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Beyond your political views – and I’m sure he’s a probably a decent person to hang out with – Al Gore just doesn’t do much for me. That’s why I was particularly intrigued to see him on the cover of the July/August issue of Fast Company magazine in an article entitled “Al Gore’s $100 million makeover.”

Did you know that he’s been able to transform an epic loss into a multi-faceted enterprise encompassing global companies such as Apple, Google, and a host of other financial interests? Here’s a quick glimpse of his resume:

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When was the last time you took a candid look inside?

When was the last time you lifted the hood and saw not only that which is running great, but that which is destined to fail? It is said that the hardest person you will ever have to lead is yourself.

Professor Bill George at Harvard Business School – former CEO of Medronic, Inc and author of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership – points out that leaders who fail often do so because they fall prey to the pressures and seductions they face. It is seldom the starvation of leadership skills, style or power that drive the failure, but rather the indigestion of their egos, greed, craving for public adoration and their fear of loss of power that drives their failures. This recipe often overwhelms even the most capable in their responsibility and accountability to build sustainable organization.

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Sir James Dyson (yes – the same guy who makes the best selling vacuum cleaners by revenue in the U.S. and one of the richest blokes in Britain) spent 15 years and nearly his entire life savings to develop his bagless see-through creation.

His latest innovation? A hand-dryer that uses neither heat nor evaporation. It only took three years to develop, primarily because of his grinding error-filled approach and a culture unafraid of retribution.

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Sirius and XM, the nation’s two largest satellite players, are set to merge later this year.

Many hope that the combined entity will finally figure out what neither has been able to do on its own: make money. In the process, a new set of challenges is brewing. Once again, reaffirming that unless you disrupt your own perceived value chain to consistently create value for various stakeholders, someone else will. In the satellite radio market, it is a case in point of an emerging technology poised to make that market look like CDs before there was an iPod.

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If you have heard one of my keynotes on Relationship Economics® – The Art and Science of Relationships, I talk about the quantifiable value of soft assets such as brands, people and relationships. The Relationship Economics roadmap simply states that as value is promised and delivered, you begin to exchange Relationship Currency®. As that value is recognized and the delivery of it is recognized, you start to accumulate Reputation Capital®. Over time, the sum of those relationship assets, less your relationship liabilities, becomes your Professional Net Worth®.

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Headline from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 12, 2007

I am often amazed when I see glaring headlines like this one and then read the supporting articles, which often describe what went wrong vs. who went wrong. When Dell, the nation’s biggest maker of PCs, publicly announces that they will discontinue relying on UPS, the world’s biggest package deliverer, to handle its biggest box deliveries in the U.S. and instead will turn to UPS’ biggest rivals – FedEx and DHL – is it any wonder that this is a classic example of dropping the ball in the end zone in a strategic relationship?

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