You Are the Organization

Organizations don’t fail, the people who manage and populate them do.

As of this morning there pops up 45, 040 eBook references to “leadership” at Amazon. For “motivation” 42,793 eBooks. Most of these books will supply you with “the answer”, or the “all you have to do is …” idea. The others will be a rewrite or amplification of some of the ideas already written about. What is the point? You have all those books to pick from since each one holds the premise of “the answer.” Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford University, in his latest “Leadership BS” states that one pitfall in this myriad of answers is the fact that much of the writing are statements that have not been validated. Further, the 45,040 books are a very small portion of the estimated $15 billion leadership industry. You don’t even have to be a successful leader or an expert in the field to write or act as if you are both.

Yet, Pfeffer states (p.39 in “Leadership BS): “If, as scores of studies demonstrate, leadership affects engagement, satisfaction and turnover, the sorry state of these workplace indicators provide compelling evidence of leadership failure.” Even the doer of “the answer”, from the ranks of top and senior management, are constantly at risk to be blamed for “the failure” as shown by increasingly short tenure in the top jobs in industry in South Africa.

The biggest pitfall in my view are the over-simplification of what it takes to be a leader. For the sake of the reader (considered to be somewhat dim-witted so your writing should meet the standard of KISS) limited number the steps or of “onlys” come across as very seductive and complete.

And the point of being critical about leadership literature is? To raise warning about a twofold risk: a) believing as gospel an opinion dressed up in book format; b) being on the receiving end of an “only” so that in return you have to make the company successful.

There are at least 45, 040 opinions about what “only” has to be done to us to get us to do what we are paid to do, i.e. contribute to the success (typically the financial success) of the company. If we believe this, no matter what level of position we sit in, we are risking to become the victim: “If it is not done to me, then I cannot do.” The spin that goes with management is that they must do a brand of “leading” so that people can respond with appropriate work behavior.

I can’t help but get the impression that through these ideas one creates a sense of “learned helplessness” in the worker. Forget your sense of responsibility, or wanting to be successful, or wanting to make a contribution considered significant, or wanting to master a new skill, or growing in your job and career – forget all that because you are not getting the right leadership.

I am of the opinion that if the senior executive of a company is not good enough to lead the group to success, should the same judgment not made applicable to his immediate reports at least? Why not fire the whole top management team if the leader does not do a good enough job, because they might have been co-conspirators, or at least, given their approval through silence? Chris Argyris used the phrase “Skilled incompetence.” “Skilled incompetence is displayed when people in companies automatically, rapidly and unconsciously behave in ways that protect themselves and others in situations that they define as threatening or embarrassing. This skilled incompetence (with reference to managerial stewardship) is due to the fact that information, decisions or positions are not questioned or tested as being for the best of the organization. There exist (as part of the “contract”) a cover up about the incompetence. The responsible people may be very skilled and hardworking at trying to make wrong decisions to work, however the incompetence referred to here is in the process leading to the wrong decisions and/or priorities.” (Armand Kruger, unpublished article. For more information, and definitions by Prof. Argyris, please go to “Can Good Decisions Come from Bad Politics” at ).

In conclusion: I am suggesting the it is not a statement about the organization that failed but a question about “how did the people fail to be successful?”