Take the Experience First

It doesn't take much for me to find a reason to cite one of the grandmasters of American business — Harold Geneen, leader of International Telephone & Telegraph Co. in its heyday decades of the 1960s and '70s. Close readers of Directors & Boards, our monthly e-Briefings, and this blog come across numerous citations to the managerial wisdom of Hal Geneen — such as this, and this, and this.

My thoughts again turn to Geneen in reflecting on the hornet's nest being stirred up by the New York Times article on unpaid internships. The essence of the article is that most companies that have unpaid interns are likely violating federal law on minimum-wage and other working standards.

Here is the passage from the NYT article that is riveting attention: " 'If you're a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren't going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,' said Nancy J. Leppink, the acting director of the [Labor Department's] wage and hour division."

This shot across the bow of Corporate America is not being well received. We can count on the Wall Street Journal to mount a more rational counterpunch. Its "War on Interns" editorial today takes the emminently sensible position that unpaid internships aren't "exploiting young people. It's letting young people exploit an opportunity."

The late and great Hal Geneen would agree. Here is how he once put it: "You get paid with two coins in life — money and experience. Take the experience first. The money will come later."

There is an extension of this unpaid intern controversy to board life. Many executives believe that serving on nonprofit boards will eventually yield an offer to join a corporate board. Others pooh-pooh the notion that nonprofit board service is a stepping stone to a public-company boardroom. Where I come down on this, not surprisingly, is in the Geneen camp — take the board experience first.

First of all, accept the nonprofit board invitation if you believe in the mission of the organization and, second, if you believe that you can help support and advance the organization through your board involvement. A distant motivation is if you think it will get you higher up on the opportunity scale for a corporate directorship. That may happen — just as an internship may open up employment options — but "take the experience first" and have a spirit of openness for whatever might come later. If Geneen is right — and one didn't do well betting against him when he was in his prime empire-building years with ITT — you will be rewarded later.

I will be monitoring how the unpaid internship debate plays out, but I will continue to share Geneen's sound advice with the students I teach at Temple University.

ROI: Return on Insight

Last week I met a fellow who championed the use of ROI. No, not return on investment. His ROI metric is one that his firm uses in its consulting work with clients — return on insight. He explained how his firm delivers what all consulting firms should deliver: value-generating insights to its clients. I had never heard that usage of ROI before.

Value-generating insights. That's what this blog, "Boards At Their Best," endeavors to deliver. Today marks its first anniversary.

I started this blog as an academic exercise. A year ago I was teaching a course in "Fundamentals of Public Relations Writing" at Temple University, my alma mater. For a final paper, I intended to give the class the assignment to start a blog. If I wanted each of them to become bloggers so as to be adept at this important capability for a PR practitioner, I figured I better become a blogger myself to test the doability of the assignment. If I could create a blog, then anyone could do it, certainly twentysomethings with a lot higher comfort level with technology and social media.

The title of the blog was chosen with care, as was the subtitle: "Insights on Leadership and Corporate Governance." I try to make sure each posting has a nugget of distinctive advice or perspective that you won't find in the mainstream media or elsewhere in the blogosphere. That's why I like that ROI metric — return on insight. I invite and encourage you to return here often over the next 12 months of postings to see how you would score its ROI.

'Get Me on the Cover of Business Week'

This was tough news to wake up to on this Monday morning — Bloomberg reporting that McGraw-Hill is looking to dispose of Business Week magazine. This is another gut punch for those of us in the media business.

Depending on what happens with this disposal, I may have to dispose of a reading I use in my "Fundamentals of Public Relations Writing" class at Temple University.

I teach the students, all budding PR practitioners, a concept of my own formulation that I term the "high hurdle" — which means that if they want to show leadership ability, they must find out what publication their company or client's CEO most desires to be prominently featured in and then pull out all the stops to get their CEO into it. (It needn't necessarily be a publication — it could be a TV show, like CNBC's "Squawk Box" or "The Today Show" or "Oprah," or it might be a high-profile speaking slot, perhaps to the Council on Foreign Relations or the Economics Club of New York or a trade industry keynoter.)

I share with the students a compelling example of the "high hurdle" that comes from the book, Confessions of a PR Man (New American Library, 1988), written by Robert Wood, president of Carl Byoir back in the days when it was one of the PR industry's venerable firms. Listen in on the exchange between Wood and his client Burt Sack, the PR director for Howard Johnson & Co., which took place when the two were reviewing the HoJo PR strategy in the 1960s.

Wood writes: "Burt leaned back in his chair. 'There's one objective that towers over all the others,' he said. 'It's this — Mr. Johnson wants to be on the cover of Business Week.' He was referring to Howard B. Johnson, the founder's son and now the CEO.

"I laughed. 'The cover of Business Week? That's a lot easier said than done.'

" 'Don't laugh, Bob. This is serious. He really wants it.'

"I shrugged. 'Okay, we'll do our best. It isn't impossible. We have had clients on the cover before. But it doesn't happen every week, Burt.'

" 'I know that. But I've got to warn you. No matter what else you do for us, Mr. Johnson will never be completely satisfied until he sees that cover.' "

Thus begins my class's case study of meeting the "high hurdle" and making a client happy. For the record, Bob Wood exercised highest-order media relations skills and got Howard Johnson its cover story.

For most of my three-decade career as a business writer and editor, the cover of Business Week was a plum placement. My lesson in leadership will still be taught to the incoming generation of PR execs, but I'll maybe be retiring this reading now that Business Week is falling down the rabbit hole.

There is an addendum to this case study: The HoJo PR director raises his glass in a post-cover celebratory toast and says to Bob Wood, in all seriousness, "Well, here's to the Time cover we're looking for next." Time cover? Hoo boy. I say no more.

Of TARPs and 201(k)s

Before a few weeks ago, what the initials TARP meant to me were Temple Association for Retired Persons — an educational outreach program that my alma mater, Temple University, offered to the retired citizenry in its Philadelphia community that was run by a longtime close colleague, Patricia Rooney.

Well, not so much now for that name association.

TARP is the Troubled Asset Relief Program that has been rushed into being to help mitigate the toxic mortgages held by the nation's banking system. We'll see how mitigating this whopper of a program is. Neither the stock market nor many members of the punditry or the citizenry have given it much of a ringing endorsement.

Truth be told, I wouldn't argue with anyone who thought TARP stood for Tycoon Assistance Relief Pact.

And referring to new monikers, I'm scribbling these thoughts on the morning after another deep swoon of the market — down over 500 points on Wednesday, Oct. 22. I'm afraid to go to the Fidelity website to peek in on my 401(k). It might now be a 201(k).