GovernBest

Folks like to lay off poor performance on poor “execution”…the latest catch word in the management book-and-seminar industry. But those who say that business success is all about execution are wrong. The right products, markets, technologies and geography are critical components of long term economic performance. Bad industries always trump good management. In fact, Warren Buffet said that “when a manager with a reputation for brilliant performance meets an industry with a reputation for lousy results, the industry usually wins”. In most basic businesses nearly two thirds of the organic growth can be attributed to being in the right segments and geographies. In my experience, people aren’t inherently bad at execution; they usually execute quite well, thank you, on their own view of reality.

The underlying cause of nearly every business breakdown is a blind spot at the center of leadership’s world view: a seriously inaccurate perception of reality…either among executives or the people who do real work.

• How could Polaroid go bankrupt with more patents to its name than Thomas Edison?
• How could George Sheehan believe that Webvan would set the new rules consumer spending?
• How could Schwinn have let the mountain bike movement pass it by?
• How could Johnson & Johnson have dropped from 90% to 8% share in cardiac stents?
• How could Quaker Oats have paid $1.7 billion for Snapple and sold it for $300 million?
Can these and other stumbles with great Olympian ideas really be blamed on poor execution “at the coalface”?

“Had he never been called upon to exercise authority no one would have doubted his capacity for it”…Tacitus on the emperor Galba

Speakers like to proclaim that “leadership is authenticity”. In my experience, though, leaders often shrink from authenticity…sometimes with the best of intentions: they want to put a positive face on an impossible situation; they want to be loved and think that might be inconsistent with the pain they need to inflict; they want to withold their bouyant enthusiasm or grave doubts until the outcome is clearer. The list goes on. The reality is that leaders are visible…with or without a title; and when you’re visible, you’re vulnerable. We see this in clubs, friendships, families, work settings and boardrooms. So I have some sympathy for Galba and anyone who takes “personal responsibility for collective action”.