Er, don't watch all of it: it'll drive you crazy. Give it a minute or two to load, then the blank space below this should disappear. I never did like that John C. Maxwell book much, anyway...

I usually hate sporting analogies, but bear with me on this one:

I remember my respect for David Beckham going way up eight years ago when I heard him tell this story: Manchester United were 1-0 down to Bayern Munich in the final of the European Champions League. It was the 89th minute of the game. Just one minute remaining on the clock for the most prestigious trophy in European football (OK, soccer, if you must). Beckham was about to take a corner.

This was a trophy United had not won since 1968. Passions were running high. Beckham looked up as he was about to take the corner, with one minute of the match left, and saw the officials in the stand bringing the Champions League Cup out, ready for the presentation. He saw a flash of colour: they had already tied Bayern Munich's team colours onto the handles of the trophy.

Beckham says one thought ran through his head. And it wasn't "We've lost". It was "Oh no you don't!".

Millions of people watching the game on TV knew that, with one minute to go, United had lost. 70,000 people in the stadium knew that United had lost. 11 members of the Bayern Munich team knew that United had lost. Even the officials in charge of presenting the trophy knew that United had lost.

But Beckham didn't. And he galvanised his team into a three minute frenzy. From his corner, they equalised. Two minutes later, in extra time, they scored the winning goal. The officials quietly changed the team colours on the handles of the trophy to red and white.

The last minute of the game, before the final goal is scored, is extraordinary to watch (I have it on video: sorry; been a fan since I was tiny and saw them win it in 1968 in black and white on TV). The faces of the German players are complete panic. From knowing they have won, they somehow know they have lost, even before the last goal is scored, even though the statistical probability of anyone scoring in those remaining seconds is minuscule.

I was reminded of this by Gavin Esler's brilliant series on Radio 4 this morning about the Clinton years in The White House. Like Tony Blair when he first walked into Number 10, Clinton was mystified that the levers of power didn't seem connected to anything. Nothing went right in his first few months. A friend of his commented that when Clinton was winning, he would coast and needed reminding to push. But, when he was losing, he was at his best. He became so depressed when he lost both Houses to the Republicans that "he moped for months" trying to work out what to do. Then began the most successful period of his presidency. It was a Comeback Kid moment.

Leaders lose well, in the sense described above. Losing makes them stronger.

Gavin Esler's series on The Clinton Years is compulsive listening. It's on BBC Radio 4 . At time of writing this, there's a link to it under the 'listen again' heading on the BBC Radio 4 website

Labels: Losing

"Truemor #1: 24% of the bottled water bought in the US is tap water processed and branded by Coke and Pepsi."

From Guy Kawasaki's neat Top Ten Truemors podcast, lasting about a minute and a half and very entertaining, which you can find here:

Top Ten Truemors

Labels: The surplus economy

Harvard's Jim Hesketh is hosting an interesting forum on whether 'Millennials' - people born at the tail end of the 1970s - will make good managers and leaders or not. They're the "Generation Y" who are seen as hard work by the people who manage them because they prize 'know why' over 'know how' - If they don't buy into the 'why' of what you are doing you won't get their whole-hearted co-operation.

My thoughts are that the Gen Y, with their lack of respect for authority and constant questioning and tinkering and need for reasons, are shaping up to be a far better crop of leaders than the current lot if this example (below)is anything to go by. It impressed me, anyway...

I just came back from a family holiday in Portugal. I always enjoy these, as it allows me to reconnect with my older son and his wife while lounging around the pool reading and chatting, and I always learn something from them. They are 'Millenials', I guess, though I'm never sure about the wisdom of classifying a whole generation with particular traits: it seems based on the same principle as astrology.

Anyway, here's what I learnt from Chantel, my daughter-in-law, this time around:

She manages the children's department in a book store. The previous department head had been in post for years and left suddenly. Chantel was promoted into the position. No-one else knew how the department was run. It just ran well, with the department head seen as the fount of all knowledge and the 'go to' person to deal with any problems, as is often the case with a long-standing efficient department manager who has been in place for years.

Since no-one expected the department head to leave, there had been no succession planning. So, where do you go when the 'go to' person has gone? "I found this hidden world of paperwork and processes that the previous boss had kept away from me, for all the right reasons. This was the secret formula that kept the department running well and I was terrified of tinkering with it," said Chantel.

Chantel took a deep breath and spent some time figuring out how it all worked. Then she spotted an improvement she wanted to make, made it, and held her breath. Had she messed with the magic formula? Would it all come crashing down around her ears? Suddenly people came out of the woodwork saying how great the change was and why hadn't they done it before. Emboldened by this, she made some more changes, each of which was welcomed. Nobody had imagined doing things differently before because, well, it had all worked fine before.

A few months on and Chantel has been offered another promotion, managing the children's department at another store. She is grooming her successor in the old job, introducing her to the paperwork and the processes that the department head has to manage, because she doesn't want her successor left in the dark and having to figure it out herself, as she had to.

And this is the bit that impressed me: "I said to her, when I come back in a few months to visit, don't let me find this all the same as I left it. Make changes! Make it better! I don't want to find when I come back that you are doing the same things I was. I want you doing it better than I did!"

I love that message: "Here's what you're inheriting and your job is to change it!" "Change this!" is such a powerful green light to flash at leaders coming into new positions. As ever, that means leaders at all levels, not just the official leader in the hierarchy.

It contrasts powerfully with the old notion of leaders as guardians of the way things have been done and as champions of their own way of doing things, and scared of allowing alternative approaches in case they turn out to be better than their own.

If that's typical of Millenial generation leadership, then I think we are in safe hands.

Here's Jim Hesketh's forum, over at the Harvard Working Knowledge site

Labels: Generation Y