Minding Gaps

Quote / Unquote: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Hypocrisy

 

Recently we resumed publishing a feature we call Quote / Unquote, which offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, change, or engagement in business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion. Occasionally, however, the quotation stands alone.

Previous posts in this category have included, among others, Peter Drucker on regarding employees as volunteers, Charles Osgood on responsibility, Margaret Mead on teams, Jim Nordstrom on employee engagement, Andre Agassi on decisions, Carl Jung on accountability, Albert Einstein on curiosity, Bejamin Disraeli on the great paradox of leadership, Charles Dickens on electronic communication, and Eric Hoffer on change. For any of those posts, or for any of the other 400 essays in our archives, just enter a keyword in the search box to the right.

Our quotation today comes from the leading voice of American Transcendentalism in the 19th century. The wisdom of this quotation is as valid and as relevant today as ever.

by Thomas J. Lee

Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, laid the cornerstones of Transcendentalist thought in the United States. A reaction to both stolid religious doctrine and objective intellectualism that found no room for intuitive faith, Transcendentalism offered a path for spirituality that resided in the individual's heart and mind. It required no confirmation from either ecclesiastical or academic authority.

A prolific essayist and frequent lecturer, Emerson had a silver tongue for aphorisms, many of which have survived more than a century since his death in 1882. You may recall one from ever-present dorm posters in college: "Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail." You can easily find many others in a quick online search.

One of my favorite Emerson quotations speaks to every business manager and, for that matter, any leader in any walk of life:

 

What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.

 

We have often used this venue to explain that words count, for they set expectations, but that decisions and behavior count even more as communication, for they either validate or invalidate the words.

Moreover, we have asserted that nonverbal communication is far more than it is conventionally thought of: body language, facial expression, and vocal intonation. It is actually the totality of what you think and do. 

To our thinking, many companies (and even more so, politicians) are preoccupied with what they say—to employees, to customers, to shareowners, and to regulators—at the expense of what they intend and do to bring meaning and import to their words. All too often they devote more time to crafting just the right words than to committing themselves to following through.

Take a few moments to reflect on Emerson's quotation, and then consider the following questions:

• Why is it so common to say one thing and do another?
• What are some inherent difficulties in seeking to speak with authority and influence?
• Why can it it be especially problematic to say the "right thing"?
• How often do you fail to live up to your own words? Who is usually the first to notice it? Do you sometimes not notice it at all?
• What built-in constraints can you identify to talking? (You may wish to refer back to our essay of May 20 on ten talk traps.)
• When you think of nonverbal communication, do you think mainly of body language? Facial expression? Vocal intonation? Or something bigger?
• What other kinds of nonverbal communication communicate far more?
• What does your own nonverbal communication say about you? In what ways?
• How are you working to lead with more integrity?

Coming on Monday

Data on Leadership Training

Coming on Wednesday

Types of Authority

 © Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

Quote / Unquote: Rod Tidwell on Primitive Communication

 

It has been a while since we published a feature we call Quote / Unquote, which offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, change, or engagement in business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion. Occasionally, however, the quotation stands alone.

Previous posts in this category have included, among others, Peter Drucker on regarding employees as volunteers, Charles Osgood on responsibility, Margaret Mead on teams, Jim Nordstrom on employee engagement, Andre Agassi on decisions, Carl Jung on accountability, Albert Einstein on curiosity, Bejamin Disraeli on the great paradox of leadership, Charles Dickens on electronic communication, and Eric Hoffer on change. For any of those posts, or for any of the other 400 essays in our archives, just enter a keyword in the search box to the right.

Today we turn to Rod Tidwell, the fictional National Football League wide receiver in the 1996 Cameron Crowe movie "Jerry Maguire," which starred Tom Cruise in the title role, along with Cuba Gooding Jr. as Tidwell and Renée Zellweger as Dorothy Boyd. To my thinking, "Jerry Maguire" should have won the Oscar for best picture that "The English Patient" did win.

by Thomas J. Lee

In "Jerry Maguire," the 1996 movie that Cameron Crowe both wrote and directed, Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Rod Tidwell, a self-centered professional football player, to Tom Cruise's Jerry Maguire, his agent.

Crowe gave Tidwell several powerful lines, one of which is among the most memorable in the history of movie making, for it was Tidwell who said: "Show me the money!"

But another of Tidwell's line's in the same movie is even more relevant to the subject of this blog and to your work as a manager and a leader: 

 

Talking is just a primitive form of communication.

 

One of the fundamental points we have made repeatedly in Minding Gaps over the years is that your words count, but your intent, behavior, and decisions count as much or more. They are your identity, your character. They are you.

Moreover, nonverbal communication is far more than it is conventionally thought of. It is the totality of what you think, say, and do.

To our thinking, many companies (and even more so, politicians) are preoccupied with what they say at the expense of what they intend and do to bring meaning and import to their words. 

Reflect on Tidwell's line about primitive communication, and then consider the following questions:

• Why does he call talking "primitive communication"?
• What are the limitations of talking in business? (You may wish to refer back to our essay of May 20 on ten talk traps.)
• When you think of nonverbal communication, do you think mainly of body language? Facial expression?
• What other kinds of nonverbal communication communicate far more than body language or facial expression?
• What does your own nonverbal communication say about you? In what ways?
• Is it deliberate or accidental?
• How specifically are you working to improve your nonverbal messages?

Coming on Monday

The Vision of a Celebration

 © Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

Quote / Unquote: Carl Jung on Causation and Accountability

 

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

 

 

by Thomas J. Lee

Carl Jung (1875-1961) was a pioneering Swiss psychiatrist whose work has had an impact on virtually everyone who reads this blog. If you have ever taken a Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator profile, you have met the good Dr. Jung.

Jung's 1921 opus, Psychological Types, is the foundation of the MBTI profile. The MBTI, as most of you know, recognizes 16 general personality types based on binary data on each of four metrics: extraverted (E) versus introverted (I), intuitive (N) versus sensing (S), thinking (T) versus feeling (F), and perceiving (P) versus judging (J).

(For the record, I have taken the MBTI three times over a span of fifteen years, and each time my type is just slightly different. I am on the cusp between I and E, always extremely N, somewhat to the T side, and again on the cusp between P and J. My I/E and P/J scores waffle just a little. But because I am at the fulcrum of each, and the assignment of type is binary, it is enough to give me different scores.)

Jung was also a fountain of incisive, deep, Zenlike quips and quotes. It was he who said: "That which we resist persists." He also observed: "Your vision will become real only when you look into your heart. He who looks outward dreams. He who looks inward awakens." There are many others like these two.

I have long thought that business leaders especially can grow by reflecting on this little gem from Jung:

 

That which we do not bring to

consciousness appears in our lives as fate.

 

A quotation like this can seem elusive, ambiguous, airily theoretical. In the day-to-day rush of business it can seem irrelevant and even useless.

But take a moment to think about it. Devote some serious reflection to it, perhaps with a pen and a journal at hand. Ask yourself:

• What aspects of your professional life do you ascribe to fate or destiny? In what ways could you take accountability for them? How might you bring them to the surface?
• What aspects of your personal life do you ascribe to fate, or to luck, for better or for worse? In what ways should you throw a spotlight on them and take accountability for their presence?
• What aspects of our public and civic life do we tend avoid taking responsibility for? In what ways should we? What are the consequences of not?

What other questions might you ask? What insights of your own can you offer?

 

(c) 2011 Arceil Leadership Ltd. All rights reserved.

Quote / Unquote: Anne Morriss on Commitment

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

For several years, and until only recently, Starbucks Coffee Co. printed scores of thoughtful quotations on the side of its paper cups. The quotations were submitted by ordinary, everyday customers.

One quotation in particular, No. 76, caught my eye. After it appeared in my hand several times, I recorded it in the journal that I carry everywhere I go.

The author, Anne Morriss of New York City, described herself on the cup as an “organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist.” She works as an international business consultant. I have never had the pleasure of meeting her, but the depth of her thinking speaks for itself.

Here is her quotation:

 Here are some questions to ponder:

 

• What do you think of this insight?
  
  
• How does it apply in your personal life and in your professional life?
  
  
• Just what does commitment mean to you?
  
  
• What are the barriers to it in your experience?
  
  
• How can you overcome them?
  
  
• Are they the same for everyone?

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Fourth of July

 

After the thirteen colonies declared independence from the British crown 234 years ago, the American patriot John Adams wrote to his beloved Abigail back in Massachusetts: “I am apt to believe [the anniversary] will be celebrated by succeeding generations . . . with pomp and parade; with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations; from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forever more.”

Now that, we can all agree, was an extraordinary leadership vision.

 

 

We are not publishing on Monday, July 5, in observance of the Fourth of July. (Independence Day falls on a Sunday this year, and businesses are closed on Monday to observe it.) We will return to this space on Wednesday, July 7.

Celebrate exuberantly but safely, and have a glorious Fourth of July.

 

 

 

 

The Gift of Uncertainty

Are you often sure of yourself?

Are you often certain you are right?

I am, until I am not; and I wish I were not at all.

Omniscient certitude is obnoxious. It is arrogance afoot. It is corrosive to thoughtful, reflective leadership.

You see it in politics all the time. Tune in either of the two more dogmatic cable networks (Fox News for the right, MS-NBC for the left), and you cannot go an hour without coming across it. All the pundits and politicians are absolutely, positively convinced of their own point of view.

I fear their arrogance is contagious. More and more, people are just so certain of their own viewpoint—so certain that they have no time for anyone else’s.

Justice Learned Hand once wrote: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.” That is just so profoundly true.

Many years ago, when I wrote a weekly newspaper column, I confessed to my own doubts about the Vietnam War. In one column, I told of a high-school class reunion that I had recently attended. Before dinner, we had memorialized a classmate who died in Vietnam. His parents were there with us. His mother told us that she was always so patriotic, but that she still couldn’t quite understand exactly what her son died for. Neither could I.

After the column appeared, I received a thoughtful, gentle letter from a conservative reader. He wrote to comfort me. He said: “I wish I were as certain about anything as some people are about everything.”

Indeed. Indeed.

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Quote / Unquote: John F. Kennedy on Lies and Myths

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

On a recent weeklong business trip to a client’s site in New England, I took the better part of a Saturday afternoon to tour the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. It is a magnificent place, and I recommend it to anyone visiting Boston.

President Kennedy is the first president I can vividly remember; for me, the day of his assassination is like an old newsreel in my memory. Though history has since revealed his flaws, he unarguably had a poetic and even inspiring command of the English language—so much so that it has long been iconic to leaders everywhere, of all disciplines and all political ideologies.

Visitors to the JFK Museum view a 20-minute video that captures the highlights of his life and brief presidency. At the start of the video, there is a quote that I had never come across beforehand. It is from a commencement address the Harvard man gave at Yale University in 1962:

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere—in government as in business, in politics as in economics, in foreign affairs as in domestic affairs.

Think about this statement. Then, in reflecting on it, ask yourself:

• Do you find it a compelling truth?
  
  
• Where in your own affairs do you find it?
  
  
• Where in your thinking are you accountable for tolerating or even perpetuating myths?
  
  
• What are the costs of laboring under the weight of myths in business?
  
  

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Disraeli vs. Burke: Two Contrasting Views on Leadership

Here are two famous quotations on leadership. Both come from prominent figures in British history. Take a moment to read them and think about them. Then choose the statement that you believe represents the truer path to effective leadership.

You can select either statement, or neither, or both—but if you say that both are true paths to leadership, be ready to reconcile the irony.

Finally, after answering but before reading any further, determine exactly what the statement or statements you deem true should mean for your leadership style. In particular, should you change your style? If so, how? Will you? When?

The first quotation, a paradox on its face, was uttered by Benjamin Disraeli, who was prime minister of Britain in the mid-19th century. Disraeli declared:

I must follow my people. Am I not their leader?

The second statement, which collides headlong with modern notions of representative democracy, is commonly attributed to Edmund Burke. In a 1774 address to the electors of Bristol, England, he declared:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment, and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

There you have it: two tidy quotations representing two diametrically opposed approaches to leadership. Disraeli beckons the leader to lead only to the extent his followers want. Burke calls on the leader to realize her own vision and to follow not her constituents but her own conscience, as a moral duty to her followers.

Which statement do you believe holds the key to true leadership? Does either? Do both? If both, how can they not undermine each other?

The first statement holds important lessons for business leaders, who typically wear two hats: one as a leader, the other as a manager. We often default to our role as managers, which has the unhappy effect of stymieing and thwarting change. Business leaders would do well to listen more to their followers and to question more often their own assumptions, biases, perspective, and knowledge, for their own arrogance is their biggest enemy. To them, I say: Listen to Disraeli.

But there's a fine line between heeding Disraeli's counsel and fatuously putting a finger to the wind without finding your own center of gravity. Having a core identity, knowing it, and bringing it to the table are vital to the cause of leadership. Yes, of course it will cost you some followers. No leader can appeal to everyone. But willow-to-the-wind navigation is scarcely leadership at all.

So we turn to Burke. He asks us to look inside ourselves, to reach deep into our souls as leaders, so that we can find the true north of our own moral compass. Then he commands us to follow it. "If you should be a leader, then lead!" he would say.

That approach is enormously appealing. After eons of depending on leaders, we survivors of 100,000 generations of humanoids and humans have a culturally instinctive need for leadership, embodying at the very least an innate sense of direction, a tireless energy, the steady sunburst of hope and perseverance, and frequent articulation of what followers need to know and remember and feel and do.

So which, you ask, do I believe is the truer path to leadership? You knew the answer all along, of course. Disraeli and Burke are both on to something big, something important. It is a paradox of leadership, and a profound paradox at that, to realize that they both counsel essential roads to leadership. Far from being mutually exclusive, they are mutually reinforcing. Each is stronger for the other.

For further reflection, ask yourself and your colleagues:

• What do we learn from Burke? From Disraeli?

• Why are these lessons from the 18th and 19th centuries important to a 21st century business?

• How do they challenge our leadership? What do they say about our connectivity with followers? About our authenticity as leaders?

• Can we forge a stronger connection with our people?

• What is the value of a strong, resilient connection with our people?

• What should we start doing? What should we stop doing? When?

• How can we hold ourselves accountable?

(Revised and republished from a posting on February 26, 2007.)

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Quote / Unquote: Jim Nordstrom on Employee Empowerment

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

 

Whole books have been written on employee empowerment, but few offer such an inspiring case study as Nordstrom, the top-tier American fashion store. Anyone who has shopped frequently at Nordstrom is familiar with its legendary and well-earned reputation for customer service.

Once, I stopped briefly at the men’s shoe department at a Nordstrom on my way out of the store. I had already purchased what I came for. But I noticed a pair of Allen-Edmonds loafers like the very ones I was wearing. A salesman approached and noticed the similarity. “Need another pair?” he asked.

“Well, the ones I have are just a wee small,” I replied. “They’re fine much of the time, but when I fly, which is often,  my feet seem to expand, and then they become unbearably tight. I suppose I could just wear different shoes whenever I travel.”

“You could, but that wouldn’t be right,” he said as he showed me to a chair. “Who on earth sold you these, anyway?’

“Actually I got them here.”

“Then it definitely isn’t right.”

Now, I had already worn these shoes for six months. They were not new. They weren’t even close to new.

The salesman insisted I take off the shoes. He disappeared in back and then re-emerged with an identical new pair a half-size larger. He was taking the initiative to replace them on his own and at no cost to me.

I protested. “It was my choice to buy the tighter fit in the first place,” I said. “I had wanted loafers to be snug. They just turned out to be too snug on airplanes.”

Still, he was insistent. Five minutes later I left with a new pair of shoes on my feet. 

That’s the way it goes at Nordstrom.

In The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America’s #1 Customer Service Company by Robert Spector and Patrick D. McCarthy (John Wiley, 1996), the late James F. Nordstrom is quoted as saying:

 

People will work hard when they are given the freedom

to do the job the way they think it should be done,

when they [can] treat customers the way

they like to be treated. When you start taking away

their incentive and start giving them rules,

 

boom, you’ve killed their creativity. 

 

For many years Nordstrom store personnel were asked to abide by just two simple rules. The first rule was: In all situations, use your good judgment. The second rule was: In other situations, refer back to Rule No. 1.

 

As you reflect on this question and on the time-honored Nordstrom policy, ask yourself what rules you can abandon and how you can develop and use the good judgment of people on your team. 

 

 

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Quote / Unquote: Andre Agassi on the Power of Decisions

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

 

I have just finished reading Andre Agassi’s memoir, Open: An Autobiography, written with J.R. Moehringer, who deserves more credit than he accepts for the book.

Like only a few memoirs by professional athletes, Agassi’s book goes deep inside the man to reveal a love-hate conflict over his sport, the twists and turns of his personal relationships, his doubts about himself, and much more. It is a probing, wise, and deeply reflective book. I recommend it.

I have a habit of using little sticky tabs to mark passages that I want to remember and perhaps cite in my own books. Just by looking at the paper side of any book that I have finished, you get a clear indication of whether I found it intellectually satisfying. Agassi’s book has more than two dozen purple tabs.

At the beginning of Chapter 21, the winner of all four Grand Slam tournaments is talking about the need to change some of his personal and professional habits, after his coach gives him an ultimatum on the loss of his international standing: either quit playing professional tennis altogether, or go back to the beginning and start all over.

Agassi realizes that any real and lasting change must begin by breaking old habits and remaking new ones. He writes, with no apology for the colorful language:

Our best intentions are often thwarted by external forces—

forces that we ourselves set in motion long ago. Decisions,

 especially bad decisions, create their own kind of momentum,

and momentum can be a bitch to stop.

 

As you reflect on this quotation, ask yourself what bad habits your team, organization, or enterprise set in place long ago, and what bad habits you and your colleagues tolerate without much second thought.

By the same token, ask yourself what good habits you have for which perhaps you don’t give yourselves enough credit.

Ask yourself what personal habits you demonstrate in the workplace that your peers and employees see, and ask yourself what the behavioral implications of those habits are on others.

Ask yourself what it would take to replace your bad habits with some better ones. Then decide when you will do it; and finally, as they say at Nike, just do it.

 

 

Quote / Unquote: Edward M. Kennedy on Shouting

  

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

 

  

I just finished reading the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s memoir, True Compass, and I heartily recommend it to anyone—Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal—for a fascinating look at politics and public policy through the eyes of the liberal lion.

The book is compulsively readable. Kennedy strings together story after story about his life. He spares no self-incrimination, especially around Chappaquiddick and his personal lifestyle during the 1970s and 1980s. Nor is he stinting in his praise for people he liked and respected, including some noteworthy Republicans, or in his scorn for those he didn’t, including some well-known Democrats.

Toward the end of the book, the late senator tells of a couple of speeches he gave. One of the speeches was to the students and faculty of Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia, which was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. The other was to his peers at the Senate Prayer breakfast.

In both speeches, Kennedy would be uncommonly forthright about his life—its promises, its principles, its practice, and its pain.

Prior to the Senate Prayer Breakfast speech, Kennedy reminded himself of the need to speak softly, in a quiet and temperate voice. He told himself:

  

 

The louder our voices become, the more

we grow strangers to each other and ourselves.

 

 

As you reflect on this quotation, ask yourself whether people argue too much. Ask yourself whether we actively look for common ground as much as we should. Ask yourself what the effect would be of lowering the volume of our debates, and of asking more genuine questions and making fewer tenuous assertions.

 

 

Quote / Unquote: Albert Einstein on Curiosity

 

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

 

Albert Einstein was a legend in his own time. His name is synonymous with intellectual brilliance, and his contributions to theoretical physics are well known. Few people, however, appreciate the authenticity of his humility and the importance of his unorthodox and persistent curiosity.

 

Einstein had an exquisite way of explaining his complex ideas. Take the theory of relativity. He put it this way: “Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”

Or consider the limits of human inquiry. The great physicist once remarked: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”

Indeed one of Einstein’s salient traits was his deep and abiding curiosity. He never relented from asking more and better questions. The habit of questioning the unquestioned, he believed, was at the foundation of intellectual progress. He put it this way:

 

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

The important thing is not to stop questioning."

 

As you reflect on this quotation, you may wish to consider the following questions of our own. We invite you to submit a comment with your thoughts.

· As you examine your life's work, what fires your curiosity?

  

· What are your assumptions, your prejudices, your biases? Which of them are unfounded?

  

· What big questions do you retreat or shrink from asking?

 

· What should be the focus of curiosity on your team or throughout your organization?

  

· How can you create an environment of curiosity?

 

 

 

 

Edmund Burke and Benjamin Disraeli on Leadership

 

Here are two famous quotations on leadership. Both come from prominent figures in British history. Read them both and then choose the statement that you think represents the truer path to effective leadership.

You can select either statement, or neither, or both. Be prepared to explain your answer. I may call on you.

Finally, after answering but before reading any further, determine exactly what the statement or statements you deem true should mean for your leadership style. In particular, should you change your style? If so, how? Will you? When?

The first quotation, a paradox on its face, was uttered by Benjamin Disraeli, who was prime minister of Britain in the mid-19th century. Disraeli declared:

I must follow my people. Am I not their leader?

The second statement, which collides headlong with modern notions of representative democracy, is commonly attributed to Edmund Burke. In a 1774 address to the electors of Bristol, England, he declared:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment,

and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

There you have it: two tidy quotations representing two diametrically opposed approaches to leadership. Disraeli beckons the leader to lead only to the extent his followers want. Burke calls on the leader to realize her own vision and to follow not her constituents but her own conscience, as a moral duty to her followers.

Which statement do you believe holds the key to true leadership? Does either? Do both? If both, how can they not undermine each other?

The first statement holds important lessons for business leaders, who typically wear two hats: one as a leader, the other as a manager. We often default to our role as managers, which has the unhappy effect of stymieing and thwarting change. Business leaders would do well to listen more to their followers and to question more often their own assumptions, biases, perspective, and knowledge, for their own arrogance is their biggest enemy. To them, I say: Listen to Disraeli.

But there's a fine line between heeding Disraeli's counsel and fatuously putting a finger to the wind without finding a center of your own. Having a core identity, knowing it, and bringing it to the table are vital to the cause of leadership. Yes, of course it will cost you some followers. No leader can appeal to everyone. But willow-to-the-wind navigation is scarcely leadership at all.

So we turn to Burke. He asks us to look inside ourselves, to reach deep into our souls as leaders, so that we can find the true north of our own moral compass. Then he commands us to follow it. "If you should be a leader, then lead!" he would say.

That approach is enormously appealing. After eons of depending on leaders, we survivors of 100,000 generations of humanoids and humans have a culturally instinctive need for leadership, embodying at the very least an innate sense of direction, a tireless energy, the steady sunburst of hope and perseverance, and frequent articulation of what followers need to know and remember and feel and do.

So which, you ask, do I believe is the truer path to leadership? You knew the answer all along, of course. Disraeli and Burke are both on to something big, something important. It is a paradox of leadership, and a profound paradox at that, to realize that they both counsel essential roads to leadership. Far from being mutually exclusive, they are mutually reinforcing. Each is stronger for the other.

For further reflection, ask yourself and your colleagues:

• What do we learn from Burke? From Disraeli?

• Why are these lessons from the 18th and 19th centuries important to a 21st century business?

• How do they challenge our leadership? What do they say about our connectivity with followers? About our authenticity as leaders?

• Can we forge a stronger connection with our people?

• What is the value of a strong, resilient connection with our people?

• What should we start doing? What should we stop doing? When?

• How can we hold ourselves accountable?

Quote / Unquote: Eric Hoffer on Change and Continuous Learning

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

 

Eric Hoffer was a longshoreman first and a philosopher second, and that makes for a powerful kind of philosophizing—its roots deep in the reality of hard work and harder living. Blind from the ages of five to fifteen, he was so thrilled to regain his eyesight that he began to read books voraciously, and he never quit.

The books and essays he himself wrote were always unorthodox and provocative. He was among the first to probe the psyche of the follower, the loner, the outcast, and the fanatic. He realized long before others the importance of self-esteem and the effects of self-doubt, isolation, and anxiety on social cohesion.

Hoffer, who never attended college but whose intellectual curiosity was towering, had a gift for packing a lightning bolt of meaning into a candlestick of prose. Thus, we are blessed with many quotations from his pen, like this:

In times of change, learners inherit the earth,

while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped

to deal with a world that no longer exists.

As you reflect on this quote, ask yourself some questions:

• What are the changes you and your organization face today?

• To what extent are you already insightful, or learned, about these changes and their impact?

• To what extent are you and your colleagues disposed to learning?

Quote / Unquote: John Quincy Adams on Inspirational Leadership

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion.

John Quincy Adams, the first son of a U.S. president to follow in his father’s footsteps, is not particularly known for his leadership. His single term as president, from 1825 to 1829, ended in electoral defeat at the hands of Andrew Jackson, and Adams had little to show for his tenure in office.

Nevertheless, he was a scholarly and deeply reflective gentleman. For more than half a century, he kept a daily diary of his observations and thoughts. He wrestled with big issues, and his insights shine on nearly two centuries later.

Here is a quotation attributed to John Quincy Adams that emphasizes the inspirational component of leadership. Too often, it seems to me, leaders settle for merely influencing others. That is a good start, but it is a small kind of leadership—necessary in exigencies, to be sure, but significantly less than the legacy of historic leaders: Churchill or Mandela or Lincoln, for example. 

Adams declared:

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more,
do more, and become more, you are a leader.

As you reflect on these words, you may wish to ask yourself:

• What does a leader’s influence look like? What does a leader’s inspiration look like? How are they similar? In what important ways are they different?

• Are there certain behaviors more amendable to simple influence? Do others require inspiration to take hold?

• How have you been influenced but not inspired by leaders? How have you been inspired as well as influenced? How did the difference feel?

• To the extent anyone has remarked on your leadership, directly to you or indirectly about you, has the remark zeroed in on influence or inspiration particularly?

• What are some elementary ways to influence someone? When you list these, do they strike you as the mettle of leadership?

• In what ways are words adequate to the task of influence? In what ways does inspiration require the example of your own decisions, behavior, and dedication?

• How will you adjust your leadership style accordingly?

Quote / Unquote: Charles Osgood on Responsibility

Quote / Unquote is a feature that appears irregularly but frequently. It offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion. Occasionally, however, the quotation stands alone, as it does today.

Charles Osgood is a broadcaster on both radio and television for CBS News. Since 1994, he has anchored the weekly program CBS News Sunday Morning. He also anchors the daily radio program The Osgood File, from which today's quotation is taken.

Often referred to as the network’s poet-in-residence, Osgood is famous for his witticisms and poems. Today we share a simple poem Osgood wrote on shared responsibility without accountability.

It is titled “The Responsibility Poem.”  

 

 

There was a most important job that needed to be done, 
And no reason not to do it, there was absolutely none. 
But in vital matters such as this, the thing you have to ask 
Is who exactly will it be who'll carry out the task?

Anybody could have told you that Everybody knew 
That this was something Somebody would surely have to do. 
Nobody was unwilling; Anybody had the ability. 
But Nobody believed that it was their responsibility.  

It seemed to be a job that Anybody could have done, 
If Anybody thought he was supposed to be the one. 
But since Everybody recognized that Anybody could, 
Everybody took for granted that Somebody would.

But Nobody told Anybody that we are aware of, 
That he would be in charge of seeing it was taken care of. 
And Nobody took it on himself to follow through, 
And do what Everybody thought that Somebody would do.

When what Everybody needed so did not get done at all, 
Everybody was complaining that Somebody dropped the ball. 
Anybody then could see it was an awful crying shame, 
And Everybody looked around for Somebody to blame.

Somebody should have done the job 
And Everybody should have, 
But in the end Nobody did 
What Anybody could have.

Quote / Unquote: Peter Drucker on Discretionary Commitment

 

Recently we introduced another new feature, which appears irregularly but frequently. Known as Quote/Unquote, it offers a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In most cases we also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion. Occasionally, however, the quotation stands alone.

Our inaugural Quote/Unquote quoted the British novelist Charles Dickens, who presciently imagined some of the difficulties with email—140 years ago. Next we quoted another Brit from the same era, Benjamin Disraeli, on the great paradox of leadership: that leaders must follow, and followers must lead.

Today we jump across the Pond to the legendary American management consultant Peter Drucker, whom we will probably quote often in the future.

No one, absolutely no one, has had greater influence on modern business management than Peter Drucker, as we wrote in this space four years ago on his passing just before his 96th birthday. The author of more than thirty books, Drucker single-handedly changed the focus of legions of progressive, far-sighted business executives.

For the record, it was Peter Drucker who first:

• predicted the importance of computers in business

• suggested that Japan would emerge from the ash heap of World War II to become an economic titan

• regarded employees not as a cost but as a resource to be nurtured and developed

• broached the issue of excessive executive compensation and its consequences

• urged business leaders to set measurable goals

• criticized mindless meetings as displacing productive work

• revolutionized performance evaluations as a developmental tool

• coined the term "knowledge worker"

• counseled managers to empower employees to complete tasks their own way

• voiced criticism of stock options for promoting short-term thinking

• suggested that teams could function as well or better than traditional hierarchies

and so very much more.

Drucker, almost alone and certainly more than anyone else, championed the heroic role of entrepreneurs and progressive managers. Not unlike millions of parents, schoolteachers, and coaches, and far more than all but a handful of presidents and potentates, these unnoticed, unseen managers ultimately shape the course of economic growth and a great deal of social history.

Drucker left behind hundreds of memorable observations and provocative thoughts, not the least of which had to do with discretionary effort of employees and discretionary patronage by customers. In large ways, he observed, business is at the behest of independent decisions by others.

It was Drucker who said:

We must accept the fact that we have to treat

almost anybody as a volunteer.

Reflect on that observation for a few minutes, and then consider the following questions:

• In what ways are employees “volunteers?

• In what ways are customers volunteers? Strategic partners? Investors?

• Which of these stakeholders do you treat as volunteers?

• What does it look like, sound like, and feel like to treat them as volunteers? Not as volunteers?

• What is the burden of treating employees in particular as volunteers?

• What are the benefits?

• What changes will you make accordingly? Where? When?

• What kinds of management training and leadership development do you need to bring about those changes?

Feel free to respond to these questions by leaving a comment. Comments are subject to review by the blog’s editor, who may edit them for grammar and clarity and may leave a response of his own. (Comments with abusive, promotional, or profane language will not be published.)

Quote / Unquote: Charles Dickens on Face-to-Face Communication

 

Today we introduce another feature of the Minding Gaps blog. It will appear frequently but irregularly. To be known as Quote/Unquote, the feature will offer a simple, noteworthy quotation on some aspect of leadership, communication, or business. In some cases we will also provide context, comment, or questions to stir discussion; in other instances, the quotation will stand alone. We begin with a prescient quotation from a famous 19th century British author.

Charles Dickens, perhaps best known for his Victorian novels A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and A Christmas Carol, must have been thinking of only the telegraph when he remarked:

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone

who with his soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

Dickens, who died in 1870, could have known only of the theoretical basis for the telephone, which wouldn’t be developed and patented until 1876. The generations of technology since—from the telephone to tubes and transistors to teletype to television to Telex to texting to Twitter (honest, the alliteration wasn't intentional)—have brought us ever greater speed and access to information, while steadily reducing the intimacy and touch between and among us, and perhaps raising shields behind which we cower and quiver, as Dickens seems to have been predicting.

What would Dickens think of today's communication? We pass more data back and forth, to be sure, but whether we understand one another even an iota more is questionable. Today, many of us take peculiar pride in cramming indecipherable and impromptu abbreviations into 140 characters and quickly pressing SEND, often disseminating the shorthand to people we have never met and never will meet.

Let’s ponder:

• Was Dickens exaggerating the social or psychic cost of electronic communication?

• Do you think he was just a Luddite at heart?

• What have we lost through technology? What role does email play in that?

• Is the rush to social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogging) problematic for you?

• Beyond speed and access, what have we gained through technology?

• What is Dickens implying by references to “soul” and “brave and true”?

• Are we less soulful, brave, and true than our parents and grandparents? If so, what exactly is the nature and cost of that? 

• How do we best cope with the implications of all this on human understanding and social cohesion?