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Lucky Mud (2006)
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Arrogance is the
#1factor
in failed change
initiatives. Humility
is increasingly
seen as key to change leadership, not only for what it unleashes in
others but
also for the way it benefits the leader. Giving up the need to be
“the one”
helps leaders become “the one who
gets things done.”
Basking in the afterglow of an
awards banquet, a Southern
California financial services firm has seen high employee morale for
nearly a
year. What made
that particular program
memorable was not the size of the bonus checks or a high heaping of
other
perks. Rather, it
was the fact that
during the dinner the executives acted as waiters – bringing
coffee, iced tea,
water to the rank-and-file. Giving
texture to the idea of “servant leadership.”
Directly demonstrating a trait sometimes misunderstood or
even scorned
in business: humility.
“Sometimes humility can
get misread,” notes one of our
colleagues. “I
have had the chance to
coach one magnificent man whose humility had others in his organization
thinking
that he didn’t have enough of a voice. He was downsized
because, I believe,
there weren’t enough listeners around him to see his
brilliance. The good news
is that he got an even better job than he had ever imagined in another
organization.
“On the other hand, one
of my clients had such humility
that he was able to build bridges, admit mistakes, stroke egos and, in
so
doing, create lines of communication in an organization with years and
years of
nasty history of bickering and blaming,” our colleague adds.
“His lack of need
to be ‘the one’ made him the one who could get
things done. People
trusted him because they knew he
didn’t have an agenda for himself; for him, it was all about
the good of the
organization. I
have also noticed that
with humble leaders, the teams they lead are very productive, curious
and
willing to engage to solve problems.”
Over the past few years, humility
has actually garnered
some pretty impressive champions.
Such
as bestselling author Jim Collins, who highlighted “Personal
Humility” as an
attribute as important as “Professional Will” in
leaders who make their
companies great. “The
great irony is
that the animus and personal ambition that often drive people to
positions of
power stand at odds with the humility required,” Collins
wrote, “(and) boards
of directors frequently operate under the false belief that they need
to hire a
larger-than-life, egocentric leader to make an organization
great….” (Good To Great,
pp. 36-37)
Perhaps necessity is the mother of
new kinds of
interventions: some troubled firms are tapping leaders with a more
inclusive
approach than the old “hero-on-the-white-horse” CEO. For example, after
Diebold’s entire executive
team left last fall under a cloud that included a 47% profit slide,
fraud
investigations and shareholder litigation, the board tapped a 10
year-veteran
who reminded them that he had no manufacturing expertise or experience
leading
a company. As
one Diebold customer told
the Associated Press, new CEO Thomas Swidarski
“has no chip on his shoulder.”
Indeed, Swidarski devoted his first
weeks as CEO to
meetings with customers and employees, listening to their perceptions
of
Diebold. He
stressed candid
communication. And,
as the overseer of
Diebold’s global customer-satisfaction program told The Wall Street Journal
(May
8, 2006), he reminded executives “to make sure associates
know the work they do
is important, whatever their title.”
Swidarski has a way to go to
restore the fortunes of
Diebold. But
noteworthy results have
already been scored at Xerox Corp. whose board made a non-conventional
decision
in promoting Anne Mulcahy to the CEO spot in 2001.
At the time, the once-dominant company was on
the brink of bankruptcy. Mulcahy
is now
lauded for having led one of the most extraordinary turnarounds in
business
history. Yet in
interview after
interview, she points out that she wasn’t groomed and
didn’t expect to lead the
firm; she spent her early months in the CEO seat listening to and
learning from
others, saying there was no time for “false pride.” The articles lauding
Mulcahy point to key
practices in humility that pay dividends:
-
Admit
mistakes, with compassion for self and others. Mulcahy had launched a
desktop division; but
in June 2001, it had to be shut down.
As
she told Fortune (June 9, 2003): “I hung out, walked the
halls, and told (the
employees) I was sorry.”
-
Keep
perspective, and a sense of humor. Jim Firestone, president
of Xerox North
America, was quoted in CRN, online trade media, last November: “Even though
we’re in serious situations with
serious business opportunities, at the end of the day she
doesn’t take herself
too seriously.”
-
Above
all, listen. In
an April 24, 2006,
interview in the Wall Street Journal, Mulcahy summed up her advice for
other
old-line companies trying to adapt:
“…developing that humility to really
look at what your customers are
saying and what your competitors are doing is hugely
important.”
That’s the thing about
humility. It
lubricates a key talent of the leader: the
ability to listen and learn – to stay open and curious so
that assumptions
don’t become blind spots, and so that continuous learning is
not only possible,
but a way of being. The
cost of not
listening – of not being humble – plays out in
headlines. Carly
Fiorina fired by H-P; among her
failings, say some experts, was turning a deaf ear to feedback. General Motors flirting
with bankruptcy;
years of skidding market share are blamed on an arrogant disconnection
from
stakeholders.
But arrogance is an insidious kind
of habit; it can infect
and affect an organization through subtle signals.
How many phone calls have you hurried to,
only to wait for the boss? How
many
training programs have you attended where the senior people are
no-shows, or
where they sit in the back checking emails while the program goes on
for the
people who “really need to learn” something?
How many marketing programs continue long after the folks
on the ground
know that they’re not working because the boss
“doesn’t want to hear bad news”
or give up his cherished idea?
As a matter of fact, arrogance is
the #1 culprit in change
efforts that fail because it is the root cause behind such mistakes as:
| - |
Didn’t
talk to customers and other key stakeholders |
| - |
Ignored
important relationships |
| - |
Let
critical people walk out the door |
| - |
Failed to
consider multiple perspectives in making decisions |
| - |
Settled
on quick fixes rather than delving into issues |
Perhaps the problem is that
humility has gotten a bad rap
– often thought of as submission or self-abasement;
“humble” is seen as lowly,
retiring, or self-conscious – character traits that often
stand in the way of
prompt decisions and bold action.
But
these so-called synonyms actually point to low self-esteem, to
insecurity. True
humility is something else altogether.
The
words humble
and humility actually come from the Latin, “humus.” Which means, simply, earth
or ground. In
other words, to be humble is to be
grounded. With
our feet firmly on the
ground, we are balanced and have great resilience.
Whatever comes up, we can access helpful
resources – common sense, insight, creativity, intuition
– in ourselves, and in
others. We have
confidence in our head,
our heart, and our gut. Dropping
the impulse
to defend an image, we have maximum energy for the work of the moment. We are open – to
learn, to adapt, to connect
to others, to support and be supported.
Grounding is not the privilege of
an elite few. Rather,
it is a natural part of being human;
it is special, but humble. Kurt
Vonnegut, Jr., captured the feeling in his widely-read novel,
Cat’s Cradle:
“God
made mud.
God
got lonesome.
So
God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
‘See
all I've made,’ said God, ‘the hills, the sea, the
sky, the stars.’
And
I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky
me, lucky mud.”
For more information email Partners@AccompliGroup.com
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