Holding Back
February 24, 2015
I wrote last week in this space about the positive place for disagreement in organizations; and I held back on pushing the topic a bit further.
Sometimes an organization leader has to hold back. Sometimes the leader needs to recognize that the organization has more disagreement than it can handle and that taking on another topic for which much disagreement is likely would be like drinking from a fire hose.
In Leadership on the Line (HBS, 2002), authors Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky write that “leadership requires disturbing people – but at a rate they can absorb.”
Heifetz and Linsky describe the need to “orchestrate the conflict” in four steps:
- “Create a holding environment” – a safe place to interact.
- “Control the temperature” – turn the heat up to get people’s attention, and turn it down for them to cool off or to catch up.
- “Set the pace” – not too fast that we leave too many people behind; not too slow that we lose the vision and momentum.
- “Show the future” – remind people of the “orienting value” – that is, the positive reason to go through all the negative rancor.
Keys to the Corner Office
May 29, 2015
On those rare Sunday mornings when I’m not traveling for one reason or another, my routine is a very early walk during which I purchase the Sunday New York Times.
Reading the Sunday Times has a routine as well: first the Travel section, next Business, then Opinion; and after that, national news and sports and theater in no particular order. And I always read the top of page 2 of the Business section, a regular Q and A by Adam Bryant who features successful businessmen and women. It’s called “Corner Office.”
Week after week, the people profiled will credit the extracurricular activities of their formal education for launching their successful careers. For example ...
- The chief executive of Bluemercury cited volleyball.
- The chief executive of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt cited “clubs and sports in high school.”
- The chief executive of the Hogan Lovells law firm was captain of his high school football team and president of the student council.
Obviously, there are many individuals who participated in those school activities and did not ascend to chief executive status, just as many other CEOs earned the keys to their corner office without participation in school athletics and activities.
But it has been difficult for me to miss how routine it is for the “Corner Office” to make the same connection I do – that outside the classroom school sports and activities are linked both anecdotally and statistically to leadership in later life pursuits.