# Presentation: 087944

## General Colin Powell

- Chairman (Ret), Joint Chiefs of Staff
- A Leadership Primer

## LESSON 1

- "Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."

- Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which
- means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions.  It's
- inevitable, if you're honorable.  Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign
- of mediocrity: you'll avoid the tough decisions, you'll avoid confronting the
- people who need to be confronted, and you'll avoid offering differential
- rewards based on differential performance because some people might
- get upset.  Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying
- not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally "nicely" regardless
- of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind
- up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.

## LESSON 2

- "The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the
- day you have stopped leading them.  They have either lost
- confidence that you can help them or concluded that you
- do not care.  Either case is a failure of leadership."

- If this were a litmus test, the majority of CEOs would fail.  One, they build so
- many barriers to upward communication that the very idea of someone lower
- in the hierarchy looking up to the leader for help is ludicrous.  Two, the
- corporate culture they foster often defines asking for help as weakness or
- failure, so people cover up their gaps, and the organization suffers accordingly.
- Real leaders make themselves accessible and available.  They show concern
- for the efforts and challenges faced by underlings, even as they demand high
- standards.  Accordingly, they are more likely to create an environment where
- problem analysis replaces blame.

## LESSON 3

- "Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites.  Experts often
- possess more data than judgment.  Elites can become so
- inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death
- as soon as they are nicked by the real world."

- Small companies and start-ups don't have the time for analytically detached
- experts.  They don't have the money to subsidize lofty elites, either.  The
- president answers the phone and drives the truck when necessary; everyone
- on the payroll visibly produces and contributes to bottom-line results or they're
- history.  But as companies get bigger, they often forget who "brought them to
- the dance": things like all-hands involvement, egalitarianism, informality,
- market intimacy, daring, risk, speed, agility.  Policies that emanate from
- ivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the field
- who are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues.  Real leaders are
- vigilant, and combative, in the face of these trends.

## LESSON 4

- "Don't be afraid to challenge the pros,
- even in their own backyard."

- Learn from the pros, observe them, seek them out as mentors and partners.
- But remember that even the pros may have leveled out in terms of their
- learning and skills.  Sometimes even the pros can become complacent and
- lazy.  Leadership does not emerge from blind obedience to anyone.  Xerox's
- Barry Rand was right on target when he warned his people that if you have
- a yes-man working for you, one of you is redundant.  Good leadership
- encourages everyone's evolution.

## LESSON 5

- "Never neglect details.  When everyone's mind is dulled
- or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant."

- Strategy equals execution.  All the great ideas and visions in the world are
- worthless if they can't be implemented rapidly and efficiently.  Good leaders
- delegate and empower others liberally, but they pay attention to details, every
- day.  (Think about supreme athletic coaches like Jimmy Johnson, Pat Riley
- and Tony La Russa).  Bad ones, even those who fancy themselves as
- progressive "visionaries," think they're somehow "above" operational details.
- Paradoxically, good leaders understand something else: an obsessive routine
- in carrying out the details begets conformity and complacency, which in turn
- dulls everyone's mind.  That is why even as they pay attention to details, they
- continually encourage people to challenge the process.  They implicitly
- understand the sentiment of CEO leaders like Quad Graphic's Harry
- Quadracchi, Oticon's Lars Kolind and the late Bill McGowan of MCI, who all
- independently asserted that the Job of a leader is not to be the chief organizer,
- but the chief dis-organizer.

## LESSON 6

- "You don't know what you can get away with until you try."

- You know the expression, "it's easier to get forgiveness than permission."  Well,
- it's true.  Good leaders don't wait for official blessing to try things out.  They're
- prudent, not reckless.  But they also realize a fact of life in most organizations:
- if you ask enough people for permission, you'll inevitably come up against
- someone who believes his job is to say "no."  So the moral is, don't ask.  Less
- effective middle managers endorsed the sentiment, "If I haven't explicitly been
- told 'yes,' I can't do it," whereas the good ones believed, "If I haven't explicitly
- been told 'no,' I can."  There's a world of difference between these two points
- of view.

## LESSON 7

- "Keep looking below surface appearances.
- Don't shrink from doing so (just) because you
- might not like what you find."

- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the
- scared.  It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms.  It's a mind-set that
- assumes (or hopes) that today's realities will continue tomorrow in a tidy, linear
- and predictable fashion.  Pure fantasy.  In this sort of culture, you won't find
- people who pro-actively take steps to solve problems as they emerge.  Here's
- a little tip: don't invest in these companies.

## LESSON 8

- "Organization doesn't really accomplish anything.  Plans
- don't accomplish anything, either.  Theories of management
- don't much matter.  Endeavors succeed or fail because of
- the people involved.  Only by attracting the best people will
- you accomplish great deeds."

- In a brain-based economy, your best assets are people.  We've heard this
- expression so often that it's become trite.  But how many leaders really "walk
- the talk" with this stuff?  Too often, people are assumed to be empty chess
- pieces to be moved around by grand viziers, which may explain why so many
- top managers immerse their calendar time in deal making, restructuring and
- the latest management fad.  How many immerse themselves in the goal of
- creating an environment where the best, the brightest, the most creative are
- attracted, retained and, most importantly, unleashed?

## LESSON 9

- "Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing."

- Organization charts are frozen, anachronistic photos in a work place that ought
- to be as dynamic as the external environment around you.  If people really
- followed organization charts, companies would collapse.  In well-run
- organizations, titles are also pretty meaningless.  At best, they advertise
- some authority, an official status conferring the ability to give orders and
- induce obedience.  But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the
- capacity to influence and inspire.  Have you ever noticed that people will
- personally commit to certain individuals who on paper (or on the organization
- chart) possess little authority, but instead possess pizzazz, drive, expertise,
- and genuine caring for teammates and products?  On the flip side, non-leaders
- in management may be formally anointed with all the perks and frills
- associated with high positions, but they have little influence on others, apart
- from their ability to extract minimal compliance to minimal standards.

## LESSON 10

- "Never let your ego get so close to your position that
- when your position goes, your ego goes with it."

- Too often, change is stifled by people who cling to familiar turfs and job
- descriptions.  One reason that even large organizations wither is that
- managers won't challenge old, comfortable ways of doing things.  But
- real leaders understand that, nowadays, every one of our jobs is becoming
- obsolete.  The proper response is to obsolete our activities before someone
- else does.  Effective leaders create a climate where people’s worth is
- determined by their willingness to learn new skills and grab new
- responsibilities, thus perpetually reinventing their jobs.  The most
- important question in performance evaluation becomes not, "How well
- did you perform your job since the last time we met?" but, "How much
- did you change it?"

## LESSON 11

- "Fit no stereotypes.  Don't chase the latest management
- fads.  The situation dictates which approach best
- accomplishes the team's mission."

- Flitting from fad to fad creates team confusion, reduces the leader's credibility,
- and drains organizational coffers.  Blindly following a particular fad generates
- rigidity in thought and action.  Sometimes speed to market is more important
- than total quality.  Sometimes an unapologetic directive is more appropriate
- than participatory discussion.  Some situations require the leader to hover
- closely; others require long, loose leashes.  Leaders honor their core values,
- but they are flexible in how they execute them.  They understand that
- management techniques are not magic mantras but simply tools to be
- reached for at the right times.

## LESSON 12

- "Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier."

- The ripple effect of a leader's enthusiasm and optimism is awesome.  So is the
- impact of cynicism and pessimism.  Leaders who whine and blame engender
- those same behaviors among their colleagues.  I am not talking about stoically
- accepting organizational stupidity and performance incompetence with a "what,
- me worry?" smile.  I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says "we can
- change things here, we can achieve awesome goals, we can be the best."
- Spare me the grim litany of the "realist," give me the unrealistic aspirations
- of the optimist any day.

## LESSON 13

- "Powell's Rules for Picking People:”
- Look for intelligence and judgment, and most critically,
- a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners.  Also
- look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced
- ego, and the drive to get things done.

- How often do our recruitment and hiring processes tap into these attributes?
- More often than not, we ignore them in favor of length of resume, degrees and
- prior titles.  A string of job descriptions a recruit held yesterday seem to be
- more important than who one is today, what they can contribute tomorrow, or
- how well their values mesh with those of the organization.  You can train a
- bright, willing novice in the fundamentals of your business fairly readily, but
- it's a lot harder to train someone to have integrity, judgment, energy, balance,
- and the drive to get things done.  Good leaders stack the deck in their favor
- right in the recruitment phase.

## LESSON 14

- "Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers,
- who can cut through argument, debate and doubt,
- to offer a solution everybody can understand."

- Effective leaders understand the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid.  They
- articulate vivid, over-arching goals and values, which they use to drive daily
- behaviors and choices among competing alternatives.  Their visions and
- priorities are lean and compelling, not cluttered and buzzword-laden.  Their
- decisions are crisp and clear, not tentative and ambiguous.  They convey an
- unwavering firmness and consistency in their actions, aligned with the picture
- of the future they paint.  The result: clarity of purpose, credibility of leadership,
- and integrity in organization.

## LESSON 15

- Part I: "Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands
- for the probability of success and the numbers indicate
- the percentage of information acquired.”
- Part II: "Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range,
- go with your gut."

- Don't take action if you have only enough information to give you less than a
- 40 percent chance of being right, but don't wait until you have enough facts to
- be 100 percent sure, because by then it is almost always too late.  Today,
- excessive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds "analysis
- paralysis."   Procrastination in the name of reducing risk actually increases risk.

## LESSON 16

- "The commander in the field is always right and the
- rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise."

- Too often, the reverse defines corporate culture.  This is one of the main
- reasons why leaders like Ken Iverson of Nucor Steel, Percy Barnevik of Asea
- Brown Boveri, and Richard Branson of Virgin have kept their corporate staffs
- to a bare-bones minimum - how about fewer than 100 central corporate
- staffers for global $30 billion-plus ABB?  Or around 25 and 3 for multi-billion
- Nucor and Virgin, respectively?  Shift the power and the financial accountability
- to the folks who are bringing in the beans, not the ones who are counting
- or analyzing them.

## LESSON 17

- "Have fun in your command.  Don't always run at
- a breakneck pace.  Take leave when you've earned it:
- Spend time with your families.
- Corollary: surround yourself with people who take their
- work seriously, but not themselves, those who work
- hard and play hard."

- Herb Kelleher of Southwest Air and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop would
- agree: seek people who have some balance in their lives, who are fun to hang
- out with, who like to laugh (at themselves, too) and who have some non-job
- priorities which they approach with the same passion that they do their work.
- Spare me the grim workaholic or the pompous pretentious "professional;”
- I'll help them find jobs with my competitor.

## LESSON 18

- "Command is lonely."

- Harry Truman was right.  Whether you're a CEO or the temporary head of a
- project team, the buck stops here.  You can encourage participative
- management and bottom-up employee involvement, but ultimately the
- essence of leadership is the willingness to make the tough, unambiguous
- choices that will have an impact on the fate of the organization.  I've seen
- too many non-leaders flinch from this responsibility.  Even as you create
- an informal, open, collaborative corporate culture, prepare to be lonely.

## “Leadership is the art of accomplishing

- more than the science of management
- says is possible.”