the
innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.
Vol.
10, No. 10 - October 2010
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Some Bull About Bears
By Jeff Govendo
Despite
the iconic beasts in the title, this piece is not about Wall Street.
In fact, it's not about the stock, commodities or any other type of
market.
It
is, however, about investments of a sort: in time, energy, prestige
and human capital.
It's
my response to an article that appeared in BusinessWeek -- excuse
me...Bloomberg BusinessWeek; let's give the mayor his proper
due -- last month by G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Viton, called
The CEO's Innovation Nightmare. Maddock and Viton are principals at
Maddock Douglas, an innovation consultancy based outside of Chicago.
In
the article, the authors paint what they see as an all-too-familiar
picture when a CEO attempts to institute a more innovative culture
within a company to gain competitive advantage. The CEO, who's
bullish on shaking things up, announces with great fanfare that "Innovation
will be the cornerstone on which we build our future." Speeches
are made, memos sent out, and posters sporting slogans like "Core
Value No. 1: Innovation" are displayed prominently for employees
and customers alike to gaze upon.
"And
then," say the authors, "something unfortunate happens.
Nothing. Nothing happens. Nothing at all."
It's
a case of the bull -- the CEO -- coming face-to-face with the bears,
those legions of mid-level managers who, according to Maddock and
Viton, "tend to nod a lot in meetings and then passive aggressively
do everything in their power to keep any significant change from happening."
Innovation simply can't take root because "The pure-of-heart
CEO is hopelessly outnumbered" by those brutish bears, who conspire
to maintain the status quo.
So
what's a poor, outnumbered, CEO who just wants what's best for his
company to do? The authors make a number of recommendations. Among
them are: Recruit believers -- people who believe change is
actually possible (apparently existing middle managers don't). Also,
Hire objective senior managers -- people from outside the industry
who are not jaded by preconceived notions of what can or cannot be
done (apparently existing senior managers are).
But
here's one recommendation I didn't see: the CEO can lead!
What
does that mean? Well, for one, it means it's a lot of bull to simply
blame the bears. Instead of deciding to rid the company of the
collective talent, know-how and wisdom residing within middle management,
the CEO might wish to consider the clarity and persuasiveness of
his message, and what it means for everyone involved. What's the
plan? How does he intend to proceed? Is there a budget for making
this happen? Beyond the words, how does the CEO actually plan to
move on this?
It's
easy to make a pronouncement about moving to a more innovative culture,
however heartfelt it might be. It's another thing to be able to
shepherd people along to align them with your vision; particularly
those who may have a tough time with change.
But
it can be done. It's what leaders do.
Perhaps
the most important part of exercising that leadership is recognizing
that the main reason many do resist change is that they instinctively
begin to envision what they will lose: authority, prestige, the
security of established routine; the list goes on. More difficult
is to envision what they will gain, because these are things they
haven't yet seen. It is up to the CEO, by virtue of his/her leadership,
to instill that vision in a way that's inspiring yet believable.
Not an easy task by any means, but preferable, in my opinion, to simply
assuming your middle managers are a lost cause and declaring open
season on the bear population.
Mssrs.
Maddock and Viton would probably disagree. Apparently they've had
their problems with middle managers ("...we're pretty sick of
working with bears.").
Too
bad. Some bears live well over 30 years. Even in captivity.
