Leadership: Better Over Time?

Mr. James Fallows, the writer for the Atlantic, recently wrote an article on the President and his performance over the past three years and offered thoughts on why President Obama has acted as he has over that time period, but then finished with the thought that President Obama, if re-elected, will become the President that he – Fallows – voted for in 2008.

James Fallows has had a long and distinguished career as an historian and writer on defense, security and policy. But in this particular case I submit that he is simply wrong. And it has nothing at all to do with whether President Obama is Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. Rather, it has to do with leadership, and two simple facts about leaders over time.

The first fact is that leaders do NOT learn on the job. Yes, every single human being who takes over a job enters the job not knowing many – and in some cases most – of the specifics of the job, and not knowing how they will act and how they will decide in various cases. And they all experience a fairly steep learning curve during their first six months to year in their job. This is particularly true of major executive positions. The Presidency would be an extreme example of this.

After the first year the ‘slope of the learning curve’ starts to flatten out – you learn less. Part of this is simply that all leaders will have developed a routine, and more and more items can fit into the routine, and that means there are fewer ‘new events’ to learn from. Partly too there is a psychological resistance to continual change and the leader, looking for an opportunity to affect change (assuming he wants to) will try to stop reacting and attempt to act freely. And that will mean pushing more and more into already defined decision templates. In short, we try, like Cinderella’s Sisters, to make the shoe fit. (That this can lead to poor decisions is a given, though that isn’t the point of this article.

Over time, as more and more unforeseen events impinge on the leader, and as time passes, the leader will start to take a position of nearly complete response to events, rather than trying to lead the events. And the reason for this is simple: it is the path of least resistance. (There may still be great resistance, but this path offers the least).

The second fact is that leaders do not recognize that they are doing this while they are doing this. (This may not be 100% true, but the few people that I have seen who cold critically analyze their own performance – while in the job – were a) brilliant, b) devoid of any ego, and c) in jobs that did not suffer from any major\ outside commentary and hence performance pressure – they were surgeons, fighter pilots, and special forces operators.)

Improving one’s leadership performance takes place when you have had 1) serious leadership experience, and 2) an opportunity to analyze that experience and identify specifically what actions you took, what worked, why it worked, what didn’t work, and why it didn’t work. That process takes time and discipline. For those in charge of large, complex organizations, it is impossible, without a very disciplined support organization, to anything of the sort. (The one exception to this rule is on the military; when large organizations (airwings, carrier strike groups, brigade combat teams, etc.) engage in advanced training, the training is accompanied by very detailed data collection and equally detailed ‘Lessons Learned’ analysis and debriefs. Commanders of units ostensibly can learn and improve from these debriefs though the record isn’t necessarily as cut and dried as you might think. Most commanders will silently respond with the ‘I knew that’ defense, and then continue much as before. What has happened is that many of their subordinates have learned and thereby improved incrementally.

In large organizations, be they corporations or government agencies, the simple truth is that leaders do not improve while on the job, and they do not change materially after the first 11-18 months (sometimes 2 years). Their improvement takes place when they get their second job (the mayor leaves office, two years later is elected governor) after having had a chance to reflect on their previous performance and having identified, if only to themselves, that ‘next time I would do it differently.’

At the same time, in any organization, large or small, leadership over extended periods of time almost always means the leader grows stale. A man who is president of a company for 10, 12 or 14 years, or mayor, or head of a charity for similar periods of time rapidly becomes stale. His leadership does not improve, it becomes simply more capable of handling the routine, and that masquerades as leadership competence. Are there means to instill a continuing improvement of the leadership and performance? Yes, but it requires several steps, most importantly disciplined planning and a very lean organization, neither of which are present in most large organizations, and certainly not in any federal government organization.

In short, Mr. Fallows is a fine writer, but his assessment is, in my humble opinion, founded on too distant a relationship with the real difficulties of leadership. I have spent my life leading, and being among leaders.  I wish leaders could improve as he implies, the world would probably be a much better place. But my experience has been that they don’t.

Lost in the Air

It's sometimes refreshing to know that nothing changes. Delta Airlines proved that this week when they managed to annoy most of the United States because of some confusion as to whether they were charging soldiers returning from the Mid-East for a fourth bag. Was no one available, with one phone call, to say ‘forget it, let them through?’ The answer is ‘No.’ Did they later fix it? Yes. But too late to relieve anyone of the perception that the airlines don’t have their act together. And why should they? They don’t.

A few months ago I had the ‘opportunity’ to spend some considerable time looking at the airline industry – up close and personal. During an 8 day period I flew on ten different occasions, logged nearly 30,000 miles and spent what seems like several months sitting around airport terminals watching the airlines – both in the US and abroad – carry out the business of air travel. This allowed me to update my perspectives, one formed by hundreds of other flights, thousands of hours in the air, and visits to perhaps 100 or more airports on scores of different airlines. Herewith some observations (which are – unremarkably – little changed from similar observations a number of years ago:

No one is thinking. I saw several different airlines – that now all charge for checking-in luggage – forced to deal with a crisis when there was simply not enough space in ‘carry-on’ storage bins to accommodate every passenger. This resulted in delays in boarding as well as then insisting that everyone left in the terminal check-in their luggage. What then followed were exercises in the arbitrary nature of petty power, as various people were allowed to board with some form of checked baggage and others were not. Tempers rose and passengers, nearly universally, became frustrated.

Take note: this is a crisis the airlines created. The reason people carry on luggage is two-fold: One - after nearly 60 years of jet-powered commercial aviation the airlines still do not know how to handle luggage quickly and courteously. No one really trusts the airlines to handle their luggage. Even the folks behind the counters don’t trust their own companies and repeatedly warn passengers to not check certain items. I repeatedly heard the comment ‘you better keep hold of that yourself’ or words to that effect. Then secondly, as if to see if it’s possible to make the situation worse, nearly all the airlines now charge for the ‘opportunity’ to check luggage, perhaps get it damaged, maybe lost, and certainly extend your stay in the airport at the other end when you arrive at your destination only to stand around and wait for your luggage to – finally – appear.

‘No one is thinking’ includes the engineers. I took one flight that lasted nearly 18 hours – by design. By the time we had been in the airplane for 12 hours, with another 6 hours of flight in front of us, nearly everyone, including the frazzled stewards and stewardesses, would have cheered if the airplane had been forced to land someplace. Does anyone think being in an airplane, in a tiny seat, eating lousy food, watching a 3 x 5 inch fuzzy TV screen, is a good idea? Here’s a hint: No.

To cap it off, we are now doing this with 400 of our newest friends. All of whom board and deplane through the same door. Yet we read about think-pieces for airplanes with 10,000 mile ranges (20+ hours in the air) and ever more passengers, and even airplanes that will have extreme width cabins, where we can put 20 seats across. Even more opportunities to sit in middle seats.

When was the last time senior executives AND senior engineers flew across the Atlantic – or worse the Pacific – sitting in coach? In a center seat? Try it sometime. Perhaps the airlines need to institute a new TV show: Undercover Passenger Boss, when various CEOs and Senior VPs of airlines as well as senior engineers of the major aircraft manufacturers have to sit in terminals and suffer through hours of waiting, only to be loaded like cattle only to sit in crowded seats and be fed bad food, while trying to listen and watch a move on that same 3 x 5 inch flat screen.

I would suggest that the above problems might best be addressed by including these issues in the next design effort: how do you build an airplane that can comfortably load and unload from both ends simultaneously? If it is a ‘wide-body’ with double aisles, why can’t it be loaded and unloaded with four ramps? (Two on each side.) Why do we still load and unload baggage by hand? Isn’t there a possible solution using containers and some sort of tram system to insert the containers? Yes, I am aware that each of these issues would have cost consequences, and yes I know that Denver International tried and failed to install a high-speed luggage handling system and failed. The Wright Brothers failed several times. Maybe this might be worth the second effort.

And how about a mechanism that can automatically clean the toilets? They already exist in some cities around the world. There is something particularly unpleasant with walking into chemical toilets after 15 hours of use by several hundred people. I was in the military for the better part of 3 decades – but at least I wasn’t a paying customer when I had to use those various latrines and chemical toilets.

I might be tempted to excuse these events except that I saw them repeatedly played out in a number of different airports in the US, Europe and the Mid-East. And I have seen them before, though it now seems to be that these have all become common occurrences.

What can I infer from this? Most of the airlines are run by people concerned with, well, actually, I’m not sure. Certainly not building anything approaching brand loyalty. In fact, from the comments I heard – repeatedly, frequently, loudly - there are any number of people on three separate continents who have developed ‘brand hatred,’ as in “I will NEVER fly on XXXX again.” I thought one of the goals of any enterprise, especially a commercial enterprise, was to build a following. From what I have seen over the last 20 years, no one any longer enjoys commercial air travel. Actually, that’s not accurate: everyone strongly dislikes it, at best, and many, very many, hate it. We do it because we must. But we will switch to anything else if given half a chance. I now find I will drive nearly anywhere within about a 6 hour ride rather than fly, because I can’t stand the process and the agony. Nearly everyone I know – young and old – feels the same way.

The US is about to invest tens of billions of dollars in high-speed rail. This is a mistake, as passenger rail services – worldwide – are big money losers. Nevertheless, people will use it and endorse it, as costly as it will be, just to avoid having to deal with airports and airlines. Does anyone in airlines leadership worry about the real signal being sent here? Here’s a note to anyone holding any airline stock: the next time a proxy card comes around, vote ‘none of the above’ for any senior leadership positions.

It is also worth noting that the folks who run most of the airlines don’t seem terribly interested in profits. The same airlines seem to always be hitting their profit marks and the same ones keep hovering at break even, with routine dips into red ink. Yet the ones that are losing money don’t change their bad habits, but plunge on, occasionally merging with some other poorly run airlines.

Add on top of this the security folks – both in the US and abroad. In what can only be called the most bizarre and obscure reasoning, they all continue to modify procedures to make the process of getting to the gate ever more unpleasant. It is nice to know, however, that they have started profiling: so far, the only people I have seen who have been put through the full body scans or given extra pat-downs have either been in-shape men and women, or the very elderly. If you are young and in shape you seem to be on everyone’s list. But, at least it’s a start?

The point in all this is that there is no real leadership anywhere near the decision-making taking place in the airline industry. The folks who occupy the senior seats in that industry could be out-led by Elmer Fudd. The industry will stumble along because we all need it. But it will do so in spite of, rather than because of their individual and collective efforts. If you have any say in the leadership of the airline industry, I encourage you to push for some real leadership. Give me a call, I’ll run an airline at half the price you are paying your current CEO and I’ll do it better, not that that would be too hard.

Seek Forgiveness or Beg Permission?

I have a friend who is engaged in a very particular type of activity as part of the Intelligence Community. This activity requires, by definition, particular types of behavior. My friend, who is quite a capable individual, recently came up with a novel approach to performing his duties. Without giving away any details, suffice it to say that his boss balked. In short, his boss was afraid that HIS boss might object (without ever asking, just an apparent ‘gut’ response) and so told my friend to stop his operation.

What can we learn from this?

First, the simple truth is that many people in positions of authority are more afraid of loss then they are desirous of success. Thus, they spend a fair amount of time making sure nothing goes wrong rather than trying to make something go right. The end result is that they stifle the creativity of those who work for them.

Avoiding mistakes is always one way to go through life, but it hardly ever satisfies anyone. And the truth is that virtually any plan has risks, even doing nothing. If you are satisfied in a bureaucratic cubbyhole you can choose the path of inaction and remain comfortable. But in every other case, you will find you must act and let those around you act. That will mean risk and you, as a leader, must learn to embrace that risk. Are there ways to mitigate risk? Certainly, through the selection of good people and the development of a decent planning process. But there will always be risk – if you want out of your cubbyhole.

Second, people in leadership positions who are afraid of new ideas will also usually be afraid of creative, aggressive people. In extreme cases they will extend this to the point of convincing themselves that their subordinates are plotting against them, trying to usurp their power and take their position.

Good leaders on the other hand encourage their people to experiment, to try new ways of ‘doing business,’ and will ‘run interference’ from higher up to ensure they have the freedom to try. Good leaders know that in any decent organization the top leadership will look into the ranks and when they see that bright, talented and creative folks keep popping up out of one particular office, they will reward the middle manager who is producing all the new talent.

If you find yourself at first a bit put-off by one of your subordinates ideas, ask for a detailed explanation – not a bunch of briefing slides, an explanation, face to face. Then ask yourself why you are uncomfortable. If it is technology, that’s your problem and no one else’s. You need to get smarter on technology. It is also the reason you have other people working for you: you can’t know everything. If you trust your people at all, you should let them try it.

If you are uncomfortable because you think something is against the rules – real or implied (whether the law, corporate ethics, or simply the rules your boss came up with), you should investigate a little before you say no. Is it really against the rules? If not, then let them try. If it clearly is against the rules, tell your people. I think you will be amazed at how hard they will work to find a legal way to do things.

What if it is in a gray area, not clearly against the rules, but it looks like parts of it may be? If you have a large organization it will have a legal support office of some sort. Go sit down with someone – face to face, not by e-mail – and see what the legal office thinks.

The point here is that your job as boss is to make things happen. So, when someone comes to you with an idea, your job is to figure out how to say “CHARGE!” It is most definitely not to say “WHOA!”

Alternatively, you can go back to your cubbyhole.

Third, great successes usually come from doing things differently. Doing the same thing over and over again, without change, will eventually lead to stagnation and then failure. The competition will eventually ‘figure it out’ and you will lose whatever advantage you once held.

But you will never come up with all the possible ways of doing things differently. That is what all those folks do who work for you. Some of those ideas may be a bit ‘off the reservation.’ Don’t throw out the idea. Instead, take a close look. See if there isn’t some way to ‘tweak’ the idea so that is can be used. Remember, your job as boss is to help those who work for you do the real work of your organization – in a very real sense you work for them.

There is an old saw that it is better to seek forgiveness than to beg for permission. Real progress – in any field – comes from doing things differently. And every time you do something differently someone somewhere is going to cry ‘Foul.’ The fact is that you have all sorts of people you can use to make sure you don’t break the law, without stifling creativity. By stimulating that creativity – and by sending the clear signal to your people that you will support them – you are going to get people to open their minds and explore new and better ways to use your technology, use your assets, and develop new solutions. And then when some naysayer whines about your new project you will find yourself standing in front of your boss saying “look at what my folks have done” and handing him the prize. If you had asked before hand it is just as likely he would have said ‘no.’ But if you bring success, seeking a little forgiveness for stretching the rules will seem a worthwhile effort.

Or you can climb back into your cubbyhole. The choice is yours.

Fundamentals - Intellect Part 1

There are many dreamers and visionaries, and there are many managers. But one of the key traits that set real leaders apart from both is that the real leader builds a ‘path’ between the vision and the real world. Between crafting a vision and identifying a goal on the one hand and actually moving towards the full realization of that vision, lays the process of making the vision into something more than ‘pie in the sky.’ The central trait in turning the vision into reality is intellect.

But, you will say that intellect is something that you are born with. While you can pursue education, read the great books and surround yourself with smart people, in the end you aren’t going to make yourself smarter. My answer to that is an unequivocal yes and no.

It is quite true that you are born with certain mental abilities (IQ, whatever – I don’t want to argue about how to measure intellect, there are many ways, you may pick your favorite), but the key question is whether you can improve those elements in your intellect that would allow you to develop clearer goals and visions, as well as the means to achieve them? And the answer to both those questions is yes.

Creating Visions and Goals

The first issue is simply this: how do you develop a new vision? This may sound like an order to ‘come up with a new idea’ as if they are found on the new idea trees in the town square. But, in fact, there are several fairly simple processes that can be used to come up with new goals.

1 – Pump Up the Standards

Perhaps the most obvious means to come up with a new vision is to simply add to the old one. This sounds terribly obvious, but there are a fair number of folks in the world who seem to forget it when placed in a position of having to develop new goals. Simply put, if the organization is running well, and there are few strains to the system, and the environment does not seem to be changing into a threatening one, you can keep the organization moving forward by simply expanding on the existing goals. In short, just ‘aim higher.’ For a company, increasing your market goals while improving quality and reducing costs all provide viable goals. Those same type of ‘marks’ can be used for nearly any organization: a football team can win the Super Bowl and when pre-season conditioning begins the goal is to not only win the Super Bowl, but to go undefeated; for the defensive line to give up fewer yards, and to produce more quarterback sacks. For the offense it can be to score more points with fewer turnovers and a more balanced attack. Each player’s performance can be similarly dissected.

Such an approach, whether in sports or in sales or service or engineering performance or in any other area, can provide meaningful challenges and meaningful motivations to the people of the organization, and provide the added benefit that they aren’t disruptive to the organization.

2 – ‘Steal It’

This may sound a bit odd, but it is in fact more than likely that you will ‘steal’ your goals and vision from someone else. Simply put, its all been done before. One of the greatest leaders of all time – Alexander the Great – based his specific vision of a world empire ruled through merit, a meritocracy, from the teachings of his tutor – Aristotle. (It does help to have one of the smartest men of all time as your tutor). As a leader you should be constantly trying to ‘improve your game,’ and one of the best ways to do that is to read what other leaders have done and said; autobiographies and biographies are fertile hunting ground and should be under constant search.

There is a nearly limitless stream of commentary on the internet, as well as a wide range of professional journals in every possible profession, and the availability of books via the internet or via a book store or ordered on line should allow you to find a range of authors that strike a cord with you and from which you can pull ideas. This will take time, it is the study of a lifetime, but it is also an incredibly rich study.

3 – Ask the Right Question: What If?

The easiest way to explain this is with a short story, told to me by one of my math professors many years ago about one of the great mathematicians of the 19th century, a Russian named Viktor Bunyakovski (1804 - 1889). Bunyakovski was a brilliant guy (he submitted three different doctoral dissertations at the university in Paris in 1825, and over the period of his life he submitted more than 150 papers on various mathematics proofs and issues in mechanics.) In fact, he became somewhat famous for his reputation for producing a steady stream of new ideas. When asked how he did it, he reportedly responded that he simply asked the question ‘What if this equation were changed?’ His most noted work – known as the Cauchy-Schwarz-Bunyakovski inequality for the three different mathematicians who independently developed it – was begun when he put a simple equation on the board and asked the question: ‘what if a times b didn’t equal b times a?’

The point isn’t to make everyone a fan of higher order mathematics. Rather, the issue is to ask you to take all those things that you have been told in your field that are so, and question them. Take a look around your industry or your field. Write down all the commonly accepted “truths,” those remarks that might begin “Everyone says…” or “You can’t…” or “We will never…” Now, ask yourself what would happen if any one of those could be proven wrong.

4 – Eureka!

Keep a note pad handy. Leave one in your car, another by your bed, another in your jacket pocket. When a stray thought that seems to fit strikes you, don’t hesitate – write it down. Keep these ‘manna from heaven’ in a convenient pile at your desk and flip through them from time to time. Many will mean nothing, but some will rise to the surface. When they do, you will know it.

5 – Engage Your Trusted Friends, Your Kitchen Cabinet

Finally, talk to friends, particularly friends who aren’t in your ‘business,’ your type of work. What do they think? How do they see your world? What do they think is missing? They have a fresh and very real perspective that you and the people at work do not. You need to plug into that perspective.

This is the first part of what I mean by intellect.

Next: How do you turn the vision into tasks?

President Washington

George Washington, Father of Our Country, is often recognized as being central to our winning our independence, and his role as the first president – and first precedence setter – is also recognized – at least by historians. But, in large part he has fallen into a limbo of ancient symbol, but not a man who is respected as essential figure of our nation's finding, and arguably, as the single irreplaceable man of the last three centuries. And there is no place where this forgotten role is more pronounced then in his role as the President of the Constitutional Convention.

The fact is that leadership – that is, those positions where an individual has real authority over others – is often written about. But in most cases those who right about it have had little or no first-hand experience with actual leadership, that is they have rarely had authority over other, they have rarely held power. This lack of a frame of reference has led to there being little in the way of leadership discussions in which the debilitating nature of power is discussed, or to any discussion which reflects the real difficulties faced by those who have held power and managed to – somehow – behave in a truly superior, exemplary manner, one which can be used as a precedent for future generations, nor finally the very real difficulty of leading exceptional people, particularly when the direction chosen is truly uncharted territory.

It is in this final situation that our young nation found itself following our victory in Revolutionary War. We had our independence, but the Articles of Confederation left us with little in the way of an effective government and the need to form a new government was recognized by the leaders of the day. Central to the very idea that a new government could be formed was the notion that George Washington would be available in some way to lend his support to that new government. And Washington wrote and spoke of the need for a strong executive, one that had been avoided in the Articles of Confederation. In fact, it is fair to say that the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia would probably not have met at all if the participants did not include Washington. And while one might have eventually met, it would have been far different in fact.

What exactly transpired at the convention on a day-to-day basis has never been known, as the members kept private most specific word-for-word, day-to-day discussions – intentionally. Madison provided daily notes on the proceedings, and many of the members provided summations after the fact, and these provide a great deal of insight into the vigorous debates by the members. What is of particular note is that Washington's words were only noted once, in reference to representation in Congress and how to assign Congressman by census – an important point but not earth shattering.

But what is missed by most historians is what is not there: the convention did not come apart at the seams. This seems, at this date more than 220 years later, as a foregone conclusion. These were some of the greatest men who ever lived, and the names are a list of some of the truly most exceptional political thinkers – and leaders – of any era: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton – the list goes on.

But I look at the list of figures from a different perspective. Having been in the position of leading groups of very bright and very talented people (not to imply that anyone has ever had any other group as bright and as talented as those at the Constitutional Convention), particularly when we had to institute real change – where success would be difficult to define but failure would be easily identified, I submit that that can be as difficult a leadership task as one can imagine.

All of the men at the Constitutional Convention were brilliant, opinionated, strong-willed, and dynamic figures. All had in one way or another demonstrated that they could lead. All had very real concerns about where the young nation was headed and very real concerns about the laws, the foundation, on which it was to be built. All were aware that they were charting a course into 'seas' that had, in the previous 2500 years failed to produce any nation that had lasted more than a few generations. We have heard that leading is sometimes like 'herding cats.' But Washington was not herding cats. He was, if anything herding a room full of tigers.

And from this came the single most remarkable political document ever drafted, the model for virtually every constitution drafted since, and the foundation of the greatest nation in history.

I cannot but wonder what would have happened if George Washington had not been sitting with them, listening, providing the firm hand and fatherly guidance, the stern face and, rarely, the sharp word in private, that would have been absolutely essential to bring these brilliant men together. Yet there is in that behavior the very thing that would have prevented any of these men from writing about it. There own dignity, and Washington's, and their respect for Washington, would have forbidden any recognition of it. It was enough for them all to simply remember that Washington had been there, that in the end they had performed well and received his approval.

Washington performed in three truly remarkable leadership rolls: as the General who brought victory over the British, as the President of the Constitutional Convention, and as the first – and most important – President of this nation. The first and third are, at least, remembered in passing, though we forget just how 'close run a thing' both the war and the first few decades really were. But we have all but forgotten his role as the man who presided over the Constitutional Convention, an act of leadership that I submit rivals the other two.

In our minds' eye we might see them, brilliant, pointed debate moving around the room, sometimes rancorous, sometimes threatening to stall on this or that point, whether from legal interpretation or regional predilection, but always moving forward, producing a document that would not only be approved by the separate states, but would also produce a nation that has survived longer then any other true democracy in history, and has proven that government of, by and for the people is possible. And at the head table sits Washington, the silent conductor of the convention.

February 22nd is the 279th anniversary of George Washington.  Happy Birthday Mr. President.

Fundamentals - Goals and Vision Part 2

In the previous article I said that every major company today faces failure of their vision in the long run. To understand the reason for that, let’s look at the start of a vision:

One of the great curiosities about vision is that, with very few exceptions, the great visions are almost always the “children” of older men. I have mentioned a few exceptions – Microsoft, Apple, Ford – but most of the great visions are from people in their 50’s.

Why? Because a vision must have substance before it can be accepted by anyone other than its creator. Because it takes time to integrate the various issues and possibilities until they come together and offer a new reality. What you will often find is that many of these visions are really the “children” of several parents. Thus, while the Wright Brothers saw the way to make powered, heavier than air flight, a host of people had spoken of the idea for, literally, centuries, and in their own time quite a few inventors, to include Cayley, Lilienthal, Langley, Chanute, and Maxim had pursued a host of engineering solutions to the problem. The Wright’s had the engineering vision to produce the solution, but, arguably, the vision of flight existed well before them and they adopted that great vision as theirs. The vision of flight had arguably been ‘maturing’ for thousands of years. (The legend of Daedalus and Icarus is 2500 years old.) In the case of McDonalds, how old was Ray Kroc when he bought the hamburger stand in 1961? -- 52 (Died in 1984 at 82)

And take a look at their competitor of the early 1960’s: Howard Johnson’s: Howard Johnson's had been started in 1925 in Massachusetts by Howard Johnson, and by the mid-1960s its sales exceeded Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's combined. There would eventually be more than 1,000 Howard Johnson restaurants and 500 motor lodges. But, after Johnson's death in 1972, the company lost its raison d'etre. The restaurants became obsolete; the food quality deteriorated.

Meanwhile, Ray Kroc's obsession on Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value — the fixed criteria of control of McDonald's--was gathering momentum. Kroc identified a real trend in the US, a nation where people wanted to eat out, not at home. He also saw an opportunity for change away from old restaurants and he created that new way to eat – the fast food restaurant where you ate with your hands, with inexpensive food, served quickly by friendly people.

Kroc gave people what he ‘knew’ they really wanted. He said, "The definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way." He was McDonald’s real lead salesman and Public Relations officer, and was the chairman from 1968 until 1984.

Another Ray Kroc quote is instructive: "I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced that the best was ahead of me." Obviously, as he paid $2.7 million to the McDonalds Brothers in 1961. Two years later he opened his 500th restaurant.

Now, Ray Kroc died in 1984, and while the company is still doing well in a number of countries, McDonald's being found in over 100 countries, arguably it has gone through a number of struggles. Part of that reason, I would suggest, is just what happened with Howard Johnson’s – the guy with the real vision is no longer there to keep the vision alive, to tweak it, to refresh it, to keep it fresh and real. They have had good managers and the company has a great deal of assets and an excellent market position. But, will it survive without a real vision? That will be dependent on the development and refinement of a new vision, one with real substance. (I would, by the way, recommend you read about Ray Kroc, because he was a fascinating guy who did address many of the issues we face today in business leadership or any leadership. I suggest you read an article about Kroc by the chef Jacques Pepin for Time Magazine, it’s a good place to start.)

To make that point again, take a look at how many aircraft production and aircraft engine production companies existed in the 1930’s and 1940’s. How many remain today? These were huge firms, but they lost their way when leadership changed.

There are a few exceptions to this, but they are remarkable mostly because there are so few. We all know that interesting statistic that there is only one company – GE – that has been on the DJIA since the average began. All those other ‘great companies’ have folded or been absorbed, etc.

While it is not my point to get into lectures on any specific corporation, take a look at the incredible history of Boeing, how the leadership was a very narrow group of folks up until the mid-1980’s, a vision passed from one long-time believer to another; and how they have had some hard times as they have adjusted their vision since the early 1990’s. Boeing recently regained its vision as a great maker of aircraft, and is doing very well. Their survival for the next 20 years or so seems certain.

A final point about visions: they must be narrowly focused. Ronald Reagan may have seen a future world without communism, with everyone free and living in some type of western style democracy, with a great deal of private enterprise, and reduced trade barriers and low taxes, etc., etc. But, what he talked about was freedom. Henry Ford talked about cars. Ford may have bought iron mines and steel smelters, but the point was cars. Microsoft writes software. Microsoft doesn’t compete with Intel and try to make ships, Intel doesn’t write software, Dell doesn’t make either software or chips. The vision is necked down because you can manage a narrow vision. If your company is trying to do 5 things at once, you will, almost to a certainty, do most of them poorly. Your core will probably continue to perform well, but the rest will not.

In conclusion, focus on your vision. Work on it, massage it, and remember to let it mature, like wine. Also, don’t be afraid to ‘steal’ your vision. Perhaps the greatest icon of leadership in the ancient world – Alexander the Great – ‘stole’ his vision of a world empire based with leadership based on merit from his tutor. That his tutor happened to Aristotle and encouraged him in this ‘theft’ was beneficial. For those of us who can’t have the benefit of one of the perhaps ten great minds of all time as a tutor and mentor, we can get around that by reading and listening; the ideas are out there already. “All” you need to do is find the right idea, the right goal and redirect it.

Fundamentals - Goals and Vision Part 1

We have mentioned that the goal is the first and most important element of all leadership. The goal, which is really a restatement of the vision of the leader into a specific aim point, is central, and all else flows from the goal. And the goal, the specific ‘aim-point,’ is the child of the leader’s vision. The two – the vision and the goal – must be viewed as opposite sides of the same thing. Remember, we are not talking about insipid ‘vision’ statements that use obscure and high-sounding but meaningless terms that confuse the members of the organization and leave to everyone wondering what’s next. The vision is just that, the image of the organization – in the future - that the leader has created. The goal (or goals) is (are) a specific mark that the leader has developed that represents a concrete element of his vision.

All real leaders have a vision. The vision can be fairly simple, but it has to be significant, it must point to a new reality. This is the problem with the so-called mission and vision statements that everyone has drawn up: they are often either not a vision of a new reality, or they simply aren’t significant. Don’t misunderstand me: this isn’t easy.

What is Vision?

So, what do we mean when we call for vision? Simply, it is when someone “sees” a future, a real picture – inside his head – of how the world, or, at least his corner of it, should look. Now, we all have images in our heads of how we would like things to look, we see ourselves on a large sailboat or in a castle in the south of France, even in the White House. But, a real vision isn’t about us, it’s about a new world around us. It’s about a better way of living, whether it’s a new way for people to move around – think of Henry Ford and the idea that everyone is going to own automobiles, or the guys at both Apple and Microsoft and the idea that everyone will have a computer. They “see” a new reality, and then they go about creating it.

Now, what is interesting is that these visions are usually marked by one of two boundaries: either bounded in scope or in scale. By that I mean that, whether it was the automobile or the personal computer, or any other specific vision, the leader, the visionary, didn’t try to control the vision. Ford didn’t try to see, and hence form, the vision much beyond the idea that everyone owns a car. He didn’t attempt to formulate or influence the oil industry or the gasoline distribution infrastructure, he didn’t try to create an interstate freeway system, he didn’t try to form any of the secondary industries that were the offspring of the automobile (motels, fast-food restaurants, the suburbs, etc., etc.), and arguably his vision was adjusted when GM became the first car company to offer financing, thus ensuring a continuous flow of money and assuring long term flows of money. Certainly, as those industries developed he was aware, took note of and adjusted his vision. In a similar way, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and all those guys, did not try to drive a vision that included E-Bay or the internet or real estate on line or medical records being passed from hospital to hospital by computer and thus saving lives, or all of the ‘dot Coms.’ They have both adjusted their product lines as these various industries have developed, but they focused on their own specific vision, and let the rest of the new reality develop around them.

Which leads to the first rule of visions: they must be bounded by scope. Even in politics, the vision must have boundaries. President Reagan wanted to end communism, he also wanted to recast the economic dialogue in terms of supply side economics, and while the two are linked in many ways, he moved forward on both, but kept each separate. Trying to manage both as an integrated whole would not only have raised the level of complexity beyond all understanding, it would have placed both at risk.

The second rule of vision is that you must be bound by scale, or complexity. Now, what I mean by that is complexity down, not up. Don’t get too mired in detail. Vision requires that you have a long-term picture, and a faith, a confidence that smaller obstacles will be addressed in time, dealt with and passed. The small obstacles must be dealt with, the vision can be adjusted along the margins, but don’t let the problems of today change the essence of that vision.

But, let me repeat, the vision is bound down, not up. Not only will getting mired in the details kill the vision, but making the vision too small, too simple will make the vision unsustainable. To fly, to make airplanes that can carry people around the planet, or a host of other things, these are issues that can stir a heart. And, these become visions that people can easily adopt as their own and support. It is the lesser issues which, in the end, are sometimes the most difficult to promote, and which can require the most out of the leader. But, if the Wright Brothers tried to resolve the issue of eminent domain and road networks to support airports, as part of their quest for flight, they’d never have made it out of Ohio.

Let me give you a few more examples: Leading a platoon of riflemen into a fire-fight, at least in a democracy, can be, in a very real sense, easy. That is because we all know that the reason we are fighting is not to satisfy the whim of a dictator. The reason that a young Marine picks up his weapon and charges into the building full of bad-guys is that he truly believes that he is defending freedom and making the world safer for those he loves, as well as fighting for his buddies. If you want to talk about self-actualization, there it is. In fact, the average Marine rifleman joined the Marines for that very reason, irrespective of what recruiters or senior officers might say to him about health-care benefits or retirement or whatever. That young Marine is functioning at the very top end of Maslow’s hierarchy. As a result, he often needs little in the way of leadership, once he’s been trained and pointed in the right direction. And that is also why a young Marine or Soldier, after he gets out of the Marines or Army, always looks back on his time in the service with such a sense of longing: because he reached something that every member of mankind seeks his entire life—self-actualization. He peaked and he knows it, at least sub-consciously. He was working to achieve something great, something truly beyond himself. Wow! He is, in the strictest of senses, a lucky man.

Another example is a fighter pilot. He not only is defending freedom, he gets to do it while being revered as one of the most romantic figures of modern time, and he does it while getting to strap-on a $50 million dollar airplane and race around the sky. Again, Wow!

On the other hand, how do we motivate someone to help you make a better hamburger? Or, more difficult still, not to make a better hamburger - it’s not a gourmet restaurant - but how about making a McDonald’s cheeseburger? I suggest that the motivational issue there is as difficult as it gets.

Let’s take a look at that problem: by way of example, McDonalds is a great organization, and I love their food. As one gourmet chef recently said, there are some things he doesn’t try to do because he feels they have already been perfected, and pointed at McDonalds French Fries as an example of something that is about as good as it gets. I agree.

But, look at what McDonalds says about themselves: they want to be the best quick service restaurants in the world and the best employer in any community in which they operate. Those are OK visions, But… The fact is that, for the average worker, that is pretty difficult to get fired up about. One of them isn’t even about you, you’re not the employer, you’re the employee. And, as for being the best quick service restaurant, does that really motivate? So, I would suggest that, for starters, the folks like McDonalds, particularly now that they are well into a period of sustainment, sustaining market share, increasing here and there, but not being able to benefit emotionally from a period of explosive growth, are going to need to come up with a new vision if they are going to survive.

Let me repeat that: they need a new vision or they will – in the long run – fail. Not that they are alone in this regard; this is a problem faced by every major (and minor) company today – GE, Apple, AT&T, Exxon – you name it.