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The Leadership Pill – Now only $19.95 It’s about 5:00 on Memorial Day morning. The TV is providing background music to my efforts to write an article. President Bush is walking across the beaches at Normandy, a group singing God Bless America has just exited the screen, and as soon as the newsbreak to France is over, a chef from one of New York’s greatest restaurant’s will teach us how to cook hot dogs or Chateaubriand. What a country! Earlier in the morning, the editor of a fitness magazine demonstrated the three exercises that one can use to most quickly and easily prepare (push-ups, crunches, and lunges) their bodies (a.k.a. – arms, abs, and buns) for the summer season. Sporadic breaks in the entertainment here and news from Normandy allow us to be assaulted by the latest attempts by American ingenuity to sell us something - anything. For the most part, very early morning (and very late night television) is not the bastion of main steam products and services. At these hours of limited numbers of viewers or viewers who have IQ’s with limited numbers (myself included), the commercial aspect of TV more closely resembles QVC or the Shopper’s Network. The audience at these fringe hours of the day are people (who when rested know better but with their minds clouded by the need for or lack of sleep) driven by hope - emotion not reason. In a few minutes of television viewing you’ll learn about buns of steel. You see demonstrations for equipment – Thigh Master, Ab wheels, ski-tracks, plus pills to metabolize fat, and now battery packs that will convert the barrel belly into six pack abs in only 6 weeks and for 4 installments of only $29.95. Even better news is that if you call in the next 15 minutes, they throw in extra bottle of pills, reduce each installment or waive of the last installment. You laugh and ask yourself – “who buys this crap?” You turn off the TV and return to your room. You hang your pajamas on the exercise bike ($299.00) that you purchased 3 years ago, nearly trip on the rowing machine ($495.00) that is sticking out from under your bed. It has been there since the aforementioned exercise bike replaced it. You move toward your walk in closet which is now home to your E-Z store home gym ($1,299.95 + shipping and handling). You answer your own rhetorical question with a sheepish grin – “who buys this crap?” – “I do / we all do!” Hope sells better than hard work! © Square One Consulting (May 2002) After a shower and your first cup of coffee, you return to reality – fitness is not a thing, it’s a process. If you want to get and stay fit you can do so without any expenditure of cash, without magic bullets, batteries, pills or equipment. Here’s the formula, eat less and exercise more. To stay focused you might write down the calories you take in, and measure the calories you burn. You can use the exercises you learned in PE class, at football practice or in basic training. Success is not buying something – it’s in doing something. Plan your work and work your plan. Discipline. As you settle in your mahogany desk to face another day as leader, business owner or manager, you reflect on the 3 stacks of materials awaiting you. (This system of prioritizing stacks was suggested at a seminar you attended years ago - only $199.00 for an eight hour seminar.) In the important stack are some books on leadership, business innovation, and management philosophies - Danger in the Comfort Zone ($16.95), Northbound Train ($22.95), and Leader of the Future ($25.00). As you look at your bookshelf you see many more: Business 2010, Blown to Bits, Post Capitalist Society, Built to Last, Megatrends 2000, Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers, Nuts, Corporate Lifecycles… You had even more stored under your bed but you got rid of those to make room for your rowing machine. You reflect for a moment and realize that you have read all of these books. The information was great – logical, practical, and doable. You look at your desk and realize that it looks the way it always has - cluttered. You see the “org chart” on the wall and it remains as you designed it just a few years ago. You realize a need to change the implementation date on this since you haven’t acted upon it yet. Your partially complete planning document is strategically located on the left corner of the table across from your desk. You assured the consultant ($24,000.00) that you merely needed to add action steps and assign responsibilities and the planning process would move from “your bottom shelf to the bottom line!” That was 4 years ago. With a red face, you flashback to early morning television and your original question – “who buys this crap?” The answer (drum roll) - we all do! Maybe you should scrap this career, your company, this opportunity and do something really rewarding – invent a leadership pill. If you could reduce all you learned about leadership, management and business to a formula that could be ingested you could sell millions. You’d keep the price reasonable (only $19.95) and still become wealthy. Remember its Memorial Day. Remember the men who stormed the Beaches at Normandy, survived the Bataan Death March and all who have fought in wars before and after. Reflect on the courage and discipline of the firefighters and police who ran into the WTC when everyone else was running out. Realize that leadership is not about taking a pill; it’s about the willingness to “take a bullet” in pursuit of a noble cause. Leadership is about Vision and building the organization to achieve it. It’s about a plan, preparation, discipline, and execution. © Square One Consulting (May 2002) Here’s a cup of reality to awaken you and your senses. You are the leader. You exist because there are followers. Your organization can achieve whatever you and the followers are willing to accomplish through hard work, discipline, vision, and innovation. The ideas du jour that you’ve read about are only as good or as bad as your willingness to utilize (PUT INTO ACTION) them in your operations. Max DePree said the “first role of the leader is to define reality.” Henry Kissinger said the “task of the leader is to get the people from where they are to where they have not been.” Most of the principles outlined by the writers of these great books will work. Unfortunately they only work if you are willing to lead / manage with these. They don’t work if you’re only hanging your pajamas on them or storing them under the bed. You as leader are only half of the equation. The followers are the other necessary component. As individuals their personalities and values will determine what they are willing and able to do. Collectively the interaction and intimacy of these individuals determine the group personality and values – THE CULTURE. Without a leader the organization will not enjoy positive movement and without motivated followers the leader will not lead anywhere. Answer Mr. DePree - what is your reality? What is your vision? Who are the followers – as individuals and collectively? Are they willing and able to follow you in pursuit of this vision? If no, are you willing to train and motivate the individuals to do so? If necessary, are you willing and able to change the organizational culture (WARNING: CHANGING THE CULUTURE IN AN ORGANIZATION IS VERY CHALLENGING)? If no, are you willing and able to change the members of the group or change the Vision to one that your group can achieve? Once the Vision is clear, the plan written, and the organization prepared, motivated, and committed, do you and the individuals have the courage and discipline to charge the machine gun fire that is the competitive marketplace? Leadership and followership are not about a pill – it’s about hard work! Planning, preparation, discipline, and execution! God Bless America – What a country! (Priceless) © Square One Consulting (May 2002) articleleadershippill |