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Q:
I find that, in running my business, I am making many
decisions alone. I know that can’t be good. How can a
leader keep from becoming isolated? Arthur Lakiisa,
Kampala,
Uganda
A: It’s
something of a coincidence that your question arrived this
week, just as two CEOs, Chuck Prince of Citigroup Inc. and
Stan O’Neal of Merrill Lynch & Co., were cast out of their
jobs and publicly crucified for the “sin” of surprising
the market with bad results.
Now, we
don’t know if either CEO had become isolated from the
people in his respective organization who knew trouble was
looming. But the magnitude of the “expectation gap”
suggests both CEOs were blindsided, at least to some
degree, by their company’s poor performance. Like you,
perhaps, they were lonely at the top.
And
perhaps, like you, they knew it wasn’t good. They just
didn’t catch the problem soon enough.
That can
be a fatal mistake.
In fact,
when you’re a leader, the last thing you should let happen
is getting pushed into an ivory corner, where you end up
plucking decisions out of the air or pecking at a
keyboard.
And yet,
obvious as that may be, there’s something about becoming a
boss that incontrovertibly lends itself to isolation. It’s
as if every natural force is working to “protect” you from
reality. Good news travels up fast, but bad news festers,
down in the trenches with the people hoping they can make
it go away before anyone notices.
At the
same time, there is the propensity for leaders—for
anyone—to surround themselves with “yes types” who make
themselves all the more welcome with the assurance, “Don’t
worry, everything is under control.” In most companies, of
course, that’s rarely the case. This is why you have to
get aggressive about fighting creeping insularity.
How?
Well,
large company leaders, like Prince and O’Neal, actually
have a special lever to start with. They can cut layers,
since layers do nothing but filter information. But other,
more universal techniques work very well, too.
For
instance, any leader can leave the office—and should.
Every day “embedded” is a day you’re not out learning
about your own people and processes, not to mention market
realities. Since you can’t put an electric shock in your
chair, how about a sign on your desk with the words, “Why
are you here?” Visit stores, trading floors, regional
offices or factories. And visit customers, not just when
they call to complain, but several times a year.
Just as
important as getting yourself outside is whom you surround
yourself with inside. Sure, most leaders have a standing
group of advisers comprised of direct reports. But such
committees can easily fall into a grind, where dialogue
devolves into them telling you what they assume you want
to hear.
You can
beat that dynamic by reaching into the organization to
create a revolving “kitchen cabinet” filled with smart,
edgy, self-confident individuals who have
in-the-fingertips expertise.
Try to
avoid the usual suspects; seek out people tucked in areas
or functions out of your direct line of sight, and make
especially sure you’re gathering people who are sworn
change agents and inveterate cranks. Change agents are
usually the first to sense a shift in the market. And
cranks, well, yes, they can be annoying, always nattering
about how the ship has cracks. But the best of the lot are
usually onto something. Ignore them at your peril.
Finally,
leaders can prevent insularity by doing something that
will surely feel, at first, terribly counterintuitive.
They must act like the dumbest person in the room.
Sure, as a
boss, people will turn to you for all the answers, and
you’ll want to respond in kind. But instead, show people
that your job is to have all the questions. Greet every
decision, proposal or piece of data with “What if?” and
“Why not?” and “How come?” Then wallow in the answers,
dropping every artifice of formality during the ensuing
conversation and debate.
It won’t
happen overnight, but in time, this approach will breed a
culture of vigorous engagement, drawing the best ideas out
of the group and, yes, even surfacing the buried crisis
that is just about to blow.
Which
brings us back to Chuck Prince and Stan O’Neal. Again,
we’re not saying either CEO suffered from isolation. We
just don’t know. But the market’s surprise at their poor
results begs a question that every leader must ask: Am I
alone up here?
The answer
can never be yes.
****
Jack
and Suzy Welch are the authors of the international
bestseller Winning (Collins). Their latest book is
Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest
Questions in Business Today (Collins). They are eager to
hear about your career dilemmas and challenges at work and
look forward to answering your questions in future
columns. You can e-mail them questions at winning@nytimes.com.
Please include your name, occupation, city and country. |
