Steve Jobs' Leadership Lesson 7 - Bend Reality

According to his colleagues, Steve Jobs used a "Reality Distortion Field" to push people to do the impossible* and he believed that "life's ordinary rules didn't apply to him".  When a supplier complained that over confidence would not overcome real challenges, Jobs' replied "Get your mind around it.  You can do it".

A leader often has to ask the seemingly impossible of his/her followers, and followers often rise to this challenge.  The leadership lesson is that people have more in them than they and their manager or leader realise.  To rise to a challenge they must be motivated, and the motivation comes from their leader's confidence that they can do so.

Next: Lesson 8 - Impute

*Adapted from "The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, in hbr.org. 

Managers and Leaders

I'm continuing to clarify and make cogent and coherent my thoughts on managers as leaders.  The current vogue is the make the two synonymous when talking about CEOs, in particular.  I believe that this is simply "spin" - the Management "brand" has been soiled, now we have the New! Improved! Fresh! Leader running our businesses.  Unfortunately this has given CEOs a false sense of their competency and contribution, allowing them to present themselves as experts in business, economics and politics.

Are managers also leaders?

Certainly there are times when managers are required to lead.  But one can only be leader of people, not a business or an asset or resource.  Generally, managers supervise people.  In the day-to-day events of a business, leadership is not required.  A managers responsibility is to ensure an organisation serves its customers; from this service benefits will flow to the other stakeholders.  To serve its customers, the people, activities and resources of the organisation must be planned, organised, directed and controlled, in some fashion.

Are leaders also managers?

Not necessarily, certainly not in a supervisory manner.  Followers can organise themselves.  The leaders responsibility is to serve the organisation's followers - its people (employees, in a business organisation).  This is a secondary responsibility of managers.

Managers following Leaders

Semco is a business where senior management have come closest to being leaders.  In Semco, the business is managed by the employees (the followers).  In most businesses, supervision rules, and leadership a mere platitude.

Steve Jobs' Leadership Lesson 6 - Don't Be a Slave to Focus Groups

Think in terms of what people need, not what they want.

Make a difference.

Albert Scheiwtzer (1875-1965)

Next: Lesson 7 - Bend Reality

Adapted from "The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, in hbr.org. 

Reflections upon the last two lectures

Thinking about Leadership

We were asked what we had found affirming and disturbing over the past few lectures

Affirming

I found that my misgivings concerning the current management paradigm - both its theory and practice - were affirmed.  Although leadership is not just about management, the two have become conflated (see my post from the 16th of April on "Leadership Competencies")  and, rather than address its low competency in management, those in management have shifted our focus to leadership.  We now have poor management and poor leadership.

Disturbing

At the core of this problem is the hierarchical approach to management so common in the modern economy.  The approach creates management problems and comes up with new approaches to address them.  These new solutions are then misapplied, causing further problems.

Hard Decisions

It is common the read of managers describing how it was necessary for them to make the "hard decisions" such as sacking workers and closing factories (such as in the King Gee immersion experience).  Hard for the worker, not as hard for the manager!  The hard decisions were those not made by the managers; the ones that may have allowed the factory to be more productive; the ones that would have given the workers machinery, facilities etc to start their won textiles business.  This would have meant hard work and arguing (with their management).

Positive Organisational Scholarship

I find the topic fascinating but disturbing!  Such an effort to make a positive workplace when the standard management approach is so negative.  Again, new tools to fix problems that are inherent in the system.

The End of Leadership - Barbara Kellerman

In her new book, Kellerman decries the gap between "the teaching of leadership and the practice of leadership" and expresses her concern over the rise of the "leadership industry, of which she is a part.  She, in the extract we read in class, also seems to conflate "leadership" and "management".  Why do we need 24x7 leadership?  Why do we need a specific leader?  Why do we need 24x7 management? Why do we need a specific manager?   We we don't.  But when we try, we create more leadership and management problems.

Ricardo Semler and W. Edwards Deming

These two gents provide solid and successful examples of a different management/leadership paradigm.  Deming in Japan and around the  world; Semler in Brazil at Semco.

If the many solutions tried don't solve the problem, then perhaps we are looking at the wrong problem.

Summary

So far I've found the Leadership, Coaching and Mentoring course to be confronting, revealing, enlightening, provocative.  Oh, and formative in a visceral sort of way.

Steve Jobs' Leadership Lesson 5 - Put Products Before Profits

Jobs' view was that Apple should be "an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary.  Sure it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products.  But the products, not the profits, were the motivation".  Isaacson sees the leadership lesson as "put product before profits", but isn't this too narrow for a leadership lesson?  Doesn't this reflect Jobs' staying true to Apple's purpose (see Lesson 1 - Focus)?

An organisation (company, team, government) needs a clear purpose and must stay true to it.  This doesn't mean that all other aspects are ignored.  The organisation must continue to exist if it is to achieve its purpose, but mere existence is not its reason for being.

Next: Lesson 6 - Don't Be a Slave to Focus Groups

*Adapted from "The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, in hbr.org. 

Toyota - Altona, Values ...

Altona
ABC Online reported (April 18th) that Toyota has "assessed more than 3,000 workers at the site and says it is firing those with the lowest ratings".
Federal Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten says "last night and tonight people will be at home their kids will be asking them mummy, daddy did you lose your job because you are a slacker and that is not the case".

Values

Toyota's Values include "Respect for people".

... and Leadership?

Steve Jobs' Leadership Lesson 4 - When Behind, Leapfrog

Isaacson* believes that an innovative company isn't only one that comes up with new ideas, but one that "leapfrogs when it is behind".  He cites the iTunes-iTunes Store-iPod combination that changed the industry - making CDs obsolescent for swapping music -  when Jobs discovered his error in not providing the Mac with a CD burner.

The broader lesson is that continuous improvement must be coupled with "breakthrough" innovation for a company to progress and dominate its markets.  The lesson for those who are passed by is that competitors don't always respond to competitive disadvantage by emulating the successful player(s).  They may also change the game and send everyone else "back to zero"**.

Next: Lesson 5 - Put Products Before Profits

*Adapted from "The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson, in hbr.org. 

**Barker, J. A. 1993, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, HarperBusiness