Category: Digital Article

There’s nothing much good to be said about what happened yesterday in Michigan. Governor Rick Snyder signed a so-called “right to work” law, which curtails the capacity of unions to require that workers pay them fees as a condition of their employment. Supporters of the law – many of whom claim themselves to be pro-union – argued the legislation was necessary in order for American companies successfully to compete in the global marketplace.

But if there’s nothing much good to be said about what happened in Lansing, there’s some good to be said. The fight was furious. It was ugly: thousands took to the streets to protest, some screaming and yelling in addition to chanting, “shame, shame;” union leaders swore loudly that they had only begun to fight; tears were shed, fists flew; property was trashed; and a couple of people were arrested. Moreover the story was a big one. Many of those who at first paid zero attention were struck by this particular union defeat – right in the heart of what still is one of the most pro-union states in the country.

So what’s good? It’s the absence of apathy. It’s a sign that whatever the legislation that yesterday was passed is not the end of American labor – but rather another chapter in a continuing saga.

It seemed a small story. It was covered in a small way by the New York Times and in even a more modest way by the Wall Street Journal. But it’s a major signifier. It’s a reminder that virtually all people in positions of authority are vulnerable to the slings and arrows of those who are not – including people in positions of religious authority.

Hard on the heels of the recent U.N. vote in which the General Assembly decided by an overwhelming margin to grant Palestine non-member state status – the vote was 138 for and 9 against (including the U. S.), with 41 abstentions – the rabbis of a large Manhattan synagogue sent an e-mail to all their congregants that strongly and enthusiastically supported the U. N. vote. “The vote at the U. N. yesterday is a great moment for us as citizens of the world,” wrote the rabbis. “This is an opportunity to celebrate the process that allows a nation to come forward and ask for recognition.”

The blowback was immediate. While some members of the congregation applauded the rabbi’s sentiments, others were appalled and a number were even outraged. One congregant, Alan Ripp, put it this way: “We are just sort of in a state of shock,” he said. “It’s not as if we don’t support a two-state solution, but to say with such warm embrace – it is like a high-five to the P. L. O. and that has left us numb.”

Whatever the merits of the arguments on both sides, the point is that followers (such as Ripp) forced their leaders to retreat. In no time flat the rabbis of Congregation B’nai Jeshrun sent a second, subsequent message that was, in effect, an apology. First, they corrected the record, saying their first letter should not have included as signatories the names of lay leaders such as that of the board president (!). Second, they wrote they had intended to “honor the diversity” of viewpoints in their community, and expressed regret at “the feeling of alienation that resulted from [their] letter.”

It likely will be a while before the congregants of B’nai Jeshrun get past this tempest. It likely will be a while longer before the rabbis of B’nai Jeshrun send another e-mail to their collective congregants without very, very deliberate forethought.

Egypt’s president Mohammed Morsi just nicked his wrist and blood flowed. By making a concession – by rescinding the extraordinary personal powers he claimed only days earlier – he was hoping to stem the furious followers who had marshaled against him.

Don’t hold your breath, Mr. President. History shows that any concession made at a moment such as this one is the rough equivalent of spilling blood in shark-infested waters. Put directly, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that this will quiet the opposition. Quite the contrary: Morsi’s concession will have exactly the opposite effect. It will embolden his opponents.

The referendum on the draft constitution, which was rammed through the parliament by Morsi and his allies, is still slated to take place on December 15. However it now seems unlikely that this can happen without military intervention – without the imposition of martial law to preclude widespread violence. How far Egypt’s furious followers are prepared ultimately to go, and how willing the military will be to force them into submission, remains obviously to be determined. All we know now is that Morsi’s shot at good governance grievously and even tragically misfired.

Egyptians and Syrians have little in common – except their recent history. Both have been scarred and ultimately traumatized by dictatorial leaders who crushed their followers for some thirty years. And both have been seized in the last year or two by followers finally fed up – by followers willing in many cases to fight to the death to overthrow the tyrannies to which they had been subjected for so long.

I do not wish or intend to exaggerate the parallels. What has happened in Egypt even in the recent past is in many of the most important ways different from what has happened in Syria. Similarly, there are obvious differences among the key leaders, Hosni Mubarak, Bashar al-Assad, and now Mohammed Morsi.

Still, on this 7th day of December in the year 2012, this can be said. Events in both Syria and Egypt continue to be driven from the bottom up. All the evidence suggests that Assad’s time in office is nearly up, and that Morsi gravely miscalculated when he assumed Egyptians more passive and pliable now than they were just a couple of years ago. In the first case too much blood has been spilled, and in the second too much change has been created, for a reversion to past practice. Unless and until power is shared, in both countries, the past will continue to bedevil the present and the dispossessed will not rest.

Some 18 months ago I wrote about how Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner was finding it difficult if not impossible to get his putative followers – rank and file House Republicans – to follow.* Tea Partiers in particular were proving recalcitrant, refusing to allow Boehner to do what was he was disposed, which was to take relatively a centrist position vis-à-vis the Democratic opposition.

At the time, Boehner tried every which way to get House Republicans in line. He campaigned for Tea Partiers, moved millions from his own campaign chest to theirs, adopted some of their rhetoric, and gave them a seat at the leadership table. He also shifted his own political positions to accommodate theirs, and tried at every turn to minimize the differences between mainstream Republicans like himself and Tea Partiers to his right.

Things change. In this case not the followers – it’s not that conservative Republicans think differently or that the Tea Party itself has changed its stripes. Rather it’s the context that’s different. First, in the wake of the November elections the president’s hand has been strengthened and the Republicans’ weakened; and second, the American people are so manifestly disgusted with dysfunction in Washington that a number of House Republicans, including key players such as Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, have shifted their positions – not ideologically, but politically. They are more pliable than they were even six months ago, more willing because of the mood of the moment to follow their leader’s lead.

Hence yesterday’s announcement that for now, steering clear of the fiscal cliff will be up to only two men: Barack Obama and John Boehner. The suggestion the two meet alone was Boehner’s – one he never in a million years would have made had he not been near certain his troops were finally ready to fall into line.

It’s nice to know that sometimes the previously powerless figure out a way to become, well, less so. This is not, necessarily, about sympathy for the cause. Rather it’s about cheering on those who in the past were entirely silent – but who in the present are making themselves heard.

Generally these are small stories, not to be seen on the front page or home page of any of the leading papers, buried instead somewhere inside, on the literal or virtual equivalent of, say, page 12.

Still, here are two examples. Both came to light in recent days and both testify to how even the most marginalized among us can, under certain circumstances, stake their claim to their share.

The first is the United We Dream Network. Never heard of it? Well, you will, if not directly then indirectly, for this largest organization of young, illegal immigrants is determined to push Washington to clear a path for citizenship for them and their families. After the November elections, both Republicans and Democrats agreed, each for their own reasons, that immigration reform was one of the nation’s top priorities. But we know all too well that even the best of political intentions are sometimes sidelined, pushed aside by other events that seem in the moment to be more pressing. It matters then that on this issue young people (who stand most obviously to benefit) have organized, vowing at their recent three-day meeting in Kansas City (some 600 were in attendance), to hang together and fight together until the deed is done – until new immigration legislation is passed.

The second is the emergence of an even more marginal group: Vietnam veterans who were given something other than an honorable discharge, but who now argue that whatever the errors of their ways, they were the result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I will not here delve into the legitimacy of their claim, nor into the questions it raises, such as can PTSD be diagnosed retroactively? The point I make is that the issue has come apparently out of nowhere to morph into a major class action lawsuit against the U.S. military. (The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force were named as defendants.) The cause is being carried forward by the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School – which together with the vets themselves gives additional evidence of the law as possible recourse, and of the ways in which those in the distance can sometimes be heard, even in spite of the din.

One of my overarching arguments is that, in general, leaders are weaker than they used to be and followers stronger. This seems to me to be so easy to see in politics, it’s little short of obvious. But, arguably, it’s less obvious in business. After all, for a constellation of reasons, strikes, boycotts, protests and the like are less frequent than at other points in history, certainly in the U. S. So, since employees at least seem on the surface to be relatively quiescent, leaders seem on the surface to be relatively secure.

But, as I wrote in the current issue of The European Business Review (EBR), while examples of encroachment by followers on leaders in the corporate realm may be less apparent, they are no less real.* Like their public sector counterparts, private sector leaders and managers are obliged in this second decade of the 21st century to tend to their various followers, stakeholders, in ways that historically are unprecedented.

In my particular parlance, “stakeholders are all those whom leaders need to align if they are to accomplish what they want and intend.” In this category are a range of players including, in addition to employees, shareholders, customers, competitors, and activists. As I put it in EBR, “Never before were CEOs told (implicitly or explicitly) to be so considered and considerate of their different stakeholders – followers. Never before were CEOs tasked with managing the web, social media, and other (present and future) mobile and interactive communications and information technologies. Never before were CEOs instructed to ‘orchestrate co-creative engagement’ … and to ‘support a participatory culture.’” Never before, in short, were so many corporate leaders rendered so anxious by so many cautions concerning corporate followers.

If you look – that is, if you train your lens not on leaders, but on followers, on those who once went meekly along – you’ll see what I mean. CEOs are more vulnerable than before, particularly perhaps to big shareholders, institutional investors, who, as Bloomberg Businessweek put it, had long been “dutiful supporters of management,” but who now “aren’t keeping quiet anymore.” (11/26-12/2)

Even when things are good, investors and analysts are at CEOs in new and different ways, demanding their time and attention, insisting they explain themselves and defend whatever their decisions. According to the Wall Street Journal, C-level executives are attending 64% more private investor meetings than they did just one year ago. Why? Because they feel they “cannot afford to decline a meeting request.” ** Moreover, when things are bad, the pressure on CEOs is that much greater. When WellPoint missed analysts’ earning estimates for the second time in three quarters, a group of investors promptly demanded the ouster of CEO, Angela Braly.

Boards have gotten into the act as well. When as it became clear that Groupon was in trouble, the pressure on founder and CEO Andrew Mason was on. Apparently the board had no compunctions about signaling its willingness to shift Mason’s role, even potentially to replace him. This was in spite of the fact that as Groupon’s founder, Mason and his company were until now one and the same.

Whatever the corporate veneer, beneath it lurk roiling waters, with leaders vulnerable to changing cultures and technologies in business just as they are in politics. As Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana recently put it, “We’re seeing a radical transformation in corporate control and the relationship between management, directors, and investors. It used to be shareholders pushing against boards who were buffering the CEOs. But now investors are telling directors who should be the CEO and how management should run the company.”

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*November-December issue.
** Leslie Kwoh, “Investors Demand CEO Face Time,” 11/28.

Follow up to blog of November 24th – “Works in Progress.”

Those elections last Sunday in Catalonia – that region of Spain of which Barcelona is capital – testified yet again to the decline in power of leaders and the rise in power of followers,

The leader of the ruling party, Artur Mas, who had pushed for a referendum for Catalan independence, suffered a setback. He political position was weakened because in the regional parliament his party lost 12 seats.

But, lest you think this means Catalans voted down the idea of separation from Spain, think again. Rather than handing Mas a victory on this issue, they rejected him personally and politically, opting instead to vote for a party on the left that similarly supports sovereign rights.

The bottom line? Mas himself was publicly humiliated even as his primary policy preference gained steam.

I gave a talk this week in Barcelona. Afterwards a man came up to me – I thought to praise the perspicacity of my presentation. Instead he asked an entirely irrelevant question, “Why do you hate Hillary Clinton?” “What?” I replied, surprised. “Where did you get that idea?” His response, “From a blog you wrote in 2008.”

Well, dear reader, I have no idea what he was talking about – not which blog or what was the point I made at the time. Still, because when one woman takes on another it can make an indelible impression, I am reluctant to do what I am about to do. I am once again naming Hillary Clinton Lame Leader of the Week – once again for the same reason.

Some of you will recall that back in September I named Clinton Lame Leader of the Week because, as I wrote then, Clinton’s “culpability” in the matter of Benghazi “had been sidestepped – both by her and by her natural allies.”

Now here we are, some ten weeks later, and the question of how and why Clinton has been able to continue to hide on this issue, even as it became chronic and contentious beyond anyone’s early imaginings, remains a mystery. What is not in the least uncertain is that her absence from the discussion has become evasive to the point of dereliction.

Who did and said exactly what just before and after the lethal attack on the American Mission in Benghazi in which four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. were killed on September 11th has become a fixation. Not only has U. N. Ambassador Susan Rice been fed, over and over again, into the meat grinder that is partisan politics, but the talking points that are at the center of the discussion have overshadowed those that should have been. They include but are not limited to questions like these:

• Were requests for greater security for diplomats in Libya ignored?
• Even if Al Qaeda in Pakistan has been decimated, how do terrorists elsewhere threaten Americans?
• How can and should diplomacy be conducted in the constant chaos that constitutes the current Middle East? (Scott Shane, NYT, 11/29.)

Even though she has said she will resign when Barack Obama’s first term as president has concluded, for now Hillary Clinton remains Secretary of State. As such it has been – or, better, should have been – her duty to weigh in regularly and reliably on all the issues surfaced by the Benghazi tragedy. Instead Clinton has been missing in action, and largely silent on this issue in particular.

Clearly this has been, for obvious political reasons, her preference. It is less clear is why the president has let her so easily off the hook, and why the press has given her a similar pass.

In matters of leadership and followership, some changes are so subtle they elude detection. But, then, there are other changes that are nothing if not screamingly obvious.

One such in the second category is what’s happened in Egypt in the last week – since Mohammed Morsi’s ham-handed power grab.

If there’s a more vivid recent example of the power of followers, it does not come immediately to mind. What’s remarkable is that the utterly predictable response to Morsi’s sneak attack was not foretold by Morsi himself.

Whether Morsi will ever again be trusted by anyone other than his own constituents is now uncertain, at best. A crying shame! For given the tensions in and around states including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon, and, yes, Palestine, and given the implosion that now is Syria, it’s painful to think yet another Middle Eastern leader was so totally oblivious to the power of the follower.