Managing Leadership^®

How do we run our businesses, and how do they interact with their markets? A recent WSJ editorial cartoon has a manager reporting back to the CEO on the results of a new initiative: “Productivity is up twenty percent since your picture was installed on our screen savers.” And Murat Yetkin, a Turkish columnist, yesterday made an interesting comparison between the fall in 1991 of an “oppressive socialism unconcerned with people” and what he sees as the collapse today of “a spoiled, aggressive type of capitalism which ignores human concerns.”

Is that what’s going on? Are we just swinging from one extreme to the other in a competition over how best to exploit workers and consumers? Let’s take a brief look:

The law and leadership. This post by John Phillips includes a generous reference to this site. But I’m pointing to it here for his list of things that he says leaders should do. This is advice that could save a lot of attorney fees for everyone concerned – and that’s the least of it. Do you know business managers who do these things? Or, is it your impression that this advice is necessary precisely because they generally don’t?

Laying off of layoffs. Wally Bock has written recently about how to prove your vaunted faith in human resources during financial squeezes by avoiding automatic recourse to layoffs; he also addresses the costs of such layoffs on those who survive them – including your business. It seems that this important message is gaining in currency. Please see this New York Times piece about how more companies are, as Wally advises, cutting labor costs without layoffs. While you’re reading it, note the unfortunate opening illustration – how stirring, really, do you find it; what message does it really send? Don’t stop there, though; the examples get better.

Quantifying consumers cynically. The Economist has an excellent special section in this week’s edition containing a diverse range of thought-provoking essays. One is on the truly fascinating advances made by retailers in evaluating the customer experience in their stores and how to convert that into sales – in real time. This is a must read. How do you react to it – is it cold exploitation of crowds of faceless customers, or careful consideration and thoughtful addressing of their joint and individual needs and preferences?

Darwinian self-interest at work. Another essay from that section looks at a rebirth of the controversial concept of behavioral evolution, and what it suggests for social policy. With that perhaps chilling purpose in the back of your mind, the entire piece will gain new interest for you, but note especially the section entitled “A woman’s place” about women at work. This is a classic example of something you should consider carefully – certainly if you agree with its implications, but especially if you don’t.

Are we really so uncaring? Is that even the point? As is often argued by free-market liberals, those who pretend to care the most typically wind up doing the most harm. On the other hand, if there is a greater individual and common good achieved in the general economy by expressing selfishness through capitalism, might there not be the same attained in the workplace by employing selfless management practices?

Another recent WSJ editorial cartoon has two dogs gazing wistfully down into a bottomless chasm. One says to the other, “Sometimes you just have to let the stick go.” Might our tendency to cling to our favorite orthodoxies be denying us some fruitful opportunities in this new environment opening up beyond the current crisis? Perhaps the reading pointed to here will help in evaluating that proposition.

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