Job Titles of the Future #6 - The CEO Sober Companion

Whether it is a hard-charging, world-commanding, and impossibly tall and good-looking CEO, or the global head of marketing that never seems to sleep, hits every major city in her empire at least every quarter, while always being the smartest person in the room,  it seems like more and more the work of a big-time corporate executive is never done. 

Just like Knicks' legend Patrick Ewing once said about big shot corporate executives, (ok, he said something kind of like this, not actually this, but I needed a sports reference to try and get this post qualified for the 2013 Edition of The 8 Man Rotation E-book), "Sure, sometimes we party pretty hard, but we work hard and all the time too."  

Or if you don't dig the stretched to the breaking point Ewing take, how about this one from America's favorite (fake) CEO - Kenny Powers who put it more plainly - ' I'm the MF, CEO!'

The work demands, the inflated egos, the sense of entitlement, the feeling of invincibility that we often see possessed by people that have essentially been tremendously successful their entire lives - all these quite often combine with lots of money, opportunity, and some enabling behavior by friends and colleagues to drive CEOs and other execs into some bad, bad decisions regarding alcohol, drugs, and other inappropriate actions.

And having the CEO of a big, possibly publicly traded corporation running into scandal, trouble with the law, or even simple lack of attention to the requirements of his/her position caused by one too many whiskeys or painkillers is the kind of risk that more and more companies are deciding to attempt to mitigate. And one of the ways in which that risk is combated is with the 'Sober Companion'.

What does the 'Sober Companion' do? Check the details from this recent NY Post piece:

Trying to reason with his multimillionaire client while plying him with black coffee, Chuck Kanner ducked and narrowly missed a bottle of whiskey aimed at his head.

“He’d be sitting there [meeting] with people like Bill Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani and Mario Cuomo, spaced out, and I’d be saying: ‘Dude, this is not OK!’ ”

The unseemly row aboard the drunken CEO’s yacht in the Caribbean was all in a day’s work for Kanner, a so-called “sober companion” who makes his living keeping high-powered business executives on the straight and narrow.

He is part of an elite team of advisers and confidantes who work undercover, often 24/7, as personal assistants, bodyguards, researchers and potential investors, so the Masters of the Universe can get help for their addictions — while saving face as they rule the world.

So maybe personal assistants or even executive bodyguards are not all that new, and are certainly not 'Job titles of the future', but this new spin, or expansion of duties - for the assistant to pose as a consultant of some kind with the job of making sure the exec doesn't over imbibe on booze or drugs, well that seems like a brand new take on an old problem.

And I think it's also symbolic of the age that corporations and executives live in today. Don Draper could pretty plausibly get away with being drunk half the time and acting on pretty much every desire he wished. Sure, the times and expectations were a little different, but there were also no blogs, and no Twitter, and no Instagram to potentially capture and broadcast to the world all the monkey business he was up to, and that in today's age would be all over the web.

Sure the 'right' anser to this problem is to have CEOs and execs that know better. 

But until we are pretty sure that the million years or so of human tendency towards making bad decisions with booze and drugs is pretty much done, you might want to look into hiring one of these 'Sober Companions' for your exec team as well.

Today, it doesn't take much (maybe about five scotches and a bad decision), to destroy billions in company value.

If you want more leaders, you have to let them lead

The NBA Finals are underway, and as I write this post the San Antonio Spurs are still enjoying a 1-0 series lead, primarily due to the steady play of their veteran stalwarts, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. Parker, their point guard hit a remarkable shot near the end of the game to put the Spurs in a commanding position, and Duncan shook off a bad start to put up 20 points and 14 rebounds and contributed all-around solid play.

These two players, (along with Manu Ginobili), with a combined 10 championships between them, have formed the core, of one of the most auspicious franchises in all of professional sports. Throughout the Spurs run of success there has been one more constant - the Spurs long time coach Gregg Popovich. Popovich has been at the helm of the Spurs since the late 1990s, (an amazingly long tenure in the coaching world), and has helped build and lead the Spurs to four titles, (going for number five as we speak). 'Pop' has been successful for a myriad of reasons, (getting the #1 pick in the Draft in 1997 and landing Duncan perhaps the most important and fortunate one), but I'd like to call out just one in this post, one that I think speaks to the trust he places in his leaders, and how he challenges them to continue to develop.

In Game 1, Parker hit his amazing shot to put the Spurs up by 4 points with just a few seconds left to play. Miami called timeout, and after the timeout would have a just about impossible task, make up 4 points on one possession. But still, stranger things have happened, and a Spurs mistake, say fouling a Miami shooter attempting a 3-point shot made the unlikely scenario at lease possible. In situations like this, coaches always take a minute during the timeout to implore the players on the team leading by 4 to make sure they play smart, do not foul under any circumstances, and generally stay focused and sharp despite the seemingly high probability that victory was safe.

As I say coaches usually give these kinds of instructions, especially NBA coaches, and especially in the waning moments of what was an incredibly tense and close game, and in the Finals no less, the pinnacle of competition for these teams.  

What did the Spurs and Coach Popovich do and say during that last, tension-filled timeout? 

Catch the video below and see, (Email and RSS subscribers will need to click through).

Did you see that? Tony Parker, the on-court leader of the team, talked with Coach Popovich, made sure they were in alignment on the preferred message/strategy, and then proceeded to walk back the huddle with the other players and run the timeout conversation just like the 'real' coach normally does. 

Did you see all the players immediately lean in to listen to Parker? Did you notice that Parker sat in the chair facing the other players?, (where in 99% of these timeout huddles you will see the coach usually sits).

Did you see any of the players looking around, confused, wondering 'Where is the coach?'

And finally, did you see Popovich sticking his head back in to the huddle at all, to make sure everything was taken care of?

Of course the answer is No to all those questions.

Popovich has done a lot of great things in a legendary coaching career, and from this 45 seconds or so we can see that developing leaders is one of them.

If you want more leaders in any organization, you have to let them lead, like Pop did to Parker in this moment - a big, important moment no less.

You have to let them lead. It's the only way to know if they will do it. And if they can do it.

And this is hard to write coming from a guy who is puling for LeBron.

Have a great week!

Can you text Hollywood Henderson and ask him?

This post probably is silly and doesn't have a relevant point or connection back to anything, but I don't really care, it was interesting to me.

Here's the backstory. On a cross-country flight recently I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, the Adam Carolla show.  Adam had on as a guest the sports and entertainment broadcaster Pat O'Brien, who has had a long career hosting various sports telecasts and entertainment-themed shows. As Adam's show generally bounces around seemingly at random from topic to topic, at one point in the conversation with O'Brien, Adam wondered aloud whether or not the former Dallas Cowboys football player Hollywood Henderson had actually won the Texas State lottery on two separate occasions. The general consensus was that Henderson had definitely won the jackpot once, but Adam was sure he had heard at some point that Henderson has won twice.Do you have his number?

It probably would have just ended there, maybe someone off mic would have Googled for the answer, and that would have been that. But after a minute O'Brien asked 'Do you want me to text Hollywood and ask him?'

Adam was kind of dumb struck at that point - 'You actually have Hollywood Henderson's number?'

Note: for non-sports fans, Hollywood Henderson is not really a household name. He had a brief run of success in the NFL, but then burned out quickly, and all that was at least 30 years ago.

O'Brien replied kind of matter-of-factly - 'Sure, why not? I hosted sports shows all over the country for years. It's my job to know people and to be able to find information.' O'Brien then did text Henderson, and Hollywood even responded. It was all pretty funny and then the show and conversation moved on.

But I couldn't stop thinking about the entire exchange between the two. About the really obscure nature of the question - 'You have Hollywood Henderson's number?' and the assuredness of the reply.

I wonder if that kind of situation, or a version or variation thereof, would make sense in more traditional interview scenarios. Mostly when interviewees are asked to solve a problem, they usually just talk about solving it, or describe a time when they actually did attempt to solve a similar problem. Sometimes in technical interviews, candidates do have to demonstrate a 'live' problem solve, but for most of the rest of us, it is not usually done that way. I mean, if you were interviewing for an HR job, the CHRO generally doesn't make you do a live employee intervention to see how you handle it.

Well, I suppose I am meandering on about nothing (shocking) but something about the story resonated. I think the next time I find myself interviewing someone I am going to try and pull a 'Henderson'. I'm going to think of a person that the interviewee really should know, that would be a valuable resource to them, and that is just famous or well-known enough to be a little bit of a reach, but not so famous as to be unreachable, if that makes sense.

Then I will ask them flat-out, 'Can you text Tim Sackett and ask him?'

#HRHappyHour 164 PODCAST - 'The 8 Man Rotation Takes on Rutgers'

HR Happy Hour 164 - 'The 8 Man Rotation Takes on Rutgers'

This week in what can only be called a very special HR Happy Hour, the entire 8 Man Rotation crew - Kris Dunn, Tim Sackett, Lance Haun, Matt 'akaBruno' Stollak, and Steve Boese take a deep dive into the Rutgers University hiring, firing, and public relations disasters of recent months.

From an abusive men's basketball coach, to internal university and state government politics, to a high-profile new hire that may have some skeletons in her closet - the series of stories that have emerged from the banks of the old Raritan have provided almost a perfect series of case studies on the intersection of sports and HR.

An no one is better equipped to talk sports, HR, and what it means for the HR and Talent pro than the 8 Man Rotation crew. So check out the podcast as our team breaks down the Rutgers situation and offers some insights about what it means for your shop.

You can listen to the show on the show page here, using the widget player below, and of course on iTunes or Stitcher radio (for you smartphone types), just search the podcast area for 'HR Happy Hour'.

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on BlogTalkRadio

Thanks to KD, Tim, Lance, and Matt for jumping in to the conversation on very short notice.

NOTE:

Finally, for listeners of the show a quick reminder. For the next little while anyway, co-host Trish McFarlane and I will be doing the HR Happy Hour Shows more as a traditional podcast - recorded in advance, perhaps a little shorter than the live shows were, and hopefully posted to the site every other week. With our schedules and lots of travel on the horizon this year, doing the shows 'live' on Thursday nights has become increasingly challenging. Trish and I hope that by changing how the shows are produced it will allow us the opportunity to continue doing the show/podcast in a way that will work with our schedules as well as our future guests.

Have a great weekend!

What's your workplace's signature scent?

Ever walk into a high-end retail store or a fancy hotel lobby and suddenly feel compelled to think, 'What is that smell?' or ask someone nearby 'Do you smell that?'

It could be that you actually do smell something faint, lurking in the background, and it also could be that what you are smelling is a 'signature scent' that has been purposely released into the building by the owners in order to achieve a specific impact and effect. This olfactory technology, created by companies like ScentAir, allows businesses to add to or augment their customer experience by (in their words), 'connecting on an emotional and memorable level with customers' via the release of specific fragrances into the environment at specific times and for specific purposes.

I would not have heard about this if not for a connection of the ScentAir technology to the sports world - it seems like professional teams like basketball's Brooklyn Nets (a fresh smelling fragrance with citrus notes),  and the NFL's St. Louis Rams (cotton candy) have experimented with pumping in their own custom scents inside their stadiums. ScentAir offers solutions that scale to really large spaces like in these examples, but also smaller, more targeted scent solutions that can be deployed in more intimate business and office environments.

The idea, then, is that since we experience and interact with the world using all of our senses, that organizations can benefit from purposefully leveraging one that is often ignored - the sense of smell, to create more complete and memorable experiences. 

My question is, how about deploying these kinds of scent-delivery mechanisms into internal, or non-customer facing environments? What if you could set up a little personal 'signature scent' for your next all-hands meeting, product review, or even your managerial 1-1 meetings?

Wouldn't we at work also like to be able to also 'connect on an emotional and memorable level' with our colleagues, employees, and bosses? Could a subtle 'vanilla with hints of alder and lime' scent wafting in the air make that next really uncomfortable 'You are getting placed on a performance improvement plan' meeting you have to facilitate more complete?

Probably not. But I bet the vanilla and alder would be an improvement from what you normally smell in those kinds of meetings - 'despair, with hints of loathing and perspiration, and a final note of Copenhagen.'

What's your workplace's signature scent?