G2 On Leadership
Separate rules for star players?
Despite suspension over honor code violations and an investigation into his recruitment, Cam Newton won the Heisman Trophy. This raises a dilemma many organizations face: In dealing with top performers, how much should leaders overlook corner cutting, rule breaking and other integrity issues?
EZ
EE
KLMNO MichaelMaccoby is an
anthropologist and psychoanalyst globally recognized as anexpert on leadership.
WhenJoeGibbswas building theWashington
Redskins into SuperBowl champions,his stated criteria fordraftingplayerswas character and
talent.Gibbs saidhe couldcoachplayerswith these qualities to be successful intheNFL.Buthe couldnot coachsomeone to run50yards in4.4 seconds or transformanunethicalperson. TheRedskinshave sufferedwhentheyhave
deviatedfromthispolicy, andsohave all the organizations I’veworkedwith.
CarolKinseyGomanis an
executive coach, author and keynote speaker.
Statedvaluesdon’thave an impact onemployee behavior
unless those values are backedby leadership
behavior.Andwhendealingwithtopperformers, your actions are especially visible. So it alldepends onhowimportant a culture of
integrity is. If it is essential (as it is formany top organizations), thenyoumust reward,penalize, hire andfire to that value. But if youaren’t going todo that, at leasthave
the courtesy andhonesty todelete that value from your corporate statement.
Once inaninterviewinresponse to the
question, “Howdo youmanage all thosenewly rich, testosterone-rich, self-absorbedmenona professional football team?,”BillParcells answeredexactly the opposite ofwhat I thought hewouldsay.He said, “I treat eachof them differently.” There’s animportant truthandanirony there.
Inorder to create a team,hehadtounderstand eachindividual’s quirks,defaults and idiosyncrasies, andthencustomizehis interventions towhatwouldworkwitheachof
them.This isnot just a sports issue. LyndonJohnsonranthe Senate thatway as
well.Hewaswilling todowhatever it tookwith any individual senator tomakeprogress inthe Senate as awhole.Flattery, yelling, trading, arm twisting andlegal bribeswere all inhis arsenal. ButLBJ, likeParcells, always kepthis eye onthe
ball.They bothknewwhat theywere trying to accomplish,what exceptions couldbemade and what standards theyhadtoholdeveryone to as they targetedtheir approach. CamNewtonwasundoubtedly the best football
player inthenationthis year. Newton’s being awardedthe trophymakes a
mockery of theword“integrity” intheHeisman mantra. I believe inredemption.MichaelVickhas tried
KELLY KLINE/AP
Auburn’s CamNewton won this year’s Heisman Trophy, an award meant to honor “pursuit of excellence with integrity.”
hardto earna secondchance. SohasChuck
Colson.AndMichaelMilken.ButCamNewton, as marvelous ashe is towatchwhenhehas the ball, hasnotdone thehardwork thatwouldbe necessary tomeasureuptowhat theHeismansays it represents. If theHeismanvotershadthe courage to sayno,
as theHall ofFame votershavedone, the trophy wouldhave continuedto embody somethingmore lasting thanfootball statistics.
Co-founder of the
leadership-focused consulting firm,CambridgeLeadership Associates,MartyLinsky teaches at theHarvard Kennedy School.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2010 JohnR.Ryanispresident of
thenonprofitCenter for CreativeLeadership, a top- ranked, globalprovider of executive education.
Spending timewithmy five grandkids always
remindsme that childrenare greatmimics. Spending a fewminuteswiththedailynewspaper remindsme that adults are, too—andoftenwith far less charming results. As leaders, it’s crucial to remember that the
menandwomeninour organizationswillmodel our behaviors andactions, for better orworse. If we cut corners, break the rules or otherwise compromise our ownintegrity, the badheadlines wedeservewill oftenfollow. We can’t tolerate that behavior inourselves or
others—especially topperformers—because the rest of the organizationwill followour
lead.The ultimate outcome: a seriously infectedculture. ThinkEnronor,more recently, the financial
institutions thathelpedtrigger a global recession throughunsavory lending andaccounting
practices.Thosedisastersdidn’t justhappen
randomly.They incubatedfor a long time in cultures that lookedaskance at signs of trouble. Insteadofwaiting for topperformers to self-
destruct, orhoping that theydon’t,we cantry to get out aheadof trouble by confronting the issue promptly. If theyunderstandandaccept accountability for their actions, thenwe can provide the appropriate coaching andsupport. We canalso ask leaders at all levels a simple
question:Whatdo Iwant theheadlines to say whenIdepart?Keeping long-termlegacy insight canbe a valuablepart of organizational culture— and, individually, it canhelpus stay onthe right pathwhenthe inevitable temptations to veer off it emerge.
Excerpts from On Leadership, a Web feature exploring vision and motivation by Steven Pearlstein and Raju Narisetti. To see videos and read the entire panel’s comments, go to
www.washingtonpost.com/leadership.
MONEYBOX Creators of Angry Birds happily dreaming of spinoffs BY ANNIE LOWREY On a recent Saturdaymorning, on the
platform of the Red Line’s Metro Center station, two kids — tweens, perhaps, or teenagers — ducked, jostled, and kicked in a briefmoment of karate-type activity. The platform was crowded. Nobody no- ticed. Apparently, the two were not prac- ticed flash-mob participants: If you are going to create a chain of leap-froggers in a busy subway, overwhelming force is probably a good strategy. But across the world, others joined in
more successful, effervescentpublicdem- onstrations — such as one in London’s Trafalgar Square. Theflashmobs,orattemptsat them,on
themorning ofDec. 11were all incelebra- tion of the first birthday of Angry Birds, the freakishly popular, stupidly simple smartphone game. Its Finnish creator, Rovio, organized the global event and promised to create special new gaming levels for the cities that best celebrated it. But Angry Birds fans need little such egging on. The absurdist, addictive game is sweeping the globe. Now the creators want to make the jump to bigger, more lucrative screens. The game works like this: Round,
green pigs have stolen eggs from wing- less, heavily eyebrowed birds. The birds want to punish the pigs. The gamer uses his orher cellphone touchscreento sling- shot the suicidal birds onto the pigs’ ramparts, knocking the structures down andwinning points in the process. The style is silly, the game dead simple
to start playing and very hard to put down. Rovio says the iPhone version alone nowhas 65millionminutes of play time per day. That means if Rovio com- pensatedthoseusersatminimumwage, it would cost about $2 billion per year. By all suchmetrics, the game is highly,
highly
successful.The foundersofHelsin- ki-based Rovio met at a mobile gaming contest in 2003 and introduced the game last December. It caught on locally, then elsewhereEurope, thenworldwide—and fast. It reachedtheNo. 1 spot intheBritish iPhone application store in February and No. 1 in the United States a few months later. Apple recently named it the best-sell-
ing app of 2010, with about 30 million iPhone downloads at about $1 a pop. Android, the Google operating system, has the game available for free, ad-sup- ported download, and about 5 million users have signed up, generating $1 mil- lion a month in ad revenue. The game now has about 50 million downloads total. With cellphones conquered, the com-
pany has its eyes on the rest of the tech world. In the words of one company executive, Angry Birds is “the first exam- ple of a brand that was created on the mobile side and is now going every- where.” Rovio at first worked likemostmobile
gaming companies, doing work-for-hire onproducts forbigger fish, likeElectronic Arts. But fierce competition dampens prices formobile games, and there is only so much you can do with a 2-by-3-inch touch screen. With the runaway success of the game and a cult of personality growing around its grumpy characters, Rovio decided to build a multiplatform brand centered on its celebrity birds. In the past months, the company has
grown to employ more than 30 people, and it is working to bring out new ver- sions of the game for platforms like Face- book and gaming consoles like PlaySta- tion, Xbox, and Wii. In addition, it is, as they say, “expandingmonetization.” First up, Rovio is selling Angry Birds
HENRIK KETTUNEN/BLOOMBERG
Agame developer works on computer graphics at the headquarters of Rovio, creator of Angry Birds, in Espoo, Finland. The company has ambitious plans to expand the reach of the simple but captivating game, which has been a huge hit and best-selling app in its smartphone incarnation.
stuffedanimals—fuzzy, frowningbirds to slingshot at fuzzy,daftpigs inthe comfort of one’s own home — and clothing. The ambitions get much bigger after that. Company foundersnamePixar—the film productioncompanybehindthe “ToySto- ry”moviesand“Wall-E”—asarolemodel. And they are in the process of exploring televisionandfilm-developmentdeals—a leap no other cellphone game has made, though numerous video games have. It justmight work. Buyout offers have
flooded into Finland. And people — not just regular gamers but alsomany casual users — do love the characters. Reviews fromthe trade press are laudatory, to say the least. (Sample: “A kind of avian fury not seensince thatAlfredHitchcockmov- ie. . . . [The] charm, polish and overall genius should keep a smile onyour face.”) Plus, the game has inspired an unusu-
ally devoted fan base. Justin Bieber loves it. David Cameron plays it on his iPad. Conan O’Brien showed off the iPad ver- sion of the game in a promo. “Saturday NightLive”mentioned the game ina skit, with Julian Assange promising to hack the game and turn it into Good-Natured Birds. (“How is it? It stinks.”) And the celebrities have nothing on the regular fans—those whomake their own Angry Bird costumes, for instance, or try to broker peace treaties between the ag- grieved avian and porcine parties. There is one place, though, where the
HENRIK KETTUNEN/BLOOMBERG Graphics for the Angry Birds game on an iPad; in the background are plush toys, the first successful spinoff.
love for Angry Birds is slightly more complicated: Finland itself. The country boasts ahighly educatedpopulation, gen- erous government support for innova- tion, and a big tech sector. But for years, a single company domi- nated the field. Mobile giant Nokia once
madeupsome3.5percentofFinnishGDP. (In theUnited States, thatwouldmean as much asMcDonald’s,Wal-Mart, and Citi- group combined.) It now makes up just 1.6 percent. And Angry Birds found fame ontheiPhone,oneof thecompetitors that has sappedNokia’smarket share.
Nevertheless, Finns — big consumers
of the game, to be sure — are hoping Rovio’s success creates a boomlet instart-
ups.AndRovio itself is thinking sky-high.
Lowrey reports on business and economics for Slate.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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