Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on February 10, 2015

It was only a few short years ago that the Point Breeze and Girard Point oil refineries owned by Sunoco in South Philadelphia were about to be abandoned. Along came visionary Phil Rinaldi who saw something that Sunoco did not see – irreplaceable assets sitting in the middle of a major metropolitan region whose residents and businesses provided a ready market for the products produced by these assets. The refineries are in an area with excellent infrastructure – two deep-water navigable rivers with ocean access, rail service and interstate highways, and the potential of someday processing Marcellus shale natural gas that is only 100 miles away. With the financial backing of The Carlyle Group, Rinaldi formed a new company, named it Philadelphia Energy Solutions and purchased the two refineries.

During my interview with Rinaldi, he exuded a quiet determination, a sense of confidence in what he and his team at Philadelphia Energy Solutions and other stakeholders were accomplishing by reestablishing this important industry in Philadelphia. He saw possibilities, where others saw obstacles that could not be overcome. He saw the glass as half full, while others saw it as half empty.

Rinaldi spoke of the opinions of the “experts” at the time, who felt that oil refining did not have a place in the “new economy” and that gasoline, heating oil and other refined products could be refined elsewhere and shipped here. Rinaldi stated that there was a view that perhaps the refineries should be bulldozed and the condominiums built on these sites.

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on February 2, 2015

An incident hit the news late last week in which a Comcast customer in Spokane, Wash., learned his name had been replaced on his account with a vulgarity after he canceled his service. The incident went viral on social media and was widely reported in the press.

Comcast Senior Vice President of Customer Experience Charlie Herrin released the following statement: “… We have apologized to our customer for this unacceptable situation and addressed it directly with the employee who will no longer be working on behalf of Comcast. We are also looking at a number of technical solutions that would prevent it from happening moving forward. We took this opportunity to reinforce with each employee just how important respect is to our culture. …”

A few days prior to this incident becoming public, I interviewed Herrin and Senior Vice President for Customer Service Tom Karinshak to learn more about Comcast’s journey to improve customer experience. I have no doubt that both individuals and the executive leadership of the company view improvement of customer experience with Comcast as an imperative. Given the number and frequency of negative experiences that have gone viral, they have much work to do, to change the perceptions of the public.

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on January 26, 2015

Setting goals as a business unit leader at PQ Corporation, as the company’s CEO and as a board member approving the operational and strategic plans of other CEOs, I have developed a perspective on the annual and strategic goal-setting process. Done effectively, goal setting drives execution and individual, team and organizational performance.

There are six major factors that determine the credibility of any organization’s operational and strategic plans, and the goals outlined in those plans:

• Talent and capabilities of the business unit’s management team, and their ability to execute and achieve results
• Competitive position of the company’s products or services in its markets and the strategies of competitors
• Availability of capital and operating resources needed to execute the plan
• Whether upside potentials are balanced by downside risks and if there is an imbalance, how it is addressed in the goal-setting process.
• Ownership in the plan by the employees who will execute it
• Effectiveness of strategies to achieve results

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on January 20, 2015

I recently watched “The Imitation Game,” a film that received eight Oscar nominations, including best picture. The film is about Englishman Alan Turing (brilliantly played by best actor nominee Benedict Cumberbatch) and his small team of elite mathematicians and code breakers who broke the “unbreakable” German Enigma code during World War II. This permitted the British to successfully use a captured German Enigma machine to decode military messages and turn the tide of the war.

Film critics gave “The Imitation Game” and its actors high marks in many categories. Not one critic, however, mentioned that three of the themes that ran through the film are great lessons in counter-intuitive leadership, breaking paradigms and the importance of respecting the abilities of women.

Don’t discount a counter-intuitive leadership style

Turing lacked interpersonal skills and would have failed as a leader in most situations. As a team member, he alienated his fellow code breakers. He was driven, however, by his strong belief that “… only a machine could defeat another machine.”

Prior attempts at breaking the Enigma code by humans using traditional methods were unsuccessful. In spite of having no interpersonal skills, he slowly won his team over with an unwavering resolve that his approach was the only one that would break the code. His team began to develop ownership in Turing’s approach, and threatened to quit when the naval commanding officer who headed the Enigma project wanted to fire Turing because the military had no faith in anything outside of their own narrow inflexible framework for breaking the code.

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on January 12, 2015

“Good is the enemy of great” are the opening words of “Good to Great,” the best-selling iconic book by preeminent leadership and management thought leader Jim Collins, on “why some companies make the leap [to outstanding sustained performance] … and some don’t.” If you think that “good” is good enough, you will never become great.

When I became the president and CEO of PQ Corp., chairman of the PQ board Richard D. Wood Jr. gave me a copy of “Good to Great.” I will be forever grateful to Wood, because the book outlined the characteristics of companies that have achieved outstanding sustained performance. Collins’ book served as a guide for leading PQ during my tenure as CEO, and later as an independent board member at other companies, assessing their leaders and organizations.

Collins and his team of researchers poured over reams of data to uncover 11 companies that had cumulative stock returns at least 6.9 times that of the general market over a 15-year period. For perspective, from 1985 to 2000, GE had cumulative stock returns only 2.8 times that of the general market. Collins and his team then studied the characteristics of these companies and the characteristics of their CEOs, versus comparison companies that did not perform as well. Collins identified eight principles that differentiated these high-performing companies from the comparison companies. Here are the four differentiating principles that were most impactful for me:

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on January 5, 2015

Every January, thought leaders write about “new trends” for the coming year. It was suggested that I do the same in the area of leadership. What I want to write about, however, are not trends. They are timeless leadership imperatives that are characteristic of all high-performing organizations. We all should remember these as we start 2015.

Communicate the vision, mission and goals for the organization

Your employees can’t help fulfill the vision and achieve the mission and goals of the organization unless they know what they are. Communicate these to them, and why they were chosen. Work to gain buy-in from your employees to make them shared vision/mission/goals. If 2015 is the year to re-write the vision/mission statements, involve employees at various levels within the organization. Set joint goals with your direct reports, so they have ownership in them. Periodically update employees on the progress of the journey to achieve the organization’s vision/mission/goals.

Let your employees know what their role is on this journey. As CEO of my company, I once told an operating division of a mature business that their role is to generate cash flow that could be invested in high-growth businesses in other parts of the company. I also told them that they needed to continue their successful efforts on continuous improvement, and they would continue to receive capital for process improvement projects that had an attractive return on investment. These employees shared with me that it was the first time that they were ever told what their role is in the company’s growth. They embraced their role and fulfilled their job as a cash generator with newfound dedication.

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on December 29, 2014

Writing a weekly column on effective leadership for publication in the Philadelphia Business Journal is a team effort between my editors and me. My editors are two Drexel University undergraduate English majors, Julia Casciato, the former editor-in-chief and managing editor of Drexel University’s independent student newspaper, The Triangle, and Alexa Josaphouitch, a co-chief copy editor of The Triangle. Speaking with both of them over time, I learned how each has gained valuable leadership experience as undergraduates.

In their role as editors, what do Casciato and Josaphouitch do? They are a set of eyes beyond mine. In addition to checking spelling, tense, grammar, punctuation and sentence structure, they check for inconsistencies and ensure that the ideas and concepts I present tie together in a logical way. In addition, they check for AP Style, which is a set of writing conventions for newspaper articles. They comment on the tone of the article and if I am effectively delivering my message to the reader.

I interviewed both Casciato and Josaphouitch to learn about their leadership experiences as undergraduates at Drexel, and what they have learned editing articles for my weekly column. They both shared that by editing my column, they are exposed to leadership issues that they would not normally be exposed to as undergrads.

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on December 22, 2014

Many of my readers have asked why a former CEO and current director on for-profit and nonprofit boards decided to write on the subject of leadership, and how I became a weekly guest columnist in the Philadelphia Business Journal. This is my 23rd article, and I think it is time to share the story of my journey.

Last March I visited Silicon Valley with Donna De Carolis, founding dean of Drexel University’s Close School of Entrepreneurship, six of her staff members and 16 Close School students. We visited Apple, eBay, PayPal and numerous incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces in San Francisco. After watching De Carolis interact with and inspire her students, and witnessing the creativity and innovative spirit of those students as well as the entrepreneurial drive of those we visited, I decided I needed to undertake something new. It had been three years since being named as the chairman of the board of the Drexel University College of Medicine, which gave me the opportunity to learn about the business of medicine as well as the academic and experiential learning requirements of medical education. It was time for a new challenge.

Having served in many leadership roles as an executive rising through the ranks of PQ Corporation and as a director on numerous boards watching other CEOs in their roles, I decided to start writing on the subject of leadership. There are many writers on this subject: there are those who do academic research on leadership, as well as some very experienced practitioners who have years of experience. I am in the latter category. I try to differentiate myself by sharing my perspectives and experiences in an impactful way to my readers.

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on December 15, 2014

Since the publication of my article Dec. 8 titled “Philadelphia’s incredible potential to become the East Coast energy hub,” I have received a number of comments from readers concerning the adverse impact of Marcellus shale drilling, fracking, rail transport and refining/processing on our environment, health and safety. I appreciate these comments and thank the readers who have taken the time to write them. The comments generate conversation which is part of the process to establish public policy and adopt laws and regulations that balance risk vs. benefit not only for the energy industry, but every aspect of modern society.

In that article, I outlined the very significant benefits of increased supply of domestic oil and natural gas for the residents of the Philadelphia region and the country. The decline in the cost of gasoline over the past two months is a direct result of higher oil production. The cost to heat one’s home has significantly declined over the past few years due to the production of Marcellus shale natural gas. New electric generation plants that will be powered by natural gas instead of coal or oil will result in significantly less greenhouse gas emissions per kilowatt of electricity generated. Lower energy costs will attract manufacturing back to the U.S., resulting in more jobs. The U.S. will be energy independent by the end of the decade, which will have a very significant favorable impact on the balance of trade and economic growth.

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