OF SAGACITY -- AND LEADERSHIP WORDS

Bookstores overflow with ‘how to be a leader’ tomes, often with conflicting advice.

Never a month passes when the likes of Harvard Business Review or Fortune magazine doesn’t opine on the best ways to manage a merger or what to do during the first 90 days as an executive.

And then the consultancies go forward to conquer … (how could we forget?).

Yet there’s one recently published, probably overlooked modest collection of memos, penned by one of the original Mad Men, that we heartily promote browsing.  And remembering.

It’s Keith Reinhard’s Any Wednesday, one pagers written almost weekly to his colleagues at DDB Worldwide (now part of Omnicom Group) for some 23 years, covering not just advertising topics, but also musings around careers, communications, and the truth. 

Like this:  “Our management priorities should be … people, product, profit … in that order.”

Or acquiring new skills:  “… because the marketplace of the future will be one where advertising alone is not the answer to every client’s problem.”

And delivered with humor:  “The greatest human drive is not food, water or shelter.  It’s the obsession to edit another person’s copy.”

It’s not often (okay, almost never) that we recommend a read.  But it’s one that will net you a true ROI, in Reinhard’s words:  Relevance.  Originality.  And Impact.

ADVICE ... AND CONSENT?

Time magazine recently crowed:  “We have entered a new golden age of advice.”

We beg to differ. 

Opinion-givers like Deloitte and McKinsey have prospered for years (depending on the economy), providing corporate America recommendations and hands-on work for everything from downsizing to strategy, benefits to supply chain re-jiggering. 

Individually, and for quite some time, many of us have sought career direction and personal coping ideas from not only the famed columnists but also from live chats, videos, podcasts, and one-on-one/group conversations.

One truth remains:  No matter what the reason for the help search, it’s sure difficult to figure out who’s right, who’s a bit off-kilter, and who might be in it just for glory and dollars. 

That’s where the advice (and consent) factors in.  Business wise, consultants are referred; references checked; and work scrutinized.  Beyond those preliminaries, the guidance sometimes gets a bit, well, squirrelly.  Many a company has launched a project with a brand-new Sherpa/group, finding (perhaps years later, perhaps in a few months) the relationship has gone south.

It’s happened to all of us.  Yet true advisors are not a dime a dozen; they’ve got to put your interests above theirs.  Here are a few good telling signs:

• After one recommendation is nixed, your consultant provides two to three other options – with factual pros and cons.
• When asked “what do you think,” your guide tells the truth (okay, it needs to be delivered with politesse).
• Secret means secret.  And cone of silence.

We’ll open this to our readers.   What have you encountered in the advice column?

DEAR ABBY OR ADAM OR ANN ...

One of our colleagues, half-heartedly and with more than a little (implied) sarcasm, suggested writing an advice column on communications, marketing, and the like.

After bristling, we thought long and hard:  Well, why not?  It’s the sort of unwanted self-help tactic that usually seduces readers with its outlandish set of problems and solutions.  The guy who fought with his neighbor about pet boundaries.  The woman who just couldn’t resist the last word.  Every day, millions skim these funny Q and As online and in print; why couldn’t that be us in lights?

Then came second thoughts:  How many times, when advice was sought, was it discarded by the seeker?  How did that make us feel?  And how many times did we offer unsolicited advice … only to be spurned like a rejected suitor?

Hmm:  Enter an academic article detailing four types of advice (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes).  Two are obvious:  Either be ‘for’ or ‘against’ a decision.  Detail the processes involved in making a choice, for three.  Or four, providing information without indicating whether it’s thumbs up or down.

Information, in short, is the winner.  Why?  Because advice seekers become more confident in making decisions now and in the future.  They also feel more autonomous and self-directed.  In short, the authors admonish: Giving advice might seem glamorous, but it’s not always treasured.

As for seeking it?  Call us in the morning after you’ve read two self-help books.