Principles of leadership: Conan O'Brien

I normally write about mundane personal things, but the whole Conan O'Brien/Jay Leno/NBC debacle has me thinking through the lens of my profession - leadership training.

The more I read about how O'Brien's departure from NBC came about, the more it appears to be a classic case study in personal and corporate leadership - with some shining moments and some truly classless ones.

Here's how I rate the three principals in this January soap opera, purely from the principled leadership angle:

Jay Leno: C. Jay seems to be a "solid" worker bee for NBC. He seems to be saying, "Just let me have a job, I'll do whatever you need." He was a loyal trooper for NBC in giving up The Tonight Show in May 2009 and taking on a rather radical 10-11 PM ET five-nights-a-week talk show; it didn't work; and now he's a loyal trooper to take back The Tonight Show in late night. Many people are saying Jay should never have been taken off that gig, but Jay himself seems to have made no overt stands either way. Is he principled? Very hard to tell.

NBC: D. The network gets some credit for taking on a leadership principle that is woefully lacking in many companies today: Don't be afraid to take risks. Of course, the actual principle relates to taking on calculated risks - and NBC didn't seem to do much calculating, planning, thinking out of scenarios, or other ruminating before setting the January train wreck into motion. It's even more of an indictment of NBC that the network literally had five years to set all their plans in motion - they initially planned for the Conan O'Brien takeover of The Tonight Show in 2004! Amazingly, the network never seemed to think of the possibility that at some point in the intervening five years, Jay might actually improve his ratings, causing NBC to yank Jay from the #1 late night show at what (now) may have been the absolute height of his popularity. The network then had Jay host a prime time show that didn't work at all, but instead of honoring their commitment to leave the show until summer (to see how it fared against reruns on the competition), they canceled it a mere four months after its debut. This started the cascade of other bad decisions, including ones to push Conan's Tonight show back half an hour, which of course Conan resisted.

Conan O'Brien: A. The only person demonstrating true personal leadership principles in this sad story is Conan. When the news came that NBC wanted to move Conan's 7-month-old Tonight Show Program to after midnight on weekdays, Conan answered with an open letter that focused not on him personally, but on the history, reputation and integrity of The Tonight Show and NBC. Conan rightly pointed out the longevity of the Tonight Show - one of a handful of shows that have been on television over 40 years - and interestingly, NBC has more than one of these in Today and Meet the Press. Conan correctly pointed out that The Tonight Show at 12:05 AM isn't The Tonight Show anymore, and the he would not participate in the show's destruction. He did the only principled thing he could do: He informed everyone that the consequences of such a move would be for him to leave. He didn't threaten, he didn't posture, he didn't politicize; he took a stand and suffered the consequences.

Of course I say "suffered" in a relative way, as Conan was able to exit his contract with something like $32.5 million. For most of us, principled stands don't pay off so handsomely in monetary terms. But in terms of integrity and adherence to an ethical standard, the only actor in this drama that I see as worthy of praise is Conan O'Brien.

You saw a hint of Conan's base values in his closing statement on his last Tonight Show Friday, January 22. He said: "Nobody in life gets exactly what they want. But if you work hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

I for one can't argue with that.

Geek of the family

I had a great weekend in LA for New Year's - with brother Jim and his partner Joe. I did two of my favorite things : Celebrating, and installing stuff on a new computer!

I had given Jim a new notebook computer for Christmas, so on this trip, it was time to get it set up. Jim has an outstanding green thumb as a landscape designer but is not the geek of the family. That duty falls to me, and I accept it humbly.

Getting data from an old computer to a new one is usually the hardest part of the equation, and especially in this case because Jim has never embraced the concept of organization and housekeeping on his computers. Files, documents, pictures, QuickBooks setups - all were scattered about on his old computer and I had to round everything up, transfer them to a USB hard drive I brought along, then transfer from there to the new 'puter.

Then there was the installation of programs. In this regard, Jim's much more low maintenance - I only need to install Office, QuickBooks, and a receipt scanner and program that I had purchased for him last year. Printer drivers completed the transfer.

Unfortunately, there was a hitch during the day-long transplant. Jim's new computer began behaving pretty oddly near the end and there were ominous clicking noises from the hard drive inside the notebook. Ugh. If Jim ends up having to return it, he'll of course be back to Square One, but without my geekiness to set up the replacement. We (somewhat wishfully) decided that the flaky hard drive was overheating because I had literally caused it to spin for about five hours. Sure enough, allowing everything to cool off and resume a few hours later seemed to "fix" things. For now. Cue the ominous music.

Jim finally joins the ranks of those toting a notebook computer and he's excited about the possibilities. He can now show potential clients large photos of his previous work, easily updating with new clients and projects. I'm glad I'm able to help my brother out.