Failure, Loss, and Other Character Builders

Steve Tobak, Jeffrey Pfeffer, and Stanley Bing are three of my favorite author/bloggers these days. All three are well respected authors with multiple books under the belt and the reputation and credibility to be very comfortable not being politically correct. As you might suspect the state of the current economy has given all three plenty of material to work with as they both proactively share their views on how we got here and respond to the questions of others.

All three have spent some time lately talking about leadership and character and what it takes to achieve and maintain true leadership stature. The topic of failure is especially an interesting one.
I spend a bit of time on the social networking site LinkedIn (have you seen what’s on TV these days) both asking and responding to questions. For those of you unfamiliar with it, LinkedIn is kind of FaceBook for those of us with 40 in our rear view mirror.

I have always been intrigued with what constitutes failure for different people so on Sunday evening I posted a three part question:
· What is your most significant “failure” to date?
· What did you learn from it?
· What if anything would you do differently?
Well, I got to tell you folks, did I apparently hit a hot button. Within 24 hours of my posting my question I had over 25 responses from all over the world! So far as of right now with less than 48 hours into it I am up to 46 answers and counting!
The answers themselves are very interesting. They range from philosophical to analytical with everything in between. About one in three actually answered all three of the sub-questions. Some of the responses were deeply sincere and intimate, they really gave me a brief window into the people behind the answer and I have added several new “connections” as a result.
Although I tried not to pre-bias the responses I received; I agree with Tobak, without “failure” you never really appreciate success and take the risks necessary to make meaningful progress. I also believe failure is when you stop trying and just embrace the status quo.

There was also a question about character on LinkedIn; are you born with it, or is it shaped over time. Once again I have a bias. You may have the attributes, but until they have been tested you really don’t know about your character.

One of the people I got to “meet” as a result of my question was an awesome young woman from Canada (I can say she is awesome because I checked out her profile on LinkedIn and got to read some of her questions and answers)
As part of our exchange she shared with me some of her own personal experiences about failure, loss, and the building of character.

A few years ago she had a beloved pet that had aged and developed health issues to the point where she and her mother thought it might be in the animal’s best interest to put it down. Among other issues the dog had gone completely blind. They chose not to and the great part of the story was the pet’s ability to adapt to its infirmity and persevere for two more years without too much deterioration in its quality of life. The story became even more compelling when a series of other events occurred in her life including:
· Her Mother’s diagnosis with cancer
· Major surgeries for both her father and father in law
· A diagnosis of infertility
She said she draws some of her inspiration from her conversation with her Mother about her (her Mothers’s) terminal diagnosis. Her mother told her “just as Baby (their pet) adapted, I will adapt and persevere”.
Currently her mother has continued to fight her disease and she has soldiered on through the other “speed bumps” that life has put in her path.
So where am I going with this. I believe in this time and in this place it is character and the willingness to learn from “failure” that will define true leaders, not MBA’s and technical skills. It is engagement and trust and relationships, not capital and technology. We have relied on those for too long and look where we are as a result.
True leadership and character and formed and tested through adversity. Show me someone who has never failed and I see either a leader; who recognizes that failure is when you quit, or a score keeper who plays not lose rather than to win.

I also think leadership comes as a gift from others; when you have lost and persevered you have started to build not only the “skills” to lead, but the empathy and compassion that true leadership requires. You don’t get that in graduate school, you get that in life.

As to my young friend I see real leadership in her future. She has suffered adversity and persevered, she has the courage to soldier on, and she has a wonderful articulate way of sharing her experiences as a way not to evoke sympathy, but rather to create empathy. That my friends is what true leadership is based on….

Yes, Virginia We Still Need Leaders!

I saw question on LinkedIn this week that really kind of caught me off guard. It was asking why we can't outsource management like other "non-core" functions.
That explains a lot to me about where we are in our current relationships between stakeholders and the financial crisis. One response to that question was that we already had outsourced management- their role is to represent the "owners" interest in interacting with customers.
Hmm, not much of a stakeholder viewpoint there.

I read a couple of excellent articles on BNET this week. The first was by Jeffrey Pfeffer, the professor and author from Stanford. He was talking about the real lessons we should be learning from the Detroit meltdown. He points out that indirectly the leadership of the auto industry has inferred that much of the issue can be laid at the feet of the UAW- that paying for health care and retirement benefits represents $1500 to $2000 per vehicle. He examined it a little deeper and said he believes the bigger issue is the $6000 per vehicle difference in revenue per vehicle between Detroit and Japan! He said he got those numbers from an industry report that is no longer published, because of resistance from the Big three.

Pfeffer says the real problem is one of desirability; American production vehicles are not as desirable so the big three has relied on incentives to create sales rather than design innovation, quality and other differentiators. He also talks about the the billions that GM and Chrysler paid out to appease shareholders. The Japanese reinvested in better equipment, better technology, and financial reserves. His indictment is that the people running Detroit (and Wall Street) have been obsessed with the numbers to the detriment of listening to customers and employees.

Steve Tobak talks about similar leadership failures in high technology and other industries- can you say AIG or the financial services sector? One of the things I have noticed over the last few months is a resounding silence around personal accountability from industry "leadership". He goes on to say we need to get it- we are not a global monopoly anymore. Customers have choices and will act on them.

We blame it on the economy, we blame it on the unions, and now we are itching to blame it on the Chinese for buying up our debt!

I have talked before about true engagement, your customers and your employees, and the resulting benefits. I have also discussed the issue Pfeffer focuses on ; we need real leadership, not management by the numbers. I am not suggesting that numbers aren't an important consideration, but I would submit if you focus on the core activities you need to create true engagement the numbers will follow.

The role of the leader is to create clarity for the entire organization, the role of management is to remove the ambiguity between the larger vision and the individual employee's job. If we have gotten to the stage where we truly believe that we can outsource those things we truly are in deep trouble.