Exercise 5

Reaching the Summit

Lively Dinners

“Well, George, we’re enjoying a full complement of cutlery. It’s all here. I must say you guys really need to get a handle on your inventory.” So said our general manager to the red-faced George from Eastern Airlines. No one was the wiser about our journey, and we all laughed with glee when I told the dish room staff over our usual cafeteria table just what George’s expression looked like. I thought the poor man would explode. As I reflect, I can only imagine what the six o’clock conversations were like across the team. How they must’ve giggled about Mr. Delightful’s many phrases and especially enjoyed sharing with their loved ones how each of them saved the day.

All I know is that they, and I, felt special. Being made buoyant is one thing—staying afloat is another matter altogether. To do that requires a few tricks up your sleeve. Well, they’re not really tricks, but instead habits and qualities that are fundamental for leading people.

Listening

My grandfather used to say that I was “inoculated with a phonograph needle.” I was, and still am, a bit of a talker. The key requirement of a leader is being a consummate listener. It’s funny how there are courses everywhere about speaking; where are the courses in listening? The buoyant leader listens carefully not just for the facts but for what is in people’s hearts, for their deep desires, fears, and values. The buoyant leader raises his emotional antennae, just like Charlie, the shift manager at Marriott, did when he toured his “orchestra.” It is vital to maintain a constant vigil and to keep an eye on the emotional barometer of your people. A command of the facts is important, but an intuitive sense of your people is vital.

Learning

I met an inspired man, Hervé Humler, the president of Ritz-Carlton. This remarkable man built one of the most envied hotel companies in existence. He was as warm and courtly as he was engaging. He spoke energetically about leading his company, paying particular attention to the power of their credo—inscribed on a card that all employees carry—and to the importance of learning: “We gather our management team around the world in the morning in every location without fail, every single day. We discuss everything. We ask ourselves what happened, what went well, what went wrong and what have we learned about yesterday so that we can be better today?” These kinds of questions require a wholesale cultural shift in which we give ourselves permission to look at our failures. That is, we have to encourage a culture in which failure is not something that should be punished or avoided all costs but a vital part of the learning experience, and something that can push the company forward.

Challenging

In the old supply economy days, we thought we had all the answers. Maybe we did at the time, but we sure don’t now. I love the expression, “Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.” Your role as leader is to continually ask the right questions and challenge everything. And if you succeed . . .

Start over.

The greatest enemy of achievement is calcification. This is when your ideas, processes, and teams are frozen around what you consider to be a winning formula. As an example: I watched one afternoon from my office window as workers carefully removed the enormous Pan Am logo from its namesake building in midtown Manhattan. The Pan Am building became the MetLife building. It seemed an impossibility that a powerful, foundational company could disappear. But Pan Am didn’t challenge the existing order and, no question about it, disappear the airline did. The company, like many before it, failed to constantly reinvent itself.

Readiness

When I was in graduate school—an experience I loved—the business world was still operating firmly as a supply economy, and we were told we could manage change. I even took a course by that name, “Principles of Change Management.” With years of leading teams and organizations now under my belt, I can safely summarize this assertion in one good New York word: baloney.

We don’t manage change anymore than Mom could manage the 115 mph hurricane winds that hurtled our way. As a consequence of a consumer-directed economy and speed-of-light technological advancement, change is not a periodic thing we plan and manage, but a daily constant. Our business lives, which had been relatively orderly and predictable in the supply economy, are now chaotic and random.

In this constant change, however, lies the seeds of success and a way of advancing your real ambition. You can, and must, place your people in readiness to seize the opportunities change provides. With change comes opportunity, and these opportunities are the means by which you can reach your real ambition. We at McCann Erickson did not manage the forces that caused MasterCard to review its advertising account. We did, however, place ourselves in a position of readiness to win the account—a win that resulted in the landmark “Priceless” MasterCard campaign.

The Readiness Test

So like my cousin Brian in the firehouse, there needs to be a means to be in constant readiness in the spirit of the buoyant leader’s journey. I’ve put them together in what I call the readiness test. This test is comprised of eight key characteristics of buoyancy and one you can use both as a constant guide for you, as well as a survey you can administer to your people. It can gauge their level of readiness and help you form actions to keep them a fit, high-performing team.

The readiness test is based on buoyancy’s most important principle, the collective journey and the role people play in it and a powerful means to keep your team razor sharp.

Roots

My imperious young self was a façade that hid a terrified young man. My mask fell away quickly as a consequence of the wonderful, genuine people of the dish room. They saw right through me, and thank goodness they did. I learned the power of authenticity from people like Jodell. Leadership does not mean becoming someone you’re not in the name of establishing your authority. Leadership requires you to be your true, genuine, authentic self. When you give yourself over to the people of your organization and create a culture based on your deeply held credo, craft a collective real ambition, and assert your belief in your team and their ability to succeed, you will not only float, you’ll shoot the rapids.