LEADERSHIP: FUTURE-FIGHTING, NOT FIRE-FIGHTING

Published: 2010-03-29   please add a comment below

"Harmony has tremendous appeal. Yet a good leader still asks how the business can do better. And, a great leader fights for what he or she believes in." This edited quote from a recent HBR article* urges us all to strive for what's game-defining, not what's marginal. Where do you and your team spend time: on operational fights with few serious implications; or, strategic challenges that can transform the business? The authors offer three checks of fight-worthiness - outlined below.

But let me start with an example. Marvin Bower, the man who really formed McKinsey & Co., was relentless in pursuit of what was central to creating a great firm. He was quietly spoken but willing to fight. When some colleagues wanted the firm to go into venture capital, he fought for the integrity of the firm's role as a professional firm advising clients. He won - as so often in arguments defining the firm's purpose and reputation.

Here are the three tests our authors suggest applying:

• Calculate if the fight is material - involving outcomes that can deliver quantum changes in one or more of the business' key metrics: revenue, costs, capital, etc.
• Ensure the fight is future-focused - leading to a different looking business with improved competitive positioning, reputation or other key descriptors.
• Check if the fight has a noble purpose - supporting a larger cause or speaking to more than making money, as it did for Marvin Bower.

The authors also provide three pointers re running a worthwhile fight. Make it a sport, not a war - serious and competitive but not brutal or lethal. Set up a formal structure but also engage informal ones (networks and professional connections) so evidence is gathered effectively. Turn pain into gain, ensuring those who lose have the chance for learning and continuing to play.

To keep us from choosing the soft option of harmonious alignment, the authors evidence its risks including complacency: the "greatest predictor of poor company performance". They also explain that "within acceptable levels of competition and tension, science shows, dissent will fire up more of an individual's brain ... stimulating more pathways and creative centres". If so, over the next 12 months, which "worthwhile fights" do you have to run?

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®