Seeing Around Corners

by Rita McGrath

  What a blessing, then, to recall Ben Horowitz’s distinction between “wartime” CEOs and “peacetime” leaders. In his book The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Horowitz points out that when someone is handed the job of navigating through an inflection point, the time and space that one has in “peacetime” are entirely different from those that are available in “wartime.” He writes, “In wartime, a company is fending off an imminent existential threat. Such a threat can come from a wide range of sources including competition, dramatic macroeconomic change, market change, supply chain change, and so forth. The great wartime CEO Andy Grove marvelously describes the forces that can take a company from peacetime to wartime in his book Only the Paranoid Survive.”

  The dilemma is that there is a tendency for an organization in crisis to turn to a command-and-control type of leader to right the ship. And yet, the research on the best leadership activities to take an organization through an inflection point suggests the dangers of this idea.

  I thought, therefore, that it would be helpful to turn to the wisdom of a real wartime leader, my colleague and friend Thomas Kolditz, a retired brigadier general who built much of the leadership curriculum at West Point. Kolditz wrote his 2007 book, In Extremis Leadership, with a different goal in mind than that of most case studies about leadership in crisis. As he has said, most of the time as a leadership expert, “you’re studying people in ordinary companies who never really wanted to be in a crisis but found themselves there and either fixed it or didn’t. The problem with that is you’re essentially studying crisis amateurs, and what I wanted to do was study crisis professionals—people who are in dangerous places all the time, and look at their techniques, their approaches to leadership, how they were different.”

  Kolditz’s research among leaders in dangerous situations revealed patterns similar to those outlined in this chapter. The first requirement in a precarious situation, he found, is that leaders need to be able to keep people calm. They need someone “who can establish the vision for the way ahead—even if there is no detail to it.” Hugely important here is the creation of trust and a sense of purpose. And trust can’t be manufactured in the moment; it requires many interactions over time that build a sense of mutual interdependence. As Kolditz says, the job is to “literally deny the possibility of failure.” Contrary to many of our misconceptions about command-and-control leaders, he points out, in a dangerous situation leaders don’t need to create more emotion; instead, they need to be able to temper people’s feelings in order to create focus.

  The second requirement is to keep people focused on tasks and the environment, not on themselves. As noted throughout this book, inflection point leaders often use such an environmental focus as a rallying point. They keep it simple: Think about X; just focus on X for the time being, and I’ll let you know when that changes would be a typical articulation.

  Another element of successful wartime leadership is a sense of shared risk. Not setting yourself apart, being vulnerable when things go wrong, and being prepared to take some of the heat yourself are all critical. Think about Satya Nadella’s communication with his team after the dramatically embarrassing failure of Tay, Microsoft’s foray into AI. “I believe in you,” he said, “and I’ve got your back.” That doesn’t mean he would tolerate sloppy execution in the future, but it does mean that he wanted them to have the confidence to try again.

  Then there is common lifestyle. People are more likely to be led by those whom they can relate to on a personal level—those who share common experiences, who don’t keep themselves apart or insist on special perks, and who can communicate about similar things.

  And, of course, we can’t overlook competence. In a dangerous situation, people have to make a judgment as to whether the leader is good enough to get them through this mess.

  As Kolditz pointed out in an email to me, “The problem is, it is nearly impossible to suddenly become a successful ‘wartime’ leader, unless you’ve put money in the bank. It’s too late to play catch-up. So the only solution, really, is to lead like a wartime leader all the time, as a matter of personality, of who one IS.” He explained that simple leadership practices can make a big difference. “I used to visit new moms from our department at West Point when they were in the hospital the day following delivery,” he wrote. “No real crisis, I’d just ask if they were getting proper care, etc. But more than one of them, later, said that the simple visits made them aware that if anything were really amiss, that I would definitely be there. That’s money in the bank—and you have to invest well before any crisis.” In terms of the transition to wartime, Kolditz stresses that some people who function well enough during peacetime have to go when a crisis hits. He wrote, “Step one of the crisis—fire those incapable of making the transition to the demands of wartime.”

  This leads me to conclude that the best leaders are continuously poised for wartime. Failing to put the practices in place to build trust, shared risk, and willingness to follow your lead during peacetime can lead to people being desperately ill-prepared in wartime. And as inflection points come at us more quickly and with greater consequences, falling into a purely peacetime pattern is dangerous.

  Key Takeaways

  Leaders who successfully take an organization through inflection points increasingly facilitate the energy, connections, and talents of the organization, while at the same time providing clear direction.

  Simply seeing an inflection point on the horizon is the first step toward successfully navigating it. You next need to decide what direction you will take and then mobilize the organization.

  Invest the time in keeping key executives on the same page and working together—a lack of alignment will diffuse your efforts. It isn’t so much about the individuals’ talents as about how they work together.

  Clarity about strategy, the “why” of what you are doing and key priorities, is not optional.

  Absent candid feedback, it is very easy to get off track. You don’t have time to waste on anything other than total candor and brutal truth.

  The role of the leader moves from designer and commander to premise-setter and judge.

  Push decisions as close to the edge as possible.

  Simplify complexity—create a common rallying cry that resonates with everybody.

  As a leader, you may increasingly need to be prepared to act in wartime.

  9

  * * *

  Seeing Around Corners in Your Own Life

  Very few people see inflection points as the opportunities they often are: catalysts for changing their lives; moments when a person can modify the trajectory he or she is on and redirect it in a more desirable direction.

  —Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School

  Most of this book has examined how organizations can do a better job of seeing around corners to anticipate what might happen in the event of an inflection point. But the truth is, many of the same principles that help organizations do this can also apply on a personal level.

  Three overarching themes apply personally. The first is how you prepare yourself to “see” an unfolding inflection point and what it might mean for you. The second is how you prepare yourself to navigate it. And the third is to create a personal point of view of where you want to be heading.

  As we have seen throughout this book, weak signals of an impending shift—when recognized early enough—can give you an important head start to prepare to take advantage of it. Let’s briefly consider what some of the main lessons are on a personal level.

  Looking for Snow

  Andy Grove’s wisdom about traveling to the edges of your own experience to see what might be happening next is as valid personally as it is for organizations. Often, the experiences and insights that make the biggest difference in our lives come from unexpected places. So, in anticipating inflection points that could touch you personally, give some serious thought to how often you explore the edges of what is comfortable and routine to see what might be coming around t
he bend.

  Where to Look

  At the organizational level, we examined the context of an arena—that pot of resources available to us to help our customers get jobs done in their lives—and those outside players contesting for it. We further examined those conditions, in the form of an organizational arena, that can lead to an inflection point.

  The shifts that potentially lead to an inflection point can be described as follows:

  They can change the pool of resources that are being contested.

  They can change the parties trying to grab some of that pool of resources.

  They can change the situation in which the contest takes place.

  They can cause one job to squeeze another out of an actor’s consideration set or reduce the resources available to do that job.

  They can meaningfully change the consumption experience.

  They can lead to some attributes becoming more or less valued than others.

  They can change the kinds of capabilities embedded in a value chain that are relevant.

  They can change every element of the arena.

  There are corollary implications of all of these shifts that is worth considering on a personal level. If an environmental inflection point is making some set of activities or capabilities more or less valuable, what does that mean for you? Failing to pay attention to the ramifications of change in the larger world around you can lead to a lot of grief.

  Think of it this way: in much the same way that on a professional level you are trying to get a sense of what’s coming around the bend for your company or organization, you would be well-advised to have the same kind of antennae in play regarding your personal development and career. The good news is that there are indeed real parallels between the way you see around corners for your business and the way you see around corners for your own career. The key is to be open to new ideas and to be wary of becoming too comfortable or too set in your ways.

  Beyond Your Buddies

  Just as organizations can benefit from having employees with diverse points of view weigh in on critical decisions, you should strive for diversity in the circles that surround you personally. We’ve seen how individuals who surround themselves with people just like themselves can get blindsided by something they didn’t see coming but that would have been obvious to someone observing that activity on an ongoing basis.

  Entrepreneurs like Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, whom we met in Chapter 5, are brilliant in going beyond their own circles to find opportunities and validate their assumptions. Along those same lines, one of my favorite stories is that of Pähr Lövgren, a serial entrepreneur whom I worked with at Wharton when I was studying there. He has perfected the art of using his networks to find new opportunities. One of his companies, Megaron, specialized in CAD/CAM technologies—computer-aided design and manufacturing capabilities. He’s started literally dozens of businesses that he has sold to larger organizations that can’t figure out how to start them for themselves. His way of searching for inflection points in the environment offers a great lesson in how he finds the next inflection point in his career.

  Lövgren makes it a part of his regular routine to have dinner (best place in town) with a network of consultants who work with companies facing technical challenges. All of the companies would be potential clients for his business. At these dinners, he asks the consultants to describe to him an emerging problem their clients face that might be suitable for a solution that his company could provide.

  Let me give you an example of such a problem. It turned out that foundries in Nordic countries were having increasing difficulty getting workers. One of them, a client of Lövgren’s consulting colleague, wondered if Lövgren might know of a solution—perhaps a robot that could take over some of the tasks the company couldn’t get people to do. Armed with this idea, Lövgren went to a second network—of engineering professors he had worked with over many years—to assess whether such a solution might be feasible.

  Yes, one said, he could build a prototype with a modest investment of $50,000. Now, most of us, particularly if we were as wealthy as Lövgren, would have simply reached into our back pockets and authorized the prototype. Not so. What he did was go back to his network of consultants. His goal this time was to see if the problem was widespread. The consultants made more inquiries and discovered that it was a widely shared dilemma. Lövgren asked the foundry managers who’d said they had the problem to invest their cash in the prototype. I confess I was a little nonplussed by this approach: “What would you have done if you couldn’t raise the funding?” I asked when I saw him at a conference we were attending. Lövgren looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, “Then I would have known it wasn’t a big enough problem for them to solve, and I’d have moved on to another business.” Eventually, the business of making “robust robots” specifically for foundries and other technically challenging environments took off.

  Peter Sims, of Little Bets fame, has taken this idea of bringing together diverse perspectives to see into the future to an extraordinary level with an organization he started called Parliament. As he describes it on the organization’s website, “Parliament became the first platform for a diverse group of people to access and harness horizontal power. Modeled after influences such as the open source software movement, Parliament being able to plug into the highest quality ecosystems is what increasingly drives faster learning, innovations, collaborations, and joint ventures.” The participants in Parliament events are incredibly diverse, including authors, screenwriters, scientists, corporate leaders, and many others. They come together regularly to share insights and not only to see into the future but also to shape it. I’m delighted to say that I have been invited to a number of their events, and they have been incredibly worthwhile.

  Negative or Unexpected Feedback Can Be a Gift

  As we heard from Gail Goodman in describing her leadership journey, getting feedback—especially if it is uncomfortable or if it tells you something you didn’t know about yourself—can be hugely valuable in seeing ahead. Most of us, however, don’t use a structured process for going about getting the feedback that can help us to improve or to identify things that will hold us back. The corner you want to see around here is those personal habits, practices, behaviors, or assumptions that other people can see are getting in your way but that you can’t.

  Marshall Goldsmith, a world famous executive coach who works intensively with CEOs and soon-to-be CEOs, uses a feedback-rich technique called “Stakeholder Centered Coaching,” which can be adapted to your own needs. It is one way to constructively go about getting useful feedback. It requires finding someone to help you—ideally someone without an agenda who is interested in seeing you improve. Let’s call this person your coach, even if they aren’t a formal, trained coach.

  Essentially, you put together a list of your personal stakeholders (somewhere around twelve, let’s say)—these are the people who are important to your own success and effectiveness. They can be people related to your work or personal life—for this purpose it doesn’t matter. Your coach then interviews these people and asks for open feedback on what they think could be holding you back or could become an obstacle to your success. For instance, as Goodman learned with respect to her own leadership, cutting people off in their presentations was inhibiting the free flow of information and, even worse, preventing her from hearing from her own high-potential employees.

  Your coach then synthesizes this information for you. As Goldsmith’s clients will tell you, that initial, honest conversation can be tough, as it often challenges your own perceptions, and not necessarily in a pleasant way. Together, you and your coach decide what actions you would like to take to start working on the implications of the feedback and what evidence would suggest that you have been successful in addressing them.

  One of Goldsmith’s well-known clients is former Boeing executive and Ford CEO Alan Mulally, whom we met in the previous chapter. Feedback from one of Mulally’s stakeholders w
hen he engaged in this process as a rising executive at Boeing was that he wasn’t sufficiently engaged in what was going on across the organization. That is, he knew his own area, but he didn’t have a full grasp of the company’s big picture. To address that problem, he instituted a regular communication process with his peers in other parts of Boeing. When Goldsmith checked back with the same stakeholders several months later, that issue had vanished.

  Goldsmith also brings his clients together to share experiences and insights, again expanding their networks.

  A couple of caveats: Your job is to be open to hearing the feedback, even if it isn’t pleasant. Your job is not to argue, to explain, to justify, or to otherwise undermine the message. Goldsmith even fines people if they engage in any of these behaviors (with the money collected going to charity). Remember, these are your stakeholders—you picked them because you value what they might tell you! And if you’re in a coaching session with Goldsmith, bring twenty-dollar bills.