Last
week I wrote about Noel Tichy and his book The
Leadership Engine.
I am such of fan of Tichy's work that I thought we might continue
the conversation.
In
doing a little bit of research for last week's post, I came across a
book report written about The
Leadership Engine.
The book report written by P. Bala Bhaskaran a professor of business
in Gujarat, India.
There
are a few grammatical errors, in the report, but that's ok.
Understandably, English is not Professor Bhaskaran's first language.
Enjoy.
Introduction
Man's concern with the art and science
of leadership is as old as mankind itself. It has attracted many
thinkers. Noel M. Tichy and Eli Cohen have studied a large number of
successful leaders in the context of their winning organizations and
have come out with a set of observations that mark the alchemy of
winning leadership. According to them winning is all about
leadership; winning individuals are essentially leaders. They are
people with ideas, values, energy and guts to do what needs to be
done. Winning companies value leaders; they have cultures that expect
and reward leaders; these organizations actively invest time and
resources into developing leadership. Winning organizations win
because they have lots of leaders; they have lots of leaders because
they systematically nurture them. The line that separates winning
organizations from others is the formers' ability to create
leadership at every level. In every winning company leading and
teaching goes hand in hand. These organizations are generally net
exporters of leadership talent.
Leadership and its relevance to
organizations
Winning can be described as adding
value to the customers and sustaining excellence. For commercial
organizations, this can be gauged by the continued track record of
excellence on the capital market; for non-profit organizations, we
have to look at the increasing impact of the organization on
increasing number of people. Winning organizations are those that
reinvent themselves continuously to add value to the customers.
Winning organizations have been more effective in teaching
leadership. The authors' observations are that in these
organizations:
- proven leaders do the teaching.
- the leaders are avid learners.
- The leaders tend to possess: ideas,
values, energy, emotions and edge.
Why are leaders relevant or important
to the organizations? In a competitive environment, organizations
need leaders who can determine the direct; who can redirect the
organizational energies. They are the people who decide what needs to
be done; they make things happen in the desired direction. For
organizations to be winning and effective, regular supply of leaders
is essential. This is the story of any organization that has been
winning, surviving and growing over long periods.
A leader is successful only if he is
able to develop others to be leaders. If he does not oversee the
leadership development closely, the process would not be effective
and the organization would not be sustained. Great leaders accomplish
their goals through their followers; they teach their followers to be
leaders. The leaders develop their teachable point of view through
clear ideas and values based on their knowledge and experience; not
on borrowed ideas and values. Citing rear Admiral Chuck Lemoyne who
taught special warfare, the authors observe, “...the real goal of
the preparation, therefore, is not to give people proficiency in the
latest warfare technology. It is to create leaders, men and women who
will react with the right instincts in hostile, confusing and
unpredictable environments.” Leading goes along with teaching.
The saying that extraordinary leaders
are created by extraordinary circumstances is a myth according to the
authors. Every body has a past. Extraordinary people visit them
frequently for inspiration and craft them into useable stories.
Ordinary people either do not visit them or are not able to find
inspiration from them. We read about Tim Teller (CEO of Polaris) or
Gary Wendt (CEO of GE Cap) or many others who got inspired from their
early experiences and built their leadership. These leaders have been
able to build their greatness based on their experiences. Many
others, ordinary people, just did not do it.
The authors have come up with a model
of winning leadership called the Leader's Teachable Point of View
where the primary elements are Ideas, Values, emotional Energy and
Edge. Most of the book dwells on this model.
Ideas: The Heart of Leadership
The heart of leadership is Ideas.
Winning organizations are built on clear ideas. A classic example is
Nike. Nike is the Greek Goddess of Victory. Phil Knight, the founder,
articulated that his organization stood for the victory of the
athletes; he made his organization synonymous with the athletes’
victory. This articulation served as an organizing and guiding
principle for all its activities; this has propelled the growth and
success of the organization Ideas serve as building blocks for the
organization
Ideas serve as energizers. They are
essential tools in motivating people. In 1961 John F. Kennedy
declared that America would like to put a man on the moon in about
ten years. This became the driving force, the energizer, for NASA to
plan all its activities; it became the driving force for all the
personnel in NASA to engage their minds and open up new creative
possibilities and alternatives. Finally America put a man (Neil
Armstrong) on the moon in less than a decade in 1969.
Leadership is about creating such
ideas. The ideas need to be current and relevant in the context of
the external market situation. In creating an idea one has to think
of the unthinkable and literally use everything that he has around
him.
Values: The Touchstone of Social
Relevance
After ideas the next major building
block is values. Morals and values have always been the cornerstones
of society; Moses, Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are
examples to this. Winning leaders, invariably, recognize the
significance of having corporate values that support and sustain the
organization’s goals and making sure that everyone in the
organization understands and lives by them. They
- Clearly articulate a set of values
for the entire organization
- continually reflect on the values
to make sure that they are appropriate to achieving the desired
goal
- They embody the values with their
own behavior
- They encourage others to apply the
values in their own decisions and actions.
- They aggressively confront and deal
with pockets of ignorance and resistance.
Winning leaders also ensure that with
changes in technology and markets, the ideas and values continue to
be appropriate. One of the basic differences between winning
organizations and others is that the winning leaders live the values
and they make every one else do the same. They help everyone
internalize the values through day-to-day activities and through
every process and act of the organization Having created a value
system unique to the organization, it becomes a competitive tool; the
values take root as the fabric of the corporate culture and they
provide a tangible base for the growth and sustenance of the
organization
Changing people’s values is harder
than changing their ideas, but in the long run, this becomes
essential. Restructuring the businesses, the organization etc are
much simpler compared to changing the values of the people. For any
change to be effective, leaders need to reorient the values that
guide people’s actions. True leaders can see the writings on the
wall, they can see the big picture, can change their mind and
mindsets and help others do the same.
Emotional Energy: The cementing
force
Organizations have energy because they
are made up of people and people have energy. Winning leaders
understand this; they help nurture positive energy, direct it to
creative channels, use energy as a competitive tool. Winning leaders
are invariable highly energetic: they work longer, harder and they
love doing that. Their high energy, both physical and emotional,
excites and energizes everyone.
Winning leaders use the operating
systems, like meetings, communication channels etc, innovatively to
create positive emotional energy. They seek ideas, plant ideas, seek
involvement, enable decision making and generally empower the people
around them. They are able to transform negative energy into positive
channels. They do this by creating situations and conditions, which
the authors list as below:
- a sense of urgency
- an inspiring mission
- a set of goals that stretch
people’s capabilities
- Spirit of teamwork - “we are in
it together”
- A realistic expectation that the
team members achieve the goals
Winning leaders are experts in
visualizing the possibilities in every situation, in terms of
short-term and long-term impacts. They have immense energies of their
own; using these they inspire others to dream and conjure up new
possibilities, to rupture the existing paradigms and they lead them
to newer horizons.
Edge: The differentiator
Edge is the ability to take tough
decisions; it is the ability to sacrifice a comfortable present for
the sake of a better future. Edge manifests in two major factors:
first is the immense drive to seek the truth which will be the basis
for decision making; second is the courage to take decisions. Edge is
about having courage of convictions, of refusing to let difficulties
stand in the way, of having principles and standing up for them.
Edge is observed in different
categories of situations. In business related situations edge is
about abandoning the existing business line to choose another, it is
about adopting a new portfolio and the like. In people related
situations, it is about assessing people and giving them a tough
feedback and perhaps even firing them. Jack Welch came up with a 2 X
2 matrix on people. He looked at the ability of the person in
accepting and adopting the values of the organization on one
dimension and his performance on the other dimension. The resulting
matrix is assessed as four types of people.
| Type | Values | Performance | Prescription |
| 1 | Hi | Hi | Encourage and nurture |
| 2 | Lo | Lo | Must go |
| 3 | Hi | Lo | Give them another chance |
| 4 | Lo | Hi | OK in the short-run; but in the long-run not suitable |
Winning leaders would have a high
sense of the reality, they respect others, they go to great lengths
to explain their position to others and they also inspire others by
their tough decisions and actions. Such leaders are respected by
superiors and subordinates alike. It is a fact that people like their
leaders to be strong and action-oriented.
It is desirable to develop edge in
every employee so that each becomes a leader eventually. Leadership
scholars like Abraham Zaleznik, Eric Ericson, John Gardner and James
McGregor Burns have written about early hardships in life and their
impacts on character. Those who have come through hardships and
sacrifices tend to develop self-confidence and self-reliance. Such
persons find it easier to make tough decisions. In most professions
and organizations people are put through progressively more difficult
situations. This is meant to enhance their capability and competence
to manage. This is the most common form of developing edge.
Conclusion
Winning leaders combine ideas, values,
emotional energy and edge innovatively to achieve transformation in
the organization Very often this is initiated through stories woven
by the leaders; these stories reflect the following basic elements
- the case for change
- where we are going
- how we will get there
Stories are found to be powerful tools
in involving people emotionally and intellectually. Leaders bind
people together through these stories, energize them and lead them
into the future.
The book concludes that winning
leadership is about building for the future. In the short-run, the
leaders prepare the organization to respond to changes; in the
long-run, they create organizations that can sustain success.
Organization becomes successful when it has large number of leaders.
Legacy of a winning leader is creation of many leaders. Good leader
take care to plan their succession systematically and leave the scene
in a phased manner.
