The Leader's Voice

Dumbing Things Down and Being Flat Wrong

I attended a wonderful symposium hosted by Wiley this summer. It brought together a band of earnest, hard-working consultants, savvy corporate leadership development personnel, and educators dedicated to leadership development and to the scholarship of The Leadership Challenge, a well regarded, well researched book and series of leadership development tools. It was a conference that both inspired and educated.

John Hope Bryant, Vice-President of the US President's Council of Financial Literacy, was the keynote speaker and among the many intriguing and inspiring comments he made was, "when did we make dumb sexy?" He was referring to a general societal attitude towards dumbing everything down. I've thought a great deal about that since this summer, because it is one of my hot buttons as well. This hot button has two parts: dumbing things down and reasoning so poorly as to be wrong.

In my field of leadership development a dangerous, even if well-intentioned, trend has always been present and it's what I call "business evangelism." The motivational speaker clearly has a place - I believe in inspirational messages. But when these inspirational, but perhaps not particularly well researched (I'm being generous here) messages become the primary developmental investment for an organization or association, I fear the cause of developing leaders becomes woefully diluted.

Being honest, finding your personal strengths, and building up others are important ideas. But beyond inspiring us to remember why they matter, I believe contemporary managers want to understand what the hard-won evidence is that they work and how to use the evidence in upgrading their personal leadership abilities. Simply preaching that you must build others up without showing any research that demonstrates the effectiveness, boundaries, or methods for making it happen, is simply pulpit pounding (which has a half-life that is roughly the time between the inspirational message and the next meal the listener enjoys). 

The second part of what Bryant's thoughts have made me reconsider is how popularizers with great story-telling gifts can simply get the important details wrong even when the main theme is on the right track. My favorite example is Malcolm Gladwell. I love reading his stuff because his story-telling abilities are terrific and his main ideas do help me consider the world in a different way. But to accept his science as fact is a bit more difficult.

For instance, his use of the science of epidemiology in The Tipping Point is helpful in getting us to consider how trends work. But those who overuse or misuse the direct comparison of this science to human behavior are in dangerous waters. The parallels are useful to get us to think, but the way infections spread and the reason Hush Puppies became popular for a short time may share similar surface level phenomena, but not valid, causal connections. Steven Pinker wrote a review of Gladwell's newest book for the New York Times Book Review. You might want to check it out for his views on dumbing things down and getting things wrong.

Leadership development is hard work. I might concede that inspiration is a vital first percent. But the remaining ninety-nine percent requires hard work over a long period and therefore should be grounded in good research.

Free Agent Nation

As Daniel Pink and others have pointed out we live in business culture that promotes free agency. Borrowing from professional athletics terminology the basic idea is that star talent "owns" their career and its up to the individual to manage a successful line of performance opportunities.

Organizations hire with this type of thinking in mind and often go for talent from proven franchises to find star talent. But as Groysberg, McLean, and Nohria pointed out a few years ago, great leaders from GE hired by others failed as often as they succeeded. Groysberg is the lead author on an upcoming article in the MIT Sloan Management Review that takes this thesis a bit farther.

His argument in the new article is that star performers can only perform up to their potential if they have other highly talented individuals aiding them in a team effort. Sound like a star quarterback acknowledging his all-star front line? It should, because it matters.

The idea that leaders, or star performers, are solo artists is far too simplistic, yet we continue to want to believe the mythology. And Groysberg's research studied the industry that perhaps lends itself to the star performer mythology the most easily: market analysts and brokers.

My New Boss

When spectators see their team win, they cheer. The losing side doesn't. Feelings go up or down on such occasions. But underneath the feelings, biological chemistry is at work, especially in men.

An recent study about testosterone showed that for men, because of their basic gender chemistry, testosterone levels go up if candidates they vote for win and go down if their candidate loses. It's an interesting study and you can read it here. This pattern follows the same seen in the aftermath of sporting events. And the effect of high and low testosterone on mood, attitude, and general outlook is well known.

This got me wondering about getting a new boss. All organizations experience political pressure. While most managerial job postings are not conducted via a vote (although some are), there is always a pressure to select one candidate over another. Often constituents are aware of the possible candidates for a job posting and supporters for one or another candidate exist whether or not a vote is cast.

The reason this is important in the workplace is because the authors argue this rise and fall is the same witnessed when men win or lose other types of contests. Only in the workplace, as opposed to a national political election, the winning or losing side lives with the loss or victory every day in a more intimate and personal manner. It causes me to wonder if the first act of leadership after getting posted to a position should be connecting to everyone and overcoming these natural effects.

What do you think?

Innovation and the Recession

Research I have conducted over the past decade has made me a confirmed believer that one of the greatest barriers to innovation is "the boss." I usually split the boss into two parts - the first the actual person, the second the red tape that any organization develops as a natural part of the fact it exists.

Johnson & Johnson is laying off 7,000 people in a global overhaul due primarily to recessionary effects. However CEO William Weldon told Wall Street "We are streamlining the business to make faster, easier decisions." 

This unfortunately feels like spin. To layoff 6% of your workforce and claim this is intended to release entrepreneurial spirit and foster innovation during a recession just feels disingenuous. Had J&J done this earlier, or even better not allowed so much management bloat to occur in the first place, would suggest it is a culture that maintains an innovative, entrepreneurial structure. 

In other statements it seems Weldon is connecting the layoffs to needed cost savings and the ability to remain viable for the future.

What do you think? Spin or sincerity on behalf of the venerable J&J.

The Head and Heart of Leadership

I've been participating in a LinkedIn discussion concerning "emotional detachment" and leadership. The basic question posed was "do leaders need to be emotionally detached?" So far the person posing the question hasn't weighed in a definition or example, but I hope one will be posted.

What concerns me about the discussion is the direction some of the participants have taken. There seems to a be a section of leadership development professionals who still use 19th and 20th century romantic language "head and heart" to describe behavior we know is not based upon those poetic but misguided ideas. As both a literature lover and poet myself, I find the imagery rich, but the scientist in me understands that the thinking behind it is muddled.

For example - there is no such thing as an emotionless decision. Neurological science has demonstrated repeatedly that all decisions require the cooperation of the brain's emotional and logical systems. If injury or disease retards either system, the quality of decision-making plummets. To continue to use poetic terms like "sometimes you must make decisions of the heart" seems to me to hold us back rather than move us forward in our thinking about how human beings actually work and how leadership development must be approached.

What are your thoughts or opinions about this?