"The thing about great leaders is that they are very good with other people’s time”

- Bill Jensen, in his book Simplicity

(It's not a simple book, by the way, ironically. Jensen now admits it was too complicated and says that his follow-up book is better/simpler. There is some very useful stuff in it, however.)

Kirsty Wark: I understand one of the first things you did at GE was blow up the plant you were working in and that it had a profound effect on you. Can you explain?

Jack Welch: I did accidentally blow up the plant, yes. I was about 25 and had been experimenting with a different mixture. There was an explosion. I was scared stiff when I went to the manager. But, he was mainly curious as to why I had done what I had done and what I had learnt from it. ‘Would the process I was trying have worked’ is what interested him! That real encouragement to get it right rather than a punishment did have a profound effect on me, yes. (1)

Admit it: you would have fired him, wouldn’t you ;-) .

(1) My notes from the European Conference on Customer Management, London, where Welch was interviewed. Jack Welch was CEO of General Electric for twenty years and is probably the world's most-admired CEO.

I was struck by something I heard Mike Harris say once. He's a leader I admire greatly (founding CEO of First Direct bank, among other things). Mike said a leader shouldn't be too attached to his or her own opinions.

This runs counter to how 'strong' leadership is usually interpreted, doesn't it.

I was delighted to find a post on Bob Sutton's website titled 'Strong Opinions, Weakly Held' which backs up what Mike Harris was saying.

Bob draws on the thinking of the Palo Alto Institute For The Future to say that strong leadership today is fundamentally different from what it used to be seen as - successful leaders today hold firm, clear opinions but are ready to let go of them if someone else offers a better one or the market changes direction suddenly.

Head over to Bob's website to read about it. The link is in the 'must read' section in the margin over there --->

And since Seth Godin stole* my phrase "Small is the new Big" as the title for his new book, I at least get the chance to use the variant "Weak is the new Strong" as the title of this post ;-)

*
(OK, that's not true. He and I did exchange emails a year ago and I pointed him to the Inspired Leaders Network website where I'd used that heading...that did happen...but I don't believe at all that it influenced him or that he even saw it: it's just the zeitgeist; a phrase that was in the ether and right for the time)


Leadership today is largely about embracing paradox and being comfortable with contradiction: that's what underlies my liking for headlines that pose opposites as similars.

ARNIE ON FAILURE

‘If you fail, try, try again.
Then bring in the stunt double.’

SOURCE: Arnold Schwarzenegger, quoted in Vanity Fair

Hamlet got it wrong. John Boyd got it right.

Boyd is the creator of the OODA loop fast decision matrix. I thought
OODA loop was one of Willy Wonka's midgets, but my son says that's an OOMPA loompa. What a difference a couple of letters make.

I've been researching Boyd for a chapter on intuition and fast decision-making ('thin slicing' Malcolm Gladwell calls it) for the leadership book I'm writing, and have just discovered this insight from him:

People become leaders for one of two reasons - either to DO something or to BE somebody. We all know too many bosses who became 'leaders' to BE someone. They are usually bad leaders. Boyd defined them as people who give up some of their integrity to achieve advancement in an organization.

Boyd said it's the fundamental choice facing us all in life: to do or to be.

Cool, as my kids would say. Makes a lot of sense.

OODA loop stands for Observe, Orientate, Decide, Act. You probably knew that. But, did you know that as a trainer of fighter pilots, Boyd accepted challenges from any fellow pilot to go one on one in a dogfight training exercise?

He was never beaten. There were many challengers, but he always defeated them in less than forty seconds using his OODA loop system. All sounds a bit Ninja-ish to me.

The US Airforce rejected the system when he explained it to them. But the Marines and other land forces took it up enthusiastically and it became the core military rationale behind the Desert Storm invasion strategy in the first Iraq War.

All very impressive if you're into military strategy and leadership. But not as impressive to me as that fundamental question of leadership: Did you become a leader to DO or to BE? Good question. I like it a lot...

I recently finished 'How To Be Like Walt' by Pat Williams, 'with' Jim Denney. I know you're busy, so I've pulled out the eight main leader learning points from it. Number 2. in the list - believe people are capable of more than they think they are and inspire them to go beyond their comfort zone - is the one that countless interviewees in the book say Walt was supreme at.


1. GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY

Don’t be afraid to roll your sleeves up and get out there where the customers are.

Journalist Art Linkletter turned up for a screening of Disney’s new movie Fantasia. He arrived early for the press conference and “found the place empty except for one fellow who was busily arranging chairs.

I said, “When is Walt Disney supposed to arrive?”
He grinned and said, “I’m Walt Disney.”
I said, “You are? Why are you arranging chairs?”
“Well,” he said, “I like to have things just-so.”

* * *

2. BELIEVE PEOPLE CAN DO MORE THAN THEY THINK

“Walt had more confidence in us as artists than we had in ourselves. I’m a sculptor now, but I used to be an animator, and I loved it. I didn’t want to leave animation and go work in the theme parks. But Walt saw me as a sculptor and he sold me on it. He made me believe I could do it. He gave us the confidence to do things we never imagined were possible.”

- Blaine Gibson, Disney sculptor

* * *

3. THERE IS NO BOX

“Today you hear people talk about ‘thinking outside the box’. But Walt would say, ‘No! Don’t think outside the box! Once you say that, you’ve established that there is a box.’ Walt would refuse to accept the existence of the box.”

- Disney historian Jim Korkis

* * *

4. HAVE VISION

Walt Disney died before Disney World in Florida could be completed. On opening day in 1971, almost five years after his death, someone commented to Mike Vance, creative director of Walt Disney Studios, “Isn’t it too bad Walt Disney didn’t live to see this?” “He did see it,” Vance replied simply. “That’s why it’s here.”

* * *

5. INSPIRE PEOPLE THEN LET THEM GET ON WITH IT

“Walt challenged and inspired you by talking to you. He wouldn’t give you detailed instructions about what he wanted you to do. Instead, he would simply point you in the direction he wanted you to go, then leave the rest up to you. He would get you started on the creative process and inspire you with confidence. As a result, you would go far beyond what you thought you were capable of doing.”

- Band leader Tutti Camarata, whom Disney recruited to set up Disneyland Records (now called Walt Disney Records).

* * *

6. CONNECT WITH PEOPLE ON A PERSONAL LEVEL

“Whenever anyone called him ‘Mr. Disney’ he got upset. It was always Walt. And he always knew your name. In the early days, we didn’t wear name tags, but Walt still called you by your first name. Once he knew your name, he never forgot it.”

- Gary Carlson, Disney Sound Engineer

* * *

7. ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO LEARN

“Walt ran the studio like a university. We were learning all the time and a few of us were going to art school at night. Walt would drive us there and pick us up later.”

- Les Clark, Disney animator

* * *

8. STOP BEING AFRAID

“The rest of us live in fear. Walt had no fear.”

- Jim Korkis, Disney historian

I've been reading a book on Walt Disney and it reminded me of this: Great leaders have faith in us even when we don't in ourselves. They make us believe we can do more than we think. Walt, it turns out, was brilliant at this.

I'll post some quotes from the book later. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with Christopher Isherwood.

This is usually attributed to Guillaume Apollinaire, but it was actually Isherwood writing a poem in tribute to Apollinaire.

And it's a perfect summing up of how leaders inspire people to achieve more than they think they can:

Come to the edge
“Come to the edge, he said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came.
He pushed them
...and they flew.”

So, if 19 million people* were moved by a piece of viral communication to talk like a pirate yesterday (see post below), how come only 150,000 people a day regularly click on www.thehungersite.com ?

I remember when the hunger site started up in the heady dotcom days and some naive optimists (yep, that was me) saw an inkling of a possibility of this one initiative making a real difference to world hunger. My God, we thought, look what the internet might achieve in channeling goodwill and, more importantly, food, to hungry people while delivering millions of eyeballs to advertisers for a few seconds at a time to pay for it?

After all, who wouldn't want to spend five seconds a day clicking on a button to give a cup of free food to people who have none? And at no cost to themselves?

When the site first launched, I received half a dozen viral emails in several different languages telling me to go visit the hunger site and help cure world hunger.

So, I assume millions of other people were part of this wave of awareness, too. Yet the hunger site went bust a few years ago and had to be rescued by The Common Good, an American charity that got it up and running again.

Now there's a steady state of about 150,000 people who click per day, dropping by a third or more at weekends (what? too difficult to click from home?) Why isn't this the ultimate viral communication that ends world hunger?

I guess we are all too busy talking like pirates.

*Discount by, say, 75% for hype and that's still a guesstimate of 5 million people.

Arrrhhh, it's leadership, Jim lad, but not as we know it...

I've been fascinated for a long time by what makes things viral. I mean way before the Net made it possible: urban myths were replicating at speed from continent to continent well before the Web connected us all up.

There's an academic at UC Berkeley who specializes in urban myths and how they spread. I've got a couple of his books, but they are more yawn-inducing than they should be.

So, why are all things viral relevant to leadership? Because they are a way of leading people's behaviour that, in their spontaneity, are nearly impossible to predict or anticipate.

A friend of mine, Dave Favis-Mortlock, who is an expert on self-organizing systems, could probably tell us more about how a piece of communication reaches a tipping point and goes viral. But, Dave's so clever I have trouble keeping up with him.

Latest mind-boggling example of a viral communication leading millions of people to change their behaviour is Talk Like A Pirate day. It's this Tuesday and 19 million people (what?) are expected to take part. Even if you discount that estimate for hype it's still a massive number.

It started when a couple of friends began, as a joke, cussing each other in pirate-speak while playing racquetball.

Here's a news item about it:

"It started out as a joke.
They were hoping for 15 minutes of fame and then … Arrr!
They were creating a Web site, writing books and making countless radio and television interviews.
'I think we’ve stretched it into 17 minutes,' said Cap’n Slappy, aka Mark Summers.
Try five years.
The fifth International Talk Like a Pirate Day will be celebrated Tuesday by an estimated 19 million people on seven continents..."

More about it here, if you must:
http://snipurl.com/TalkLikeAPirate

We were asked this past week on the www.execubooks.com blogsite to blog on outsourcing. Here are a couple of samples from that blog (below) from me, in case you want to wander over there to browse the other contributors, too (link is on the right). Next week we are blogging over there on customer loyalty. Should be good. It's one of the few subjects I know a little bit about ;-)

It struck me this week that you can now outsource anything


First, outsource your prayers

“Short On Priests, US Catholics Outsource Prayer to Indian Clergy”

- Headline in the New York Times spotted by Tom Peters. Apparently, American clergy charge $5 per prayer to pray for supplicants who have asked for divine help, whereas Indian clergy charge just 90 cents.

Then, outsource your kids

Offshoring the family is the latest fad for UK-based parents. Families based in London are sending their kids to the International School in Bangalore, India – It offers grounds, facilities and education standards that match or eclipse the best private schools. Yet, it costs £8,000 (GB Pounds - about $14,500 US) per year to board, including flights and tuition, versus £25,000 per year for a similar-level private school in the UK. Gets a bit tiring if you go home for lunch.

Source: BBC Radio 4 You & Yours. You can listen to it again here: http://snipurl.com/outsourcethekids

Finally, outsource your clothes


“Don’t own anything if you can help it. If you can, rent your shoes.”

- Forrest Gump, from Winston Groom’s book Gumpisms, the Wit and Wisdom of Forrest Gump

Export jobs or import people? Clustering and the Ideopolis

Domestic outsourcing is part of the basic 'make or buy' equation that faces every business - Do I 'make' in-house a particular function or do I stop doing it myself and buy it in from a supplier instead. As such, it's old news. I can't get that worked up about it myself to be honest.

Where it suddenly becomes interesting, though, is when the outsourced function goes...abroad. Then the whole debate turns into how western employees are being undercut by highly educated (there is a call center in India staffed entirely by graduates, for example) but low-cost foreign workers.

Despite arguments to the contrary, you can't legislate against jobs going abroad. The whole offshoring debate, it seems to me, looks down the wrong end of the telescope.

As The Economist magazine put it recently, the choice, in the ageing societies of the West (Europe in particular) is to export jobs or import people. The antidote to the fear of losing American jobs (and European jobs) to offshoring is to create 'hotspots' or clusters that attract capital, skilled people, ideas and other wealth generators to cluster around your particular area.

What am I talking about? Silicon Valley is the perfect example. 73% of people working in Silicon Valley weren't born in the US. They moved there. They are a foreign legion. They are among the best in the world at what they do and they came to California to do it because Silicon Valley is where the best IT entrepreneurs are clustered.

We need to reframe the debate away from the narrow 'all our jobs are going abroad' kneejerk reaction to focus on how to take advantage of geographical clustering (Michael Porter has done a lot of work on this recently). Kjell Nordstrom, the economist and author of Funky Business, says "There are thousands of valleys around the world - the financial valley of Wall Street or London, the fashion valley of Emliano Romagna in Italy."

A guy called Professor Tom Cannon has been helping cities from Boston to Liverpool develop into a new kind of city-state (economically and job-creationally speaking) termed an Ideopolis. This involves developing your own power of attraction as a region by stimulating the growth of 'valley'-type clusters of activity in your area, centring on high value knowledge, ideas and creativity-based jobs.

Not much consolation to a call centre worker in Nebraska who has just lost her job to someone in New Delhi, though, I'll grant you.

The emergence of ‘the internet of things’ – the increasing merging of the internet and the real world as more and more devices act as bridges between the two – was brought home to be recently by the pigeon that blogs. This extract is from ‘The New World of Blogjects’ in Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends blog ( http://www.primidi.com/2006/03/14.html#a1467 ). Piquepaille is quoting from Julian Bleeker’s ‘Why Things Matter’ – a ‘Manifesto for Networked Objects’.

The Pigeon that Blogs

“The Pigeon that Blogs is a project by Beatriz da Costa. It’s a pigeon, or more precisely, a flock of pigeons that are equipped with some telematics to communicate on the Internet wirelessly, a GPS device for tracing where it’s been flying, and an environmental sensor that records the levels of toxins and pollutants in the air through which they fly. These are the bits of data that the flocks ‘blog’.

They disseminate their flight paths, probably viewable on a Google Map, together with information about the current toxic state of the local atmosphere. The Pigeon that Blogs is a mash-up of GPS, GSM communications technology and pollution sensors that represents a full-order species evolution...

About the utility of such a mash-up, (Julian) Bleecker uses this analogy: ‘Pigeons that tell us about the quality of the air we breathe are the Web 2.0 (or World 2.0) progeny of the Canary in the Coal Mine’.”

Why do leaders need to know this?

Because you need to know your organizations and people are increasingly operating in World 2.0 rather than just Web 2.0. The real world and the internet are merging.

Bleecker is a researcher at the University of Southern California, and published his paper earlier this year. ‘Blogjects’ are, like the pigeon, objects that blog. People have been using the phrase “Web 2.0” over the past year or so to describe the post-dotcom interactive internet where the user ‘mashes up’ internet content and applications to suit their needs.

Bleeker and others point out that the phrase “Web 2.0” is too modest and implies the Web is still safely behind the screen of your laptop. No, it’s not. It’s merging with the real world to create what Bleeker calls “World 2.0”.

A friend of mine who works at Virgin Atlantic said to me a long while ago “Richard Branson's mum is the reason he is like he is, you know; why he expects people to take the initiative to do the right thing, to be creative and responsible but to have fun and take chances, too.”

I didn’t understand what she meant till I read these two anecdotes from Branson, below:

Find your own way home

“When I was four years old, Mum stopped the car a few miles from our house and told me to find my own way home across the fields. She made it a game, one I was happy to play. It was an early challenge.

As I grew older, these lessons grew harder. Early one winter morning, Mum shook me awake and told me to get dressed. It was dark and cold, but I crawled out of bed. I was given a packed lunch and an apple. ‘I’m sure you’ll find some water along the way,’ Mum said, as she waved me off on a fifty-mile bike ride to the south coast.

It was still dark when I set off on my own. I spent the night with a relative and returned home the next day. When I walked into the kitchen at home, I felt very proud. I was sure I would be greeted with cheers. Instead, Mum said, ‘Well done, Ricky. Was that fun? Now run along: the vicar wants you to chop some logs for him.’

To some people this might sound harsh. But the members of my family love and care for each other very much. We are a close-knit unit. My parents wanted us to be strong and to rely on ourselves.”

How to start an airline

You can see how that ‘Find your own way home, Ricky and have fun doing it’ spirit fostered by Branson’s mum helped to shape Branson as he grew older, in this anecdote, from later in his life:

“Our plan was to travel on to Puerto Rico – but when we got to the airport, the flight was cancelled. People were roaming about, looking lost. No one was doing anything. So I did – someone had to.

I chartered a plane for about $2,000. I divided that by the number of people. It came to $39 a head. I borrowed a blackboard and wrote on it:

VIRGIN AIRWAYS.
$39 SINGLE FLIGHT
TO PUERTO RICO

….I had never chartered a plane before.”

I love that “I had never chartered a plane before”.

I spent part of our family summer holiday reading Richard Branson's autobiography Losing My Virginity (thanks for the loan of the book, Brom), which is where these two anecdotes come from.

The stories give you an insight into the Virgin employee culture of personal leadership, taking responsibility, innovation and customer-centredness that clearly comes direct from Branson (and from his Mum).