Isolate yourself

As the Managing Director of one of the most exciting media businesses in South Africa the greatest temptation for me is to isolate myself behind a layer of really competent and energetic senior and middle management executives.  Donald Keough talks about this risk (i.e. ‘Isolate yourself’) which brings to five the number of his 10 commandments for business failure already discussed in this blog (the others are: ’love your bureaucracy’,  ’send mixed messages’, ‘be afraid of the future’, and ‘Don’t play too close to the foul line’).  I think the issue is one of empowerment and somewhat counterintuitively the more empowered an executive the more (not less) they want their MD involved.  Any leader is as good as those people they surround themselves with but in a downturn anyone not interacting with stakeholders at all levels is in danger of being superflous – that’s too close to redundancy for my liking.  In tough economic times a leader needs to be more visible not less so and while that ivory tower may look attractive it only offers a false sense of security.  Leadership is inspiring.  Be inspired.

Playing too close to the foul line

Back to Donald Keough.  So far I’ve discussed three of his commandments for business failure (‘Love your bureaucracy’,  ’send mixed messages’ and ‘be afraid of the future’).  Let’s add ‘Don’t play too close to the foul line’ to our list.

If nothing else the worldwide financial crisis shows one thing:  playing too close to the foul line gets you into trouble.  Big time.  The problem seems to be business believes it is good at managing risk.  It isn’t.  The market determines the direction and pace of growth and the best business can do is manage the demand – ensure it has the capacity when it’s surfing a wave and investing in itself and its people when demand goes soft. 

McKinsey spent 15 years researching the drivers of commercial growth and came to the conclusion that the average company grows on average at 10.1% CAGR - the market contributing 6.4%,  mergers and acquisitions 3.2% and 0.5% from a growth in market share.  There must then be a question raised when a company presents growth in excess of 10.1% – how often do you hear a CEO highlighting the strategies used to produce growth >10.1% and actually believing their own spin.  The financial sector simply became too used to playing too close to the foul line – the repercussions for business confidence will stay with us for generations and leaders in future will be required to stay as far away from the foul line as possible when it comes to people, the planet and profit.  Performance at any cost isn’t that difficult.  Performance while caring about how you get there makes you exceptional. Leadership is inspiring.  Be inspired.

Leadership is inspiring – Barack Obama

Leadership is inspiring and today I experienced first hand how and why it is so.  Just as he did in Berlin back in July (see my post of 25 July 2008) Barack Obama showed today why he represents all that the cynics find so uncomfortable about  him – gracious, statesmanlike, visionary, empathetic and thoroughly decent.  But most of all as the 44th President of the USA he represents hope – he represents the best of humanity.  And yet he is also real enough to know that this election is only the start of the change he and millions of people around the world know is possible.  Can a politician ever be trusted?  Maybe, maybe not.  But this is one I am certainly prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to.  President Barack Obama – there’s something really appealing about that phrase isn’t there?  Leadership is inspiring – I am inspired.