Flying With Soft Power

Jetsgo’s demise after three short years reminds us once again that the airline industry is not for the faint of heart. Failure and struggle characterize the experience more than prosperity. In the case of Jetsgo, analysts have focused on common themes, such as the wrong business model, high-risk expansion strategy and cut-throat competition. All are valid factors, any one of which when done poorly would put a business in jeopardy. But, aside from these, did the analysts miss the real heart of the matter—“soft power”?

How otherwise can one explain the sustainability of Southwest Airlines amongst the detritus of struggling and defunct airlines? Many, like Jetsgo, have strived in vain to copy Southwest’s low cost no frills model. While one after another airline has fallen by the wayside, year over year Southwest survives and thrives defying all odds. WestJet, another Southwest knock-off, is the exception. It appears to have staying power, keeping true to the Southwest formula and growing steadily despite serious allegations from competitors such as Jetsgo.

Jody Hoffer Gittell of Brandeis University, who extensively researched Southwest and its American competitors, sums up the formula in one word---“relationships”. She contends that Southwest’s acumen at “relational coordination” is the core of its success. She describes relational coordination as shared goals, shared knowledge and mutual respect. These are universal capabilities that she found in other successful organizations too. She contends that Southwest’s approach is applicable to any organization for increasing efficiency and productivity, let alone creating a positive culture.

Gittell’s research compellingly demonstrates how tightly linked cross functional coordination at the front line boosts performance. Using the values of caring and respect to guide all interactions, Southwest accomplishes enviable functional interdependence with methods that fly in the face of management trends. For example, rich staffing levels, not simply good technology drive Southwest’s success. Each supervisor is responsible for 10 to 12 front line workers, the highest supervisor-to-employee ratio in the industry. Each flight at Southwest has its own operations agent who acts as a “boundary spanner” engaging in face-to-face contact with each function before, during and after the turnaround of a flight. The operations agent focuses on one flight at a time, unlike those in other airlines who juggle several flights simultaneously.

Everyone at Southwest is aware that turnaround time is critical for efficiency, customer service and the ongoing viability of the airline. When problems arise, as they inevitably do, each flight team owns the problem rather than a function. Other airlines, according to Gittell, skimp at their peril on this vital coordination process. As a result, they sacrifice the power that it generates---relationships. The dynamic social cohesion arising from the soft power of the strong relationships drive all elements of success at Southwest including continuous learning.

The “engaged” worker is touted in the management literature as essential to the longevity of an organization. Productivity studies remind us repeatedly that human skills and innovation are the drivers of growth and that we are not necessarily doing a good job at it. From the ‘engaged” perspective, we are getting compliance but not necessarily commitment often because we are unable to connect with the real world view of another and we do not share information on a timely basis. We divide ourselves up by function and title. We protect our turf often with disastrous consequences such as the terrorist calamities we have suffered through in the last few years.

Poor management related to “silos”, inadequate information exchange and lack of intelligent imagination is almost always cited as a prime reason for not preventing terrorist acts or the eventual fall of once seemingly well-functioning organizations. Yet, with leaders who actually “see” the whole rather than the parts, we can overcome our parochialism, walk together and be truly engaged in achieving outstanding results and averting potential adverse consequences. Southwest, by virtue of its overarching commitment to relationships has proven that “soft power” when implemented with heart and discipline can provide the right fuel in an extremely challenging business.

If you believe that this can only be achieved in a non-union environment, think again. Southwest like its counterparts is highly unionized. It helps to have a founder who was taught at an early age to value each and every human being and that “respect” is an absolute requirement for gaining anyone’s heart.

Jon R. Katzenbach, a New York management consultant, who also studied Southwest Airlines, believes that “pride” is the sustaining phenomenon (“Why Pride Matters More Than Money: The Power of the World’s Greatest Motivational Force”). We can surmise that empathy is a critical means of creating pride. Empathy is the way we often experience respect because to walk in someone else’s shoes, we must engage in dialogue with that person. We must listen to understand, as Stephen Covey so passionately explains. This sends a message—that every person counts. This is Southwest’s not so secret flying power.

The Importance of Martha's H Ingredient

There’s no doubt about it. Martha Stewart is one tough, resilient individual. And we admire her for that. But as the saying goes, “insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results”. To rebuild her company, Martha will need at least a dash of humility or what I call the “H” ingredient. Has the embarrassment of her trial and eventual incarceration for five months been life-changing for Martha? It’s too early to tell. To revive her company, it will not be enough just to do something altruistic for imprisoned women. Martha needs to demonstrate that she is a kinder, gentler person.

Before Martha went to prison, there was little indication that she was in touch with her “people” side. It is common knowledge that Martha irritated and was frequently unkind to many persons in the pursuit of her business objectives. Ironically, her insensitivity to people may have been a major factor in her eventual demise.

We can only surmise that Martha’s legal woes may have unfolded quite differently had she nurtured a devoted network of colleagues and employees. Martha’s legal transgressions were mild in comparison to those of other senior executives in the news charged with “white collar crimes”. Something else, such as the “H” ingredient, must have played a role, hovering below the surface, escaping Martha’s awareness and meticulousness. When the going got tough, it is possible that the right friends did not come to Martha’s rescue in the early stages when the seeds of her legal problems were taking form.

As the time drew near to going to prison, Martha remained the stoic businessperson. She never mentioned that she would miss her daughter. Perhaps she did that deliberately because it’s not “businesslike” to say such things. However, she did say that she would miss her multitudes of pets and her work. Martha emphasized in a July 2004 Larry King interview that she “wished she were the nicest, nicest person on earth, but I am a businessperson.” Does Martha equate being “nice” with not being a sharp businessperson?

Let’s hope that a valued coach will help Martha re-evaluate her assumptions and “see” that humbleness and empathy will go a long way in helping to re-ignite her company. The brand is Martha. But the brand is unsustainable without Martha tuning her attention to building a great company of excited and inspired people. It’s a matter of balance.

Daniel Goleman of the “empathy” fame would say that Martha’s styles are overbalanced on the demanding and pace-setting which negatively impact on the culture of her organization. He would likely recommend dashes of “H” ingredients such as “people come first” and “what do you think”?

Jim Collins, who undertook a five year research study to determine what catapults a company from good to great might declare hands down that if Martha can’t find a way to become a “Level 5 Leader”, her company will never truly become great. He describes a “Level 5 Leader” as “an individual who blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will”. Well, Martha has the will!

Finally, another spin on the humility ingredient is the “versatile leader”, a person who doesn’t default always to her strengths whether strategic or operational or enabling or forceful, but instead draws on the right capabilities for the particular situation. That is, a leader may have to pursue consciously that which she is not necessarily inclined to do in order to contribute to moving the organization forward positively. For Martha, that would mean being more “enabling”.

Martha loves recipes. On her release from prison, she explained to an interviewer that she was going to write some guidelines on surviving the situation she went through such as how to conduct yourself (with the media, in the courtroom), what experts to consult, etc. She lived the experience with few “best practices” on which to rely. Now, she can be a teacher to others who are unfortunate enough to get entangled with the law. Will she add to her recipe book the “H” ingredient? It’s potent.

Chess Not Checkers

There is a common thread in much of the leadership and management literature—honour the uniqueness of each person and celebrate your own before you can truly be a great leader-manager. Like chess pieces, as Marcus Buckingham explains in Harvard Business Review’s March 2005 issue, each of us is different and if treated that way by our managers, we have the opportunity to “turn our particular talents into performance”. “Average managers play checkers while great managers play chess.” In the famous poet William Blake’s words, “truly meaningful change happens only when people awaken to the infinite potential within themselves.” Great managers then enable this “awakening” and build on each person’s gifts.

Oddly, Buckingham uncouples the leader-manager link in this case declaring that great leaders do the opposite leveraging universal concepts such as “rallying people toward a better future, using stories and celebrating heroes to tap into those few needs we all share”. True, we expect this ability of great leaders but do we not also want great managers to be this way? The rallying and inspiring is equally as important at the work group level as it is at the broader organizational one. So too a top leader must work skillfully with the differences and special talents of the departments, divisions and business units for which she or he is responsible.

That’s why I like the chess metaphor because it applies to both the individual and group/system levels. Great leader-managers deliberately and intuitively manage the subtle differences and needs of the various cultures in their organizations. They do not assume that one culture prevails even if they wish that were the reality. They openly immerse themselves in learning the nuances in each part of the organization. They become an integral player in the dance of change toward a better future honouring the complexity of situations while finding the simplicity in them as well. Margaret Wheatley describes this beautifully in her classic book, A Simpler Way, that “we live in a world we cannot plan for, control or replicate…it requires constant awareness, being present, being vigilant for the newly visible.” Leader-managers with mind sets that value emergence encourage discovery “as we go”. They know that this grows our abilities individually and collectively to get good results using our visions, strategies, goals and objectives as guides.

This is a tall order for leaders and managers: to accept that we are as much a part of the unfolding drama as are those with whom we work, to embrace diversity as a means of forging unity and to trust the process works provided that we conduct themselves as alert agents within it. We are one of the chess pieces and the chess master. Like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, everything we do affects everything else around us. Rudy Giuliani just ‘cuts to the chase’, calling the phenomenon—“I am responsible”.

So, the challenge of leadership and management, which I consider intricately connected, is more than working with the special talents of each person. It is everyone on the chess board being open to learning from the surprises of change as they happen on the chess board. Building on the views of Robert Quinn, a professor in the University of Michigan, Business School, if leader-managers play chess well, they have the opportunity to achieve “deep change”. But, checkers can cause “slow death” despite their best efforts at rational improvements. He continues, “building the bridge as we walk on it is deeply unsettling because it means learning in real time”.

Tinkering may be another way of viewing an important new skill for great leader-managers. Delight in the materials at hand. Discover what is possible. Don’t get too concerned with the messiness. Have confidence that together you and your people will create order out of the chaos.

Lasting Change with Slow Churn

"I want a culture change by Monday" now has competition--the slow movement. Slow food, slow cities, and slow living have caught the imaginations of millions worldwide. The creative destruction of downsizings and top down change management have not paid off in greater productivity. People are stressed out from too much change too fast. Despite the zeal and impassioned pleas of well meaning leaders, continual disruption has led to organizational paralysis and demotivated workforces. Enough already! Slow change is now embracing our imaginations as an idea whose time has finally come.

Leading the way in the slower life are the Japanese, reformed workaholics. After experiencing a high rate of "death from overwork" (karoshi) in the latter part of the 20th century, the Japanese, according to a recent OECD study, have significantly reduced hours worked per capita among people of working age without sacrificing productivity. In Canada and the United States, the hours are climbing. We haven't reached the heights of the Japanese during their darkest hours of overwork but the alarm bells are ringing.

"Repetitive change syndrome" as coined by Eric Abrahamsom at Columbia Business School in New York, is diverting employees attention from focussing on customers to "stick-handling" demands from the top for business process improvements. The "changeaholic" workplace is proving to be devastating to morale and employee health. As for all manner of living things, too much change may be pushing us to the edge of our biological tolerance.

The better approach is more organic and evolutionary--small scale change that leads to large scale adaption. Ontherwards, let the little experiments happen. See what works and then scale up. For example, principal Wayne Copp at Toronto's Baycrest School noticed students from low income families were falling behind in their reading ability particularly over the summer holidays. He solved the problem by setting up a summer literacy camp. His Board of Education took notice of the successful results and eventually rolled the idea across the city.

Wayne's intuitive sense of acting on an issue embodies an emerging awareness among great "change leaders". Don't try to change the world all at once. Find a solution to an immediate problem. Let the change sink in. Strike a balance between change and stability. Pace change. Counterbalance it with periods of rest to allow people to adapt systems and structures to the current new way.

Abrahamson adds: Go to your corporate "basement" and check out what you've got that can be recombined and redeployed to meet new environmental needs. Rather than "creating, inventing or purchasing something new", shift talented people into parts of the organization where their expertise is better suited to the new strategy. Instead of slashing and burning, "tinker, fiddle, jury-rig, bootstrap, cobble together and patch your way to effective change". "Change without pain".

Emerging research on change in organizations indicates that small changes reap massive performance increases. It mimics evolution in life itself. We are physiologically resilient. We are cautious in testing new territory. But after some experimentation and with proof of solid results, we move forward with gusto.

The slow movement is our natural response to being overwhelmed by waves of change without rest in-between. We can live better in an organization and produce outstanding results if we deal with the rush to change by slowing down. But at times slowing down may not always be the answer as the slow philosophy embraces doing everything at the right speed. It is a nuanced challenge for leaders.

Permitting the Small Birds to Sing

"Too little time lunching in the staff cafeteria" is one pundit's take on a key reason for Carly Fiorina's demise. He may be onto something. Since her ouster by the HP board on February 9, the prevailing opinions by the media, academics and management gurus alike have ranged from "poor strategy execution" to not delegating (having a COO) to failure to change the moribund or resistant culture of the founders, David and Bill. Likely right on all counts. But, it is the details that matter here. Carly failed to win the hearts and minds of the little people--that is, her employees below the senior executives. If she had hung out in the cafeteria, she might have even changed her strategy.

Perhaps Carly believed she had to be the keeper of the strategy, as the the board expected her to be bold and create enormous shareholder value in record time. Thus, her theatrical communications were reflective of that belief. She had to look confident even if it was ill-conceived (the merger with Compaq).

What the little people want is to be acknowledged (for the culture they hold dear) and to have hope for the future IF they make a shift in their way of doing business. They also like to be consulted and have the opportunity to contribute their wisdom. Carly tampered with the soul of the organization--it's a dangerous approach for a leader when attempting change.

Better that the "eagle permit the small birds to sing, and care not wherefore they sang", so aptly described by Winston Churchill when negotiating peace at the end of WW II. The late Arthur Miller characterized the dilemma as our "tragic right". We fear being displaced, being torn away from our image of what and who we are in the world. The "tragic right", according to Miller "is a condition in which the human personality is able to flower and and realize itself". It is possible that Carly failed to imbue employees with their potential to make a difference. Her messaging instead was that they needed to change.

In the end, Carly had few followers--surely the litmus test of a leader. No doubt her intentions were noble. But her method did not "permit the small birds to sing".

HP's Culture Overthrows Carly

At every level of our lives, our values and beliefs define who we are and how we act. As we are social beings shaped by geography and the traditions into which we are born and to which we are drawn, it is no surprise that Carly Fiorina lost her battle to remake HP. She fought hard to change the HP Way with a mega merger and bold restructurings. The more kind and compassionate culture of founders Bill and David smarted at the assaults. The Compaq values simply didn't cut it. The brash outsider who outwitted Walter Hewlett over the HP-Compaq merger and who shortly thereafter stopped talking about the HP culture finally succumbed to the DNA of HP.

Carly started out in a difficult place. CEOs who are outsiders do not fare nearly as well as insiders, contrary to common belief (see Charan's article in HBR February 2005). They don't know the culture. They are often brought in to shake things up. Trouble is they still have to deal with human beings who not only have a great deal of expertise, they have feelings and are proud. Any new CEO has to tread carefully to connect with the workforce and the history of the organization. Too much change cannot easily be absorbed when people are trying to get the product out the door. Radical change that flies in the face of tradition, especially one that has served a company well, is a dangerous path to pursue.

David Packard, an iron-willed yet gentle leader and Bill Hewlett a friendly dreamer together forged a workplace where people felt cared for and encouraged to rise to great heights of accomplishment. In today's insecure world, it is just that kind of workplace that thrives. Collins and Porras made the point quite clearly in "Built to Last". "Core values are an organization's essential and enduring tenets, not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency". They found that builders of visionary companies focus on creating "a ticking clock" rather than hitting a market just right".

The HP clock lives on. Charisma is highly over-rated.

Work-Life Conflicts Getting Worse

It's hard for leader-managers to model great leadership and to inspire employees when they themselves are tuckered out. I've interviewed scores of overloaded and stressed out managers in the last few years who have legitimate complaints about the workplace. They work longer hours, regularly taking work home. Downsizing has squeezed their numbers causing them to have their heads buried in tasks at the expense of overseeing, coaching and mentoring. Child care and elder care just add to the stress. The research bears out their experiences. Work-life balance is more talk than action among large Canadian organizations.

Professors Linda Duxbury and Chris Higgins from Carleton and Western Universities respectively have raised many red flags with their research. Managers, in particular, are on treadmills, not of the healthy exercise kind. The greatest surprise is that men, managers and professionals and employees in the not-for-profit sector have the heaviest work demands. Furthermore managers and professionals regardless of gender in all regions across the country work are less likely to be paid for their considerable overtime hours. See Duxbury and Higgins report at http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/pphb-dgspsp/publicat/work-travail/index.html

This is a complex issue that requires leadership from the very top and an awakening by managers to get better control of this runaway problem. Smart strategy and strong organizational cultures are not easily created and sustained when workload drives the agenda.