Dan Erwin

Is Leadership Passé?

Not quite, but you’d better start learning how to “do” collaboration. Competency needs grow out of cultural, economic and organizational demands. And today’s world, more and more, needs the skills of collaboration.

Recognize this!
The manufacturing age, which began with Henry Ford in the early 1900’s, focused on manufacturing’s needed competency: managing. Employees weren’t knowledge agents. They pounded widgets and followed orders, and everyone, bosses and ordinary employees, was fairly clueless about leadership. The only related term was “leader.”

A leader was the next rung up the manufacturing ladder from us peasants (I spent my year off from college—summer 1957 to spring 1958—in a Detroit manufacturing plant. And I was one of those peasants. But, since it was Detroit at the height of the manufacturing age, I made a huge pot of money, got my shit together, and went back to college and graduate school. Astute move.) The ascending order of company hierarchy was peasant (or whatever), leader, foreman, supervisor, then white collar executives who drove big Detroit cars. The leader was merely a very low level manager, responsible for five to ten people and their widget production. He usually drove a little Detroit Chevy, Plymouth or Ford. I had a great leader for my manufacturing education. You might find my experience very enlightening, here.) But the leader was totally a very controlling manager. He wasn’t interested in your ideas. He was not what we think of today as a leader.

By the 1970’s there was a fair amount of clarity on managing. When the explosion of technology in the 1980s demanded a different kind of smarts—Drucker’s knowledge worker—leadership was required to manage those people. Unlike my experience in Detroit, organizations began to realize that we humans weren’t merely peasants or robots. So the talk circled around the need for leadership, the definition of leadership, the differences between leading and managing, and questions of whether leaders are born or made. (They’re made!)

But society, economics and business continue their volatile move into the future. And in today's world, the great need for competency is the discipline of collaboration.

What’s collaboration?
Don’t be too quick to say that you know how to collaborate. Few do. It’s a tough skill to navigate. Like leadership, there are no born collaborators. And it’s very easy to go off the rails when you’re attempting to “do” collaboration, wondering what the hell just happened.

The first major shot across the bow on the subject of collaboration is Morton Hansen’s Collaboration: How leaders (there’s that word again) avoid the traps, create unity, and reap big results. It’s exceptionally good for the first pass at a major business subject. (Although not nearly as much fun as the first major shot at leadership by Warren Bennis. But no business writer can match the fun in Bennis and I’ll be very sorry to see his smarts and literary brilliance pass off the scene. God, what a well-rounded, well educated, highly practical, humanistic thinker!)

But back to Hansen. It takes him 14 pages to get around to defining his subject (He needed a better editor). He talks about it as the process by which people from different units work together in cross-unit teams on a common task or provide significant help to each other. Though accurate, his definition is pretty flat, lacking pizzaz. But, as I said above, there ain’t many Bennises.

Where Hansen is especially useful is his in analysis of what is and is not collaboration, when to use it and when not to use it, and what it can do for an organization.

Why collaboration?
In chapter 2, Hansen lays out his case for collaboration. Though his rationale is simple-minded and obvious, it’s exceptionally important and highly reflective of business needs today. Don’t forget, everything is obvious once you know the answer (see Duncan Watts). Hansen sees better innovation, better sales, and better operations providing a huge rationale for the competency. And he supplies a superb set of examples to explain his rationale. Every organization from P&G and Norwest Bank to British Petroleum.

Hansen needs to make much clearer that because of the knowledge explosion, no single person in business today, no single division or group, has the intelligence to create a product or service ready for the consumer to buy. You’re simply going to have to access a lot of smarts, from more than one place, or else you’ll get beat up badly by the companies that do understand and act upon the knowledge explosion. I wish that was obvious, but sadly, it isn’t. That’s one of the reasons many companies go bankrupt and disappear from the stock market.

Why so tough?
Though I have both extensive education and extensive experience in the field of collaboration it's still tough as nails to pull off. For a number of reasons. We have all these business silos still very much in place and their members aren’t interested in cross-silo collaborating, even when needed. Indeed, collaborators often find themselves in hostile territory attempting to pull off collaboration. Hansen’s comparison of Sony and Apple makes the point exceptionally well.

Another related issue, just as important, is that a huge portion of the business population is congenitally incapable of collaboration. It seems not to be in the genes. It's like strategic thinking. Ninety-five percent of business folk are incrementalists and can't think strategically. The training in collaboration, thus far, is also piss-poor. And long term, when organizations get around to recognizing the absolute necessity for the competency, they may have to terminate some of their folk to fulfill their organizational needs and succeed financially.

Collaboration relationships between business people and their clients is just downright terrifying to many. They have no models for collaboration, no personal experiences of the subject, and frankly, don’t really believe it can be pulled off. But as Apple has proved exceptionally well (in spite of their fascist leader, Jobs), great success in the knowledge economy absolutely requires the competency of collaboration.

It’s plainly obvious that long term, collaborative abilities are going to be more important than leadership. Besides, if you can “do” collaboration, you can "do" leadership. Leadership is merely (that’s right, “merely”) a subset of effective collaboration.

Photo fm Flickr: by starheadboy

A Tour de Force: "Obama Explained," by James Fallows

Just how much power does the presidency really offer? Any president, not just Obama, but Roosevelt, Eisenhower or Reagan? The March issue of the Atlantic’s article on the political, social and economic powers of the presidency is the finest piece of analysis we’ll see in a long time. It continues to amaze me that so many of the expectations about a president, any president, are bogus. Can a president actually create jobs in the short-term? Six months to a year-and-a- half? That’s a completely counterfeit notion from the get-go. Can the president create jobs on a long term basis through policy decisions? You bet your sweet bippy he can.

James Fallows sets about to answer that big set of presidential questions--and does an absolutely masterful job. His article is a superb case of reality deflowering stupid ideals and politics-as-usual. This is as close to civic accuracy as you’re going to see in a long time.

Sobering realities
Take for example, Fallows statement, well into the article, regarding the “sobering realities of the modern White House.”

The sobering realities of the modern White House are: All presidents are unsuited to office, and therefore all presidents fail in certain crucial aspects of the job. All betray their supporters and provoke bitter criticism from their own side at some point in their term. And all are mis-assessed while in office, for reasons that typically depend more on luck and historical accident than on factors within their control.

Maybe that shouldn’t be, or maybe you don’t like that, but them’s the facts, buddy.

Big Surprises
What are the biggest surprises any new president faces? Here’s what one person with extensive nation-level experience said: The biggest surprise for any new president is the strain placed upon the “decision-making muscle,” since the choices that come upon him every day are precisely those the rest of the government has not been able to resolve. The question for someone whose only real executive training has been the management of his campaign is “how quickly that muscle will develop and improve”; as it is developing, the instincts and institutional memory of those around him inevitably have great effect. Obama frequently emphasizes how many troubles he faced as soon as he took office. The real problem, for an inexperienced president, is that he had to make so many big decisions so fast. How tough to get on Wall Street; how hard to push for extra stimulus; how much time to give Congress to mull health-care plans; how much to trust the Republicans to cooperate; how long to delay on energy and environmental plans—these are just some of the choices Obama had to make about domestic affairs.

Faced with tough opposition
What’s the role of the opposition? Fallows goes back to a letter that James H. Rowe, a Harvard –trained lawyer who had been Oliver Wendell Holmes’s last law clerk, and after World War II was a young official at the Bureau of the Budget, wrote to President Harry Truman soon after the midterm elections of 1946. In that election, Republicans gained 55 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate, to take control of Congress. The “simple fact” about most deals with a congressional opposition is that they “just won’t work under the American two-party system.”

How does Fallows read this letter?

And so Rowe offers his recommendation. With legislative ambitions blocked, with many appointments left to languish, with rear-guard battles under way to uphold vetoes and fend off investigation, a president should resort to the only tool that is uniquely his: the ability to speak to all of the public. He should prepare the ground by sounding reasonable and conciliatory, in light of an unquenchable if unrealistic belief that parties should be able to get along. (“Public demand for bipartisan cooperation will probably continue. The realpolitik of the situation requires that there be some gestures toward cooperation.”) Then, with his bona fides established, the president can move into the next election, making a clear case for his side.

Imbibing this article and its spirit is an exceedingly worthwhile experience. You can download the entire Atlantic article here: Obama Explained. It’ll provide a backdrop for the rest of this year—and hopefully, the coming four years of the Obama presidency.

Facebook's Values as the New Normal

As part of the IPO filing for Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg laid out a set of company values. They are illuminating, especially when compared to the values of older, more mature firms: the Facebook values serve as a 21^st century heads-up for firms focused on technology and Generation Y. They are a pointer for the “new normal.”

I emphasize the notion of “pointer” because although corporate values put the public face on a company, they also reinforce the employee values that they intend to reward. It’s noteworthy that  Zuckerberg’s values are readily considered to be, as Michael Wolff of The Guardian wrote, “naïve or other-planetary.” But Wolff is the real naif because ultimately value statements can be exceptionally useful—something that few journalists or companies seem to understand.  And that’s no more true in organizations than in the smallest public organization, the family. (Why is it so many older, more experienced journalists and execs often seem to have a difficult time with youthful success?)

Values statements create a rhetorical world, give order and direction to behaviors, and reduce the internal corporate chaos that is inevitable in today’s highly diverse, rapidly changing corporations. Values are cultural fictions, designed to heighten the understanding of “who we are,” foster behavioral sensibilities and impact not only the bottom line, but also define the boundaries of ethical and social responsibility. (Think Fiddler on the Roof’s Tevye and his “traditions.”) Cultural fictions are usually elastic concepts capable of reinterpretation—and that, as anyone who’s seen The Social Network knows, is true of these values. Still, the simple-minded jerk who thinks that there’s talk and then there’s action is out of touch with reality. Language is action. The belief that there is a distinction between talk and action is false. Sure, some talk is a waste of time. But a lot of work is also a waste of time. In short the real business of business is talk and that’s the subtext of Zuckerberg’s statement—in many different ways.  

Zuckerberg explained Facebook’s philosophy in terms of five core values.

1. Focus on impact. Recognizing the crises of the data explosion, with this value Zuckerberg emphasizes the importance of priority issues. As he emphasizes, a lot of companies and people waste time on issues that may need resolution but fail to resolve the really serious problems.
2. Move fast. Clearly the firm worries about the fear of mistakes. Thus, their proverb, “move fast and break things,” and “better done than perfect,” a riff on Voltaire’s popular statement that perfect is the enemy of the good.”
3. Be bold. In short, this is what he thinks about risk in a world that is changing so quickly. Again, a proverb: “The riskiest thing is to take no risks.”
4. Be open. The strategy of openness is key to their competitive success. It is viewed as an absolute need if the company is to continue to make effective decisions and have the greatest impact.
5. Build social value. Zuckerberg ignores the potential regulatory issues of making the world more open and connected. Instead, he goes for social responsibility and its transforming power. It’s amusing to notice that journalists (see the NYTimes or Wall Street Journal, etc.) continually chide him for overstepping the bounds between social value and corporate value. I suspect that he’s been coached to stay out of that black pit. After all, silence goes a long way toward silencing potential detractors.  

 FYI:  Zuckerberg’s statements about social value are an accurate representation of his earlier comments that the public and especially journalists don’t understand that his interests and business are not primarily about money. That’s an exceptionally wise truism, supported by overwhelming research. It finds, for example, that Goldman Sachs executives are more interested in power than money. Indeed, when the rubber hits the road, executives are a lot more interested in their power than in the survival of their company. Plenty of execs deny both those ideas. I usually roll my eyes and suggest they think a bit deeper.

Kissinger is famous for declaring that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. But Kissinger’s comment refers to people power, the kind of magisterial power that was typical of his generation. In contrast, Generation-Y, reflecting Zuckerberg’s “hacker philosophy,” is strongly oriented to intellectual power. The rewards come from intellectual smarts far more than people power. When the game is tied to intellectual power rather than people power, hierarchies get flattened. That makes collaboration far more possible—and inevitable. Those distinctive generational differences bode well for the continued superiority of US business innovation. 

Values, proverbs and organizational behavior

Although Zuckerberg’s letter did not reveal a proverb for every value, my assumption is that they’re floating in the Facebook ether. Proverbs--and company stories--are key to understanding a firm and even predicting a firm’s success or failure. Proverbs do not come into existence quickly, nor by executive fiat, and certainly not by slap-dash thinking. As anyone with a theological or rhetorical understanding recognizes, proverbs are the accumulated wisdom of a people or an organization—in short, pithy form. They are the result of a lot of experience, reflection, and conversations--a lot of talk. They’ve been tried on by employees and managers, revised, rephrased, and finally institutionalized.  Proverbs are inevitably created after the fact. In other words, they only surface after conflicted experiences which force an organization to give thought to where it’s been, what it’s learned, how to succeed, and who it is. Proverbs make demands of people. Although I’ve worked all over America, none of our major firms have inculcated their culture with much in the way of proverbs. Thus, Zuckerberg’s proverbs, growing out of his core values, are highly indicative of the actual behavior of his organization.

How do 21^st century values differ from the past?

Facebook’s values differ significantly from older, more mature firms. In a comparison with GM, Fidelity Investors and 3M, a cursory study revealed a number of significant value distinctions—and not merely those tied to their specific industries.

All three firms emphasize the importance of integrity, respect and honesty in the workplace and with customers. GM builds its entire values statement around personal integrity, referring to the Global Sullivan Principles created as a means for dealing with apartheid. Amazing that they were adopted as late as 1999. By that time, it was well known that the Sullivan Principles had little impact. They are essentially protective of the firm rather than behaviorally assertive for its employees. They emphasize staying within the law and function, in my mind, as a CYA, public relations instrument. Surprisingly, 3M’s sound little different than GM, emphasizing legal and ethical business conduct. The CEO positions the values as a means of enhancing the firm’s reputation. Fidelity is similar to GM and 3M, however, its values statement begins by stressing long-term relations (they are a financial planning firm, not a brokerage) and a “hunger for innovation.”

These 20^th century statements all give advice in such abstract form that it is difficult to take action, yet they are written as though that is not the case. Ultimately, rather than provide insight into how, specifically, to behave, they are written at a level of inference that is not operational. They make possible a lot of defensive routines, fancy footwork and malaise. In short, they are not a tool of governance. I’m not certain what they are, but they ain’t governance.

In profound contrast, Facebook’s values are a basic tool of governance. The level of abstraction is limited, and the proverbs focus on daily behavior. They are lacking in gobbledygook and as straightforward as rhetorically possible. They reinforce specific, concrete behaviors. An employee knows what he/she should doing. And significantly, they open the door to risk, creativity and innovation, something that the last century’s values will not impact.

They are as simple-minded as a parent saying to her high-schooler, “get your homework done, pick up your room, practice your flute, fill the dishwasher or take out the trash, and the rest of the evening is yours--except be in bed by 10:30.” That kind of family governance creates the boundaries for social, academic and career success. Similarly, Facebook’s values, “focus on impact, move fast, take risks,” etc., create specific boundaries for personal success. The parent and the organization that enforces definitive values will inevitably gain far better results than the organization or the parent that says “be good, be nice and don’t get into trouble.” It’s not a stretch to say that the focus of GM, 3M and Fidelity’s values are fundamentally, “don’t get into trouble.” They are a wasted tool. 

So, Mr. Wolff, Zuckerberg’s values are other-planetary? Nahhh. They’re a different animal than anything else you’ve ever seen. They won’t protect Facebook from regulatory issues, but unlike old-fashioned value statements of the 20^th century, they’re not meant to. They’re brilliant and they obviously get the important jobs done. 

Photo from Flickr: Girisimicinin Galaksi Rehben

IBM's Unique, Highly Successful "Ground Rules"

A textbook case in how to drive change, IBM has been so consistently successful that it is almost boring. Even more surprising is the size of its workforce in contrast to other tech firms: IBM has more employees than Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Cisco, Apple, Amazon and Google all put together. Furthermore, only HP pulls in more revenue than IBM.

What’s the secret to IBM’s success?

In an interview with Steve Lohr, Sam Palmisano, the retiring CEO, says that the firm’s pursuit of excellence around four dimensions—ground rules—shaped the strategy and focus over the past ten years. Palmisano boils his ground rules down to four questions:

• Why would someone spend their money with you—so what is unique about you?
• Why would somebody work for you?
• Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography—their country?
• Why would somebody invest their money with you?

These questions cut new territory in the business world in a number of differing ways, providing especially relevant insight into the 21^st century orientation to talent management, careers, and socially responsible businesses. The third, why society allows you to operate in their geography, was rarely considered in the past. Today, although many ignore the question and social responsibility, more are beginning to take notice and get involved. Indeed, Rosabeth Kanter points out six strategic reasons for serving, a highly relevant necessity in today’s world. Palmisano not only read speeches and memos from the founder, Thomas Watson, but he had lunch regularly with Watson Jr., once a month. The Watsons, he says, always defined I.B.M. as a company that did more than sell computers; they believed that it had an important role to play in solving societal challenges. It’s old-fashioned, but it’s motivational, he says.

The second, “why would someone work for you,” has become a significant matter in the battle for brainpower in a day in which the so-called talent war has gone global, along with talent shortages. It’s a reminder that although all kinds of employees are out of work, more and more businesses are having a difficult time accessing needed talent, even in states like Michigan. Skills shortages are widespread. Dan Pink’s comment back in 2001 is even more relevant today: “Talented people need organizations less than organizations need talented people.” Palmisano found that social responsibility resonated with the young people IBM is recruiting.

A couple of times a year, Mr. Palmisano speaks to groups of elite students whom I.B.M. is trying to woo to its research labs. The pitch, he says, is that I.B.M. is a place where you can make a difference and do deep science.

“You can change the world, and you can compete for a Nobel prize,” he says, referring to I.B.M.’s five Nobel winners.

(Eighty-seven percent of the candidates who were offered jobs by I.B.M. Research this year joined the company.)

Mr. Palmisano’s appeal to young technologists is just one example of an answer to one of his four questions.

The first question, why someone would spend their money with you, goes straight to the heart of business strategy. This is an issue that has gotten much attention since Drucker, and continues to be the beneficiary of much thinking, refining and focusing.

Viewed individually, these questions are not especially unique, excepting the talent focus, but together they are a phenomenal set of ground rules. My response when I first read the ground rules was, “my god, this guy is really a thinker, a great thinker. Not just the typical business yeoman who performs in workmanlike fashion to achieve the company’s objectives.” Taken together, his ideas are client focused, but at the same time, they force a scintillating inward focus upon the operations of the firm. They impact the culture, the strategy, the workforce morale, the commitments of its employees, finances and the clients’ expectations. It’s no wonder that Warren Buffett, who normally shuns technology, to accumulate $10 billion of shares, amounting to a stake of 5%.

"The hardest thing is answering those four questions,” Mr. Palmisano says. “You’ve got to answer all four and work at answering all four to really execute with excellence.”

Finally, it should be noted that Mr Palmisano was not bred a techie, but came up through the ranks of IBM sales with a Johns Hopkins history major. His thinking is highly indicative of the strengths of that liberal arts background. History people are weaned on the big picture, and thrive on the intellectual ideas that initiate and maintain change in a sea of competing ideologies. This critical tool is especially useful for analyzing the sequence of events leading up to massive changes and reformations, and adept at forecasting the consequences of ideas for good or ill. History is one of two or three fundamental critical tools of global human thinking and analysis, and Palmisano’s thinking reflects that background. It’s paid off superbly for the firm over his CEO tenure.

My One Wish for 2012

It’s that time of the year when many review the past, set goals for the next year, and make a few resolutions and wishes. My goals are ongoing, and I have no new resolutions, but I do have one wish—a very important one.

But first, a bit of background. For only the fifth time in US history, we’re facing a momentous choice about the nature of government. Both Republicans and Democrats believe this to be true. In fact, Newt Gingrich recently reached back to the 1860’s saying, “This is the most important election since 1860 because there’s such a dramatic difference between the best food-stamp president in history and the best paycheck candidate.” That’s a completely inaccurate, cheap shot. Obama, however, fully agrees that this election may well be the most significant statement since Barry Goldwater’s run for the presidency. 

Actually, there are four inflection points in American history when the role of government was up for grabs: the revolutionary period, the 1860’s consensus regarding the Civil War, FDR's initiation of the social net in the '30s and the 1960’s attempt by Goldwater Republicans to dismantle the social net. This choice will be the fifth. It reminds us of one important fact: the United States is not a static entity, but primarily an ongoing experiment. 

What drives my wish for 2012 is a series of very concrete interviews last week by Michael Barbaro and Ashley Parker, asking voters about their favorite Republican candidate and why. The interviews revealed a shocking disregard for policy.

Jonathan Gabhart, a 21 year-old college student from Spencer, Iowa, is leaning to Ron Paul, because of the Texas lawmaker’s unpolished speaking style—a “high-pitched, squirrelly voice.  He seems like a real person because of his eccentricities.” 

Andy Schwaegler, a 45-year-old tree farmer from Orford, N.H., is drawn to Mitt Romney because the well-coiffed candidate reminds him of his father, a business executive. “It’s something about the way he carries himself,” Mr. Schwaegler said.

Nancy Weaver, a 60-year-old retiree in Grinnell, Iowa, favors Representative Michele Bachmann because the congresswoman raised 23 foster children. “That’s a huge endeavor for any man or woman,” she said.

“It drives me crazy,” Rose Williams, a retired teacher in Bridgewater, N.H., said of Mr. Romney’s voice. “When he’s on TV or on a commercial, I put it on mute.” 

Dwayne Kriegel, a postal carrier in Grinnell, who is backing Mr. Santorum in the caucus on Tuesday. “He’s passionate about his dedication to family values,” Mr. Kriegel said. “The others say what they think the voters want to hear, while he lives it.” 

Eva Dunn, 60, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, has no patience for Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah. Her objection: his demeanor in the debates. “He comes across as a preacher, and I just want to take his hands and tie them behind his back because he’s always pleading,” she said.

Again and again, voters pointed to the candidates’ personal lives as a guide to how they would lead the country. Mr. Gingrich’s two divorces, and his admission of adultery, gave pause to a number of people. “You wonder in times if it will affect his judgment,” said Zack Pickard, 36, a software salesman in New Sharon, Iowa. “Are we going to be distracted by his social missteps? It’s a distraction. Your leader should not be distracted.”

Clearly, we are emotional beings and most of our decisions, especially our voting decisions are based upon our gut and the state of our glands. In his new book, Daniel Kahneman emphasizes the emotional nature of our decisions and emphasizes the irrational in our lives. Although most of us think that we are conscious, autonomous authors of our judgments and our choices, the truth is otherwise. A study of voting patterns in precincts of Arizona in 2000 showed that the support for propositions to increase the funding of schools was significantly greater when the polling stations was in a school than when it was in a nearby location. A separate experiment showed that exposing people to images of classrooms and school lockers also increased the tendency of participants to support a school initiative.

Such “priming” has consistently demonstrated troubling effects. Money primed people are also more selfish: they were much less willing to spend time helping another student who pretended to be confused about an experimental task. . . . The general theme of these findings is that the idea of money primes individualism: a reluctance to be involved with others, to depend on others or to accept demands from others. . . . (These findings) suggest that living in a culture that surrounds us with reminders of money may shape our behavior in ways that we do not know about and of which we may not be proud. 

In still other experiments, researchers asked Princeton students to rate pictures of men’s faces on various attributes, including likability and competence. Observers agreed quite well on those ratings. . . . The results of the electoral races to the ratings of competence that Prince students had made, based on brief exposure to photographs and without any political context. In about 70% of the races for senator, congressman, and governor, the election winner was the candidate whose face had earned a higher rating of competence. (This leads me to wonder how Abraham Lincoln would have done in our world.)

In addition to our gut decision making, American history tells us that personality and personal ethics have little impact upon presidential decision making. More than half of our Presidents would never pass the financial ethics tests, much less today’s sexual morality test. It would be terribly shocking to 95% of the American population to realize that when it comes to ethics, and especially sexual ethics or personality characteristics, there is NO significant relationship to the expertise and commitments of all to government policy and national success. Some of our best presidents were what we’d label today as flagrant womanizers, and that includes Jefferson, FDR and Dwight Eisenhower. It's a truism that character, personality and ethics play little role a president's decision making processes.

So I'm primarily concerned with a candidate's policy commitments, especially when it comes to his perspective on the role and nature of government.  

To be specific, if you want an inconsequential government with no social nets and no regulations then vote Republican. If, instead, you prefer a modestly redistributive and regulatory government that the country has relied upon since the New Deal, then be prepared to vote Democratic.  And remember that all the talk about financial austerity is primarily a subversive attempt to ignore the larger issue of the nature of government.

Thus, my number one wish for 2012 is that voters will attempt to set aside their tribal commitments and  base their presidential deicision, at least partially, upon significant—truly significant—policy matters. 

Yeah, I know. My beloved grandmother would respond to my wish with a proverb from her English forebears about the utter futility of wishing and the necessity of taking action: if wishes were horses, beggars will ride. Still, I can make one wish for 2012, can't I?

A Poignant Memorial to Vaclav Havel

With Havel, the message mattered but it was words themselves that penetrated the heart.

                              --Madeleine Albright

Although I regularly read the obituaries of leaders in the New York Times, when I finished Albright’s memorial to Vaclav Havel, “the principled president,” I performed a unique act. I sat in front of my computer glued to her words, tears flowing down my face and clapped. I cannot remember doing such a thing. It was an automatic response, much like the silence followed by an overwhelming ovation after a great musical performance. 

Admittedly, Albright had one of the few, truly magnificent leaders of the past fifty years in her sights. But this memorial focused upon Havel’s principled uniqueness while emphasizing his surprising, earthy, gutsy, poetic humanity. Facing the disintegration of the Soviet Union, he pleads with the Western world to assist the Russians. Albright’s panegyric emphasizes the contradictions in Havel, redefines what it means to be fully human and marked by contradiction. Invited to the US Congress, Havel does not celebrate the Czech Cold War triumph, but pleads for us to reexamine our moral values.

Summarizing the life work of Havel, Albright concludes with a reprise that speaks to us in our fragmented world.

Of the man who hates, Havel wrote, “He is incapable of making a joke, only of bitter ridicule . . . . Only those who can laugh at themselves can laugh authentically.”

As for ideals about governance, he concluded that “We may approach democracy as we would a horizon, and do so in ways that may be better or worse, but it can never be fully attained.” Summing up, he declared himself neither an optimist (“because I am not sure everything ends well,”) nor a pessimist (“because I am not sure everything ends badly”) but, instead, “a realist who carries hope, and hope is the belief that freedom and justice have meaning . . . and that liberty is always worth the trouble.”

Photo: Flickr.com, edition_of_one

"Changing Companies' Minds About Women"

In my previous blog, Why do men hold back women in the workplace, I referred to the groundbreaking Mckinsey report by Joanna Barsh and Lareina Yee that addressed the frustrating lack of women at senior levels in America’s business. 

Their recommendations for resolving the problem are both realistic and practical. But for some reading this blog, I need to reinforce the fact that dealing with the problem simply because it’s the right thing to do won’t cut the mustard. A diverse leadership team is highly is highly advantageous for their business. 

Many of the leading consumer products firms understand the business rationale for women in leadership. They recognize, as the McKinsey report asserts, that there is a bevy of research that highlights strong statistical correlations among large numbers of senior women, financial performance, and organizational health. The bottom line: companies gain hard business benefits from a more diverse senior team. 

Based on the experience of successful companies the report makes five recommendations:

• Injecting greater rigor into people processes
• More data on the subject
• Thoughtful targets pushing women into key roles
• A company specific case for women
• Better sponsorship approaches 

I believe that all five of the issues can be exceptionally useful. Although some firms are merely giving lip service to the discussion of women in the workplace, most companies are aware of the problem, but not many are aware of the benefits of the diverse senior team. 

I’m committed to the proposition that long term innovation, whether in the form of change or new products and services, is first and foremost built on our ability to sell its benefits to the relevant stakeholders. Steve Jobs is the master at that issue. Some think it’s the quality of his innovations, but I doubt that. In the final analysis Jobs is focused on benefits his products and his services can bring to the consumer. Jobs understands the consumer as well as anyone on earth. Thus, changing companies’ minds about women is fundamentally a sales job. The McKinsey article addresses this issue, but it fails to make clear enough that every organizational leader who understands the benefits of women in leadership had better be able to address the benefits of their proposal to the fundamental stakeholders of the organization. 

There’s solid agreement today that In order to do different things and make change, at least on a consistent, systematic basis over a sustained time period, organizations and their people must begin to think differently. What that means is that data is exceptionally important. In order to change thinking there are going to have to be a great number of conversations. Conversations which openly deal with the assumptions a manager makes and the data underlying those assumptions. What that implies, also, is that execs take data seriously, that they make data a central part of their decision making and that they can recognize that the inferences and ultimate conclusions they draw are built on data. Now the data they use may be poor or inadequate, but still they need the expertise to think data. Organizational cultures vary in their willingness and ability to deal with data. Lacking those characteristics makes the change process far more difficult.

Furthermore, for execs to commit themselves to change is one thing. But it’s another to actually make progress on those commitments. Leaders will need to guard against backpedaling and be sure to continually keep the process going.

These McKinsey women have made a significant contribution to women in the workplace. It’s an article that HR people and the company leadership will find very useful.

Beware of the Leadership Literature: It's Hazardous

One of the big obstacles most business people have to overcome is the leadership literature. Books by well-known execs and most lectures, courses and even media pronouncements about leadership should be stamped: CAUTION: THIS MATERIAL CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH.

Here’s why. Mainstream leadership books, writers, the media, and even studies tend to privilege and separate leaders from followers. Think Jack Welch, Jon Kotter, CNN , Fox or MNBC and even Warren Bennis, and you’ll understand what I’m saying. What these people preach is that real leaders have a great deal of power and that leadership is about using that power to achieve personal and organizational objectives. So leaders today are viewed as either heroes or villains, elevated or blamed, either the solution or the barrier to organizational success. Indeed, 95% of the population seems to believe that complex organizational problems should be solved by the leaders themselves. Amusing, but largely nonsense. It’s just not possible. 

If it’s true that leaders have all the power and followers are merely their lackeys to get things done, well. . .  you can see the consequences. On the one hand, some will do what they’re told—and probably no more than that. And others, who don’t like what they’re being told will gripe, complain and eventually sabotage. Plenty of leaders, even in the old industrial world, are brought down by the sabotage of their “passive” followers. That’s far more prevalent than most think. If in contrast, leaders understand that they’re highly dependent upon their followers, that their followers have a lot of power, you can be damned certain that with a modicum of gray matter they’ll treat their followers a lot differently. . . even as partners. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that sabotage is prevalent in companies like the old General Motors. My brother, a retired GM plant foreman, recently described in colorful detail how subordinates got rid of leaders who were control nuts. They had a number of execution strategies in their toolkits. Workers would stage, one-by-one conversations with HR, mixed with both truthful and false info. But, he went on, more often than not, the workers would simply sabotage the objectives of their boss. In both cases the higher-ups would move the person around a few times until he got the message and left the firm. “There are,” my brother went on to say, “limitations as to how much control any boss or leader has. And that,” he said, “goes all the way to the top of the organization.”  With flatter hierarchies, knowledge workers have even more power. It’s more and more obvious that today’s leaders have shared power. . . or no power at all. 

Terrific research dating from as recent as 2008 confirms my notion. David Collinson, in Dialectics of Leadership, completed what amounts to a mega-study on the same issue in 2005. His conclusion is that leader-led relations, contrary to the traditional view, always contain the potential for conflict, dissent and resistance, making the whole notion of leadership an overblown idea. Though the idea of leader and follower identities are deeply embedded in Western society, they simply are no longer sustainable.

PERSONAL HISTORY 

Because I started my career in the protestant church ministry, I realized from nearly the first month that my role of leader had huge constraints and controls placed upon it at all times. Power, insight, intelligence, expertise is distributed throughout the congregation. And if I was to become a successful leader, I had a lot of talking to do. I learned early on, as a result of a number of very caring parishioners, that I needed to talk, talk, and talk some more with all my constituency in order to achieve any kind of measurable objectives. I also learned that if I attempted to make significant decisions of any sort without those conversations, negotiations, agreements, changes, readjustments and sign-offs from 40 or 50 different people with leadership power, I would be in deep shit. 

So, years later, when I was invited into a consulting conversation by the CIO of the Pillsbury Company, he asked a telling question of me. “You come highly recommended, but what does being a pastor have to do with working for me?” I asked whether he had church experience, and he responded affirmatively. “Tell me, “I asked, “how many political factions were there in your church?” He was silent for a few moments, and then he responded with no other questions, “I understand your value. You have the job.” 

On another occasion, he dealt with the notion of distributed leadership better than anyone I’ve ever heard. I happened to sit in on a conversation between him and one of his directors, who was asking for a promotion. The C IO clarified the matter most eloquently: “I don’t promote you. Your subordinates, your peers and your clients promote you. I merely confirm what they tell me about you.” That director changed his ways fast, sharing his power, insights and resources with the relevant constituency. There were a lot of changed conversations and behaviors taking place as a result of that straightforward message. He didn’t learn ‘till late in his career that in his business, everyone had leadership power. 

SO HOW DOES THIS IMPACT YOU? 

First, recognize that all this business about McConnell, Obama, Pelosi, Boehner and Cantor and their leadership successes and failures being ultimately determinative for our country is loaded with a fair amount of bullshit.  John Boehner of the House has gone from being a great success, to under attack, to a failure, to a great success. Will Eric Cantor eventually take control? And President Obama has gone from being a great, cutting edge success to a wimp, to a compromiser and to a failure. The assumptions of leadership—followership are sacrosanct. But you’re going to have to look a lot deeper than at the top to figure out what’s going on. And all five of those guys are going to have to have a lot of conversations with their constituency--and create more constituency--to get anything done. The subterfuge of the Tea Party in the House ought to have made that clear to everyone by now. But just in case, I’ve written this for you, dear reader. 

Second, be aware that most anyone in your firm that wants it, can develop leadership power of one sort or another. It’s merely the power to get things done through other people, and there plenty of workers with no vested power who use all kinds of leadership power in achieving their objectives. 

This entire business of leadership and leadership notions is a big balloon that needs to be punctured. Nahhh.  It really needs to be exploded. It’s largely nonsense that makes for great press, creates conflicts that the media can pay attention to, and sells a lot of books. But be very careful. The belief in leaders and leadership as it’s usually discussed is very bad for your health. 

The truth is that though leaders have considerable power, their control over subordinates is just as often shifting, paradoxical and contradictory.  Followers are frequently proactive LEADERS for themselves, knowledgeable and opposed to their bosses and their objectives. Leadership control is shaped by the resistance and the conversations of direct reports and the organization. The communication in organizations is a dynamic knot of contradictions, ceaseless interplay between contrary and opposing tendencies. Subordinates, like their bosses, selectively disclose, exaggerate, conceal and/or understate information. And that’s very much reality. With the knowledge revolution, it becomes even more so. 

So leadership roles are a lot more fuzzy than perhaps most of us want to believe. And the power of leadership is never distributed clearly or definitively. That’s organizational reality. It galls me, for example, that guys who’ve never been invested with power or given direct power, like Russ Limbaugh or Grover Norquist, can simply take on leadership power in the GOP at their own will. But I know it happens just as much down the totem pole as with the so-called higher ups. But them’s the facts of life, buddy, and the sooner we acknowledge them, the better off we’ll be.

4 Tips for Encouraging Team Member Participation

You know the drill. A team meeting is called to make a decision on an important issue, but only the usual suspects participate. All the rest keep their mouths shut and their ideas and opinions go unheard. Afterward, the water cooler gets the feedback. Too bad the tape is not running.

Yet the participation equation is obvious: meaningful participation equals meeting success. So here are four tips for getting full participation of your team members.

1. Agree on meeting objective. Why was the meeting called and what do you expect out of it? State the objective of the meeting. “What I expect from this meeting is. . . . Are you all in agreement?” Take a few seconds to eyeball the members one by one. If someone speaks up, great. If not, then take silence for agreement. In any instance, you’ve clarified the meeting objective and this places the burden on the team members.
2. Monitor individual airtime. This not only gives everyone an opportunity to speak up, but also conveys that everyone’s ideas are valuable. When one person has spoken enough, eyeball others and say, “I appreciated what Joe had to say, but now I’d like to hear from the rest of you.” Turn your body away from Joe, and focus on other team members.
3. Restate important points. By restating or paraphrasing what each person has said, you demonstrate the value of a person’s input. Thank people who are usually reticent to speak up.
4. Ask directly. Although some don’t like confrontation, I’m not especially fearful of the direct approach. Besides, after you’ve used that approach at two or three meetings, you’ve raised the bar and let everyone know that dead wood won’t be tolerated. Say something like, “We’ve heard from Jean. Now I’d like to hear what the rest of you think.”  Count ten seconds silently, and if you get no response, then say, “George, we need your input on this. What’s your thinking?” (Slowly count to ten thousand, “one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, etc.”) Silence can be a highly effective means of getting others to contribute. Then slowly go around to the rest of the team members. They’re liable to hitchhike on what George has said, so be ready for that. If someone says, “I agree with George,” you might ask why or how they’ve come to that conclusion.

Although this reads hard-nosed, over the long term it’s highly valuable. It doesn’t sound nearly as hard-nosed if you smile when you ask your questions and paraphrase what each person has said. People are valuable commodities, and if a person doesn’t learn to add his or her intelligence over the long term, it’s time for a “come to Jesus party,” or time to consider that person’s real value. Furthermore, the process often illuminates the ideas of some very gifted people who haven’t learned how to publicly contribute. These people can make a significant addition to your business success.

Can the White House Be Run Like a Business? Ask Indra Nooyi (Pepsico).

Republicans and Democrats regularly talk about running government and, specifically the White House, like a business. The notion catches the eye of a lot of people. But is it valid?  Let's get specific and narrow the focus for a few minutes. Can President Obama really work as a business CEO?

Sunday morning's conversation between Fareed Zakaria and Indra Nooyi, the Pepsico CEO, unexpectedly took that turn with a question by Zakaria:  

ZAKARIA: You think about leadership, what do you think about President Obama as a leader?

NOOYI: I think he's a remarkable individual, but let me put this in context, Fareed. Just imagine that you are the CEO of a company. Just bear with me for a while, while I talk you through the story. Imagine you are the CEO of a company and your executive team, half want you to succeed, half want you to fail.

ZAKARIA: Republicans and Democrats.

NOOYI: Yes. And then imagine that your functional team, you can't hire them without the approval of your executive team.

ZAKARIA: Half of whom want you to fail.

NOOYI: That's exactly right. Also imagine that every word you say is debated in the public media every minute of the day. Also remember that your board of directors is a fragmented group who really cannot get together to fire the executive team if they don't tow your line.

ZAKARIA: The American public.

NOOYI: That's exactly right. That's the environment in which the president of the United States is working today. It's not as if the president is maintaining a successful country. The president is turning around a difficult situation.

ZAKARIA: So all things considered, you'd say he's doing a pretty good job.

That brief discussion of civics by the "leading businesswoman in the world," was one of the finest explanations of the American system I've ever heard. That was the vision the founding fathers created. And it's a vision, I remind my readers, that ain't gonna change.

So the next time you hear someone opining about the need for business sense in government, recognize that there's a real chance that the person doesn't know what he or she is talking about.  Government leadership, as Nooyi explained, requires a significantly different set of tools than business leadership.  

To add to this pie, remember also that the ability of an exec to change industries successfully has a very poor track record. Less than 50% succeed. Oh sure there are exceptions. But very few in number. Not enough to trust a business leader who thinks he can change the world of government.  So don't get too enamored of Donald Trump, Mitt Romney or any other business leader of any party who thinks he can "fix" government. We're dealing with what the founding fathers planned and that's that.  I suspect they knew that this "experiment" would be very messy.  Or as Winston Churchill once suggested,"it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government . . . except all the others that have been tried."

Still later in the show, Zakaria asked Nooyi whether she ever would go into government after she left Pepsico. Her astute, rather amusing comment: I plan to be in business quite a few more years.