Courage
Feedback could save your job
By Debra J. Gawrych
Some people are unaware that reality contains unparalleled
beauties.
The fantastic, the unexpected, the ever-changing and renewing is
nowhere so exemplified as in real life itself.
— Bernice Abbott
The corporate landscape has been populated with a number of stories of companies whose leaders failed to be open to feedback and were unwilling to change, even when confronted with dire consequences for their actions. This lack of integrity has been documented in well-publicized stories about Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco. What is not as well known are the stories that go unnoticed but serve to erode the integrity of many American businesses on a daily basis.
Wolfgang Schmitt, of Rubbermaid, was notorious for bringing his
team together, and then sorting out a difficult decision alone, as
if he was a Broadway stage performer. A former colleague joked,
“Wolf knows everything about everything.” But this was
apparently not the case as Rubbermaid went from being
Fortune’s most admired company in America to one of the
lowest performers and was acquired by Newell a few years later.
Jill Barad, of Mattel, had the same reputation. She made a mistake of overpaying for The Learning Company and then let its failure dominate her tenure as CEO of Mattel. She removed her senior lieutenants in short order if she thought they harbored serious reservations about the way she was running things. Both wound up losing their positions under spectacularly unsuccessful circumstances, and yet the very factors that helped them gain their top positions — confidence, leadership, self-assurance, results-oriented focus — were also the same factors that led to their failure. For them it was true that their strengths, when allowed to run to excess, had become their weaknesses.
On the other hand, top executives who truly understand how to affect transformation are more flexible and open to the synergies created from working together rather than from an individual ego. Jim Collins wrote in his book, Good to Great, that coherence is evident in all good-to-great transformations from businesses that are failing (whether they know it or not) and businesses that are great. “Each piece of the system reinforces the other parts of the system to form an integrated whole that is much more powerful than the sum of the parts. It is only through consistency over time, through multiple generations, that you get maximum results.”
Physics professor R. J. Peterson explains coherence. “What is one plus one?” he asked, then paused for effect. “Four! In physics we have been talking about the idea of coherence, the magnifying effect of one factor upon another.”
— from Good to Great
Leaders at companies mentioned in Collins’ book include Ken Iverson who helped lead Nucor into ground-breaking financial and operational territory but at the end of his tenure fell from grace. The point is that being open to feedback is a lifelong process. Even the ones who get it right from time to time are doomed to fail in their own success, unless they are continually open to feedback and to the changes around them.
One of the key factors in the spectacular demises of many of the executives in corporate America today is that they continue to lead on the backs of their past successes. They find a model that works for them, that gets them to where they are today, and then follow that model no matter what, even if it is long past working. Over time they lose their effectiveness, and their power erodes to the point that they are forced to leave or lose everything for the company and for themselves. This was again the downfall of Jill Barad of Mattel, who earned her top management position because of the success she crafted with Barbie dolls and tried to use that same model after the acquisition of The Learning Company.
In a recent HR study, Mercer Consulting discovered that more than 40 percent of all employees did not believe the information their superiors passed on to them about corporate initiatives. More surprising is that senior executives felt the same way about the directives they give to their employees. Approximately 40 percent of the senior executives themselves do not believe in the messages they give their own employees!
Is there any wonder we face situations of questionable integrity and authenticity when so many employees and managers don’t believe in the integrity of what they are hearing or even doing in their daily corporate lives?
One way to cut through this illusion is to tell the truth; another is to find a balance between the corporate/individual ego and what is best for the entire organization..Few people want to follow a wishy-washy leader. Few people want to follow an ego-manic either. It is possible for a leader and for a company to strike a balance in between these two extremes.
