Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
Developing Leaders Through Broccoli
Leadership potential
When I worked for Lawson in Sweden, we ran a leadership development program called the Greenhouse (or Växthuset in Swedish). Students participated in yearlong projects that stretched their skills and got them out of their comfort zones. They swapped roles, did stints in different departments, and spent a lot of time with customers, including some disgruntled ones.
The students were overwhelming positive about the program. But I always wondered if it was effective. After all, it’s not so hard to get good evaluations from students.
Did we really develop better leaders? Or did we just select natural leaders and show them a good time for a year? And, if they were better leaders, what were they better at? Were they better, for instance, at acquiring and integrating other companies (which was part of our strategy)? Or did they improve their ability to promote innovation? Or did they improve their ability to implement financial controls during economic turbulence? Or what?
Could they really be better at all these things? Which ones were most important? I thought about all this as I read a recent McKinsey report, titled “Why Leadership Development Programs Fail”. According to McKinsey, they fail for four reasons. Let’s look at each.
1) Overlooking context – McKinsey calls it context but I call it strategy. Many leadership programs are decoupled from company strategies. McKinsey notes, for instance, that programs often “…rest on the assumption that one size fits all…” and consist of “…a long list of leadership standards…” and “…corporate values statements.”
McKinsey suggests that managers ask a simple question, “What, precisely, is this program for?” For instance, one of Lawson’s strategies was to target specific verticals (and ignore others). So the Greenhouse curriculum helped students understand how to identify and develop verticals. On the other hand, we probably didn’t give enough emphasis to acquisitions, another part of our strategy.
The key is to ask what skills are needed to execute the strategy successfully. There may be only two or three. Make sure the students work specifically on those behaviors.
2) Decoupling reflection from real work – retreats are nice but they don’t change behaviors. Indeed, McKinsey estimates that adults retain only 10% of what they learn in lectures. Instead of lectures, focus on workshops, collaborative projects, and exercises that require students to learn by doing.
We created fictional exercises for the Greenhouse. The students, for instance, had to “sell” a major contract to a “customer” who was using a competitor’s software. That’s not bad but, of course, real projects are better.
3) Underestimating mind-sets – to become good leaders, students will often need to learn new skills and change their behavior. Yet, changing behavior is one of the most difficult teaching objectives imaginable.
Let’s say, for instance, that your strategy is to decentralize authority and push decision-making outward and downward. Your leadership program should reflect this. But, if the student’s mind-set is I have to be in control at all times, you’ll need to change the mind-set before you can change the behavior.
How do you change mind-sets? Remember the broccoli tip. If you can convince a kid to eat broccoli, you can convince a manager to delegate effectively.
4) Failing to measure results – leadership development programs are often exciting (and even fun) and so they get high marks from the participants. But that’s not the point. More importantly, what happens to the participants after they leave the program? Do they rise in the ranks? Do they depart for other companies?
You’ll still have the selection versus value-added conundrum. Did the program actually add value or did you simply select natural leaders to include in the program? The only way to sort his out is to put a few randomly selected in the mix and see how they fare.
I have a lot of faith in leadership development programs. The bottom line: tailor the program to your strategy. If you don’t have a strategy, work on that first.
Sitting Still In a Room
Sit still!
In the late 1650s, the French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, wrote an insightful sentence, “All of man’s problems stem from his inability to sit still in a room.”
Collected in Pascal’s unfinished Pensées, this little tweet from the 17th century has enlightened us for 350 years. In fact, it has recently received new impetus and momentum from an article in Science magazine.
Titled “Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind”, the article reports on 11 different studies. Taken together, they show that people – and men especially – would rather receive electric shocks than sit alone in a room.
The article looks at default mode processing and asks two simple questions: “Do people choose to put themselves in default mode by disengaging with the external world? And when they are in this mode, is it a pleasing experience?” As the authors note, we might assume that it’s easier to guide our thoughts in “pleasant directions” when we disengage with the world. However, that’s not what they found.
To study these questions, the researchers asked students to sit still and alone in various locations (a research lab, a dorm room, etc.). They were simply asked to “entertain themselves with their thoughts….” After sitting still for six to 15 minutes, the students reported that it was hard to concentrate, their minds wandered, and, by and large, they didn’t enjoy the experience.
Maybe it’s just college students. But the researchers repeated the studies with people recruited from local churches and at a local farmer’s market. The results were quite similar. Indeed, the researchers found no evidence that demographic factors – gender, age, income, education, etc. – were producing the results. It seems that people from all walks of life just don’t like to sit alone and think.
The researchers then asked another question: “Would [the participants] rather do an unpleasant activity than no activity at all?” Was it just the sitting still that made people stir crazy? The researchers told participants that, instead of just sitting still, they could press a button and receive an electric shock.
With the electric shock in place, the results differed significantly by gender. Two-thirds of the men gave themselves at least one electric shock; only one-fourth of the women did. In other words, a majority of men seem to prefer pain over thought.
That’s not encouraging. I’ve always had faith in reason. I believe that, with patience and goodwill, we should be able to reason our way through our problems. But, as the researchers point out, our “… minds are difficult to control…and it may be particularly hard to steer our thoughts in pleasant directions and keep them there.”
Perhaps meditation training would help. Perhaps we can learn to manage our thoughts and enjoy the process of thinking. Ultimately, however, the researchers conclude that, “The untutored mind does not like to be alone with itself.” That’s just what Pascal said. We haven’t made much progress in 350 years.
Crosswords, Wu-Wei, and Flow
Five letters …Chinese system of thought
Suellen and I like to do crossword puzzles together. We enjoy sorting out the wordplay and ambiguities and finding the solution. When we can’t figure out the answer, we use the same strategy but different tactics.
Our strategy might be called indirection – we move away. I’ve discovered that I often find the answer when I give up. I look at Clue #3 and can’t figure it out. So I think, “Well, I can’t get it so I might as well move on to Clue #4.” In the very brief time that it takes me to move from Clue #3 to Clue #4, the answer often comes to me. I’ve de-focused and given up when the answer simply pops into my head.
Suellen’s indirection is physical and spatial rather than temporal. We typically work at a table and we usually lean in close to the puzzle. When Suellen can’t get the answer, she stands up and looks at the entire puzzle from a distance. She sees the puzzle as a whole and spots patterns. Capturing the global nature of the puzzle helps her sort out specific clues.
In both cases, we move away. We’re no longer trying to solve a specific clue. We’re not doing rather than doing. I thought of this when I read “Trying Not To Try” by Edward Slingerland in a recent issue of Nautilus. Slingerland is a professor of Asian studies and cognition (what a great combo) at the University of British Columbia.
Slingerland describes the Daoist concept of wu-wei or effortless action. “Wu-wei literally translates as ‘no trying’ or ‘no doing’ but it’s not all about dull inaction. In fact, it refers to the dynamic, spontaneous, and unselfconscious state of mind of a person who is optimally active and effective.”
Slingerland argues that achieving wu-wei requires us to balance and integrate Systems 1 and 2. As you may recall, System 1 is our low-energy thinking system that is fast, automatic, effortless, and always on. System 1 makes the great majority of our decisions automatically — we don’t need to think about them. System 2 is the conscious energy hog that helps us think logically and provides executive task control. When we say, “I gave myself permission to have another glass of wine”, we’re essentially saying, “My System 2 gave my System 1 permission…”
Wu-wei integrates the two systems. Slingerland writes, “We have been taught to believe that the best way to achieve our goals is to reason about them carefully and strive consciously to reach them. But [wu-wei] … shows us that many desirable states are best pursued indirectly. … When your conscious mind lets go, your body can take over.”
Wu-wei also reminds me of the concept of flow described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. For instance, Csikszentmihalyi writes that flow involves a stage called incubation, “…during which ideas churn around below the threshold of consciousness.” Similarly, there is an insight phase – an Aha moment. At this stage, too much focus can be self-defeating. You need to let your mind wander. You need to not try too hard.
Whether we call it wu-wei or flow or something else, it’s a remarkable concept. Trying not to try may seem contradictory but it’s worth a try. I find that taking a good long walk can help me get nearly the right balance. My body is occupied and my mind wanders. I’m not trying to do much of anything. That’s when the insights come.
Jill Disrupts Clayton (Sort Of)
I’ve been disrupted!
My career has been a steady diet of disruption.
Three times, disruptive innovations rocked the companies I worked for. First, the PC destroyed the word processing industry (which had destroyed the typewriter industry). Second, client/server applications disrupted host-centric applications. Third, cloud-based applications disrupted client/server applications.
Twice, my companies disrupted other companies. First, RISC processors disrupted CISC processors. Second, voice applications disrupted traditional call centers.
In 1997, a Harvard professor named Clayton Christensen (pictured) took examples like these and fashioned a theory of disruptive innovation. In The Innovator’s Dilemma, he explained how it works: Your company is doing just fine and understands exactly what customers need. You focus on offering customers more of what they want. Then an alternative comes along that offers less of what customers want but is easier to use, more convenient, and less costly, etc. You dismiss it as a toy. It eats your lunch.
The disruptive innovation typically offers less functionality than the product it disrupts. Early mobile phones offered worse voice quality than landlines. Early digital cameras produced worse pictures than film. But, they all offered something else that appealed to consumers: mobility, simplicity, immediate gratification, multi-functionality, lower cost, and so on. They were good enough on the traditional metrics and offered something new and appealing that tipped the balance.
My early experiences with disruption – before Christensen wrote his book — were especially painful. We didn’t understand what was happening to us. Why would customers choose an inferior product? We read books like Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds to try to understand. Was modern technology really nothing more than an updated version of tulip mania?
After Christensen’s book came out, we wised up a bit and learned how to defend against disruptions. It’s not easy but, at the very least, we have a theory. Still, disruptions show no sign of abating. Lyft and Uber are disrupting traditional taxi services. AirBnB is disrupting hotels. And MOOCs may be disrupting higher education (or maybe not).
Such disruption happens often enough that it seems almost intuitive to me. So, I was surprised when another Harvard professor, Jill Lepore, published a “take-down” article on disruptive innovation in a recent edition of The New Yorker.
Lepore’s article, “The Disruption Machine: What The Gospel of Innovation Gets Wrong”, appears to pick apart the foundation of Christensen’s work. Some of the examples from 1997 seem less prescient now. Some companies that were disrupted in the 90s have recovered since. (Perhaps we did get smarter). Disruptive companies, on the other hand, have not necessarily thrived. (Perhaps they, too, were disrupted).
Lepore points out that Christensen started a stock fund based on his theories in March 2000. Less than a year later, it was “quietly liquidated.” Unfortunately, she doesn’t mention that March 2000 was the very moment that the Internet bubble burst. Christensen may have had a good theory but he had terrible timing.
But what really irks Lepore is given away in her subtitle. It’s the idea that Christensen’s work has become “gospel”. People accept it on faith and try to explain everything with it. Consultants have take Christensen’s ideas to the far corners of the world. (Full disclosure: I do a bit of this myself). In all the fuss, Lepore worries that disruptive innovation has not been properly criticized. It hasn’t been picked at in the same way as, say, Darwinism.
Lepore may be right but it doesn’t mean that Christensen is wrong. In the business world, we sometimes take ideas too literally and extend them too far. As I began my career, Peters and Waterman’s In Search of Excellence was almost gospel. We readers probably fell in love a little too fast. Yet Peters and Waterman had – and still have — some real wisdom to offer. (See The Hype Cycle for how this works).
I’ve read all but one of Christensens’s books and I don’t see any evidence that he promotes his work as a be-all, end-all grand Theory of Everything. He’s made careful observations and identified patterns that occur regularly. Is it a religion? No. But Christensen offers a good explanation of how an important part of the world works. I know. I’ve been there.
Let’s Get Digical
I’m becoming a digical life form. Here’s the evidence:
- I wear an electronic bracelet that keeps track of all the calories I burn. It even beeps to remind me when I sit still for too long.
- An app on my smartphone keeps track of the calories I consume. In theory, I should be able to keep my calories-in lower than my calories-out.
- We were in Berlin recently and were very impressed – but somewhat confused – by the extensive public transportation system. The solution? A digital mapping app on my smartphone. We could get from anywhere to anywhere quickly and easily (and drink beer along the way).
- My smartphone also controls my new digital hearing aids. Among other things, I can program my earbuds to a given location, like a conference room. Whenever I return to that conference room, my smartphone senses where I am and sets the parameters automatically. In some cases, I can hear better than my colleagues with “normal” hearing.
- All of the devices I use today are external. If I live for another 20 years or so, I’m sure that some of the devices will be implanted in my body.
Digical is a blend of the physical and the digital. I think of it as adding digital extensions to humans (or other animals). But Bain & Company actually coined the term (in a recent white paper) and they think of it as business, not biology.
Let’s get digical.
In Bain’s usage, digical refers to the merger of a company’s physical and online operations. When e-commerce took off back in the 90s, some wild-eyed analysts predicted that it would spell the end of brick-and-mortar stores. As Bain (and many others) have pointed out, nothing could be farther from the truth.
As we all know (but sometimes forget) humans are social animals. We like to be around other people. We generally thrive in society and wither in isolation. (It’s why tall buildings make you crazy). For this very reason, Bain suggests that the future of retailing will be the digical world. Retailers will increasingly merge physical stores and online operations into “omnichannel” solutions.
Other industries – especially entertainment and technology – will go digical quickly. Even industries like construction, which might not seem like digical leaders, are getting digital tools to dig better holes and build smarter buildings. Smart tractors use GPS and a databank of seed information to help farmers plant smarter, conserve resources, and increase yields.
In reading Bain’s white paper, three things stood out for me:
- The biggest change is yet to come – Yikes! We’ve seen a lot in the past two decades. But Bain says the near future “…will bring far more innovation to most industries than they have seen in the past.”
- Silos are major impediments – siloed organizations will be followers at best, never leaders. Perhaps the first step to becoming digical is to break down silos and…
- …build a cohesive culture – The Bain authors never actually use Peter Drucker’s famous quote – Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but they certainly imply it. To become digical leaders, focus on culture first.
I like the term digical; I hope it becomes the word of the year in 2014. Bain has a very clear definition and useful advice for businesses. Personally, I’d like to see the definition expanded to include biology as well as business. After all, we’re all going digical.
(Digical is a sales mark of Bain and Company).
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