Issue No. 560 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests that going deeper, and reading more broadly, might change your mind about an event or a person's character. Here's the second book I've read on Carlos Ghosn. A page-turner! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 550 book reviews, and click here for my Pails in Comparison Blog review of Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies.
Really? Lebanon honored Carlos Ghosn with a stamp in 2017, yet now he can't leave the country! Read the ongoing saga of Ghosn's arrest and then escape from Japan. Guilty or a fugitive from injustice?
“Le Cost Killer” Quotes C.S. Lewis
Carlos Ghosn worked 13-hour days and endured 48 hours in the air each month, often flying between Tokyo and Paris—with side trips to Brazil and Lebanon. He was the first person on the planet to run two companies on the Fortune Global 500 simultaneously (Nissan and Renault)—an always-in-flux “alliance.” Later, he added another title to his business card, “Chairman of Mitsubishi Motors.”
In France, his aka was “Le Cost Killer” for his restructuring of Renault. In Japan, his moniker was “Seven Eleven” for his daily schedule, but he was also applauded as “Mr. Fix It” for saving Nissan. Ghosn (now 69) was a turnaround superhero and the business press and other gatherings (the World Economic Forum in Davos, etc.) couldn’t get enough of this guy.
Then, he was arrested in Japan. Yet according to the authors of Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn, the same person who was lauded by auto execs worldwide also kept a C.S. Lewis quotation on his iPhone:
it is thinking of yourself less.”
You’ll remember the newsclips and headlines back in 2019—when Ghosn shocked the world. He’s made headlines ever since, including this Wall Street Journal article, by Nick Kostov and Sean McLain, on Aug. 6, 2022: “The Inside Story of Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape From Japan. The scheme involved stacks of cash, a stealthy dash to the airport, and plenty of cloak-and-dagger tactics. In the end, though, the auto executive had to hunker down in a claustrophobic box, hoping no one would look inside.”
Old news? No! The leadership lessons abound in Boundless, by The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Kostov and Sean McLain. I just read this page-turner, and I would have read another 250 pages, but the authors must have been exhausted after writing this. Their sources were astonishing. There will likely be dozens and dozens of sequels, articles, podcasts, and case studies yet to come.
Just look at how the Harvard Business Review has covered Ghosn—both before and after his arrest and escape! Visit HBR and search “Carlos Ghosn” and you’ll see 31 results, including a four-part audio series, “The Rise and Fall of Carlos Ghosn.” Part 4 (Episode 806) concluded on June 24, 2021.
So why my fixation on Carlos Ghosn? Every element of the timeline is stunning:
• Jan. 19, 2018 – Arrest in Japan
• Dec. 30, 2019 – Arrival in Lebanon after escaping Japan
• Jan. 8, 2020 – Press conference in Beirut
• June 22, 2021 – Collision Course published (read my review)
• Aug. 9, 2022 – Boundless published (see below)
• 2023 and beyond – Who knows?
In my review of Collision Course, which I titled “Rubber Stamp Boards & Lapdog Auditors,” I listed nine reasons to read the book and noted that the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were in unlikely agreement during the early days of Ghosn’s arrest and escape.
Now, I’m urging you to read Boundless for even more leadership lessons, boardroom dysfunction, cultural clashes, displays of loyalty and disloyalty, and more. The two award-winning WSJ investigative reporters have written a page-turner. You won’t stop talking about it. I’ve decided that, looking back, I’ve often formed early and lasting opinions of events and character qualities—without having the full picture. We rarely do get the full picture, but Boundless, published just nine months ago, fills in many of the blanks with extraordinary “in the room” details. How’d they do that?
What’s Ghosn’s side of the story? Guilty? Not guilty? Or is he a fugitive from “injustice” as he claims? Visit Carlos Ghosn’s own website here.
To order the book from Amazon, click on the title for Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn (Aug. 9, 2022), by Nick Kostov and Sean McLain. Listen on Libro (9 hours, 16 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In my review of Collision Course, I wrote that from his safe perch in Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn had been interviewed numerous times about his daring escape from Japan. “As the Alliance wobbled without him, Ghosn seemed to relish in sniping at its troubles from the sidelines. He derided the group’s new consensus-based approach as ‘Santa Claus’ management.” How would/should your CEO and/or board spokesperson respond to a former CEO’s sniping?
2) In Boundless, the authors write that meetings between Renault and Nissan teams to discuss using a common car part “quickly turned into trench warfare.” They add, “Internal surveys of French and Japanese managers showed a persistent cultural gap. ‘When a Japanese person says yes, it means they’ve understood, not that they’ve agreed,’ one Renault engineer lamented. ‘By contrast, if we don’t respond immediately, they consider that we agree, which is unfair.’” How diligent are we in understanding the diversity of leadership styles and cultures in our organization?
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 5: The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends
Book #31 of 100: The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #31 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
by Ken Blanchard, William Oncken, Jr., and Hal Burrows
Books #22 through #40 spotlight 19 books I named to “The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends” group—featuring Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, Ken Blanchard, and Peter Drucker. Part 5 features five books by Blanchard, including this lifesaver I reviewed in Issue No. 12 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting.
• Read my review (very short!).
• Order from Amazon: The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)
Get the Monkeys Off Your Back! Read this classic book on effective delegation. Why delegate a task to an inexperienced team member when you can nail the project faster, better and with less hassle yourself? If you thrive on being the Problem-Solving Guru on your team, this book is for you and your ego. You’ll learn how to get the “monkey” (someone else’s assignment) off your back and how to avoid accepting monkeys in the first place.
The authors penned this humorous classic on delegation to help your entire team understand and use this powerful “monkey” analogy and language. It will dramatically change your office culture. Honest!
What if you only had 37 days to set the course in your new role as CEO of United Airlines? Read my review of this master class in leadership and culture, Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies, by Oscar Munoz with Brian DeSplinter. And for more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.
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Dysfunctional Delegation Diseases
Visit The Delegation Bucket and download the seven-question assessment, "Dysfunctional Delegation Diseases." Take this gut-check and diagnose the severity of your delegation diseases. Are you a Code Green, Code Yellow or Code Red? Read more on delegation in Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook.
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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. It seems that everyone’s an expert today on telling your story: social media influencers, podcasters, pundits, and bloggers. Who do you trust? AI? The “experts” with tried and true research? Or new, but untested strategies and tactics? We can help! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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