I am a sucker for any "Drop Everything and Pursue My Dream" story. That's why I was interested in reading Philip Delves Broughton's book about leaving a successful career in journalism to attend Harvard Business School. Here’s a guy (as John Madden would say) who was Paris bureau chief for the Times of London, married with a one year old son, who chucked it all for a cramped apartment in Cambridge and whopping student loans. The book is his engaging account of his two years at HBS. It reminded me of Scott Turow’s enjoyable 1977 book, One L., in which he describes his first year at Harvard Law School. Both capture the essence of Harvard’s mystique as well as laying bare some of its problems.
There is no question that Broughton respects the Harvard Business School, his professors, and his fellow students by the end of his two years, but the upshot is that HBS isn’t perfect. My favorite parts of the book are those in which he exposes the seamy side of things—fueled by equally hyped-up doses of insecurity and ambition in his fellow students. A bit of a fish out of water, he doesn’t fit into their cliques of heavy drinkers, former military officers, or unabashed salary seekers.
Ahead of the Curve was a particularly interesting read for me in view of the recent economic meltdown and the retrospective skewering of corporate leaders that seems to be today’s national pastime. Many of these CEOs come to speak at HBS while he is there, and Broughton eagerly attends these sessions to see for himself what these captains of industry are like in the flesh. He comes away impressed by their drive and accomplishments but troubled by the consistent trend he sees of broken marriages and troubled family lives. Just one example he cites is of a Goldman Sachs exec who delivered a session on values and leadership, then confesses that he has four ex-wives.
The reaction at Harvard to Broughton's book has been all across the board based on responses in The Harbus, an independent newspaper for HBS students. Some of the responses seem to fit into this category: "I didn't have the same experience or opinion of HBS, but maybe there's something to be learned from the book." The official response as delivered by Carl Kester, Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs, is a bit, well, uptight, and overly defensive. It is worth reading, in my opinion, as an example of how not to react to criticism--attempting to pick apart errors of fact one by one and completely missing the the overall message of the book. (On the other hand, the lead paragraph is excellent. He should have stopped there).
If you are looking for a tidy ending—sorry. While the majority of his fellow classmates seem content to line up in the cattle chute to lucrative banking or consulting positions--what he refers to as “MBA McJobs”, Broughton doesn’t follow suit. He makes a couple of seemingly half-hearted attempt to land one of these jobs but he just isn’t in to it. When you get to know Broughton through the book, the fact that the ending doesn’t tidily wrap up with him in his dream job is testimony that he is different from his classmates in just one more regard. I did find this entry on his blog which provided me with a satisfactory postscript to the book.
Broughton was also kind enough to respond to my email inquiry in which I: 1. assured him I wasn't a Harvard administrator-stalker, and 2. asked him what he is doing for a living with his Harvard M.B.A. He said that soon after publication of the book he returned to New York and worked on some business development projects for a variety of media and financial firms. I was also happy to hear that he is still writing. Last week I received an email from Broughton (sent to his distribution list) that says "I've just completed a thriller I always wanted to write and am now writing my next business-y book. It's about salespeople around the world - how come they can do what they do, when it's so hard for the rest of us?"
The Center for Creative Leadership reaches out to young leaders throughout the world through efforts such as our Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative. Recently, we were happy to donate our Visual Explorer™ (VE) tool to Jane Goodall's Global Youth Summit, which brought together 100 young people from 28 countries to acquire "a toolbox for changing the world." VE was used in the closing exercise, to explore the question "What is one of the most important things that you learned about leadership at the Global Youth Summit?" The video above wonderfully captures the essence of the activity. The facilitator, David Shurna, the Executive Director of Global Explorers, describes it this way:
I used Visual Explorer at the conclusion of the week long summit as a way for students to share what they had learned about leadership throughout the week. I have attached the PowerPoint presentation that represents all of the images chosen by the students coupled with words about their action projects and their leadership lesson.
I was particularly struck by how well this work across cultures. We had youth ages 16-24 from more than 20 countries involved in the activity. Many were from developing countries and English was their second language. The images helped them open up and share powerful lessons and ideas in ways that we had not seen the rest of the week.
I was particularly struck by the variety of images selected and the creative ways in which students expressed their thoughts. One student from Kenya selected an image of a burning house [see below] and described the way in which this photo represented the destruction of his country that was taking place right now. Yet beyond the fire, he saw in the image something that represented his hope that he could inspired change when he returned.
Another student from Hong Kong selected the rugby image and discussed the ways in which he felt that he was often beat up, pushed around and discouraged by the lack of progress he was making on environmental issues in Hong Kong. Yet, he said the conference reminded him that we all get beat up at times and we need to have persistence and hope.
Not too many dry eyes in the room after these moments. Thanks so much for being willing to share this incredible resource with our organization.
I'm supposed to be a Big Thinker. At least, that's the excuse we use when I've forgotten to fill out some form or other or have conveniently missed a 5 am meeting. "He's a big thinker," someone will say, gently implying I’m not capable of dressing myself without help. “He’s not that good with the details.”
This caricature is beneficial to me insofar as it presents an image of a kindly, if doddering, ivory-tower intellectual. It has saved me from a number of lengthy meetings on structuring internal processes so as to preserve the sovereignty of one group or another. I’ve even bought into it myself along the way and make occasional self-deprecating comments designed to imply someone else had better tackle the details if we don’t want to starve.
However, like most identity-statements, it is true some percentage of the time and in some percentage of circumstances. For instance, when it comes to language, I’m a raging OCD-driven traditionalist. For some reason, which I could probably blame on my parents, I’m personally offended when the language I grew up with undergoes changes. (You have no idea what it took me to adapt to dangling participles. Only regular doses of the PBS radio show “Way with Words” allowed me to write “I grew up with” instead of “with which I grew up,” for example).
My current obsession is the new British Invasion. Of course, I’m as taken with accents and dialects not-my-own as the next guy, but why must we now pronounce “collegiality” as if the “g” belonged at the beginning of garage, not at the end? I remember the shivers I felt the first time I heard one of my fellows talk about call-eeG-ee-a-lit-ee. In good-old American english (note the small “e”), the combination “gi” within a word always is sounded as if it were “ji” or “jee.” You will note that all American dictionaries recognize the soft “g” sound as the first pronunciation and most note the hard “g” only when making reference to the college of cardinals. Did we need to change collegiality to conform to “colleague” once we had decided we no longer had "co-workers"?
Now, in the interest in beating my critics to the punch, I will confess I’ve been caught describing my cell phone as my “mobile” (moe-bile) instead of (moe-bl) and, when in London, I adapt. However, here I take my stand: when in the United States of America, I will practice collegiality (coll-ee-jee-ality) with my colleagues, although I expect most of them to turn up the torture now that they know my secret. That’s true collegiality (pronounce it how you will).
Tom Glavine was recently released by baseball's Atlanta Braves. A little background on Tom Glavine - He has won over 300 games as a pitcher (a watershed statistic for pitching greatness), two Cy Young awards (an award handed out to the best pitcher in the league), 10 times an all-star, and 1995 World Series MVP of Atlanta’s only world series in win in the 1990s. More than likely, he’s headed to the Hall of Fame.
Glavine had been with the Braves since being drafted in 1987. He left the Braves to sign a more lucrative contract with the rival New York Mets club in 2003. He re-signed with the Braves in 2008, pitched a few games, but hurt his throwing arm that year. He had surgery, and had been rehabbing since, hoping to return to the Braves in 2009. I read last week that his rehab start with the Braves minor league Single-A team in Rome Georgia went well. That same day when I went home, I was watching the MLB network and saw that the Braves released Tom Glavine. I was shocked.
Many have speculated why the Braves released Glavine, a veteran pitcher with a proven track record and lots of nostalgia attached to him of glory days of the past. Some have thought that the Braves wanted to get out of paying a $1 million bonus if Glavine pitched in the major leagues. Others thought that Glavine’s pitches were just not acceptable for major league pitching and that he just didn’t have what it took to pitch in the majors anymore. Some (and I put myself in this group) see that the Braves are just trying to move on, and use their high potential, youthful (and much cheaper) pitchers and start with them. They need “on-the-job experience” and no more training in the minors. It is probably no coincidence that if Glavine came to pitch in the major leagues, there would be no spot available for star phenom Tommy Hanson to move up from the minor leagues to the major leagues. It would cost more money to put Glavine in the majors and keep Hanson in the minors, and would somewhat slow down Hanson’s development into the star pitcher the Braves (and everyone else in major league baseball circles) thinks he will become.
My friends asked me how I felt about this, as they know I am a Braves apologist and an Atlanta Braves homer. What I told them: Loyalty always takes a back seat to youth and/or money. Back in 2003, Glavine left his loyalties behind and signed with the arch-rival New York Mets for more money. This year, the Braves left their loyalties behind to try and save up some money, and help the progress of their future by cutting ties with a player synonymous with the success of a decade ago, and promoting someone younger for success in the future.
Leaders sometimes have to face this same decision. They have to choose between loyalty of their people and cutting costs in dealing with the problems in their own organization. On a more personal level, sometimes they have to choose between staying loyal to their present company and the opportunity to make more money at another company. Glavine was an integral part of both scenarios during his career. The final outcomes of both have not been pretty for either side. Personal feelings aside, one can see that it boils down to “it’s just business.” Sad, but true commentary.
On Friday I did something that used to strike fear in my heart. I took my two young boys to the video store to select a movie for the weekend. The kids walked into the store, agreed on a movie, and we walked out the door in less than 10 minutes. Easy. But it used to be a nightmare. They would bicker on and on about which movie to get. I would mediate and ultimately figure out which movie would satisfy them both.
Until one day when we’d been in the store for 20 agonizing minutes with no end in sight and I’d reached my limit. I said, “It’s your job to pick out a movie together. If you can’t agree, we will not get a movie.” As the squabbling continued, I refused to get in the middle and just repeated, “Talk to your brother and figure it out.” Eventually it sunk in and, miraculously, we walked out with a movie in hand.
Now it’s habit for them. Whether it’s deciding which snack to buy at the grocery store or which video game to play first, I don’t do the heavy lifting for them. And they’re getting good at it. They approach problems differently than I would. Their reasoning is different. And their solutions are creative.
As leaders, this can be an easy trap to fall into. We don’t give employees a chance to do the heavy lifting of figuring out their own solutions. We want to hang on to what’s made us successful: namely, being great solution generators. We shy away from delegating because it’s easier and faster just to do it ourselves. If we really want to be successful, we need to conquer our fear of delegation and get our minds around what it means to contribute in a different way.
My boys weren’t learning anything from watching me pick out a movie or make the peace between them. But when I gave them the power to make a decision I normally make, that’s when the learning kicked in. About how it feels to be empowered, to have the authority to make decisions, to develop a new-found confidence in their capabilities.
“(T)hese objects, once they are assembled, will lend themselves to certain functions, but they might also be reconfigured and used in ways that we can not foresee. Precisely because we might embrace the idea of dysfunctionality-the fact that it becomes more difficult to do something maybe is what makes it more interesting — and provide an open situation.”
Manny Ramirez, outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers , just got suspended for 50 games from major league baseball for violating their performance-enhancing drug policy. He is a good segue into something I’ve wanted to write about for a while, and now I’m taking advantage of Manny being in the news. I knew “Manny being Manny” would happen sooner or later…
Manny has been infamous for being sort of like a “prima donna” on the baseball field, and being the center of media attention. The way he acts is what many people have affectionately called “Manny being Manny.” For instance, while playing for the Boston Red Sox, he took a bathroom break during a pitching change by going into Fenway Park’s famed “Green Monster” wall (he’s coming out of it in the picture). He has been known to be lackadaisical in the field, and as a baserunner. But can he ever hit. So what does “Manny being Manny” have to do with research on leaders emerging out of leaderless groups?
I, along with researchers from Ohio State and the University of Georgia recently had a study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin examining what type of person emerges as a leader from group interactions where there was no assigned leader present. We consistently found that across 3 separate studies using various experimental designs, the person out of the leaderless group who tended to emerge as a leader was a narcissist – a “dark side” personality trait, they are defined as people who have positive and inflated views of themselves with a lack of warmth and intimacy in interpersonal relationships. There are two factors that we specifically examined that is part of narcissism, an exhibitionism factor (the wanting to be the center of attention – think about “Manny being Manny”) and a power factor (wanting power – think about Machiavelli and “The Prince”). Which was the more important narcissistic factor in leadership emergence? Those who wanted power.
So, it seems that narcissists emerge out of groups with no leader. And, it’s not because they want to be the center of attention (it’s not “Manny being Manny”), it’s that they crave and want power (sort of like “The Prince” from Machiavelli).
Think of the implications from that piece of research. As we concluded in our paper, the same characteristic that facilitates an individual’s emergence as a leader may also be the characteristic that makes a destructive leader. Checks and balances in these leaderless groups are crucial.
Knowing that piece of research, what other implications can that have in your organization, or the way you lead?
There's a magnet on my refrigerator, it's the oft quoted Gandhi statement "Be the change you wish to see in the world." In terms of leadership authenticity and putting the power of role-modeling into practice – it’s a great quote. I find it a nice reminder to figure out what I can do to live my values and to do it.
But I got to thinking, what about inspiring people to understand and create change together? I wish there were a quote like “understand the change you want, the change others want for themselves, learn from each other, find common ground, and work together to make it happen.”
Before I say anything else, I want to clarify: I firmly believe that one person can create a great deal of positive change. In some cases one person is able to accomplish something more impressive than large groups of people ever could. Another favorite quote of mine, from Margaret Mead, is “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” But can we change how we change (and how we lead change) so that more people work together and so change benefits more people?
Our perspectives of how we think about and enact change are often very different from one another. The publication Flipping the Script does a wonderful job illustrating how perspectives influence community development work. The assumption that we agree on what is needed and desired can do a lot of harm and reinforce the gaps and friction between us. It’s like Marie Antoinette saying “Let them eat cake” to the hungry masses. I think she meant well, but the statement did more to illustrate the gap between her experience and the experiences of those around her. Worse yet, it did it in a way that exacerbated the issue rather than illuminating it or making progress towards solving it.
Effective leadership, in my view, is simultaneously selfish and altruistic and thus rests firmly on self-awareness and other-awareness. It’s the “other-awareness” bit that I need to work on more … so while I’m trying to “be the change” I need a reminder to understand the changes others are wanting and trying to “be.”
In an earlier post I mentioned four Rs - Responsiveness, Respect, Results and Responsibility. In an interconnected world just having the technical and managerial skills aren’t going to cut it. Of course, the fundamentals still apply. But there are also new skills to learn, or maybe it’s new ways to apply old ideas/skills; I’m not sure. I do know we’re working in environments and with people different from what we’ve known in the past. It’s not totally different; it is different enough to matter – that’s where Responsiveness, Respect, Results and Responsibility come in.
To some degree mutual respect is about achieving and maintaining mutual well-being and thus, being responsive to differences. When we disconnected ourselves from our work and the consequences of our actions became more distant; our sense of responsibility (as individuals and organizations) became more muted. The distance between cause and effect grew and a lot of potential causes and effects came into play – things got complicated and complex. The messiest of the messes we face are not short on who or what to blame. Blaming doesn’t lead to understanding or solutions; it leads to more fractures between ideas and people and motivation to defend versus motivation to solve.
We’ve done enough dismantling; it is time to put things back together. It’s time to talk about what we want to achieve, why it matters, and how to do so in a way that won’t result in finger pointing, but in collective pride and progress.
It’s time to lead in a way that is responsive (to people and to environments), that is respectful (of ourselves and others), that gets desired results, and that is responsible(which means looking at results from different perspectives and making trade-offs that create and sustain mutual well-being.)
It has not been that long since we split ourselves into "work" roles and "life" roles. I think the work-life split grew from the same seed as the Cartesian split. For some individuals compartmentalization of these roles was (and probably is still) helpful – I’m not asking that they give it up. But I do think organizations need to give up the notion that everyone wants to live/work that way and the notion that it is a good way to do business. I am an expert in knowing when I do my best work and where I do my best work. My peak hours of productivity are not scheduled between 8 and 5.
When I’m collaborating with someone across the globe – what difference does it make if I’m in the office or at home? I’d rather leave midday to go see my step-son’s school play and work later or take a break to walk around if I’m trying to figure something out. That way, I avoid the guilt (and the negative effect that has on productivity), make better use of my peak working times, and I am more loyal to my organization. More and more books are starting to plow the old fields of ideas about work, which is promising (Interested? Read Ellen Kossek and Brenda Lautsch’s CEO of Me or Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg’s Mass Career Customization).
I once had a colleague who was the kind that arrived promptly at 8am and left exactly at 5pm – with one hour for lunch in between. Upon my arrival to the office around 9am, she chided me “vacation day, huh?” It got to me. I was tired. I tried to get my point across in a joking way “Sure, if working until 2am last night counts as a vacation – then yeah. You know when youleave at 5pm, not everyone’s day stops. And not all work happens at work.”
The days of managing by doing a head-count periodically throughout the day are gone. Being in the office is not a good proxy for getting work done. We have to get clearer about results and the value we create as individuals and organizations. And that means paying attention to both the individual and the organization in new ways.
Berlin suggests that leaders can be divided into two categories – hedgehogs, who lead by expertise and mastery, or foxes, who are versatile in multiple areas and yet masters of none.
Berlin’s categorization is an interesting one. Consider how we select or evaluate leaders – do we favor one type over the other? What type of leader would be better served to lead an organization through troubling times?
The expert hedgehog or the versatile fox?
I would suggest neither. There are clear strengths and trade-offs for each type.
I believe that organizations need leaders who are a cross of both. Leaders with the laser-like mastery of the hedgehog, combined with fox-like versatility and openness to possibilities.
Berlin suggests the Russian thinker Leo Tolstoy as an example. Tolstoy was one who “was by nature a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog.” Imagine that!
Similarly, any leader who is disposed to and excels in one approach can start thinking and acting his/her way towards the other.
The term "T-shaped leaders" describes people who posses deep capabilities in a core function (the vertical part of the T), with broad capacities in diverse areas (the horizontal part of the T) – just like Tolstoy, though the T was not named after him.
While leadership is often seen as a vertical progression of mastery, it is equally important for leaders to seek experiences that would widen their horizons, challenge their perspectives, and develop fox-like agility.
With this in mind, how can we develop T-shaped leaders?
What part of the T are leaders lacking in organizations today?
