Graduates, get out of your comfort zone and never compromise your integrity

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on May 20, 2019


As the former chairman of the board of Drexel University’s College of Medicine and as the current vice chairman of the board of Drexel, I have the honor each year of addressing the University’s College of Medicine graduates. I always try to share some advice that may help them navigate their careers.


At this year’s commencement, I shared the following message:

Graduates, you have just completed an enormous undertaking. As you seek solutions to the challenges you will face, I urge you to remember what you learned here about the power of teamwork, and the importance of interpersonal skills in accomplishing your goals.

Many of you will dedicate your lives to the practice of medicine, healing the sick. Others will become researchers, or work in other areas of the healthcare profession. You will be making a difference in the lives of others, working toward the betterment of the human condition.

The best advice I can share with you as you pursue your careers is to be open to new opportunities that come your way and embrace change – the only constant in life. In addition to taking advantage of opportunities that come your way, I encourage you to be proactive and create your own opportunities. You never know where these might take you.

I am a chemical engineering graduate from your University, who just happens to be the vice chairman of its board. Now, how does that happen? How does an engineer become the vice chairman of the board of his alma mater?

Shortly after becoming CEO of my company, I was honored to be asked to join the Drexel board of trustees. The following year, I was named chairman of the board’s finance committee. A number of years later I became chairman of Drexel’s College of Medicine, followed by being named vice chairman of the University’s board.

I can look back to the first day after my commencement and recall the steps along my career pathway. I took advantage of opportunities and accepted assignments outside of my comfort zone to learn and to broaden my knowledge and experience. I took risks. Sometimes I failed, but I never let that stop me from moving forward.

Failure happens. It is not the end of the world. Learn to mitigate risks. Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” Get outside of your comfort zone. You never know where the future may take you.

Many of you will choose to advance the state of the art of your profession in areas that make a positive difference in people’s lives. Many of you will work to change the world and make it a better place. There is no higher calling.

Always take advantage of opportunities to do something new and different. And someday, you may have the honor of addressing graduates at their commencement ceremony, as I am doing today.

The story of Icarus, a character in Greek mythology, is a great metaphor for how one should manage their career. According to legend, Icarus flew too high, too close to the sun. The wax holding the wings to his back melted and he crashed into the sea.

Should Icarus have played it safe and flown lower, avoiding the risk presented by the sun?

Seth Godin, the author of “The Icarus Deception: How high will you fly?” writes, “It is far more dangerous to fly too low than too high, because it feels safe to fly low. We settle for low expectations and small dreams, and guarantee ourselves less than what we are capable of. By flying too low, we shortchange not only ourselves, but also those who depend on us, or might benefit from our work.”

During your career, be sure you don’t fly too low. Take risks and fly high, and if you crash, you will pick yourself up and fly again.

The following achievements and personal attributes will help you advance in your career:

  • your commitment to yourself and others to always strive for excellence,
  • how you differentiate yourself by doing new things, and proactively implement positive change in everything you do,
  • your interpersonal skills and how you lead others,
  • your good critical judgment and common sense,
  • your contacts and personal network, and
  • your ethics, your integrity and your professional and personal reputation among your colleagues, your patients and the public.

During your career, be sure to protect your good name, integrity and reputation. Once damaged, you never earn them back.

There is a passage in the West Point Cadet Prayer that reads, “Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong…” Remember this, especially when you run into situations that require difficult ethical decisions.

Good luck, and may the wind always be at your back.


Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com.

People quit bosses, not companies

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on April 29, 2019

Performance goes beyond the achievement of financial or other goals to which leaders are held accountable. I frequently hear complaints by employees, including those employees who report to CEOs, that their bosses lack fundamental leadership skills. Ensure you don’t lose your good employees because of the lack of leadership skills of the individual they report to.

I offer the following advice to all leaders to improve their leadership style:

Don’t micro-manage

A frequent complaint is that bosses micro-manage and tell direct reports how to accomplish a task, rather than state expectations, ensure the resources are available to get the job done, and cut the direct report lose to achieve results.

Steve Jobs, the former chairman and CEO of Apple once said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Lee Iacocca, former automobile industry executive once said, “I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.” Why don’t all leaders have the same philosophy as Jobs and Iacocca?

Acknowledge the work of a direct report

A number of individuals have shared with me that their work is not acknowledged when passed up through the organization. I personally experienced this when I was told that all work leaving our department had to have the name of the department’s manager on it, rather than a cover letter transmitting the work of a direct report. I knew that this was not the kind of manager I wanted to work for.

In another instance, I was told by the creator of an advertising campaign of an experience she had after she presented her work during a meeting with a client. The client loved the campaign. After the presentation, she was not invited to join her boss and the client at a lunch celebrating the campaign’s creation. Why was her boss tone-deaf and insensitive to how that made her feel? This is not the way to inspire and motivate direct reports.

Respect female colleagues as you would respect male colleagues

I have heard from many women that they are not as respected as men within the workplace. Many feel that this is not purposeful, but part of an ingrained cultural norm.

A company with an organizational culture that tolerates a hostile work environment or doesn’t respect both men and women sends signals to some current and potential employees that they are not welcome and valued. The recent #MeToo movement has shined a light on the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace and it hopefully signals the start of a cultural change.

All organizations should create a respectful environment and provide advancement opportunities regardless of gender to all employees based upon their skills and track record of accomplishments.

Don’t tolerate a direct report who is a tyrant to his or her direct reports

I used to work for a tyrant who did significant damage to morale. I nearly left the company but was promoted around him and became his peer within the company. I was promoted again and became his boss. I fired him. Had I left, the company would have been deprived of a future CEO.

I still wonder why the CEO of the company tolerated the tyrant. Don’t make this mistake if you have a tyrant working in your organization.

Perform 360-degree reviews of your direct reports

What is the best way to obtain a full picture of the effectiveness of a direct report? Obtain 360-degree feedback on their performance. Done properly in organizations where this process has become a cultural norm, this performance tool provides feedback to direct reports to help them be more effective.

Obtain input about your direct reports from people reporting to them, from peers and from senior individuals within the organization. This information can be used in the direct report’s performance review. In many cases, it is the best way to identify and communicate to the direct report their strengths and areas for improvement.

At my company, I introduced a 360-degree feedback system while president of our world-wide chemicals business. Not only did I receive and communicate 360-degree feedback to my direct reports, but I subjected myself to the same process, conducted by our company’s CEO.

When I became the CEO of the company, I continued this process, with the chairman of our board who obtained 360-degree input on me from my direct reports. I found it to be one of the most valuable feedback mechanisms to help me improve my performance as a CEO. To undergo 360-degree reviews was my decision. It should not be mandated by the board but be a decision for the CEO.

It is said that people quit bosses, not companies. Boards, ensure your CEO is an effective leader. CEOs and other leaders within the organization, ensure the leaders below you are effective. If they are not effective, you are apt to lose your high performing employees, perhaps to a competitor. In today’s tough business environment, you can ill afford to lose them.


Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com.

To develop your company’s future leaders, push them outside their comfort zone

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Article originally published in the American City Business Journals on April 9, 2019

An important responsibility of every leader is to develop future leaders for their organization.

One of the most effective ways to do this is to push your direct reports outside of their comfort zone. Give them challenging assignments in areas that they have never faced to broaden their experience and see how they perform.

In June 2017, I wrote an article describing my experience taking a large French multinational chemical company to the U.S. International Trade Commission, accusing them of dumping product in the U.S. at below their home market price. I share an update of this article because it’s illustrative of how you can develop employees by getting them outside their comfort zone.

The benefits of stepping out of your comfort zone was a lesson I learned early in my career as my company’s business manager for anhydrous sodium metasilicate (ASM), which is used in a variety of metal cleaning and other industrial applications. It was also a lesson for the senior leadership of my company in the further development of a mid-level manager who eventually became CEO of the company

We faced import competition for ASM from Rhone Poulenc, a large French chemical and pharmaceutical company, at a price significantly below their home market price in France. We felt this was a violation of U.S. dumping regulations, designed to protect U.S. industry from unfair international trade practices.

ASM producers in the U.S., including my company, were losing market share. If found guilty of dumping, the remedy would be the assessment of dumping duties on imported ASM from Rhone Poulenc.

As the business manager of this product line, I received approval from my company’s CEO to file dumping charges against Rhone Poulenc with the U.S. International Trade Commission. I was 33 years old at the time, with no experience in these kinds of legal matters. However, my product manager and I knew the market well, which provided the foundation for building the case, and we both relished the challenge.

The attorney retained by our company’s general counsel insisted that my product manager and I be the public face of our company’s case. I soon learned what that meant.

I recall flying to Washington, D.C., for an evidentiary hearing in front of the ITC staff, asking our attorney at the airport just prior to boarding if he was ready to provide testimony for our company.

He said, “No — you are the one who is going to testify today.”

He said he didn’t tell me ahead of time because at this hearing, he didn’t want me to over-prepare, but just to respond to questioning.

It is hard for anyone to imagine the horror I felt not having written out in detail what I wanted to say. Talk about being outside of one’s comfort zone.

Fortunately, I knew the facts, which helped me state my company’s case despite my trepidations.

The hearing accomplished the substance and optics of what our attorney wanted — to pit a small, privately-owned, domestic company dedicated to serving the ASM market against a foreign company many times our size competing illegally through product pricing that met the criteria of dumping.

The preparation for the hearing in front of the ITC was very intense. Over a period of months, we responded to questions from the ITC investigative staff in preparation for the hearing in front of the ITC commissioners. The staff asked for significant details to ensure that the commissioners had the information needed to understand the dynamics of the market in order to determine if dumping was occurring and render a decision.

Our credibility and the trust we built with the investigative staff was an important factor in the case. Whenever we realized that we had provided information to the staff that was inaccurate, we immediately corrected it, even if it hurt our case.

The hearing in front of the ITC commissioners was held in a chamber very similar to that of the Supreme Court. Somewhat intimidating.

At the ITC hearing, my product manager and I were well-prepared to give testimony as the plaintiffs. A pivotal moment occurred when the Rhone Poulenc attorneys misrepresented a meeting their clients had with us, accusing us of improper marketplace behavior. As I was listening to their mischaracterizations, I whispered to our attorney that we had notes of that meeting which countered their testimony. He asked me to pull the notes, and as he read them, a smile crossed his face.

Our meeting notes, entered into evidence, undermined much of Rhone Poulenc’s credibility.

When the ITC commissioners announced their decision, they unanimously found in favor of my company and against Rhone Poulenc. They assessed the highest dumping duty on any chemical imported into the U.S. to date. My product manager and I felt as if we had won gold medals at the Olympics.

So, what did we learn from this experience? Whether you are dealing with customers or the investigative staff of a federal agency, you develop credibility with those you deal with by always being honest and factual. This will differentiate you from those that aren’t. Credibility builds trust and confidence, and this will favor you in borderline decisions.

We also learned to operate under pressure and to get out of our comfort zone. It was a rewarding experience.

Leaders, expose your employees to new, meaningful experiences. Get them out of their comfort zones. There is no better way for them to develop.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com.

Learn How to Be an Inspiring Leader

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on February 26, 2019

What makes a truly great leader? In part, it’s the ability to inspire followers toward an aspirational goal. I miss the inspirational leadership of three former leaders, whose words and their delivery of those words inspired many of us.

Former President John F. Kennedy, in his Sept. 12, 1962 speech, announced the national goal of sending men to the moon and returning them safely to Earth before the decade was out. As a high school student at the time with the goal of going to college and earning a degree in chemical engineering, I was inspired by not only Kennedy’s audacious challenge to overcome the immensely difficult technical and engineering barriers, but also by his confidence that the goal could be achieved.

Former President Ronald Reagan, in his Jan. 20, 1981 inaugural address, spoke of the exceptionalism of Americans in a very positive, uplifting message, describing the “will and moral courage of free men and women,” and how committed we are to defending freedom. Reagan’s eloquent speech was a call to action for all Americans to be the best they could be, and serve as an example for the rest of the world to emulate. He is the president I most admire.

Former British prime minister Winston Churchill on June 4, 1940 delivered his “we shall fight on the beaches” speech to Parliament to rally his citizens during World War II. Churchill’s speech, reenacted by Gary Oldman, in the film, “The Darkest Hour,” is an inspiring example of how a national leader can mobilize a nation’s citizens toward the most challenging goal it has ever faced – national survival. In the film, one can overhear the comment, “He mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle.” Unfortunately, not very many leaders can do the same today.

So, what did Kennedy, Reagan and Churchill have in common? They had wonderful command of vocabulary and knew how to inspirationally communicate their goals and beliefs with emotion in an up-lifting way that won the hearts and minds of their citizens. They united the nations they were leading at the time.

How does a business leader win the hearts and minds of those they lead? How do you become an inspiring leader? Certainly, it takes more than great communication skills. Inspirational leaders have other skills as well.

Lolly Daskal is a leading executive leadership coach and founder of Lead From Within. In her article, “Six powerful traits of the most inspiring business leaders,” Daskal identifies these traits as people skills, credibility, authenticity, emotional intelligence, motivation, and positivity.

Murray Newlands, an entrepreneur, business advisor and speaker, in his article, “Seven characteristics of inspirational leaders,” says that inspirational leaders have a clear vision of the future, express unerring positivity, listen to their people, are grateful to their team, communicate impeccably, are trustworthy, and are passionate about what they do.

Based on my own experience as a CEO and director on the boards of numerous companies, I would like to add to the list of characteristics and traits of inspirational leaders identified by Daskal and Newlands, as follows:

Is genuine in words and actions, and is a person of high ethics and integrity

A leader who is not genuine and lacks ethics and integrity will not earn the respect and trust of the people within their organization. They will certainly not inspire followers to achieve great results. Board members, be sure you hire a CEO with these traits.

Communicates the importance of the company’s goals

The senior leadership team of the company needs to communicate the importance of the company’s goals in both group meetings and in one-on-one conversations with key opinion leaders within the company.

Employees need to feel that the goals are meaningful and achievable and will have a positive benefit for them and the organization. The goals should be aspirational, and stretch beyond the normal reach of individuals.

Identifies the role that employees play in attaining the goal

After completing a new strategic plan, as the recently appointed CEO of PQ Corporation, I communicated the goals of the company to our business units, and just as importantly, the role each business unit had in achieving those goals. The role of our low-growth commodity chemical business was to generate cash flow, through very heavy emphasis on continuous improvement. This cash flow would be invested in our high-growth specialty chemical and catalyst businesses.

After I made my presentation to the employees of our commodity chemical business, one of the employees commented, “This is the first time I was told what our role is in the achievement of the company’s strategic goals.” In my former position as COO of the company, I was too close to the strategic planning process to realize that the different roles of business unit employees to achieve the company’s goals had not been explained to them. All individuals who take part in achieving the goals of the company should have a personal ownership of the role that they themselves play in the achievement of those goals.

Frequently provide updates on progress

By frequently sharing updates on the progress towards achieving the company’s goals, an inspirational leader has the opportunity to keep the focus on what the company is trying to accomplish. It keeps the company’s employees in the game.

Great inspirational leaders have great communication skills. To those that have a fear of public speaking, you can conquer that fear by facing it head on, by receiving coaching and taking every opportunity to publicly speak. You will never regret that you developed this skill. Someday, you, like Churchill, Kennedy and Reagan, may be able to mobilize the English language and send it into battle.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. Follow Silverman on LinkedIn here and on Twitter, @StanSilverman.

What to Focus on as a Newly-Appointed CEO

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Article originally published in the American City Business Journals on February 12, 2019

In August 2016, I wrote an article about what new CEO’s should focus on in their first 100 days on the job. Based on my subsequent conversations with new CEOs, this is an update of that article. 

You were just appointed CEO at a new company. The press announcements have been singing your praises, outlining your previous positions, expertise and track record of results.

The employees at your new company are wondering about your leadership style, your tone at the top and what changes you might make to the company’s culture and strategy, as well as possible changes to the senior leadership team reporting to you. Your board of directors will be wondering the same thing. What you say and do will be watched intently by everyone within the organization. Expectations that you will move the company forward will be very high.

As the new CEO, what should you focus on during your first 100 days? The knowledge gained during this learning process will help you formulate changes to the culture, the senior leadership team, as well as both the operational and strategic initiatives of the company.

Listen, ask questions and form impressions

Get to know the company, your board members and your direct reports. Talk with your board members and the individuals reporting to you, as well as those individuals reporting to them.

Learn about the norms and practices established by the former CEO

Understand the tone at the top and organizational culture under the previous CEO. Did the culture permit employees to practice common sense and good critical judgment, and when necessary violate the rules when doing so was in the best interest of the company? Were employees who did so terminated or celebrated? How much leeway were employees given to do what’s right versus follow existing policies and procedures?

What is the state of the company’s strategic plan?

Talk to your staff to understand the company’s current market situation. Is the strategic plan current, and are the various areas within the company pursuing strategies to achieve this plan?

Has a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) been performed, and do the strategic and operational plans build on the company’s strengths, minimize the impact of its weaknesses, exploit its opportunities and defend against its threats?

When you are sufficiently knowledgeable about the business, you will need to discuss the changes you want to make to the company’s strategic plan with the board. It is critical that as CEO, you and your team “own” the strategic plan, because you and they will be held responsible for executing it.

What is the competitive position of the company?

Vis-a-vis the competition, what is the competitive position of the company’s various businesses? How active is the competition in attacking the company’s markets with new product offerings or aggressive product pricing?

Determine if members of the senior leadership team know why their customers buy from the company, and why other customers buy from the competition. This knowledge should be known throughout the organization, so every employee, even those who do not directly touch the customer, can perform their jobs in a way to strengthen the company’s competitive advantage and deliver a great customer experience.

What is the cost position of the company versus its competitors? How competitive is the company’s business processes and information technology?

Ensure all employees are committed to the process of continuous improvement. The company should be on a journey to be the best in the world at what it does. Learn if all employees and board members buy into and share ownership of this ethos.

What is the company’s financial position?

How strong is the profitability and cash flow of the company and how much debt is on the company’s balance sheet? How capital intensive is the company and what major capital projects are on the horizon? Is the cash flow and balance sheet sufficiently strong to fund these projects and market growth?

Are you comfortable with your signature authority for capital projects beyond which you will need to take a project to the board for approval? Ensure you are comfortable with the signature authority of your direct reports, beyond which they need to get your approval.

Learn about the senior leaders who report to you

Understand the leadership styles, tone and culture of the senior managers reporting to you. Do they listen to their direct reports and do they surround themselves with people who will point out the brutal facts of reality? Can they execute and deliver results? Do they inspire their employees?

Do they micro-manage their direct reports, or do they empower them to make decisions, so they have a feeling of ownership in what they do? Are employees allowed to take risks, and do they know how to de-risk their decisions? Do some of your direct reports need to be changed?

Develop a good relationship with your board and stakeholders

Understand how the board operates, and their expectations of you. What level of information detail do they require to oversee the company? How much experience does each have as a board member? Do they tend to drift beyond oversight and governance and get into operational issues, which is the responsibility of the CEO?

You should also spend time focused externally, speaking with major stockholders and customers, and understand their expectations. What would they like to see that’s different from the previous CEO?

In my conversations with current and former CEOs, they all commented that trust among the leadership team is paramount to the success of their organizations. The foundation of trust is honesty, ethics and integrity. What is the level of trust among members of your senior leadership team?

Focusing on the areas above will ensure that you have an effective start as CEO at your new company.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally-syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. 

Lesson from Michigan State University: Empathy Is a Key Leadership Trait

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on January 22, 2019

One of the most important skills of any leader is to know when and how to communicate empathy. The third senior leader at Michigan State University during the past 12 months, Interim President John Engler, has just demonstrated that he lacks this skill in remarks he made about the sexual abuse victims of Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar.

On Jan. 24, 2018, Nassar, physician to athletes at MSU and national team doctor for USA Gymnastics, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison (concurrent state and federal sentences) for sexually abusing young women. Around 150 women gave impact statements in court prior to his sentencing. It has been reported that there are at least 265 Nassar victims.

A Jan. 11 Detroit News article quotes Engler, speaking about those sexual abuse victims who were not personally in the news, as saying, “In some ways they have been able to deal with this better than the ones who’ve been in the spotlight who are still enjoying that moment at times, you know, the awards and recognition…”

“Enjoying that moment … the awards and recognition?” Did Engler not understand how inappropriate and insensitive that sounds?

On Jan. 12, the chair of the MSU Board of Trustees, Dianne Byrum, commented in a Twitter message, “[Engler’s] remarks were ill advised and not helpful to the healing process, survivors, or the university.”

On Jan. 16, Engler resigned his position as interim president of MSU effective Jan. 23, after learning he lost the support of five of the eight MSU trustees and would be terminated if he didn’t resign. In his resignation statement, however, Engler did not acknowledge the comments that led his loss of MSU trustee support. He did not express regret that his comments were hurtful to the athletes who were abused by Nassar. He blamed politics as the reason for his loss of trustee support.

Understanding when and how to express empathy was an issue with the previous president of MSU, Dr. Lou Anna Simon, who Engler replaced, and the vice chairman of the MSU board, Joel Ferguson. I wrote an article about Simon and Ferguson in February 2018 headlined, “Viewpoint: Michigan State tone deaf to abuse by Nassar.”

In that article, I wrote that in the face of growing criticism from many of the students, faculty and staff at Michigan State on how Simon handled the accusations against Nassar, and after losing the confidence of a number of MSU board members, Simon resigned her position as long-time president of the university on Jan. 24, 2018.

In her resignation letter, Simon wrote, “To the survivors, I can never say enough that I am so sorry that a trusted, renowned physician was really such an evil, evil person who inflicted such harm under the guise of medical treatment.”

Simon added later, “As tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable. As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger.”

“Politicized,” Dr. Simon? I am not sure how the abuse of so many young women can be politicized.

Similarly, MSU Vice Chairman Joel Ferguson was also insensitive and tone deaf to Nassar’s victims. During an interview on a Detroit radio show before Simon’s resignation, Ferguson commented, “There are so many more things going on at the university than just this Nassar thing.”

“Just this Nassar thing,” Mr. Ferguson? As someone who holds the same position as Ferguson at another university, I believe his remarks and attitude were completely inappropriate.

After being widely criticized for his insensitive comments, a spokesperson for Ferguson released a statement that in part said, “Mr. Ferguson deeply regrets his comment and apologizes to those he offended.” Amid calls for his resignation from the MSU board, he chose not to do so, and remains on the MSU board.

An important responsibility of an effective leader is to set the right tone at the top and nurture the right culture at their organization. What a leader says or doesn’t say in part sets the tone and culture. Your employees and other stakeholders listen to you. Be sensitive to what you communicate to them.

Your employees may make statements or act in a way consistent with your attitude or what you say. Show compassion to those that have been wronged or hurt. That’s what effective leaders do.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership, and is the former CEO of PQ Corporation. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. Follow Silverman on LinkedIn here and on Twitter, @StanSilverman.

Get out of Your Comfort Zone & Push Through Your Self-Perceived Limitations

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on January 15, 2019

People often share with me the real and perceived limitations they face in pursuing their goals. As we enter 2019, I would like to share with you this look back at an article I wrote in December 2015 headlined “Advice for the New Year: Push through your self-perceived limitations.”

Why do people experience various degrees of success over the course of their careers? During my career, I have observed many successful people and those wanting to achieve success. There are those who succumb to their self-perceived limitations, and those who find a way to push through them.

The proverb, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right,” is ascribed to Henry Ford. Your attitude and your ability to push through self-perceived limitations play key roles in how successful you will be.

A friend at my gym drove this home for me a number of years ago. I had been doing assisted pull-ups on an exercise machine that uses counterweights because I believed I did not have sufficient upper-body strength to do a pull-up without them. My friend came up to me and said, “I know you can do pull-ups unassisted.”

I told her that I hadn’t done unassisted pull-ups since high school and I couldn’t do them now. She egged me on, challenging me to do just one. By now, a crowd was gathering, and I felt huge peer pressure to try to do one pull-up. I walked over to the machine without counterweights and, with my friends watching, nervously jumped up six inches and grabbed the pull-up bar. To my surprise, I was able to do two!

I never used the counterweight machine again. Over the subsequent three months, I pushed hard and worked my way up to three sets of 10 unassisted pull-ups. I learned a valuable lesson from my friend: You are only limited by your own self-perceived limitations. Thank you, Patti Morris!

Sometimes it takes a friend, colleague, coach or mentor to inspire you to the next level. When you move to that next level, you never look back – you only look forward. As leaders, our job is to inspire others around us – to help them move to that next level.

To me, one such individual is Seth Godin, the author of “The Icarus Deception,” who writes about Icarus, the character in Greek mythology who flies too high and too close to the sun. His wings melt off and he crashes into the sea.

Godin writes: “It is far more dangerous to fly too low than too high, even though it might feel safer to fly low. You settle for low expectations and small dreams, and guarantee yourself less than what you are capable of. By flying too low, you also shortchange not only yourself, but also those who depend on you, or might benefit from your work.”

People fly too low due to fear and self-perceived limitations. If you fly too low, you are not preparing yourself for a time that may come when your job or profession becomes obsolete and you must re-launch your career. So, during your career, be sure you don’t fly too low. Take risks and fly high, and if you crash, you will pick yourself up and fly again.

Get out of your comfort zone and take on new challenges. Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” You differentiate yourself among your peers by trying new things, sometimes failing, but moving forward. This trait will help you land your next job. Employers, hire those who embrace change, rather than those who don’t.

The type of company at which you want to work should value employees who are not afraid to innovate, embrace change and, yes, occasionally make mistakes and learn from them.

Your attitude, which is apparent to everyone you interface with, plays a significant role in your success. Be a person who sees a world of abundance and possibilities, not one who sees a world of limitations and scarcity. Push through self-perceived limitations. You never know what the future holds or where it will take you.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership, and is the former CEO of PQ Corporation. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. Follow Silverman on LinkedIn here and on Twitter, @StanSilverman.

Advice from Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary: How to Drive Earnings Growth

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Article originally published in the American City Business Journals on December 4, 2018

One of the most important decisions of any leader is to set annual financial goals for their organization.

Should they set realistic goals, or tough stretch goals with a lower probability of achievement?

At the recent Disruptor 50 conference in Philadelphia, Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary discussed the factors that influenced the return of capital of the 37 companies within in his venture portfolio. O’Leary said, “A study that showed … 90 percent of the [cash] returns came from companies run by women.” Why?

“Companies run by men hit their quarterly sales targets 65 percent of the time. … Women-led companies hit their targets 95 percent of the time. … If you are on a winning team in any sport, … you have a winning culture. Winning cultures have different metrics than just financial reward. Being part of a winning team is powerful. These [women-led] teams are constantly hitting their targets.”

O’Leary talks about his views in a March 2018 CNBC article headlined, “Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary: Women-run businesses make me the most money — here’s why.”

In this article, O’Leary says, “If employees aren’t meeting their goals, that frustration can lead to turnover, which is particularly costly for small operations. Women are better at avoiding this pitfall.

“When you meet your goals 95 percent of the time, you change the culture of your business. People feel they’re working in a winning organization,” O’Leary says. “That’s why women are doing better in business — they keep their people. The staff are sticky. They want to work there because they’re hitting their goals. … You don’t have to reach for the stars, you want to win 95 percent of the time. That’s the secret sauce.”

In January 2015, I wrote an article on this subject headlined, “Setting credible and realistic goals can drive your financial performance.”

As a mid-level leader at my company, I lived through many years of CEOs setting what nearly every direct report felt was an unrealistically high annual corporate earnings goal that lacked strategies for achievement. As we started to lag behind the goal, costs were cut in a losing effort to try to close the performance gap between the actual result and the goal.

This was a debilitating exercise that took its toll on morale. Who were we kidding?

One of the keys to setting a goal is to ensure that upside potentials are properly balanced by down-side risks. We found that people are optimistic and often overstate upside potentials and understate downside risks. This contributes to missing the goal.

When I was named CEO of the company, we changed the paradigm of setting unrealistic goals. We set business unit and corporate earnings goals with a more realistic chance of achieving them. We were much more realistic in balancing the upside potential with the downside risk of possible adverse market events. The objective for everyone was not only to achieve our business unit and corporate earnings goals, but to blow through them to the greatest degree possible and have fun doing it.

The morale changed significantly within the company. Instead of a debilitating atmosphere in which we lagged our earnings goal during the year, employees took pleasure in tracking above goal each month and quarter.

I didn’t use O’Leary’s phrases “winning team” and “winning culture” to describe what we created, but thinking back, those are the phrases to describe the change in the organization at that time.

Our employee incentive program was not driven by achieving the earnings goal, but against achieving earnings growth as a calculated percentage above the three previous years’ earnings results, based upon what was appropriate for our industry. The higher the actual earnings achieved, the higher the bonuses and profit-sharing pool in which all employees participated.

With this approach, our earnings more than doubled from 1999 through 2004, a period that included 9/11 and the recession of 2002. This compared with flat earnings during the previous three years. We out-performed our peer group of 17 companies during this five-year period, and moved solidly into first quartile performance.

As the leader of your organization, consider how you set the annual earnings goal for your company. The stockholders don’t even know what the earnings goal for the company is and don’t care – they only care about year-over-year earnings growth. Reward your people for maximizing year-over-year earnings growth in an upbeat culture, and reward them handsomely for doing so.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. 

#MeToo Lesson for All CEOs: Deal with Issues Before You Are Forced to Do so in Public

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on November 13, 2018

The #MeToo Movement is having its effect on the culture of corporate America.

Sports-apparel company Under Amour has announced that costs incurred entertaining athletes in strip clubs by company employees would no longer be treated as an entertainment expense and therefore would not be reimbursable.

According to a Nov. 5 Wall Street Journal article by Khadeeja Safda, “Strip-club visits were symptomatic of practices [that] women at Under Armour found demeaning, according to more than a dozen current and former employees and executives. … Some top male executives violated company policy by behaving inappropriately with female subordinates. … Women were invited to an annual company event based on their attractiveness to appeal to male guests, people familiar with the matter said.”

Under Amour Chairman and CEO Kevin Plank said in a statement, “Our [female] teammates deserve to work in a respectful and empowering environment. We believe that there is a systemic inequality in the global workplace and we will embrace this moment to accelerate the ongoing meaningful cultural transformation that is already underway at Under Amour. We can and will do better.”

Looks like Plank has found religion and wants to change the culture that his tone at the top permitted to exist at Under Amour.

In February 2017, Uber’s toxic culture for women engineers became public when Uber engineer Susan Fowler penned an article in which she described a toxic culture of sexual harassment towards women. Fowler wrote, “When I joined Uber, the organization I was part of was over 25 percent women. By the time I was trying to transfer to another [engineering] organization, this number had dropped down to less than 6 percent. Women were transferring out of the organization, and those who couldn’t transfer were quitting or preparing to quit … [in part] due sexism within the organization.”

Within days of publication of Fowler’s blog, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick tweeted, “What’s described here is abhorrent and against everything we believe in. Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired.”

Like Plank at Under Amour, Kalanick came to the realization that change was necessary. It was Kalanick’s tone at the top, however, that created the toxic culture at Uber.

On Nov. 1, thousands of Google headquarters employees staged a walkout, protesting a culture within the company that tolerates sexual harassment, and a reported $90 million severance package granted to Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android, who faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment from female employees, according to The New York Times.

In an interview with Zoë Bernard of Business Insider, Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized, and said, “This anger and frustration within the company — we all feel it. I feel it too. At Google we set a high bar and we clearly didn’t live up to our expectations. The first thing is to acknowledge and apologize for past actions. Words alone aren’t enough, you have to follow up with actions.” Pichai said, “I want to acknowledge the women who … [report incidences of sexual harassment],” he said. “It takes extraordinary courage and we want to support them better.”

So, what is the lesson for all CEOs? Those who ignore the #MeToo movement are tone-deaf to the societal change in what is acceptable behavior toward women. Issuing statements about ending a toxic culture without acknowledging that you shape that culture is somewhat disingenuous.

Get out in front of #MeToo and other types of issues that could impact your company when you become aware of them. You don’t want to appear as being complicit by ignoring them. It is better to address the issue within your culture before it becomes news and a social movement like #MeToo forces you to publicly acknowledge and address them.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. Follow Silverman on LinkedIn here and on Twitter, @StanSilverman.

Dealing with Organizational Bureaucracy

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on October 23, 2018

How many of us have worked in bureaucratic organizations in which overly-prescriptive policies, procedures and controls approach the point where employees are micro-managed, and encroach on time better spent running and growing the business and providing a great customer or client experience? Unfortunately, too many of us.

Early in my career, I was introduced by the senior leadership of my company to the management tool called “management by objectives,” or MBOs, as it is commonly referred to within industry. This is a system in which employees document their own objectives as well as those that support their boss’ objectives and so forth, up through the reporting structure of the organization, all in support of the objectives of the company. This process was overly time-consuming.

Each year we wrote detailed business plans – documents which not only outlined the objectives of a business, but also outlined detailed strategies to accomplish those objectives. Due to changes in the business environment, many business plans became obsolete after they were written. Perhaps that’s why they often just sat in a desk drawer or in a bookcase in someone’s office until a year passed and it was time to write the next business plan.

Many of us are required to write lengthy reports, communicating to our bosses our activities and results accomplished during the month or quarter. Shouldn’t we only be focusing on communicating what’s important? Is there a better way of informing upper management of this information?

MBOs, business plans and monthly/quarterly progress reports serve a purpose. The question is how can that purpose be most effectively served with the least amount of bureaucracy, and without taking a leader’s time away from operating the business?

To address the issue of burdensome bureaucracy in my company, when I became CEO I reduced written detailed reports sent to me to the minimum, focused on what was important. Written reports consisted of a one to two-page executive summary, not on pages deep within a multi-page report. The amount of verbal reporting was increased. This had the benefit of increasing the dialogue between leaders and their direct reports, and also made for better decision-making and understanding of the issues facing the business.

How many of us have worked in organizations that required approval by the next level up for decisions that we should have been trusted to make? Unfortunately, too many of us.

As I rose up in leadership positions of increasing responsibility in my company, I rebelled against the requirement that I review all travel expense reimbursement submissions of my direct reports to ensure they had adhered to policy. I never performed these reviews – I just signed off so my employees could be rapidly reimbursed for their travel expenses. That saved me a significant amount of time which I spent on more productive tasks.

I had the philosophy that if I couldn’t trust my employees to follow my company’s travel policies, or if they didn’t have the common sense to inform me that they were violating a policy for a good reason, I didn’t want them working for me.

Did a direct report ever ask for forgiveness after an action was taken versus asking for permission before taking the action? Yes, of course. However, if they were exercising common sense and good critical judgment, I would celebrate and not sanction them.

I never held my direct reports accountable for the individual expense line items between the revenue line and the net income line on the P&L statements for which they were accountable. They were free to manage their costs as they saw fit to meet their revenue, net income and growth goals. If they weren’t capable of managing the resources available to them to run their business, they were not the right people in these positions.

Challenging policies, procedures and controls is a good thing. Some policies address issues that no longer exist, and now only increase bureaucracy and hamper the operation of the business. When policies no longer serve a useful purpose, they need to go.

On occasion, policies, procedures and controls are put in place because of actions by an employee that violated a policy. Avoid the one size fits all solution to this type of issue. Deal with the offending individual, but don’t shackle the rest of the organization by adopting policies that impose unnecessary controls that impede leaders from doing their jobs. The less a leader with good critical judgment is constrained by overly burdensome rules and bureaucracy, the better the performance of their unit and the company.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. Follow Silverman on LinkedIn here and on Twitter, @StanSilverman.

Build a Competitive Advantage Through Servant Leadership & Continuous Improvement

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on October 16, 2018

CEOs are always looking for ways to differentiate their business from competition to build a competitive advantage. One of the ways to achieve this differentiation is through a servant leadership environment and a continuous improvement culture.

In an April 2013 article in The Washington Post headlined, “Servant leadership, a path to high performance,” Edward D. Hess at the University of Virginia wrote that his research found that “leaders [of high performing companies] were servants in the best sense of the word. They were people-centric, valued service to others and believed they had a duty of stewardship. Nearly all were humble and passionate operators who were deeply involved in the details of the business. … They had not forgotten what it was like to be a line employee.

“They believed that every employee should be treated with respect and have the opportunity to do meaningful work. They led by example, lived the ‘Golden Rule,’ and understood that good intentions are not enough — behaviors count. These leaders serve the organization and its multiple stakeholders. They are servant leaders.”

What Hess found is very similar to the research of Jim Collinsas presented in his iconic book “Good to Great,” in which Collins describes “Level 5 leaders [as those] who display a powerful mixture of personal humility and indomitable will.” Level 5 leaders are not the “larger than life” imperial leaders many of us are so familiar with.

Don’t think that servant leaders and Level 5 leaders hold their organizations accountable to only easily achievable goals. They set tough goals and have high-performance expectations for their employees, empower them to achieve those expectations and hold them accountable for results.

In May 2016 I wrote an article headlined, “Saxbys coffee: How treating your people right can lead to success,” in which I described Nick Bayer, founder and CEO of Saxbys, as an ardent believer in servant leadership. Bayer feels that Saxbys’ culture is the most important determinant of his company’s success.

I asked Bayer, “How do you differentiate Saxbys – why do customers come to your cafés and buy coffee?” He said, “We compete on people, not on product. Most people think that we are in the product business – we are actually in the people business. I realized that I can compete [with other companies] on people and on hospitality. People are at the core of what we do – our team members and guests.”

Bayer and his senior leadership team give significant support to their café managers. He said, “I personally am an absolute zealot of the mentality of ‘servant leadership.’ Organizations work best when they are upside down. Our café managers are the CEOs (café executive officers) of their businesses. All the people at headquarters exist to serve our café managers and their teams. We are here to help them to be better at their jobs. My expectation of them is to be servant leaders to the members of their teams. Their job is to make life better for their guests every single day.”

On the subject of empowerment, Bayer said, “We hire people with good critical judgment and empower them to make decisions. Other employers take power away from their employees. I don’t want to get in the way. I want my people making decisions. I hire people who will develop a sense of ownership in their business.”

A servant leader environment is perfect for establishing a culture of continuous improvement. In August 2014 I wrote an article headlined, “A culture of continuous improvement is no management fad …” and as the then CEO of PQ Corporation, how I used that culture to build competitive advantage.

At PQ, we dubbed our continuous improvement culture “continuous quality improvement,” or CQI. CQI was led by me and the other members of the senior leadership team, but was driven by the employees at every level within the company.

The senior leadership of the company were charged with creating an environment where employees developed a sense of ownership in that part of the business in which they worked. This cultural shift put power and responsibility into the hands of employees to initiate improvement projects, without getting upper management’s approval, which fit a servant leadership model. If an improvement idea was beyond their authority level, employees were empowered to present the idea to the individual who has the authority to approve it.

Creation of a CQI culture required training of all managers to be coaches and counselors to their staff, encouraging them to develop and implement their own improvement ideas. Training was also provided to help employees analyze data to determine the root cause of issues, so proper solutions could be identified.

By adopting CQI, PQ saved millions of dollars from ideas generated and implemented, many by the hourly workforce within our plants, using capital project funds that they themselves could spend on projects of their choosing.

Granting funds to hourly employees to be spent on capital projects brought out their creativity, encouraged them to be more proactive, and showed them in a tangible way that they mattered to the success of the company. This helped us be more competitive, and provided funds to reinvest in and grow our business.

Create an environment of servant leadership and a culture of continuous improvement to build competitive advantage. Companies who do not continually improve will be left behind. Those that do will win the competitive race in the long run.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. Follow Silverman on LinkedIn here and on Twitter, @StanSilverman.

How to Navigate Office Politics

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Article originally published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on October 2, 2018

I am periodically asked how to successfully deal with office politics. I often share an article I wrote in August 2016 on this subject. This is an update of that article.

Throughout my career, I have watched the game of office politics play out in many organizations, including my own. Office politics can have negative implications for the people playing the game, their co-workers and the organization itself.

Why do people play office politics? They feel that the only way they can advance within an organization is at the expense of others – making themselves look good, while making others look bad. They deflect responsibility and often blame others, both peers and subordinates, for their own failures.

They take undo credit for the success of initiatives beyond their contributions, and misrepresent the facts to cast themselves in a favorable light. They are good at “managing up.” To the senior leadership of the organization, they heap undo criticism on their peers. They destroy trust, and when trust is destroyed, the organization becomes toxic and dysfunctional.

I have often wondered why the boss puts up with the actions of employees who play office politics. Either they are blind to it or think that they will achieve better results than if the organization performed as a high-performance team in which employees trusted each other. They are wrong.

Bosses will often try to counsel employees who play office politics to get them to change, with mixed results. The employee will often deny their destructive behavior. Many times, their political behavior is due to their personality. They won’t change. That is who they are.

I have written extensively on the importance of tone and culture within organizations. Those managers who undercut their peers and play political games are setting the wrong tone and culture, which will be emulated by those within their group, undermining trust with employees in other groups. Silos are created and information is not shared, to the detriment of the entire organization.

As part of every manager’s performance review, tone and culture need to be assessed, including that of the CEO. If the tone and culture are wrong, regardless if the manager is currently achieving results, the results will not be sustainable.

Eventually, employees who play office politics are recognized for who they are and the damage they cause. They are either terminated, or depart on their own when their political gamesmanship has been uncovered and is no longer useful to them at their current company.

So, as an employee within an organization, how should you defend against those who are playing political games to undermine you?

There is an old saying, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” ascribed by some to Chinese general and military strategist Sun Tzu in his book “The Art of War” (circa 400 BC), and by others to the 16th century political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli in his book, “The Prince.” This saying can also be applied to office politics.

By keeping your adversaries close, you can get insight into what they are doing and thinking. You also have the opportunity to sway their thinking, and show them that undermining you is not a productive use of their time. You may be able to co-op them, and get them to be one of your supporters rather than a detractor. However, once they violate your trust, you may never fully trust them again. Once lost, trust is very difficult to regain.

On various occasions during my career, I have been the subject of political attacks by others. Did I ever confront the individual? No. I felt that would be counter-productive. Whether or not to confront someone is a personal decision, and depends on each individual situation.

How did I successfully cope with these attacks? I built a strong informal organization through which I got things accomplished. I built alliances with others by helping them accomplish their objectives. Through these alliances, I was made aware of political attacks that were not visible to me. I did the same for those with whom I had developed alliances. Did this strategy work? I was the one who rose up through the organization, not them.

So, how can you rise above office politics? Meet your commitments to others. Build trust with your peers. Develop alliances. Keep your adversaries close. Build political capital. Most importantly, do your job and achieve results, and let those results speak for themselves.

Stan Silverman is founder and CEO of Silverman Leadership. He is a speaker, advisor and nationally syndicated writer on leadership, entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Silverman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering and an MBA degree from Drexel University. He is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He can be reached at Stan@SilvermanLeadership.com. Follow Silverman on LinkedIn here and on Twitter, @StanSilverman.