Must Reads
There is so much to read, so much to know, so many sources to follow. And the volume of news and information just keeps growing exponentially. How to keep up? Even more, how to rediscover the serendipity of learning something new and interesting for its own sake?
Here, for your enjoyment and interest, are the articles Temin and Company considers “must reads.” They are primarily on the topics of reputation and crisis management, the media, leadership and strategy, perception and psychology, self-presentation, science, girls and women, organizational behavior and other articles of interest.
They are listed below with the most recent articles first, and to the side, by category.
We hope you enjoy them and would appreciate your comments. And whenever you have any favorite articles for us to add, please let us know so that we might include them for other readers to enjoy.
There is so much to read, so much to know, so many sources to follow. And the volume of news and information just keeps growing exponentially. How to keep up? Even more, how to rediscover the serendipity of learning something new and interesting for its own sake?
Here, for your enjoyment and interest, are the articles Temin and Company considers “must reads.” They are primarily on the topics of reputation and crisis management, the media, leadership and strategy, perception and psychology, self-presentation, science, girls and women, organizational behavior and other articles of interest.
They are listed below with the most recent articles first, and to the side, by category.
We hope you enjoy them and would appreciate your comments. And whenever you have any favorite articles for us to add, please let us know so that we might include them for other readers to enjoy.
CEO Health: Shareholders Want to Know More
Lindsay Frost, Agenda, June 26, 2017
Newly minted CSX CEO Hunter Harrison is lauded as transforming the railroad game for Canadian Pacific and several other railroad networks. Although he took his post at CSX in March, investors were tasked with ratifying the $84 million pay package it would take to keep him. While considering the vote, shareholders voiced concerns about his health after a report was leaked noting that he has to work from home sometimes and uses an oxygen tank to help him breathe.
Harrison’s situation has put the question of materiality, and when and if to disclose CEO health issues, back in the spotlight. Considered the board’s responsibility, making health disclosures can be a difficult decision depending on the situation, sources say.
“[When boards are considering disclosing], they are caught in this world between privacy and HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996] and material information,” says Davia Temin, CEO of strategy and communications consulting firm Temin and Company, who has served on multiple boards. “Clearly shareholders and analysts want the information immediately, and very often CEOs who are ill want more time [before disclosing]. Different companies have threaded the needle differently and walked that thin line differently.” Subscription required for full access. […read more]
If you’d like to see the full article, please contact us.»
Uber CEO Kalanick’s Resignation Is Not The Best Answer
Leadership, “Reputation Matters,” Forbes, June 21, 2017
I am sad that Travis Kalanick had to resign. As news of the Uber CEO’s resignation is digested by the world’s media analysts and leadership pundits, I would like to put forth a contrarian point of view – especially coming from such an outspoken advocate of gender equity in organizations. I do not think this is the biggest win that we who are interested in a bias and harassment-free workplace could have hoped for. Not by a long-shot.
Reformation vs. Resignation
Kalanick’s reformation would have been such a more powerful and optimistic story. It would have shown that, yes, personal transformation is possible, even among tone-deaf, frat-boy, start-up executives. And it could have shown that once a leader is made to, and allowed to, grow up, he or she can own it, and then transform a culture. […read more]
Is Diversity in the Boardroom Reversing?
Laura W. Geller, Strategy+Business, June 21, 2017
After rising steadily for the past seven years, the number of women in the boardroom actually fell in 2016. According to Heidrick & Struggles’ latest Board Monitor study, women filled 27.8 percent of the open boardroom seats at Fortune 500 companies in 2016, down from 29.8 percent in 2015. Last year was the first time the percentage had fallen since 2009. Three years ago, the executive search firm believed women would reach parity in the boardroom by 2024; now it believes that day won’t come until 2032. It’s a troubling shift, and one that has the potential for ripple effects. […read more]
Crisis of the Week: Fujifilm Addresses Accounting Problems
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, June 19, 2017
Fujifilm Holdings announced that losses from accounting irregularities in New Zealand were much larger than first thought and extended to the company’s Australian office-equipment unit. The announcement left some to wonder how much control the company has over its overseas units.
The company said it conducted a review and found the losses would widen further but did say it found “a problem” with controls at its Fuji Xerox subsidiary. Fujifilm said inappropriate accounting occurred in part because of commission and bonus “incentives” for managers and employees that “placed an emphasis on sales.” It said six board members at Fuji Xerox would resign to take responsibility for the losses that now total around $340 million. It also docked the pay of all Fuji Xerox board members and two other senior executives.
Using Fujifilm’s statements and those of its executives, the experts break down the company’s crisis management performance in this instance.
“Fujifilm’s public response to its ‘inappropriate accounting’ crisis was enough to be effective as witnessed by the fact the story lasted no more than a few days in the global news cycle,” said Davia Temin. “While the company’s public responses were terse, minimal and occasionally odd, they were unprecedented in their openness and disclosure.” […read more]
Crisis of the Week: Fujifilm Addresses Accounting Problems
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, June 19, 2017
We head to Asia for this week’s crisis, where Fujifilm Holdings announced losses from accounting irregularities in New Zealand were much larger than first thought and extended to the company’s Australian office-equipment unit. The announcement left some to wonder how much control the company has over its overseas units.
The company said it conducted a review and found the losses would widen further but did say it found “a problem” with controls at its Fuji Xerox subsidiary. Fujifilm said inappropriate accounting occurred in part because of commission and bonus “incentives” for managers and employees that “placed an emphasis on sales.” It said six board members at Fuji Xerox would resign to take responsibility for the losses that now total around $340 million. It also docked the pay of all Fuji Xerox board members and two other senior executives.
Using Fujifilm’s statements and those of its executives, the experts break down the company’s crisis management performance in this instance.
Davia Temin, chief executive, Temin and Co.: “Fujifilm’s public response to its ‘inappropriate accounting’ crisis was enough to be effective as witnessed by the fact the story lasted no more than a few days in the global news cycle. While the company’s public responses were terse, minimal and occasionally odd, they were unprecedented in their openness and disclosure. They came from President and Chief Operating Officer Kenji Sukeno, who accepted responsibility and announced sweeping changes in governance and operations of the company. The company released details of an independent review of the accounting debacle. All the findings and remedies appear to have been announced at the same time, with no more shoes to drop. The company spoke with its actions, with six board directors and more executives being held accountable and leaving or being sanctioned.
“Cross-cultural crisis communications are always difficult, especially between Asia and the U.S., as standards of public disclosure, responsibility, apology and reparation are very different. But they are also beginning to converge. In this most recent Fujifilm crisis, the company walked the line carefully and understatedly but spoke openly of the need for it to regain public trust. It also, in a rare display of public self-reflection and responsibility, at a news conference proffered a reason for its mistakes: ‘We showed too much respect for Fuji Xerox because it contributed to profits when Fujifilm was reforming itself after its film business peaked in 2000. We didn’t nag at Fuji Xerox very much, and that is something we now regret.’ I’ve never heard of ‘not nagging enough’ being offered as a reason for governance failures but the meaning is clear.
“In evaluating such a crisis response it is important to judge it not solely by U.S. and Western standards, or by Japanese standards, but by how the company fused the two in its communications. In this case, the company created a hybrid response that got the job done without catapulting it to major coverage. And that must be considered a major win.”
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
Dear Uber, Here Are 11 Ways You Can Fix Your Culture To Support Women Right Now
Leadership, “Reputation Matters,” Forbes, June 18, 2017
To rephrase Madeleine Albright: There is a special place in heaven for men — and women — who help other women. But for Uber, and so many other organizations, their cultures are in need of an essential transformation before they even begin to find their place in the firmament.
Of course Uber is not the only company to sport a “bro” culture that can be antithetical to women executives’ presence, progress, and well-being. They’re just one of the most flagrant.
So, as Arianna Huffington and Eric Holder began to publicly reign in the executive office, and board, I began to think of what it would really take for Uber, and other organizations, to immediately empower, support and profit from the women in their workforce. I decided that this, drawn from over 25 years’ experience as a coach, reputation manager, and CEO dedicated to promoting women and girls’ leadership at every level, would be the topic of my remarks: 11 Ways To Support the Women in Your Organization and Life. I am pleased to share it with you today. […read more]
The Behavioral Economics of Why Executives Underinvest in Cybersecurity
Alex Blau, Harvard Business Review, June 7, 2017
Determining the ROI for any cybersecurity investment, from staff training to AI-enabled authentication managers, can best be described as an enigma shrouded in mystery. The digital threat landscape changes constantly, and it’s very difficult to know the probability of any given attack succeeding — or how big the potential losses might be. Even the known costs, such as penalties for data breaches in highly regulated industries like health care, are a small piece of the ROI calculation. In the absence of good data, decision makers must use something less than perfect to weigh the options: their judgment. But insights from behavioral economics and psychology show that human judgment is often biased in predictably problematic ways. In the case of cybersecurity, some decision makers use the wrong mental models to help them determine how much investment is necessary and where to invest. […read more]
Female CEOs Have More Women on Their Boards—A Lot More
Equilar, May 25, 2017
As board composition, evaluation and diversity continue to be hot-button issues in corporate governance, investors are applying additional scrutiny on how companies approach succession planning at the highest levels of their organizations. At the request of the Associated Press for its annual CEO pay study, Equilar analyzed data on chief executives who had served at least two consecutive fiscal years at companies in the S&P 500, and found that there were 21 female CEOs on the list. […read more]
We Studied Brands Around The World. What Consumers Want Isn’t What You Think
Brian Millar, Fast Company, May 31, 2017
Traditional advertising went after “share of mind”– the idea was to get you to associate a brand with a single idea, a single emotion. Volvo: safety. Jaguar: speed. Coke: happiness. The Economist: success. Bang, bang, bang, went the ads, hammering the same idea into your mind every time you saw one. Advertising briefs evolved to focus the creatives on a single USP and a single message. Tell them we’re the Ultimate Driving Machine. Tell them in a thrilling way. It worked when you saw ads infrequently on television, in a Sunday magazine, or on a billboard on your morning commute. It hasn’t worked online. Audiences have stopped engaging with advertising. Yet there are many brands online that people don’t want to block. Popular brands had multifaceted personalities. They could make you laugh, or cheer, or lean forward and take notes. They’d stopped hammering away at a share of mind, and were expanding to achieve a share of emotion. […read more]
What Sets Successful CEOs Apart
Elena Lytkina Botelho, Kim Rosenkoetter Powell, Stephen Kincaid, and Dina Wang, Harvard Business Review, May/June 2017
At the top of the ladder, the stakes are high and the demands intense. Too many CEOs falter in the job; about a quarter of the Fortune 500 chiefs who leave their firms each year are forced out. Clearly, boards do not always get their hires right. In conducting an analysis of in-depth assessments of 17,000 executives, the authors uncovered a large disconnect between what directors think makes for an ideal CEO and what actually leads to high performance. The findings of their 10-year research project challenge many widely held assumptions. […read more]