The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership: Aligning Your Organization for Enduring Success
PILLAR IIl: Journeying
"Parting the Mindsets : Sharing a Future"
(Part 3 of 7)
"I can't adjust the wind against the sails. I just have to make sure the sails are set." - M. Douglas Ivester, CEO of Coca Cola Inc. 1.Journey. The word speaks volumes to people all over the world.: we begin journeys; the journey of a 1,000 miles begins with the first step; we must go on a journey; when did you get back from your journey? where did your journey take you? this is the end of the journey; the motel chain "Journey's End."
"King Tamatoa realized that there came a time on any voyage when a man and his canoe had to trust the gods and to run forward, satisfied that the sails had been well set and the course adhered to whenever possible; but when all precautions failed to disclose known marks, it was obligatory to ride the storm." - James A. Michener, Hawaii 2
"Intellectual capital is useless unless it moves. It's no good having some guy who is very wise and sits alone in a room." -- Hugh Macdonald 3
"Knowledge has become the primary ingredient of what we make, do, buy, and sell. As a result, managing it finding and growing intellectual capital, storing it, selling it, sharing it has become the most important economic task of individuals, businesses, and nations." - Thomas A. Stewart, writer with Fortune magazine 4
"If R&D investment begins to surpass capital investment the corporation could be said to be shifting from being a place for production to being a place for thinking." - Fumio Kodama, professor of innovation policy at Saitama University near Tokyo5
To go on a journey often signals the time to begin a new phase of one's life. I have heard executives and managers say at the end of the 1990s' recession: "That was quite a journey."
Journeys signal crossroads. Journeys signal pilgrimage. "The archetype of the journey always includes a crossroads. One has to choose a path, either to the left or to the right. The journey moment is a decision moment." 6
In today's turbulent world of constant change and globalization, the theme of journey is particularly important to organizations. As we saw in Pillars I and II, when the vision is mapped out, the decision to get on the road begins. In ancient Greek times, a personal journey like this was often referred to as the hero's journey the discovery of oneself, such as the journey Odysseus made, as recounted in Homer's Odyssey.
Every hero goes into the "underworld"; every hero "dies" to the past and looks to the future; every hero attains a new "identity." A most profound change and transformation takes place. The hero's journey radically transforms. One is not the same person as before at the end of the journey. Even though one has the vision and the map, the journey takes one through unknown territory.
What does the new corporate journey look like today? Scott Chate is communications leader at Calgary, Alberta's TransCanada Pipelines. He says, "Business is increasingly becoming an ongoing conversation about what to do and how to do things. The ability to facilitate those conversations is an important aspect of what people these days are calling knowledge-sharing."
Conversation is a very different journey for executives than what they're used to. Twenty years ago, executives might have imagined the corporate journey as one of "getting things done," "getting problems solved," "making decisions," "keeping track of inventory," "maintaining the books," etc.
"But conversation?" you might be saying to yourself. "We never studied that in business school." Hewlett-Packard's Dan Branda, in commenting on H-P's new journey, says, "Our job is to set an environment that allows risk taking, creative thinking, continuous process flow, trust in people and respect for people." 8
Just as it was for the ancients, today's journey will involve discovery. Discovery can only happen while one is on the journey. Organizations are struggling today to know which direction to go in. They also wonder if they can sustain themselves on this new journey. Antoine de St-Exup‚ry, author of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), said that he knew of only one freedom, and that was the freedom of the mind. In today's new global economy, the competitive edge is surely with those who have "intellectual capital." As we saw in Pillar I (Visioning), today's new journey involves "managing the intangibles" (relationships, context) more than ever. At Necho Systems Corp., the question Tom Daniel asks is, "How do younger, smaller software companies compete with companies that can dazzle prospective workers with larger budgets?" and his answer includes "a combination of prudent investment in employees and a focus on a variety of intangibles to create an atmosphere that attracts high-quality people and encourages loyalty." 11
What companies are now discovering in the age of the "conversational journey" so essential to corporate success, is that IQ alone doesn't cut it anymore. As my articles have been emphasizing repeatedly, EQ emotional quotient or EI -- emotional intelligence is central. Chemical Bank, in the U.S., is one such company stressing the importance of EQ and "the intangibles" as the fuel for the new corporate journey:
At Chemical Bank, Ernest Pelli's bosses suggested he polish these very skills. So, late on a Thursday night in Manhattan, Pelli, 32, attends a Dale Carnegie class, explaining to classmates that he is there "to practice showing interest in other people." Trained as an accountant, he rates his technical skills as very good. But Chemical wanted him to work on "the intangibles" -- the people skills required of managers. "Especially in accounting," he explains, "you see a lot of people who are interested only in the technical aspect." When, for example, the bank values an asset one way and the client another, a lack of EQ skills can make discussions "more contentious than they need to be." 12
In 1994, Alan Webber, former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, and now founding editor of Fast Company, posed the following question: "What's so new about the new economy?" Author Don Tapscott, who wrote The Digital Economy, has a wonderful reply to the question: "I ... noted that Webber's question is reminiscent of the time Albert Einstein was monitoring an exam for graduate physics students and was told there was a problem because the questions on the exam were the same as the previous year's test. 'That's okay,' he replied, 'the answers are different this year'." And this answer explains why all organizations, in order to survive, have to be on the new journey. Tapscott then goes on to highlight a quote from Wired magazine's Kevin Kelly who, in speaking of the new journey and the centrality of the intangibles, writes: "The principles governing the world of the soft -- the world of intangibles, of media, of software, and of services -- will soon command the world of the hard -- the world of reality, of atoms, of objects, of steel and oil, and the hard work done by the sweat of brows." 14
QUESTION: "Are We Prepared for This New Journey?"
Let's do an organizational check. Think of the organization you work in. Estimate fairly and honestly your answer to the following seven (7) questions. Use the scale below to make your choice:
- = To a very little extent
- = To a little extent
- = To some extent
- = To a great extent
- = To a very great extent
The organization I work for ....
| Item No. | Item | My Score |
|---|---|---|
| Celebrates people's accomplishments. | ||
| Follows through on well-thought-out plans | ||
| Effectively meets challenges as they occur. | ||
| Knows what to do to make effective changes. | ||
| Is well along the way to organizational health. | ||
| Has a clear focus on what its priorities are. | ||
| Is building a future worth going to. |
Interpretation:
If you scored 32-35:You're well on the new journey. If you scored 28-31:You're doing all right, but need to improve. If you scored 25-27:You definitely need to take stock right now. If you scored 0-24: You're are, or will be, in trouble.
Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer, authors of Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, write that "the capitalization of the individual" will be the new currency and itemize the following factors as important for this new journey:
- Start colouring outside the lines.
- Blur the division between work and personal life.
- Seek novelty forever.
- Sell your value on the web.
- Let the market, not the company, determine your worth.
In 1998, when The Financial Post chose "The 50 Best" managed companies in Canada, it wrote the following: "One of the hardest things about being selected as one of the 50 best managed companies in Canada is to live up to the billing. Some companies have made the list for a second time. The secret of their repeat performance lies in a host of intangibles." In reviewing selected companies from the list and searching for the intangibles, the following ideas kept appearing. Pay particular attention to the extraordinary emphasis that EQ plays for success on the new journey.
- "TLC" Think Like a Customer program
- Innovative ideas and products
- Creating products and services no one else has
- Delivering in ways others haven't
- Knowing your customers, your market, and your employees better than anyone else
- Realizing that business is 100% people
- Dedication to quality relationships starting at top levels
- Emphasis on human problem solving
- Having well-trained employees
- Exercising the imagination and seeing the success of results
- Policies of promoting from within
- Taking care of and motivating employees
- Having BHA: a big hairy, audacious dream
- Understanding the entire business
- Creating a high-performance work culture
Necessary Preparations for the New Journey
The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership discusses the following eight things that are absolutely necessary for this new journey. These eight symbolic items form the new compass that will guide us safely along the path.
- Body: Symbolically this means that we must have substance, a sense of who we
are. When people refer to others as "shallow," they usually mean "there is not much
to them." People with "body" are people who have depth, character. Similarly with the
corporate body, unless an organization has body, character, depth, it will not last
long. An example of a company that "has body" is Canadian Occidental Petroleum
Ltd. of Calgary, Alberta. When CanOxy does business internationally, it works from a
code of international business ethics that bars employees from paying bribes to
foreign officials. It has character. "The code is sufficiently strict that in some cases
CanOxy has lost business because it refused to get involved with partners known to
have paid bribes in the past." CanOxy is in step with the new Bill S-21, which
cements Canada's commitment to an anti-bribery treaty negotiated in 1997 by
members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Canadian executives who violate the new law could end up in jail for five years.
Other Canadian companies with "body" and character include such notables as
Alcan Aluminum Ltd., General Electric Co.'s Canadian affiliates, Northern Telecom
Ltd., Ontario Hydro, Shell Canada Ltd., and Talisman Energy Inc. Peter Eigen,
founder of Transparency International in Berlin reminds us that "having little body" in
international business dealings is akin to being seduced by corruption. It hurts
everyone, making poverty more intense, distorting social and economic development
and eroding the provision of public service.
- Alms bowl: Symbolically this means having an attitude of receptivity, of openness to
life and opportunity. I remind my students that in the new economy they need to
become "opportunity employees." We need to be schooled in what Horace the Latin
poet wrote when he called his poem "Carpe Diem" "Seize the Day." "Grab the
Moment." But that means we must be open to newness. The Institute for Research
on Learning (or IRL), in Palo Alto, California, was founded in 1987. It's a research
spinoff group of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre. Their mission is to study how
people learn. What they discovered is that learning is a social activity. In other
words, learning happens in groups. This is a very remarkable research finding
because it means that our symbolic "alms bowl" -- or attitude of openness, of
humility, that I don't know everything -- is more necessary today than ever before
because of the Information Age. I submit that one of the major corporate
realignments and adjustments is to the priority of the big picture of well-being, what
The 7 Pillars calls "the top line": people, pride, and profits and in that order.
- Star: Symbolically this means having the correct compass for this new journey. In
modern corporate terms, the star is the centred organization that is guided by its core
values.21
CanOxy (mentioned above) is such a company with its 10-page handbook
detailing its corporate values, including a section dealing with improper payments.
Roger Sant and Dennis Bakke founded the now-giant AES Corporation in 1981. In a
recent interview, Sant remarked, "Empowerment without values isn't empowerment,"
says Sant. "It's just technique." Author Suzy Wetlaufer, writing in the Harvard
Business Review for January/February 1999, writes, "When they founded AES in
1981, Sant and Bakke set out to create a company where people could have
engaging experiences on a daily basis -- a company that embodied the principles of
fairness, integrity, social responsibility, and fun. Putting those principles into action
has created something unique -- an ecosystem of real empowerment."
- Mirror: Symbolically this means having the ability to look at ourselves in the mirror.
We do this by checking our motivations and the geography of our inner road. For
some companies, it means holding an executive retreat; for others, it is making a
360 degree development feedback process integral to the organization. A case in point is
Royal Bank's venture into loaning money for so-called microenterprises in Atlantic
Canada.22
The loans are small- $5,000 or less - and go to fund day-care centres,
corner stores and crafts producers. And it's limited to women only. Call it Canada's
first major microcredit program for women. Executive Nancy Barry, a Harvard MBA,
once worked at the World Bank and is now president of Women's World Banking.
She works out of a small office in central Manhattan. She found the model to help set
up these micro lending loans projects. She believes it can help depressed regions
such as Nova Scotia's Cape Breton wean themselves from perpetual government
aid. Her network now has 200,000 women clients; she hopes to reach 10 million by
2008. She finds much of her inspiration by taking her staff on retreats to poor regions
around the world: Chile, Dominican Republic, and especially Bangladesh, where
microlending had its start. "With American candour and Wall Street smarts, she is
trying to whip the global microcredit movement into shape." It was on one such
retreat with her affiliates in Ahmedabad, India where The Globe and Mail's John
Stackhouse interviewed her. Retreats such as these allow Ms. Small to assess what
she must truly do.
- Apple Corer: Symbolically this means peeling off the layers of stuff that keep us
from knowing about and relishing the centre of who we are. It's an experience of
getting to the core, getting back to basics, getting back "to the knitting," as Tom
Peters would say. The 1990s has seen a tremendous amount of this experience in
downsizing, delayering, dehirings. If done well, and for the right purpose, it brings life
back into the body, the organization. If done poorly, it hurts and maims
unnecessarily. Lynn Anderson, enterprise marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard
(Canada) Ltd., says if you delayer for the wrong reasons, you will be guiding your
business by the past, not by the future. At the end of the day, you should instead be
saying: "What do I need to do?" With too much pruning, the workers left behind are
simply too overworked. Studies are now showing the negative impact that
mishandling the apple corer is causing: "Depression costs Canadian and U.S.
businesses about $60 billion per year in productivity losses, disability costs, wage
replacements and product and service quality and other costs not directly related to
health care." Author Don Tapscott remarks, "Mental health is good business. I am
convinced that organizations which pay attention to the mental health of their people
are better able to compete in the new economy. The reason is simple -- this is a
knowledge-based economy. Is the problem technology? I'd argue no. It's not
technology that designs organizations or firms or business processes or systems or
work or families or societies. It's people." 26
- Sword: Symbolically this means judgment, judgment, judgment. It is the keen edge
of discriminating insight. How many times do we hear executives, presidents, prime
ministers say that what they did was "an error in judgment." We also read about
companies "on the cutting edge." In the Information Age, and in a knowledge
economy, the sword of discrimination is people. Today's sword is intellectual capital:
human, structural, and customer capital. Today's sword-like company is a "smart
company." Smart companies honour intelligence and thinking. Since we now know
that IQ or mental intelligence accounts for only 2-6% of life's success and that
EQ or emotional intelligence accounts for up to 47% of life's success, smart
companies invest in their people. People are assets, not costs. One example of very
bad judgment which ended up in court was the case in Calgary a few years ago
of Boothman v. Canada. It seems that a certain manager named Tomas was a
liaison officer in a federal government department. Lorraine was the employee in
question. She was also very nervous during her initial interview. She started her first
day at the office by Tomas telling her that he thought her lack of eye contact
suggested that she had a lot of guilt and would probably need time off for mental
reasons! The rest of the story goes downhill from there. In subsequent encounters,
Tomas acted as a bully, hassler, and abuser. He would yell profanities at her,
threaten her with violence, and one time ripped the ribbons out of her typewriter and
threw them over her shoulder because, he said, he didn't like that type of ribbon. It
states in the court records that he told his boss the following: "I cannot bear much
more of this before I will wring her neck gently, between my hands, until all life has
ceased." 27
This is a corporate example of one person, Tomas, using the sword for
bad ends to cut and maim another person, in this case, his employee.
- Notebook: Symbolically this means executing the details, having careful, detailed
notes and record keeping. The centuries-old expression "The devil is in the details"
comes into play here. Ironically, in today's corporate environment, we literally have
notebooks. Item #6 on Fortune magazine's "What's Your EQ at Work?" asks, " I'm
organized and careful in my work."28
The "notebook," "emotional intelligence," and "attentiveness to details" work together. Thomas H. Huxley, British biologist and educator (1825-1895), once said, "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education
is the ability to make yourself do the things you have to do, when it ought to be done,
whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned." One such
company that, in spite of its name change, is sticking to its traditions, is Captain High
Liner, now High Liner Foods Inc., of Lunenburg, N.S. This company has to reinvent
itself, but in doing so, "company president Henry Demone wants it known that the
former money-losing fishing giant is now a profitable food processing operation. But
he is careful not to stray too far from its Bluenose roots -- the venerable Captain High
Liner features prominently on the advertising logo." 29
For High Liner Foods, obviously their "notebook," their "attentiveness to executing the details" has to include "its Bluenose roots," no matter what changes occur. To verify this, we could say "Plus ça
change...," "The more things change..." Says Demone, ""Years ago we spent most of
our time on catching, processing and selling. Now the stress of this job comes from
walking on eggshells all the time as we try to formulate plans and execute them."
- Patience: Symbolically this means having perseverance, especially in the face of
adversity. Patience allows us not to lose sight of the goal and to stay on the path.
Patience allows us personally and corporately to realize we are always pilgrims on a
journey. Many times we have to keep reminding ourselves of what Carl Jung told us,
"The way is the goal, the goal is the way." I received an e-mail the other day which
said (quoting a certain Roger C. Anderson), "Accept that some days you're the
pigeon, and some days you're the statue." Not every day is a perfect day. I
remember also reading one time about a 75-year-old Nobel prize winning scientist.
The reporter remarked how smart he must be.The scientist replied, "Not really.
Many of us were working on analyzing pigs' brains. I just worked on more pig's
brains than my colleagues did." In other words, he never gave up. The Chinese say
that success occurs when preparation and opportunity meet. Timing is everything, in
many cases. Dennis Sharp, chairman and CEO of UTS Energy Corp., of Calgary,
Alberta, is a person with patience. He says of himself, "I'm a bunts and singles guy.
I'm not trying to hit home runs." One project will not open until early 2005. He has
patience. He is used to riding the ups and downs of the heavy oil business, with its
molasses-like commodity. His timing was also impeccable when he cashed out at the
market's peak in the summer of 1997. Analyst Thomas Ebbern, of Newcrest Capital
Inc., said, "Dennis did an admirable job... He had a lot of foresight." 30
Similarly, the
Ottawa-based software firm JetForm Corp. found that patience was its best tactic in
landing a major military contract with the U.S. Air Force. "As part of its move toward
a paperless military, the U.S. Air Force signed a $5-million (U.S.) enterprise-wide
licence last year to lease JetForm's FormFlow 2.15 electronic forms software."31
Making the Journey: Selected Case Examples
1. Power Workers on a New Journey 32
In the 1990s, many have asked if unions had a future left. If companies were able to uproot and employ the globalized workforce, then unions could argue all they wanted to about their distinctive value, or value proposition. The only problem was: no one was listening. Globalization took over the world.
John Murphy is the president of the Power Workers' Union. He saw the handwriting on the wall. At a February 4, 1999 "Implementing Performance Incentives with Union Partners" conference in Toronto, he said that they realized globalization was a reality. Not only that, "We also decided that competition could actually be a good thing for Ontario generally... We decided that we were going to do our job as a union by embracing the change sweeping over our industry." Agreeing that there was plenty of evidence that competition could create jobs, Murphy then went on to discuss what I call the EQ skills and the new journey the Power Workers' Union is now on:
This is all about more than just money. It's about being more human. It's about feeling good, about working with others toward a goal you all share. It's about bringing out the best part of our nature -- qualities like co-operation and teamwork, a sense of purpose, a belief that the future can be better, and a willingness to work toward that future. We in the Power Workers' Union intend to walk confidently down the road to greater human and economic equality. We hope that many others will join us. It will make the journey shorter.
2. McDonald's New Fast-Food Journey 33
McDonald's got lost on the journey in the mid-1990s. Michael Conley, the company's chief financial officer, said, "In retrospect, we lost our way back in mid-1994. We were trying to drive the company almost exclusively with national advertising."
Today, however, they have made adjustments on their corporate journey. The lengthy series of corporate miscues that began in the mid-1990s are fading. What new learnings -- or changes -- have made the journey more effective?
- Decentralizing marketing and decision making;
- Communicating the shared vision more deliberately;
- Collaborating in marketing and advertising;
- Allowing locals in the international division to create a supply infrastructure within each country or region, financed in the local currency;
- Paying attention to different customs and food tastes. As Jim Cantalupo, head of international operations, says, "We don't run Spain out of Portugal."
- Experimenting and innovating; and
- Maintaining the distinctive value of McDonald's. Jack Greenberg, the CEO says, "Decentralization doesn't mean chaos or anarchy. The things that make McDonald's distinct are going to be there. Those things are negotiable."
3. General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co:The Journey Ahead 34
The month of February 1999 was not only a tragic opening month for Ford Motor Co. -- "the worst day of my life," said William Clay Ford Jr., chairman -- it was also highly symbolic of the new and future journey that Ford Motor Co. -- as well as General Motors Corp. -- has to embrace wholeheartedly.
First, the tragic news: Ford's ancient Rouge complex in Dearborn, Mich. had an explosion which killed two workers and seriously injured 14 others. Second, the challenge of the new journey for both Ford and GM: while their product has improved -- because of Japanese and German imports -- over the last 20 yearswhat has not improved are the EQ issues I have been discussing: business practices such as cost control, labour relations, product development. While the price of cars has gone up 131% over a 15 year period, the price of computers over a 10 year period has gone down 30%!
While some readers may object to my cataloguing costs under EQ issues, think about this: "The inability of the car companies to get their costs under control is an indication of serious management problems." What will the new journey need to encompass to begin resolving these "management problems"?
The Rouge dinosaur is a huge, slow, inefficient industrial-age operation, living on borrowed time in an era of information-based, opportunistic, quick-moving suppliers who can provide the same good and services more cheaply with less capital. If Ford and GM are muddled about such near-term objectives and strategies, it is small wonder they've shown no inkling of being able to deduce how they wish to define themselves as car companies in the 21st century, and to share that information with their stockholders.
Ford and GM will need to answer some very serious and critical questions for themselves as they stumble along this new millennium journey. The Japanese and Europeans have already been busy wrestling with the new questions -- and thus, are already well on the new journey. "It appears the commodity both Ford and GM will most need to invest in for the 21st century is 21st-century thinking."
Conclusion
The most important task on the new journey for the renewed organization is inward bound. "For organizations to grow, a new spirit of enterprise must begin from the inside out."35
The new journey in the new economy in the new millennium will involve three things:
| SELF Power BRAIN Power NET Power |
Individuals and organizations will have to quickly learn how to harness (a) the best in people (SELF Power), (b) the best in thinking (BRAIN Power), and (c) the best in network relationship building (NET Power). Fortune magazine's Thomas A. Stewart writes, "The new Boeing 777 airliner, designed entirely on computers without paper drawings or mockups, has three on-board computers, and only two engines." Need we say any more about the critical new elements on the new journey!
At a time when we need the best of and from people- most importantly, their spiritual mettle -we may find we are in short supply. This may be so from both ends of the supply chain: (a) upper management, and (b) new recruits. Executives and managers have been well trained in the linear, Newtonian, quantifiable mindset, and, although necessary at times, this mindset will prove inadequate for the new journey. Will these managers change? Die off? Be replaced? As I have been emphasizing throughout The 7 Pillars articles, the new journey is more about "managing the intangibles," the relationship contexts, the EQ-intuneness issues. Current managers and executives may be graduates of the Universities of Toronto, Harvard, McGill, or Queen's, but have they that special spiritual and psychological mettle that supports discovery planning, the long- term view v. the god of quarterly results, the understanding of global dynamics, the interplay of work-home dynamics, and the critical importance of intellectual capital and innovative thinking as assets, not costs? Time will tell. It is always dangerous for any company to have only one customer, but that's what Canada in essence has with its one major customer, the USA, taking up 80% of its export market.
And new recruits? The last two generations in North America have been weaned and raised on an individualism ethic. While this emphasis has brought about a renewed focus on human rights, human resources management, the rights of the individual, the consumerism focus, it has also weakened, if not eroded, the spiritual and EQ mettle of these young people. If they do begin this new journey, they will have to acquiesce with the thrust of Pillar IV -- Learning, or Changing -- in order to create a workable value proposition, or distinctive value, for themselves personally and professionally.
We know, for example, that while IQ has consistently gone up over the years (an average of 24 points), their EQ has gone down! Dr. Daniel Goleman, author of the best- selling Emotional Intelligence, and now the new Working With Emotional Intelligence, writes:
There is a dangerous paradox at work, however: As children grow ever smarter in IQ, their emotional intelligence is on the decline. Perhaps the most disturbing single piece of data comes from a massive survey of parents and teachers that shows the present generation of children to be more emotionally troubled than the last. On average, children are growing more lonely and depressed, more angry and unruly, more nervous and prone to worry, more impulsive and aggressive.
Dr. Goleman is referring to a 13-year comparison research study done with American children. However, the results are applicable across all economic groups. The research psychologists asked the question, "Are America's Children Getting Worse?" The answer in the 1989 psychiatry report turned out to be "yes"! When employers are polled as to what skills they need in new recruits, the three most highly sought after are the following: oral communications, interpersonal abilities, and teamwork abilities the very skills that are in short supply because of the low EQ skill development in children and young adults over the past 25-30 years! Dr. Thomas Achenbach, the University of Vermont psychologist who co-authored the research study, told Dr. Goleman that he felt the decline in children's basic emotional competencies was a worldwide phenomenon! The practical evidence is found in the "rising rates among young people of problems such as despair, alienation, drug abuse, crime and violence, depressing or eating disorders, unwanted pregnancies, bullying, and dropping out of school."
Thus, our question again: Are the new recruits ready for the new workplace and for the new millennium? The Harvard Business School requires the following EQ skills: empathy, perspective taking, rapport, and cooperation; corporations seeking MBAs require communications, interpersonal and initiative skills.
If we measure the new recruits against the needed EQ skills benchmark, we realize sadly that our new recruits are not ready. According to Lyle Spencer, Jr., director of research and technology for Hay/McBer, IQ is simply "a threshold competence." What really makes "stars" and superior performance are the EQ skills the very ones that have gone down over the last 25 years worldwide!
The answer, therefore, to the question of whether individualism has been worthwhile as an ethic over these past 30 years is a resounding NO!
The journey ahead will be a very painful one for those individuals and organizations who refuse the call of becoming a learning organization. To refuse that call which I take up in Pillar IVis to refuse to change, because learning = change. To change means to let go of old certainties and allow oneself and the organization to be transformed. When we start out on the journey, we never know what we will be like at the end of it. But one thing is certain: unless we start the journey and unless we embrace learning as we go along the journey, we die, symbolically, even literally. We see that too often with individuals who give up on life, despair, wander aimlessly; and we see that with companies and organizations that have lost their sense of purpose, and possibly even go bankrupt as a result.
The initial starting-point of the journey is always vision and values; it is also the journey itself because vision and values sustain us in pursuing our personal and corporate goals and objectives. The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership states:
Only by undertaking a personal revolution of the imagination can we begin our journey to individual, organizational, and community transformation. We need to leave behind the skewed value path that celebrated the separation of work and well-being and re-create a culture in which imagination, innovation, learning and mastery of work are perceived as labours of love. We need to shift our thinking and find new ways to authenticate individual self-worth in the new organizational age. Only by freeing our imaginations can we loose the spirit of enterprise we need to build people pride, and profits.
For a summary of The 7 Pillars, go to Harcourt Brace & Company Canada's Website: or call 1-800 387-7278.
The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership: Introduction
PILLAR I: Visioning
PILLAR II: Mapping
PILLAR III: Journeying
PILLAR IV: Learning
PILLAR V: Mentoring
PILLAR VI: Leading
PILLAR VII: Valuing
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership1.html
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership2.html
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership3.html
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership4.html
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership5.html
www.canadaone.com/ezine/may99/leadership6.html
www.canadaone.com/ezine/june99/leadership7.html
www.canadaone.com/ezine/july99/leadership8.html
| Endnotes |
- Matthew Rose, "Coke Chief's Strategy is to Gulp, Not Sip," The Globe and Mail, Monday, February 1, 1999, B9
- James A Michener , Hawaii, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1959 , 89.
- Thomas A Stewart , "Brainpower." Fortune June 3, 1991, 44: repeated also in Thomas A Stewart Intellectual Capital. The New Wealth of Organizations. New Tork : Currency Doubleday, (1997), 1999, 78.
- Thomas A Stewart op. cit , 12.
- Fumio Kodama, Analyzing Japanese High Technologies : The Techno-Paradigm Shift , New York : Pinter Publishers, 1991, 2.
- Quoted in Michael Cox and Michael E Rock.
The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership : Aligning Your Organization for Enduring Success (w/CD) Toronto : Dryden (Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada), 1997, 44, ISBN 0-03-923117-8
- Grace Casselman , "A Knowledge Pipeline," Infosystems Executive , Volume 4, Number 2, February 1999, 26.
- See Bill Gillies, "Looking for Leaders," Internet :
http://www.waysmag.com/CyberPlex/Ways/Ways5/features.leaders.html
- Thomas A Stewart . op . cit.
- David Akin, "The Reigning Queen of Voice Mail," National Post, Monday, December 28, 1998, C1,2.
- Tom Daniel, "How Small Firms Can Keep Good People", The Globe and Mail , Friday , October 2, 1998 , B6
- Alan Farmham, "Are You Smart Enough to Keep Your Job?" , Fortune , vol 133, no. 1, January 15, 1999 , 34-37, 40, 42 , 46 , 48
- Don Tapscott, "Understanding the Digital Economy," National Post , Weekend Post Books, Saturday, December 19, 1998, 28.
- See Kevin Kelly. New Rules for the New Economy. 10 Radical Strategies of a Connected World. New York: Viking, 144pp.
- See Elizabeth Church, "Authors 'Blur' Old Rules of Business, " The Globe and Mail , Tuesday, July 21, 1998, B13
- "The 50 Best," National Post Monday, December 28, 1998, C15.
- Claudia Cattaneo, "An Explorer of Ethics," National Post Saturday, February 13, 1999, D1, 6.
- Law as of February 15 , 1999
- Diane Francis, "The Commendable Attack on Bribery," National Post Saturday, February 13, 1999, D3
- Thomas A Stewart , op. cit., 95
- Michael Cox and Michael E Rock , op. cit., 40
- John Stackhouse, "It's a New Form of Credit: Only Women Need Apply," The Globe and Mail , Saturday, November 7, 1998, A1, 21.
- "Time to Clean House," Infosystems Executive, Volume 4, Number 2, February 1999, 32-35
- Alanna Mitchell, Karen Unland and Chat Skelton, "Canadians All Worked Up," The Globe and Mail, Saturday, July 19, 1997, A1, 4.
- Joey Goodings, "Depression a 'Clear and Present Danger' to Business," Canadian HR Reporter, Volume 12, Number 3 , February 8, 1999 , 2.
- Joey Goodings, ibid., 2.
- Trevor Cole, " Bad Boss, Bad !" The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine February 1999, 64-66, 68, 70, 72.
- What's Your EQ at Work? in Fortune magazine online http://cgi.pathfinder.com/fortune/careers/tools/quizzes/eqqiz.html
- Kevin Cox, "High Liner Charts a Sea Change," The Globe and Mail, Friday, February 5, 1999, B25.
- Brent Jang, "UTS CEO Learned Patience Watching Market for Heavy Oil," The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, January 6, 1999, B1, 6.
- Barrie Mckenna, " JetForm Files With U.S. Air Force," The Globe and Mail, Monday, October 5, 1998, B17.
- John D Murphy, "Sharing in the Success," National Post Saturday , February 13 , 1999, D4.
- David Barboza, "Variety Adds Spice to McDonald's Recovery," National Post, Saturday , February 13, 1999 , D12.
- Michael LeGault, "Dark Clouds Over Detroit, " National Post , Wednesday, February 10 , 1999, C13.
- Quoted in Michael Cox and Michael E Rock The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership : Aligning Your Organization for Enduring Success (w/CD) , Toronto : Dryden (Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada), 1997, 53, ISBN 0-03-923117-B.
- Thomas A Stewart , Intellectual Capital, The New Wealth of Organization , New York:Currency Doubleday, (1997), 1999, 13.
- Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence. Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York:Bantam Books, 1995, 352 pages. ISBN 0-533-09503-1.
- Daniel Goleman. Working With Emotional Intelligence, New York:Bantam Books, 1996, 11.
- Thomas Acheback and Catherine Howell, "Are America's Children Getting Worse? A 13-Year Comparison," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, November 1989.
- See Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, op. cit., chapter 1, footnote 10, page 332.
- Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, op. cit., 12.
- According to Jill Fadule, managing director of admissions and financial aid (quoted in Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, op. cit., 13).
- Quoted in Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence , op. cit., 19.
- Michael Cox and Michael E Rock. The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership : Aligning Your Organization for Enduring Success (w/CD) . Toronto Dryden (Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada), 1997, 49.
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