even read the “Acknowledgments,” hoping for another crumb or two. I got ‘em!

To order this book from Amazon, click on the graphic below for Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, by David A. Nichols.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) On addressing Ike’s response to the Soviet occupation of Hungary, the author writes, “This was standard Eisenhower doctrine, to give an opponent an escape hatch from a confrontation that could escalate into great conflict.” Think of your last crisis—did it escalate unnecessarily?
2) Nichols writes, “Eisenhower had long ago perfected the art of embracing a messianic mission and making it sound like a simple soldier’s call to duty.”  Does our organization have a big vision—and is it stated simply enough?

Top-10 Customer Hunches - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Customer Bucket, Chapter 2, in Mastering the Management Buckets is to learn how your customers will change.

Try a stand-up meeting. With bagels. 

“OK. For the next 20 minutes, we’re going to fill this flipchart with all of our best guesses on how our primary customer (per Peter Drucker’s definition) will change in the next 36 months.

“Then, we’ll vote for the 10 most likely changes and assign people to do some in-the-trenches customer research to discern if our hunches are accurate.  We’re going to do something very, very radical this month: talk to our customers!”

For more resources from the Customer Bucket, including 10 book recommendations, visit the Customer Bucket webpage.

JOIN US!

--Sept. 17, 2011 (Saturday) – Nonprofit Board Governance Workshop, Town and Country Manor, Santa Ana, Calif.
--Sept. 27-28, 2011 (Tues. & Wed.) – Mastering the Management Buckets Workshop Experience, Orange County, Calif.

 

The Ambition

Issue No. 220 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends a page-turner for your summer beach reading—the first novel from apologetics guru Lee Strobel. And this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Summer Mega-Read

Lee Strobel waits until the end, page 268, in his first novel to write his disclaimer. “Given my role as a pastor at two of the country’s largest churches, it would be natural for people to try to guess who the book’s characters most resemble.  But it would be a futile effort, because they are the creation of my imagination.”

Given my years at Willow Creek Community Church and Willow Creek Association, and the proximity of Saddleback Church to my home, (the two churches where Strobel served) it was impossible not to devour Lee’s fictional account (he says) of a megachurch pastor on the horns of a dilemma.

Set in Chicago (where I survived 21 winters), the novel has it all and doesn’t disappoint. Murder. Mayhem. Megachurch. The mob. And Chicago politics! How I’ve missed Chicago politics!

Maybe I’m giving this page-turner too much credit because I know Lee, the former award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune. His personal story of atheist-turned-megachurch teaching pastor is stunning. His bestselling books like The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, and The Case for a Creator are now part of our apologetics lexicon. While this first novel gets its case for faith licks in, at its core the story is perhaps more akin to John Grisham meets Tim Keller.

I’d recommend The Ambition if for no other reason than the mouth-watering description of an authentic Chicago hot dog (I miss the dogs more than the politics). Actually, there’s another reason. Strobel uses the investigative reporter’s voice to hang out the dirty laundry on pastors who turn sermons into published books. The newsman grunts, “Seems to me he’s unduly profiting from a tax-exempt church.”

Even if this first novel was only half as good, I’d probably still recommend it out of loyalty to Chicago and Strobel.  But it is good—and just in time for your summer beach reading.

I won’t spoil the beginning, the middle or the ending. But…hmmm…are these megachurch characters really just from Lee’s imagination?

To order this book from Amazon, click on the graphic below for The Ambition, by Lee Strobel.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Is truth really stranger than fiction?  If you were to write a fictional account of your church or organization, describe at least one memorable character—positive or negative.
2) At a CEO Dialogue in New York City several years ago, Ed Morgan, president of The Bowery Mission shared this axiom, “Never do anything you don’t want published in the New York Post.” If New York or Chicago newspaper reporters were snooping around our organization, would they find anything front-page worthy?

3 Cheers for Pruning! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Results Bucket, Chapter 1, in Mastering the Management Buckets is that, per Peter Drucker, you must slough off yesterday—that is, abandon those sacred cows and dead horses that are holding you back.

This week over coffee, I affirmed a gutsy CEO’s decision to close down two major entities. Painful? Yes. And somewhat sad? Yes.

Yet he told me that once the decision was made to cut their losses—the staff was supportive. They trusted the thoughtful leadership of the board and the CEO—and even though it was a very difficult decision, it was the right decision. Pruning is powerful.  Without appropriate pruning, you won’t have appropriate growth.

For more resources and books from the Results Bucket, including a downloadable worksheet, "When the Horse Is Dead, Dismount," visit the Results Bucket webpage.

 

Rules to Live By

Issue No. 219 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests you borrow the author’s “52 Rules” idea and challenge your staff to write your own “rules to live by.”  It might be a perfect team project to galvanize your staff around your mission, vision and values.  And this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Steal This Idea!

You’ll get double value out of this week’s book if you read it—and then steal it.  Steal the brilliant idea, that is.

Jerry White has been-around-the-block a few times. The president emeritus of The Navigators, Jerry is uniquely experienced to offer up his 52 “rules to live by.” With a PhD in astronautics, service as a former mission controller at Cape Canaveral, Air Force Academy prof and retired Air Force major general, his wisdom oozes out of every unique topic he tackles—about two pages per insight.

The table of contents got my reading/learning motors started—and I quickly checked 14 topics that immediately arrested my attention:
   --Write Something Every Day
   --Let Magazines Sit for Two Weeks
   --Get Mad at the Right Things
   --Don’t Get Mad at the Little Things
   --Watch Out for Icebergs
   --Call Back
   --Do Some Things Poorly
   --Leave Some Things Undone
   --Focus on Contribution, not Position
   --Make Lists
   --Compete, but Don’t Be Competitive
   --Do What You Say You’ll Do
   --Expect Your Leaders to Disappoint You
   --Learn in Depth—Don’t Be Shallow

White organizes his 52 principles into three categories: A Better You, Relationship Rules, and Enhancing Your Work and Effectiveness.

Here’s his wisdom on reading: “Someone has said if you can read but choose not to, you’re really no better off than someone who’s illiterate.”  Jerry suggests a goal of reading at least one book a month. (And let me add this—if you delegate some of your reading to your direct reports, you can “read” four books a month if one staffer per week reports on a book.)

On the value of getting angry, White quotes Aristotle, “Anyone can become angry—that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way; this is not easy.”  White then shares briefly—and transparently—about his own anger when his son “was brutally and senselessly murdered in a random crime.” Powerful.

In the foreword to White’s book, Ken Blanchard suggests you read a chapter a week so you’ll chew slowly on all 52 chapters over the span of a year. And that’s where the stealing comes in. Steal the idea.

After you and your team read this book, then write and publish your own book.  With so many self-publishing (print on demand) options available, like Lulu and others, challenge your staff to write their own “52 Rules to Live By.”  Steal White’s format, but create your own memorable rules—unique to your organization’s culture and ethos. Ask everyone, at every level including volunteers and board members, to serve up their own wisdom, one per weekly staff meeting.  Ask your best editor to spiff it all up and presto—in a year—you’ll have your book of 52 rules.

To order from Amazon, click on the graphic below for Rules to Live By: 52 Principles for a Better Life, by Jerry White.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) In his chapter on “Do Some Things Poorly,” White tells about meticulously filling five-pound seed bags as a teenager. But his perfection—to the ounce—was not appreciated by his boss who wanted production, not perfection! How have you coached someone who tilted more towards perfection than production?
2) If you were to contribute two pages of wisdom to our own “52 Rules to Live By” book, what topic would you like to address?

Balancing the 3-Legged Stool - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

Speaking of tilting inappropriately, one of the big ideas in Mastering the Management Buckets is that organizations must constantly monitor how balanced they are in the three arenas of Cause, Community and Corporation.

Like a three-legged stool, it takes all three arenas to be effective, yet some organizations focus only on Cause (results, customer, strategy, etc.) and ignore Community (people, culture, team, hoopla, etc.).  Other organizations fine-tune the Corporation side (board, budget, operations, systems, etc.)—but a well-oiled machine without Cause or Community wears thin on activity without results. It’s a delicate dance and few leaders get it balanced 100 percent of the time.

For more on Cause, Community and Corporation visit the Management Buckets website—and complete the Management Buckets Self-assessment Tool to see how balanced your organization actually is.

JOIN US!
--June 18, 2011 (Sat.) – Nonprofit Board Governance Workshop, Orange County, Calif
--June 28-29, 2011 (Tues. & Wed.) – The Rolling 3-Year Strategic Plan Workshop, Orange County, Calif.
--Sept. 17, 2011 (Saturday) – Nonprofit Board Governance Workshop, Orange County, Calif.
--Sept. 27-28, 2011 (Tues. & Wed.) – Mastering the Management Buckets Workshop Experience, Orange County, Calif.