Overcoming the Dangers of Leadership

“People do not resist change, per se. People resist loss… And as a leader, you appear dangerous to people when questioning their values, beliefs, and habits. You put yourself on the line every time you tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear.”

-Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky

I just read an inspiring book on leadership called, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading. This book introduces topics that all change agents should consider, and focuses on the ways leaders can effectively overcome resistance and risk. Coauthored by Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, it dives straight into the dangers of leadership, provides examples of how people get taken out of the game, and offers methods for aspiring leaders to reduce the risk of getting pushed aside.

One of the most intriguing concepts that Heifetz and Linsky bespeak is the way adaptive challenges and technical challenges shape the way authority figures act. Technical challenges are defined as problems that organizations and communities encounter, where the required expertise and know-how needed to resolve the problems is already known. A mechanic, for example, is a technical problem solver who people hire for answers to their car problems, not questions about their driving habits and how they can change them. Adaptive challenges require experiments, new discoveries, and adjustments to the values and habits that organizations, communities, and individuals currently hold. Since there is no guarantee that the new situation will be any better than the current condition, people frequently resist these changes because they fear loss and uncertainty.

Authorities often make the mistake of treating adaptive challenges like technical challenges due to the way people react to loss. It’s safer to apply a sort of short term/ technical solution to a problem, so as to protect oneself from danger. Politicians recognize that people seek direction from authority figures, and protection from potential harm. Heifetz and Linsky do a remarkable job of showing how technical solutions are not what real leadership is about. Technical solutions are discovered through routine management, but adaptive change requires revolutionary leaders that are not afraid to put themselves on the line.

Thoughts or reactions? Please send them to us.

Change Agents, Business As Usual, and Leaked Coffee Memos

A while back we wrote about a much admired change agent named Howard Schultz, the Chairman of Starbucks. While I am no fan of his acidic, over-burnt coffee, I admire his vision and ability to execute. Shultz has changed the retail and food industries (for better or worse, depending on who you ask) and his company will likely dominate for years to come. Or will they?

This week, it was revealed that Schultz sent a stunning email to the leadership of Starbucks, asking them to step out of a “business as usual” mindset as they plan for 2008. The email was leaked (perhaps intentionally) and published on a web site called Starbucks gossip.

There are so many relevant things for government change agents to glean from this memo.  Here are a few  questions for change agents to ponder:

• When was the last time you stepped outside of “business as usual” and thought through the customer experience your agency was delivering?
• What incentives can you put in place to encourage leadership to avoid business as usual?
• Dogged conceptualizers question business as usual every day. Have you developed the ability to harness their innovative perspective?
• How often have you sought outside help in questioning your reality and decisions? Please note I am not talking about “yes men” consultants here.
• If a ”business as usual” mindset was crippling your agency, how would even know it?
• Would you take responsibility for “business as usual” thinking if it was brought to your attention? (see how Schultz takes responsibility below)

The above questions are sobering and will surely haunt leadership in agencies that do not think them through, and put forth strategies to avoid a “business as usual” mindest.

While researching the change agent paper, one such forward-looking strategy was brought to my attention. Louis Andre, then Chief of Staff from the Defense Intelligence Agency, commissioned a study on the “Workforce of the Future”, and engaged the very forward-looking Toffler Associates to write the report. Unlike Schultz, the DIA did not wait to write a memo questioning their mindset about the future.

Below are two parts of the Schultz memo that I found very telling. Change agents, grab a coffee and read this memo very, very carefully. You may need to write a similar memo inside your agency in the not too distant future:

“Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand. Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience; but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces.

Now that I have provided you with a list of some of the underlying issues that I believe we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it’s time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience.”

Thoughts or reactions? Please send them to us.

How to Make an Idea that Lasts

In their book, Made to Stick, authors and brothers Chip and Dan Heath propose a strategy for making ideas survive and thrive. The book offers six principles: “simplicity, unexpected, concrete, credibility, emotional, and story” that encourage people to frame ideas in a clear and compelling way, and therefore build an idea that lasts.

All too often, great thoughts are overlooked or disregarded because they are framed incorrectly. In order get support, backing, and adoption of their ideas, Change Agents should take the Heath brothers’ six fundamental principles into consideration, frame and idea that others will heed, and therefore facilitate change.

Listen to the NPR interview with Chip and Dan Heath, or read their blog.

Change Now, Better than Later

A new book, Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward, outlines a roadmap for recovery from a career disaster. The book’s five-step approach (see below) could also apply to a change agent’s approach to success. Change agents should keep these in mind, and not wait until the game is over to start playing by the right rules.

“Fight, not flight”

“Recruit others into battle”

“Rebuild heroic stature”

“Prove your mettle”

“Rediscover the heroic mission”

See the Businessweek review.

Egos, Change Agents, Ethics and a Great Movie

Many have told me that change agents are capable of enacting both positive and negative change. Based on this feedback I have evolved the DNA model within the paper to incorporate the fact that change agents have an ethical core. The paper also describes that self-awareness is a DNA hallmark of a change agent. Self-awareness involves ensuring that egos are kept in check and self managed.

Saturday night I had the pleasure of seeing an excellent new movie that calls to mind the DNA of a change agent and demonstrates what can go wrong when ego and ethics collide. Breach chronicles the life of Robert Hanssen who was convicted of perpetrating what the Justice Department termed “possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history.” Hanssen now spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement for the way he betrayed his country.

I won’t recast the movie except to say that the characters and storyline will leave you talking the next day. Mathias Preble who had a tangential relationship to Hanssen joined me and my wife at the film on Saturday. Mathias recalled hearing Hanssen speak once at a church meeting about the life of an FBI Intelligence Officer. Ironically, at that meeting (just months before Hanssen was caught) Mathias asked Hanssen during the Q&A portion why any American would willingly betray their country? While Mathias could not remember the exact quote, Hanssen’s response envoked the idea of ego’s gone awry. At the end of the movie you hear Hanssen discuss the topic of ego again–this time in his analysis of the Aldrich Ames case. Change agents should see this movie and then consider the many lessons learned. You will be discussing them the next day.