Maybe it’s the lingering hangover from trying to wrap our minds around the now trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars being spent to bailout the nation’s financial institutions. Or perhaps it’s the outrageous fifty billion dollar Ponzi scheme foisted on the public by Bernie Madoff and overlooked by the always suspicious but shockingly inept Security & Exchange Commission that has confused reporters. How else to explain the free-falling decline in the cost of having the citizens of Illinois elect someone to replace Barack Obama in the US Senate instead of having the freshly indicted Governor Rod Blagojevich appoint his favorite crony. One of the oft-cited reasons for avoiding a public vote was the high cost of doing so. Initial estimates reported the cost to be $50 million. In just a matter of days the number dropped to $35 million and by recent count the media is now saying the cost is closer to $16 million dollars or maybe less. Whatever the number is, it’s a tidy sum apparently out of reach of the citizens from the “Land of Lincoln”.
There’s a lesson here for association leaders. Numbers matter. Getting numbers right (or as near right as possible) matters more. In times of financial crisis and a difficult economy this issue takes on a level of magnitude not always understood or appreciated by those around us. Department head, division manager, executive or CEO — a trait of a true leader is that they know the numbers of their business operations cold. They know what it means and what happens if the numbers change for better or worse. A $34 million, $34,000 or even a $3,400 swing doesn’t cut it. Leaders get the numbers right. This is not the time to surprise your finance committee, your Board or even the U.S. taxpayers.
Posted under Executive Development, Governance, Leadership, Politics
This post was written by Neo on December 17, 2008
