Where have all the good leaders gone?
I do my best thinking while rowing at the gym in the morning. It is a great way to start the day. The rhythm of the rowing machine reminds me of swimming, my favorite sport, but since swimming pools are rarer in my side of town than rowing machines, I usually settle for rowing. The back and forth movement, the effort to keep a regular rhythm and the music in my ears provide me with time to think. Interestingly enough, the other activity that provide the fertile ground for thinking is cooking. I guess it is part of the yin and yang of live, the balance between burning calories and packing calories, the harmony that, I believe, we all seek in our journey through live.
Anyhow, I was listening to one of my favorite Puerto Rican artists, iLe, as she song “Odio”, a song about not feeding hate with our actions so that we can vanquish it from this world. I have to confess that first I was thinking about how much I miss visiting that beautiful island and eating at the Tropicana some wonderful Boricua food. Then, the words to the song made me think about leadership or the lack of leadership. I thought about how this pandemic has tested many organizations and institutions. Covid19 has tested cities, counties, states and countries as well as larger economical entities such as the European Union. While I will not start analyzing the politics behind it, I do not think that many would argue against the fact that the European Union seemed to vanish for several months as countries isolated themselves from their neighbors and undertook their own initiatives and actions. Then came the move against police brutality and the systemic failure of governments to protect their minorities and develop equitable systems that work for all, not just the majority. Many came out supporting the need for change, but the organic movement started to dissipate as Covid19 cases started to rise in many US states and, I would argue, due to lack of leadership. Yes, it was great to see some initiative among people, of all colors, coming out with ideas and promoting events to show their disagreement with the systemic racism of our institutions, but the movement lacked a figure to lead and organize the movement.
And that’s about as much politics as I am going to write about. My biggest concern was this talk that I am hearing from business leaders (and some politicians), a talk about defeating the virus. My first thought was about the saying that “it takes two to tango”, meaning, that certain things do not happen unless both parties want it to happen, a foundation for most mediation and negotiation efforts. In this case, there is an unwilling participant — the Covid19 virus. The Oxford dictionary definition of a virus is “an infective agent that typically consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat, is too small to be seen by light microscopy, and is able to multiply only within the living cells of a host”. In this case, the Covid19 virus is about 0.1 micron in size. And it is not specifically picking a fight against humanity. It just happened. Just like H1N1 happened in 2009, the 1918 misnamed “Spanish Flu” (the first known case was traced to Camp Funston in Fort Riley, Kansas), the Black Plague and many other pandemics happened. And it will not be the last one. I would argue that the virus lacks the awareness to know that it needs to target humans to survive. It just seeks a host to grow and reproduce without any awareness of what it is doing to its host… I mean, if the host dies, the virus will eventually also die, and I am certain that mutual annihilation is not the biological goal of the virus.
That talk of winning “or loosing” assumes that this is a contest to be won or lost. Simon Sinek wrote a book last year titled “The Infinite Game”. He argued that leaders should approach their work as if it was a long-term race. I am not talking about the typical analogy of a 5K race versus a marathon but as if one was running an infinite race, one marathon after another with little rest, where rules are not set in stone and the context keeps changing. There is not winning, but just doing one’s best and adapting to the environment to survive and grow. In this race, there will be no static podium to climb since the pole positions will shift with time and context. It is the Uncertainty in Bob Johansen’s VUCA model. The only certainty in business and life is that there is no such a thing as certainty. Leaders need to be able to adapt and change the way they operate.
And yes, companies will go out of business and that’s part of the business cycle. And not a bad thing neither… how many of you are still receiving your ice to keep your ice box cool? Most of us now use refrigerators and freezer, and probably deal with less food poisoning than our family members a couple of generations ago. Clayton Christensen introduced us to the idea of disruption and pointed out how many of the best ideas do not normally come out from the market incumbent, or the incumbent’s competition but from other non-traditional sources. Christiansen argued that organizations that focused on sustaining innovation (getting better at what they are already good at doing), seldom have the capabilities of becoming disruptive innovators. The move to digital music came from the hand of Apple, a computer company, creating iTunes and the iPod, and later by Spotify. None of those players were traditional music industry players. The revolution in the electric car came from Tesla, not from Toyota, Ford or GM.
Just like the virus is disrupting many industries, so did the Internet when it reached an exploitable level back in the late 1990's. Companies such as Amazon, which are transforming, among other things, the retail business, could not have succeeded without developing new business models to exploit the connectivity of the Internet. And some companies have adapted and are now taking advantage of online business such as Wal-Mart and Target. In the clothing industry, Zara, the Spanish retailer, flourished against the online business, while other competitors such as the Gap and Macy’s failed. Inditex, the parent company of Zara and other retailers, is considered one of the world largest fashion retailers with physical stores popping up all over the world.
The difference between success and failure starts with leadership. When leadership is missing, organizations are like ships without rudder caught in the rapids of a river — they may be able to navigate for a while but eventually, they will sink or run aground in the shore. And currently, many organizations are floating down the river, without much direction, alignment or commitment.
Christensen talked about is how companies lose their competitiveness, not because they do not know what their customer wanted, but because they got so close to their customers that the organizations ignored everything else and everyone else. It is like the doctor that focuses on fixing a twisted ankle when the patient stopped breathing. Those organizations basically lose sight on how the market has changed and evolved, and on what the market really wants now. Consumers’ needs change constantly and a virus such as Covid19 is a tremendous catalyst for change. Leaders in organizations that become so focus on sustaining and exploiting their current core competencies may not realize that there is a non-customer (aka potential customer) waiting out there. That potential customer would happily engage with the organization to acquired a more relevant version of the services or goods that the organization offers to their “traditional” customers. Instead of tapping into the creativity of its diverse workforce, leaders would rather focus on short-term financial solutions for their shareholders, with cost reductions, furloughs and lay-offs. Instead of exploring new needs in the market, they are driven to optimize their logistic and manufacturing channels to put out more of the same. Instead of taking control of the rudder showing commitment to change and adapting to the new environment and market needs, they send empty emails about the “unusual times”, “resisting”, “surviving”, “winning the war against the virus” and “coming out stronger”.
As a marketer, academic and business enthusiast, I believe that this Covid19 crisis has unearthed many new types of customers, customers that organizations did not even consider as potential clients but that are willing and able to purchase a product or service that fits the current context when delivered in a certain manner. The markets are looking for goods and services that fit the new market conditions, not the same stuff repackaged in a different way. Those leaders that promote healthy internal disagreements and challenge the status quo on the direction and strategy of the organization, will likely succeed. So, where are those good leaders now?
