We are beginning a new quarter of service. We wanted to begin by sharing a snapshot recently sent forth by the team at the Visual Capitalist we count as a partner for our on-going research & analysis work. We also note a snapshot of leadership that is critical for us as we all agitate for a Post-COVID & A Post-Racial World.
We look forward to the continued privilege to serve.
Running a car company isn’t easy, even in the best of times. And Mary Barra’s reign as General Motors’ CEO has been anything but the best of times. She became the first female CEO of an automobile company in 2014, taking the job amidst a massive controversy over faulty ignition switches. In her first year, she had to issue 84 recall notices and testify before the U.S. Senate. Last year, she was faced with the worst auto workers strike in a half century. And then came COVID-19, followed by the upheaval over the George Floyd killing. Oh yes, and then there are the repeated Twitter attacks from the President of the United States.
Throughout it all, Barra has remained unflappable, eschewing the industry’s traditional defensiveness, and always asking: “What can we learn from this?” That’s why Fortune’s Ellen McGirt and I were happy to welcome her as a guest on this week’s edition of our podcast, Leadership Next. She represents a new style of leading.
Ellen started by asking Barra about her strong public statement over the George Floyd killing, in which she said she was “impatient” and “disgusted”–words that emanated from the heart, not the marketing department. “I personally felt very sad,” Barra told us. “I am an action-oriented person. I’m an engineer. And I asked, ‘Why is this happening over and over?’” She felt a need for action. “I knew we can do more, and we needed to do more, with a sense of urgency.”
In response, Barra has not only created an “inclusion advisory board” to guide GM’s actions, but also signed up for the Business Roundtable’s Special Committee for Racial Equality and Justice. Barra was one of the CEOs who pushed the Business Roundtable last year to adopt a new statement of corporate purpose, focusing on multiple stakeholders and not just shareholders. “The statement was catching up with reality,” she says.
Incidentally, Barra believes the COVID-19 lockdown has strengthened the case for electric vehicles. People are skeptical of mass transit and want their own cars. And improvements in the environment over recent months have reinforced the need for those vehicles to be clean. ”We believe in an all-electric future,” she said, and have “accelerated our work from an EV perspective.”
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Running a car company isn’t easy, even in the best of times. And Mary Barra’s reign as General Motors’ CEO has been anything but the best of times. She became the first female CEO of an automobile company in 2014, taking the job amidst a massive controversy over faulty ignition switches. In her first year, she had to issue 84 recall notices and testify before the U.S. Senate. Last year, she was faced with the worst auto workers strike in a half century. And then came COVID-19, followed by the upheaval over the George Floyd killing. Oh yes, and then there are the repeated Twitter attacks from the President of the United States.
Throughout it all, Barra has remained unflappable, eschewing the industry’s traditional defensiveness, and always asking: “What can we learn from this?” That’s why Fortune’s Ellen McGirt and I were happy to welcome her as a guest on this week’s edition of our podcast, Leadership Next. She represents a new style of leading.
Ellen started by asking Barra about her strong public statement over the George Floyd killing, in which she said she was “impatient” and “disgusted”–words that emanated from the heart, not the marketing department. “I personally felt very sad,” Barra told us. “I am an action-oriented person. I’m an engineer. And I asked, ‘Why is this happening over and over?’” She felt a need for action. “I knew we can do more, and we needed to do more, with a sense of urgency.”
In response, Barra has not only created an “inclusion advisory board” to guide GM’s actions, but also signed up for the Business Roundtable’s Special Committee for Racial Equality and Justice. Barra was one of the CEOs who pushed the Business Roundtable last year to adopt a new statement of corporate purpose, focusing on multiple stakeholders and not just shareholders. “The statement was catching up with reality,” she says.
Incidentally, Barra believes the COVID-19 lockdown has strengthened the case for electric vehicles. People are skeptical of mass transit and want their own cars. And improvements in the environment over recent months have reinforced the need for those vehicles to be clean. ”We believe in an all-electric future,” she said, and have “accelerated our work from an EV perspective.”
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
 | |
| Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 2 | Issue 64 |
| Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
THE BEST WAY TO IMPROVE THE TEAM IS TO IMPROVE YOURSELF Click here to login to the Wooden's Wisdom Champion's Leadership Library. Your email adress is your username and password. Search 400+ Wooden's Wisdom Issues by Topic, Quote or Coach This maxim of Coach Wooden's describes the relentless approach he challenged himself with every day: constant self improvement.
As coach often stated: Never be satisfied. Work constantly to improve. Perfection is a goal that can never be reached, but it must be the objective. The uphill climb is slow but the downhill road is fast.
Coach believed that valid self-analysis is crucial for improvement. In order to improve a little each day we must constantly be learning, and to do that we must: be observing constantly and stay open minded.
A key component of Coach Wooden's constant self-improvement program was how he worked with his assistant coaches. He encouraged them to challenge his ideas, thus creating the valid self-analysis he knew was critical to self improvement.
In his book A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring with Don Yeager, Coach describes how Abraham Lincoln inspired his approach:
An incredible example of Lincoln’s wisdom can be seen in the people with whom he chose to surround himself. I pride myself on having read just about every major book ever published about Abraham Lincoln, but the one that has affected me the most in recent years is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s exceptional text, Team of Rivals. In this book, Goodwin examines in profound depth a well-documented but not widely discussed political decision: When Lincoln was elected to the presidency, he appointed a number of former political opponents to serve as his advisers and to fill various posts.
By selecting men whom he knew disagreed with him or differed from his own platform, he assured himself he would be confronted with legitimate challenges to his ideas, rather than finding himself in a pool of yes-men.
Based on Lincoln’s example, I encouraged my assistant coaches to speak up with ideas that might differ from or even completely contradict my own. Those disagreements never got heated, but sometimes they were very intense. Just as I imagine Lincoln would have been, I was pleased when those challenges arose because it meant that my fellow coaches were as passionate about our team as I was. Nothing ruins a team more quickly than apathy.
In Coach Wooden’s book, Wooden on Leadership with Steve Jamison, Hall of Fame Coach and former Coach Wooden assistant Denny Crum describes working with Coach:
Coach Wooden never thought he knew everything. In spite of the fact that he’d been winning championships every year—four or five of them when I got there as an assistant coach—he wanted to keep learning and improving as a coach and leader.
When I came up with an idea, he would never tell me, “Well, this is the way we’ve always done it and we’re winning championships. So, no, I’m not changing.” He was open to change. His approach was to listen; if he thought it made sense, try it. If it works, great. If not, move on. He was always searching for ways to improve.
As Coach liked to say A leader destined for success asks, "What can we do to improve?" A leader destined for failure says, "That's the way it's always been done."
Yours in Coaching,
Craig Impelman
Twitter: @woodenswisdom
|   COACH'SFAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE
AMBITION
You are the one who has to decide
Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside.
You are the one who makes up your mind
Whether you’ll lead or linger behind.
Whether you’ll try for the goal that's afar
Or be contented to stay where you are.
Take it or leave it, here's something to do,
Just think it over, it's all up to you!
What do you wish? To be known as a shirk,
Known as a good person who is willing to work,
Scorned for a loafer or praised by your chief
Rich or poor or beggar or thief?
Eager or earnest or dull through the day,
Honest or crooked? It's you who must say!
Whether you'll shirk it or give it your best.
Author unknown
|
No comments:
Post a Comment