Would You Want This Guy as Your Boss?

A major public corporation was in need of a new CEO. One candidate was a young executive who had been with the company less than 2 years and had never before served as chief executive of any company. However, the search committee and the Board of Directors found him quite charismatic and full of potential. He had excellent rapport with employees, too. The young exec wooed the Board with ideas for increasing employee morale and productivity, boosting sales, and making the firm a true industry leader. This was music to the ears of the Board as their corporation had recently experienced financial trouble and was seen by some in the public and press as out-dated and uncaring toward employees and other stakeholders.

The young exec was eventually appointed CEO and expectations from all quarters were high. The Board hoped that soon their stock price would rise and the company's image would improve as the energetic and eloquent CEO set out to promote the corporation. At a "town hall" meeting with employees, the new CEO stated his vision for the company but offered few details about what strategies would be implemented. He then told the workers that the company was making products that were of questionable quality and safety and that some employees were making too much money.

Next, at the CEO's first major appearance, at an industry conference, he used most of his speech to highlight what he considered the past mistakes of the company. He apologized for these and even indicated that his enterprise had too much market share. Then, rather than note some of the soon-to-launch products of the company, the CEO talked vaguely about products that had so far proven unpopular and unprofitable.

A while later, the CEO announced that the company would be acquiring several businesses in various industries completely unrelated to the corporation's core products. Moreover, these would be hostile takeovers, the existing managers at these firms would be fired, and the CEO and his deputies would take over strategic decision-making for them. This latest move was unnerving to investors because the CEO knew nothing about these new businesses.

Then, the CEO sent out a memo that some managers would be docked pay and denied promotions because the he simply didn't like the opinions they offered on a special task force under the old CEO.

At this point, if you were on the Board of this company, wouldn't you want to know what the hell the CEO was doing? Wouldn't you question what the CEO actually liked about the corporation and why he really wanted to be its leader? If you were an employee or manager, would you want this guy as your boss?

Mull this over and come back in a day or so for the rest of the story.

The Experts Agree

I'm not the only one who thinks that fundamentals are critical to success. Read the advice one well-respected teacher/blogger offers to another.

Fiction is Life

I know, I am behind on my Back to Fundamentals, America! pep blogging. Admittedly, I am still a little glum over the end of Battlestar Galactica on the SciFi channel. Not in the same way that Soprano fans were bummed by that series finale. Quite the opposite; I liked the BSG finale. And maybe that is why I feel a longing for more. Quite timely, fiction author Alexander McCall Smith publishes a piece on the "intense personal relationships readers form with characters". He intelligently observes:

Although we eventually learn to distinguish between the world of make-believe and the real world, I suspect that many of us continue to experience fictional characters and events as being, in some way, real. This is because the imaginative act of following a story involves a suspension of disbelief, as we enter into the world it creates. When Anthony Minghella showed me a moving scene that he had just filmed for the pilot of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," I found myself weeping copiously, right there on the set. I felt rather embarrassed -- it was only a story, after all -- but he put a hand on my shoulder and said that was exactly what he had done over that particular scene.

A great story, whether fiction or not, touches us in personal ways that we might not fully understand or appreciate immediately.

Now, there was one element of the BSG finale that really tugged at me for some time after watching the episode ... the "life transition" of Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. As I watched Kara announce her time in this plane of existence had come to an end and then vanish I thought it a cinematographically beautiful shot and a fantastic decision by the director. But then my analytical brain kicked in. Wait, she's gone? Does that mean she really did die in the previous season? Is she an angel? I felt there was something unresolved about the character's plot line; moreover, I felt personally unfulfilled. As I spent perhaps a little too much time for a well-balanced person considering this, It slowly dawned on me that this was an appropriate end. It reflects the way people enter and exit our own lives, leaving us wanting more of them after they are gone, but happy for the time we had together. It provokes the question that we ask ourselves (and whatever god you believe in) what role that person plays/played in our own lives.

So, yes, I want more of Kara Thrace. Her exit deprives me of the opportunity to continue the storyline on my own, as Mr. Smith states we consumers of fiction are apt to do. (Of course, in science fiction, anything is possibly, and Starbuck could return - again - but if you are familiar with the BSG universe you know that would not fit with its style.) Yet, at the same time, Starbuck's absence redirects me to focus on the importance of real life family, friends, and acquaintences and what they mean to me. That's good fiction informing real life. As Starbuck's dear friend Lee says upon her sudden and unexpected vanishing, "You will not be forgotten." So it should be with all of us.


Entirely divergent, it seems to me that Ron Moore and the BSG writers are Ozzy Osbourne fans, based on the final scenes of Kara and her husband together in the CIC. Don't know what I'm talking about? Watch the series, starting at the beginning. It's well worth your time. In the meantime, listen to Ozzy.