Leadership and Management / Turning Adversity to Advantage

I asserted at the outset of this blog that my focus in embracing failures excluded ‘tragedies’ which are truly disastrous events for which even the boldest silver linings seems like paltry compensation for the pain and loss entailed. Nonetheless, I recently read Stephen Jay Gould’s superb book ‘Full House’ (‘The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin’) and at the outset he talks about his cancer (from which he eventually succumbed in 2002) with a message I think suitable to the themes here. He protests against the insidious effects of the ‘positive attitude’ pressures that often abound in these terminally ill diagnoses...

“We must stand resolutely against the unintended cruelty of the ‘positive attitude’ movement – insidious slippage into a rhetoric of blame for those who cannot overcome their personal despair and call up positivity from some internal depth...No button reading ‘positive attitude’ protrudes from our hearts, and no finger can coerce positivity into immediate action by a single and painless pressing. How dare we blame someone for the long-standing constitution of their tendencies and temperament if, in an uninvited and unwelcome episode of life, another persona might have coped better? If a man dies of cancer in fear and despair, then cry for his pain and celebrate his life. The other man, who fought like hell and laughed to the end, but also died, may have had an easier time in his final months, but took his leave with no more humanity.”

Actually, the entire subject of the book is a form of embracing failure. The ‘failure’ for the stunning and powerful process of ‘evolution’ to actually account for any form of ‘progress’ in the natural world. He debunks the notion that ‘survival of the fittest’ necessarily leads to the divine destiny of human supremacy and the triumph of ever more sophisticated life forms. On the contrary, he makes a powerful argument that the most successful being to ever exist on the planet Earth is the bacterium.

One of the au courant management pundit buzzwords bandied about for some time now is ‘Empowerment’. Pushing effective decisions making down throughout the organisation so that as many staff as possible are in a position to do the right thing and do it right even if the circumstance has not been explicitly covered in the policies and procedures manual or some training orientation. What I observe, however, is that despite the near universal acclaim of the concept, its execution is widely varied.

Most notably, ‘Empowerment’ is delivered in one of three manners...

1. No Empowerment – Well, you do have to start here. Yes, many managers and leaders still operate on the ‘command and control’ system of zero empowerment. Do everything by the book and if it is not covered by the book, then escalate to a superior.

2. Fake Empowerment – This form is most easily identified by the accompanying phrase ‘on your head be it’. What this is saying is, ‘I’m not going to punish you explicitly for taking this action, but I will distance myself from any downsides.’ The manager has in hence insulated their risk. They will typically share (if not claim) the upsides of the success of the subordinates action, but they can separate themselves from the downsides if need be.

3. True Empowerment – This form is most easily identified by the accompanying phrase ‘I’ve got your back’. What this is saying is, ‘I am trusting you with this decision which I realise could go up or down, but if it goes down, I will share in the costs and repercussions as a part of the responsibility of being your manager.’ Embracing potential failure as a necessary cost to innovation and high performing teams.

I’ve worked under all approaches. The last is obviously the best, but the first is manageable because at least you know where you stand. The middle one is leadership disfunction at its most acute where the executive wants something for nothing in risk terms.

Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari was imprisoned for 18 months for among other things charges of spying based on a fake interview in which he participated for the top US comedy programme ‘The Daily Show’. Was he bitter? Did he want begrudge Jon Stewart whose ribald complicity left him tortured and abused. Not in the least. He didn’t even harbour deep ill will to his captor, interrogator and jailer from the Revolutionary Guard. This clip on the Daily Show website tells his intriguing story as well as his perspective on turning the tragic adversity to advantage...

“It’s evil and stupid. You know whenever you take anything to the extremes, you see the humour in it and you see the stupidity in it and I think what the Iranian government did and my interrogator as representative of the Iranian government was to me stupid and funny at the same time. It was not funny when I was in the interrogation room blindfolded, in a dark room, being beaten...you know that was not funny. But going back to my cell, I had to laugh. You know that was my defensive mechanism...You know my interrogator for some reason after some time became my muse, he became my muse. He gave me ideas. He was so exaggerated in everything that he did, he just gave me ideas. I just laughed.” 

The acclaimed movie The Wrestler portrays a vivid picture of the deep downsides one hits when one does not embrace the failure of one’s dreams. I wrote about the Death of Dreams a while back with the conclusion that as hard as it may be, one does have to let go of certain dreams.

The soothing balm to dying dreams is (a) savouring the memories, and (b) replacing them with new dreams. The star of the film and the ring, Randy ‘Ram’ Robinson has a bag full of both that he can embrace, but instead he turns to the seductive route of a bag of steroids, painkillers and other artificial enhancements to keep his fading dreams on life support.  He has adoring fans, a proud legacy, a job he can actually enjoy and do well at, the spark of a renewed relationship with his daughter, and even the long sought after love of his life.  And yet all are jettisoned for the sake of not letting the dream die.

In the end, he painfully plays out the pain and loss one can suffer when one doesn’t embrace failure.  Really painfully.  In fact, if you don’t let your dreams die, then they can kill you [spoiler clarification – I’m not actually saying that Randy dies in the end].

In addition to his perspectives on embracing failure, Scott Adams’ business focus revealed Leader/Manager insights beyond the characteristic ‘pointed haired’ parodies. My favourite was his reflection on being a business owner himself where he talked about the ‘steak and the sizzle’. As Hugh Macleod describes, ‘the sex and the cash’. His observations about the criticality a fundamental like ‘ambience’ over what would seem to be a more prominent distinction like ‘value’ or ‘food’. The reflection echoed my recent post on ‘Purple Cows Are Not Everything’ (in this case, the ‘purple cow’ being served as some fine cut in a gourmet sauce). Leaders craft gourmet dishes; Managers maintain the ambience. Both together win Michelin stars.

“I co-own two local restaurants. There’s a question I like to ask no-restaurant owners who thing they are experts in the business based on their vast experience at eating: What are the most important factors for a successful restaurant? People usually guess it’s the food or the service, maybe the overall value. That seems fairly obvious, doesn’t it? But it’s way off. The more important factor in a restaurant’s success is the physical ambience, including lighting, noise, seating, colours and location in an interesting area. The best restaurants do *everything* right, but if all you have is good food and good service, you’re in trouble.”