Navigating a profoundly changing world. Organization evolution © and career evolution © work are essential but not necessarily parallel. http://rlaexp.com/tour.html
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Business executives are inevitably leaders in their organizations, seen as such, perceived as such, judged as such.
"The higher up the monkey goes, the more of his behind he shows," runs an English schoolboy jingle. What executives do, what they believe and value, what they reward and whom, are watched, seen, and minutely interpreted throughout the whole organization. And nothing is noticed more quickly—and considered more significant—than a discrepancy between what executives preach and what they expect their associates to practice.
Recently I discussed with an elder statesman of Japan's industry the violation of the ban on strategic shipments of American products by a subsidiary of Tokyo's Toshiba. I commented on the fact that the top executives of Toshiba had held themselves "accountable" and resigned over this matter even though the violator is barely controlled by Toshiba (which holds only 50.1 percent of its stock), is autonomous, and had disregarded published company policy.
"We wouldn't say 'accountable,' " my friend said. "We'd say: 'It's their fault.' If a manager in a company does something wrong to improve the market standing or the profits of the company, you can be sure that he only does what his top management wants him to do and signals him to do."
The Japanese recognize that there are really only two demands of leadership. One is to accept that rank does not confer privileges; it entails responsibilities. The other is to acknowledge that leaders in an organization need to impose on themselves that congruence between deeds and words, between behavior and professed beliefs and values, that we call "personal integrity."
Educational establishments totally underestimate the importance of "possibility."
Two thousand years ago, China was far ahead of the West in science and technology. They had rockets and gunpowder. Had China continued at the same rate of progress, then today China would easily have been the dominant power in the world.
What happened? What brought progress to a halt?
The Chinese scholars started to believe you could move from "fact to fact." So they never developed the messy business of possibility (hypothesis, etc.). As a result, progress came to a dead end.
Exactly the same sort of thing is happening in the world today. Because of the excellence of computers, people are starting to believe that all you need to do is to collect data and analyze it. This will give you your decisions, your policies and your strategies. It is an extremely dangerous situation, which will bring progress to a halt. There is a huge need for creativity to interpret data in different ways; to combine data to design value delivery; to know where to look for data; to form hypotheses and speculations, etc., etc.
I have held academic positions at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Harvard. I have to say that at each of these wonderful institutions the amount of time spent on the fundamental importance of possibility was zero.
Our culture and habits of thinking insist that we always move towards certainty. We need to pay equal attention to possibility.
Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
Nothing better prepares the ground for such leadership than a spirit of management that confirms in the day-to-day practices of the organization strict principles of conduct and responsibility, high standards of performance, and respect for individuals and their work.
More of Drucker's thoughts on leadershipPeter Drucker with Joseph A. Maciariello, Management, Revised Edition
Spencer Stuart's Tom Neff, the dean of CEO Executive Search, puts it baldly: "We are experiencing a demand for new types of skills and sacrifices in C-level executives that many are not prepared to bring to the table."
"… snip, snip … The profit motive and its offspring maximization of profits are just as irrelevant to the function of a business, the purpose of a business, and the job of managing a business … snip, snip … It is a major cause for the misunderstanding of the nature of profit in our society and for hostility profit, which are among the most dangerous diseases of a society or (of) organizations. It is largely responsible for the worst mistakes of public policy—in this country well as in Western Europe—which are squarely based on the failure to understand, the nature, function, and purpose of business enterprise.Even the quotes above are a misrepresentation of Drucker's mental landscape. Also see chapter 8 The Theory of the Business.
… snip, snip … Above all, consumerism should dispel the confusion which largely explains why there has been so little real marketing.
When managers speak of marketing, they usually mean the organized performance of all selling functions.
This is still selling.
It still starts out with "our products."
It still looks for "our market."
True marketing starts out … snip, snip … with the customer, his demographics, his realities, his needs, his values.
It does not ask, "What do we want to sell?"
It asks, "What does the customer want to buy?"
It does not say, "This is what our product or service does."
It says, "These are the satisfactions the customer looks for, values and needs … snip, snip …
Indeed, selling and marketing are antithetical rather than synonymous or even complementary.
Marketing alone does not make a business enterprise … snip, snip …
The second function of a business is, therefore, innovation—the provision of different economic satisfactions … snip, snip …"
