A Tale of Two Towns

To the hawk the two lands were not far. A few hours of hard flight perhaps, but with many updrafts for circling and trees on even the tallest ridges if the winds were not right and a rest was required, it could be pleasant. It was a flight the hawk took often, more in the summer than in the winter. There was good hunting for the hawk in the mountains. Even in winter, the rabbits and voles did not expect him.

For people in the two valleys the journey between the lands was arduous. There were no east to west passes through the mountains and the peaks had snow upon them even during the hottest summers. There were deep crevasses and high cliffs that made the trek seem foolhardy.

Unlike the hawk, few people made the journey over the mountain ridge that ran between the rivers all the way to the sea. Traveling was easier following the rivers. It was a long trip down the river valley from either land. The streams sources were at the ice field high above the laird’s house in each country and each ran away from the ridge, southwest in the western land and southeast in the eastern land, before curving back toward the ridge as they neared the sea.

It was said that these two lands had been to war in time beyond counting. The young laughed when the olds would tell the tale their olds had told them in their youth. “Where would they have fought? Hanging off ropes on the cliff? Or at the bottom of some bottomless crevasse?”

Traders would sometimes bring news between these communities, coming up one river from the sea, telling how they had braved the bandits in the foothills on beside the ridge. When traders came to Westland, they would speak of the yellow-glow of the sun on the ridge in the early hours of the Eastland day. Travelers to Eastland would tell of the red-glow on the Westland ridge at night. Mostlythough, these traders would tell how different Eastland and Westland were.

The tone in the tavern in each land was always incredulous, “I can’t believe it! Why would anyone live like that?”

On the surface, both lands looked alike. There was farmland in the plateau and valley,  with somewhat rocky soil on the ridge plateau and richer loam in the valley closer to the river. The laird’s house was built into the side of the mountain overlooking the village and farmland. One difference was that Eastland’s Lairdhouse was built of stone with a tower and Westland’s Lairdhouse was built in a half-timbered style. Each was larger house than any in land, but that was accepted. The laird’s family first cleared the land and invited others to farm it.

Over time both Eastland and Westland farmers had come to “own” their land and their homes they built upon it. They paid the laird a “debt of gratitude,”  a percentage of each harvest. The population was like many towns. Most everyone farmed, at least enough to pay the debt of gratitude and feed themselves,  but there were some merchants, who bought and sold surpluses and interacted with the traveling traders. There were tradesmen, builders, a metalsmith, and a few woodsmiths, who made furniture, staircases for those wealthy enough for a second story, and carved signs.

Both communities had a plethora of beautifully carved wooden signs. There were signs for business names. street names, and to identify who lived in a particular dwelling, but many of the most skillfully carved signs extolled particular virtues. Most of those exquisitely carved signs were paid for by the laird or esteemed elders in the village. There was a small competition in both Eastland and Westland to see which carver was most sought-after, based upon his or her carving skill with the laird’s signs.

There were indeed many similarities between Eastland and Westland. There first indicator of difference travelers would notice were the signs. The signs in both communities were carved from the local woods and while one carver or another might have a particularly creative flourish, overall the signs looked similar. However, the messages on the signs were quite different.

In Eastland the carved signs read:

• Self-Reliance
• Discipline
• Personal Responsibility

In Westland the signs said:

• Teamwork
• Compassion
• Community

Traders who travelled often to both villages heard of other differences between the settlements:

In Eastland the debt of gratitude, paid to the laird was low, about 10 % of crops or livestock, and the same on service or trade, and everyone paid the same percentage. In Westland the debt of gratitude varied depending on how good a farmer’s harvest was or the service or trade amount transacted. Some paid 5% some paid as much as 25%.

In Westland there was a disaster-kitty funded by the debt of gratitude payments. This  flood and fire relief was administered by the village council of elders. In Eastland, someone whose crop flooded, or house burned down could apply to the laird for a loan at interest below the debt of gratitude rate, but might have to forfeit property rights if the loan was not repaid.

In Eastland crop surpluses were sold to the traders who came from down river. In Westland surpluses were also traded, but after the Food Fair Exchange was held. The Food Fair Exchange was an Eastland festival where farmers brought surplus to barter for what they didn’t grow or for volunteer labor.

Some traders said that Eastlanders complained a bit about the “size of the laird’s house” and how “some town council members got extraordinary benefits.”  Other traders said that Westlanders complained about “freeloaders” and the size of the debt of gratitude payment in good years. Most years, Eastland and Westland were equally prosperous and everyone seemed happy.

The hawk flew back and forth across the ridge, not hunting now, just gliding up with the warm afternoon air rising from each side. He flew high eyeing the rivers in the valleys on both sides. The hawk played in the air currents rising from each side, circling, swooping, all the way down the ridge until he felt the cool sea wind. The hawk pulled up against the spray where the sea roared against the cliff and scented the woodsmoke rising from the building near the cliff, before climbing back, back to his nest in the tall fir just below the summer snowline.

Traders often met at the Ridgecliffe Inn, on the path over the ridge close to the sea where you could see the delta ports on both the Eastland and Westland rivers. Ridgecliffe was a gathering place for traders and anyone traveling between the two communities. In the tavern of the Inn, traders traded stories of their travels and often bantered about the signs.

“I was up at Eastland and saw a new sign, “The Truth is the Truth, no matter if it hurts.”

“Yeah, well his cousin in Westland carved “Tact! People have feelings.”

Hard to beat the Eastlands sign, “Be Excellent!”

“Does the Westland sign ‘Be Excellent to Each Other’” mean the same thing?”

“Different, I think.” Like Eastlands “Judgement: Do What is Right!” is different from Westland’s “Judgement: Explain your thinking.”

“You know I saw one sign in both places ‘Honor, Duty, Sacrifice.”

“You can bet those signs have different meanings.”

There were many  nods and smiles around the tavern.

The oldest trader spoke, “You know my favorite signs:

Eastland: ‘The early bird gets the worm.’”

Westland: ‘The second mouse gets the cheese.’” *

Everyone laughed.

“Great to be a woodcarver in either place.”

“That’s for sure. Say – where would you settle down if you’d a mind to?”

The traders all expressed their views and were quite surprised that they didn’t agree.

Where would you settle down if you’d a mind to?

*Thanks to Brad Martin for this line.

The times they are a-changin’

My father and mother were born in 1904 and 1908 respectively. In 1988 I interviewed them with a cassette recorder and I just found the tape. I had to scramble to find an old Walkman to listen to it. It was strange to hear their voices as they passed more than twenty years ago, but their answer to one question still amazes me.

“You folks have seen so much technological change in your lifetime, what change had the biggest impact on your life?”

I don’t know what I was expecting. Cars? Airplanes? TV? Computers? After all, my mom was a computer programmer and my dad worked setting type at The Herald Traveler when the newspaper went from linotype to computer typesetting. But the both said in unison,

“Refrigeration!”

“Refrigeration?” I said. I was incredulous.

“Absolutely! Having a refrigerator in your home was a life changer.” said my mother. “In central Florida you had to shop every day. If you bought your meat before three o’clock in the afternoon it spoiled before dinner. Vegetables wilted. The only ice cream you could ever eat was from the drug store or maybe the bicycle ice cream man – if you caught him in the morning.”

“We put the icebox on the front porch, ‘cause it faced north,” my father chimed in. “The iceman came every day. You put your 25¢ or 50¢ card in the window. Heaven help you if you forgot to put it out.”

“But when we got a ’fridge’ you could shop once a week!  Talk about freedom!”

I was surprised, but it made sense.

Technology changes and it changes people’s lives, sometimes for the better, sometimes, not-so-much.

I remember when my parents bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, I spent less time in the library, but I also put off longer term homework till the night before. Much later, I was working for the owner of Collier’s when encyclopedias went to CD Rom format from print. Talk about change. They started to make the transition and then sold to Microsoft for integration into Encarta. Of course, everything is online today. I get effusive thank you emails from Jimmy Wales for being in the small percentage of Wikipedia users who donate to the support of the platform.

Change. There’s a lot of that going around. If you look back one hundred fifty years and contemplate the change that has occurred it makes your head spin. Just picking two:

• Transportation: from walking and horseback to trains, planes, and automobiles, and bicycles, motorcycles, electric scooters and skateboards.
• Communications: from face-to-face talking and print to telegraph, telephone, radio, film, TV, Internet streaming, cell phones, VOIP, smart phones, Zoom, Skype, blogs, vlogs podcasts, etc.

I’m not even touching how computers have evolved in my lifetime from warehouses full of vacuum tubes to the power of the smart phone to super-computers of quantum computers and generative artificial intelligence.

Reactions to change

These changes changed people’s individual lives and they changed how people interact locally and globally. The changes in transportation, communications, and the transfer of information shrunk the world. People started talking about “globalization.” The export of communications and entertainment products from the developed nations created a homogenization that some found offensive. There was a resurgence of identification with local identity, nationalism, in some cases a kind of tribalism.

Companies in developed nations started staffing and producing all over the world. Then during the Covid epidemic, extended international supply chains became a problem. Off-shoring became balanced by re-shoring.

That’s the thing about change; it produces reactions. Newton’s Third Law, “Every action produces and equal and opposite reaction,” applies to social systems as well as physical bodies. Pendulum’s swing: growth and recession, innovation and improvement, fragmentation and consolidation, start-ups and acquisitions, progress and retrenchment.

Some people say this is because “people fear change.” But if that were absolutely true, no one would ever leave home, get married, have children, move their home or do anything difficult that might mean they might be a different person.

People don’t fear change; they fear loss – loss of job, power, status, whatever. Some people also see the potential for loss in the unknown more than others. Mostly, though people don’t like to be compelled to change. They don’t fear change; they fear your change. They fear potential loss when they don’t have a choice to make it their change.

Time keeps on slippin’ into the future

There are myriad challenges facing us. How will we respond to changes in the climate? Will we innovate our way out of the problem or reduce human behaviors that damage the environment, or both? How will we balance equity of basic needs and opportunity for growth with return on investment, and reward for assuming the risk of growth?

So as we look forward, we should expect change. Perhaps this has always been true. There is a story of a young prince, one Siddhartha Gautama who lived around 450 BCE. He became newly and thoroughly wise and was asked the secret of life. “It changes,” said the one who came to be called the Buddha, (teacher).

As I look forward to the future and realize just how much change the next generation will need to adapt to I thought to write down some ideas for those who step up to lead.

Leading change

I often differentiate leaders from managers. Managers get the job done in a steady state. Leaders operate in abnormal circumstances like change, to provide direction and attract followers. I developed this description when I was delivering leadership workshops for senior or mid-level leaders engaged in change, because the question always came up. Of course, this is overly simplistic and ignores the fact that a leader and a manager are often the same person applying slightly different skills in different circumstances. The leadership rubric of direction and attracting followers is a good start, but not enough.

Max Depree, who was at one time the CEO of Herman Miller, the high design office furniture maker who made the Aeron chair that supports my back even as I write this, wrote two books, Leadership is an Art, and Leadership Jazz. These books are a description of Mr. Depree’s philosophy of servant leadership passed down to him by his father. I’m not sure which book it’s in, but  I wrote down Mr. Depree’s words:

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; the last is to say thank you.”

Start with Why

Start with Why is the title of Simon Sinek’s best-selling leadership book. Stating the compelling case for change and expressing gratitude are ways to attract followers, to enroll followers to make the change happen. There was a story that was told to me so many times during the British Airways privatization project in the 80s that I thought I’d  witnessed the meeting. Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister that privatized the airline,, said to the gathered executives, “Gentlemen, please understand I will sell you. I can sell you off in little pieces, planes and routes one-by-one if I have to, or I can sell your stock in a public offering. It’s your choice.” This was the first and maybe the best compelling case for change in my career.

Late in my career, I worked at another of Mrs. Thatcher’s privatizations, BP (shortened from British Petroleum). I helped with Continuous Improvement work focused on improving process safety. The compelling case for change was the accidents at the Texas City refinery, and the Deep Water Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. No one had to tell that story repeatedly; one only had to mention the name of the sites to focus everyone on improvement.

Begin with the end in mind

“Begin with the end in mind” is habit number two of Stephen R. Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It describes planning using outcomes  and work backwards, but also setting direction, vision, a clear and inspiring description of the desired future state.

Recognize that everyone will change

In the 1990s I wrote an article that rapid-fire change as a “speed-learning crisis.” Change like we are experiencing was already visible. Now one might argue change is accelerating and it requires new knowledge and skills, new models for leading, and a perpetually adaptive mindset. At that point, I had watched Colin Marshall the Chief Executive of British Airways transform from a well-dressed toff barking demands for tea to a shirt sleeves colleague willing to listen and respond positively to his mid-level leaders driving the change. I heard a BA union rep respond to a rank and file complaint about the money spent on privatization, “True, mate, but then we were re-educating our Chief Executive and you know how expensive that can be.”

“The thing about change management,” says Dr. Nelson Repenning of MIT, “Is that nothing happens unless someone does something different.” New thoughts and new behaviors change you, make it impossible to be aloof or to delegate change. I changed tremendously over my thirty-seven years as a change consultant. Sometimes I changed slowly or reluctantly; sometimes I used my late-adopter persona as an excuse, but I changed and you will too.

So while the entrepreneurs and engineers bring on the transporter beams and tricorders, prepare to lead or follow, but decide what shouldn’t change no matter what.

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; the last is to say thank you. In between the leader is a servant” who ensures that no one is left behind and that followers learn and grow.

This way, follow me

Those who know my writing know that I frequently boil down leadership to actions in an abnormal environment like war, or emergencies or change. In such an environment a leader has two accountabilities, provide direction and attract followers. I use this conceptual reduction to differentiate leaders from managers, whom I say are accountable for getting the work done in a steady-state environment  and developing their people to get the work done faster and better.

I used to liken leaders to the fireman who enters the burning building and shouts “The building is on fire! This way out, people, follow me”!

When I ran leadership workshops, participants were quick to point out several flaws to my simplistic rubric:

1. “Hey Alan. I’m expected to do both those roles – leader and manager – so which am I?”
2. “Steady state? When was that. We have continuous change and we still get work done!”
3. “I’m expected to provide direction? How would I do that? We live in a VUCA world -it’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous all at once. How can we plan for the future when we can’t figure out today?”
4. “Attract followers? Nobody wants to follow anybody; everybody wants to be a leader. Headless chickens don’t flock.”

 I could go on. Usually these workshops were for leaders at least one level, and often three or more, from the absolute top of the organization and there was a lot of pointing at the ceiling and saying, “What about them?!”

 Sometimes senior executives kicked these meetings off with a broad direction for the firm so the context that these mid-level leaders could frame their vision was clearer. Sometimes we all just wished for that level of clarity.

Prerequisites for a vision

The case for change

In my lifetime John Kennedy was the first political leader people talked of as visionary. “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” seems a little weak to me today but it was inspiring in 1960. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech touched me too. Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” left me a little cold, even though that was my “to the right of Genghis Khan” period. But when George H. W. Bush was asked what his vision was for America, he derided it as “the vision thing.”

That’s the thing about “the vision thing;” people have to be ready for one. When Lou Gerstner arrived to turn around IBM in 1993 and he was asked the same question, he said, “The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.”

IBM had just lost $8 billion. It was subdividing into individual divisions, which competed with each other. It was buying into the ‘mainframes are dead, PC’s will rule the world” mythology, but it was still its old arrogant, “We’re Big Blue!” self. The company hadn’t acknowledged they were broken. There was no compelling case for change. You can’t offer someone a new destination if they see no reason to leave home.

Hope

People also will not change if they are frozen with despair. Often leaders seeking to compel change evoke fear. “Everything we’ve ever been or done is worthless and destroyed.” “Oh, man, what’s the use.” Have you ever tried to lose weight when you are depressed? “Oh that’ll never happen. Guess I’ll just finish this pint of ice cream.”

The best leaders evoke pride in what was, what can’t be taken away, what will not change. Then they offer the excitement of a new beginning 

Reduce Resistance

“We fear change,” said Garth Algar, Wayne Campbell’s sidekick in the movie” Wayne’s World.” This phrase is repeated a lot by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey  in their Saturday Night Live skits which turned into this movie.  I don’t know why Mike and Dana use this, but maybe because it is what is given as the reason for change reluctance or resistance and it’s absurd.

People don’t fear change. If they did no one would ever change jobs, get married, have children, move to another city or country or try sushi or chicken nuggets for the first time. People don’t fear change. They fear loss.

They fear that they might lose their job, or some power they’ve accumulated. They might lose the currency that their skill, developed over many years, has. They fear a loss of relationships. They fear lost pay or raises or the lost understanding of the performance management system that they have just learned how to game. So they are reluctant to change. They may even resist.

Mostly people resist change that they feel is done to them. They fear the loss of autonomy and fair input. They don’t resist all change; they resist your change. (My anti-authority, counter-dependent self knows a lot about this.)

So before a leader can introduce a vision, they  must

• Make a compelling case for why things cannot stay the way they are,
• Offer pride for what was and hope that everything won’t change, and belief in the ability of followers to make the change, and
• Enough detail about he change for followers to see the gains that compensate them for the losses, and give them a choice to commit to the change.

What is a vision     

A vision is a clear and inspiring picture of the future state. Individuals can have visions for themselves. Groups, organizations, and companies can have visions. Vision statements are often written with emotionally evocative and sensory rich language:

Nike: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world (2022)

Honda: Serve people worldwide with the “joy of expanding their life’s potential” (2022)

Tesla: To create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles

Apple: To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind (1980)

Patagonia: To use all its resources to defend life on earth

Visions evolve over time. Honda’s 1970 vision was “Destroy Yamaha;” In the 1960s Nike’s wanted to “Crush Adidas.”

Vision, Mission, and Values

There is a lot of confusion about these words and in common usage they do overlap a lot. Here is what I used as definitions:

• A vision is a destination; it can change if you reach it. It should pull you forward
• A mission is your reason for being, your purpose, your “Why”
• Values are the principles that guide you day to day.

Clearly there are overlaps. Is Patagonia’s vision statement above a destination or is it their mission. Both Yamaha and Adidas are still around, but the visions of Honda and Nike have changed.

The limits of vision

Visions are intended to pull you forward in the change you make. There is a difference between threat-driven change and vision led change. Threat driven change can move people from the burning building; it can break inertia and get people moving. But over the long term threat and the fear it produces can freeze people. Vision, the promise of something new, better can pull people forward.

Shorter is better

I still believe that is true, but it depends on how near term the vision is. Most of us inside organizations can hold on to a five year vision, but only if we have some interim milestones to reinforce progress. The vision that is perpetual, always in the future is great if we are seeing improvement, some successes along the way.

Words are just words

There were times in my long consulting career, when I facilitated a vision off-site and it became clear, either during the off-site, or most often afterwards that all the pretty wordsmithing was B.S. This group of leaders could not or would not live up to their awe-inspiring prose. Why set a goal you can’t or won’t achieve? Because you think “the vision thing” is expected of you? Because you have the best intentions, but inadequate commitment?

Why do people continually start diet and exercise programs and repeatedly fail? Because it’s hard work. Because their metabolism doesn’t cut them any breaks and the temptations are always there. Because the expectation is unreasonable.

The Why of Vision.

But there is a power in a vision. It can pull you forward. Consider a group of middle eastern nomads five thousand years ago wandering in the desert for forty years looking forward to a green valley where goats and sheep could graze, breed, and lactate, where bee keepers could have apiaries. They were pulled onward by a vision of a peaceful, pastoral lifestyle:

“The Land of Milk and Honey.”

This week let us wish for such a vision for us all.

Seventy percent of mergers fail* to create value that is greater than the sum of the parts.

So how do you know if your merger is failing while there is still time to do something about it?

Watch for these signs:

The Goat Rodeo: A lack of executive alignment

Instead of

Months after the close the executive team is still arguing about whether the merger or acquisition is a good idea.

• People keep saying, “Tell me again, what was the purpose of the merger?”
• Everybody has a different thought about:
  • What pieces of the business to rationalize
  • Who the core customers are
  • What the product categories of the future are
  • How to go to market
• Executive staff meetings take forever!

Navel-gazing overdose

• Internal focus leads to a lack of attention to customers and suppliers:
• Nobody has been to see a customer in months.
• Key suppliers, the ones you thought were your “partners,” are missing deliveries or slipping in quality or complaining about being “squeezed dry by the accountants.”

Arterial bleeding: a talent exodus

Turnover is always an important measure that things have gone awry.  Look deeper.  Are you losing:

• Key executives or managers (the ones on the “must keep” lists)?
• R&D scientists or technicians?
• Long-term manufacturing process knowledge (Old Joe from Quality Testing who knows the releasers at your biggest customers)?
• Information systems people?

“Fiddle te de, I’ll think about that tomorrow”

Rosy view accounting or forecasting is indicated by:

• Lack of cash management focus; failure to meet cost-savings deadlines
• Failure to redeploy or lay off people in agreed duplicate roles
• Falling sales, which will “turn around next quarter”

(Note:  Someone will no doubt say, “Sales always go down the first year of a merger.” But then remember, most mergers fail, don’t they?)

Goliath coming over the hill: A change in the competitive landscape

Mergers are an aggressive competitive act.  Competitors will respond.  Watch for:

• Mergers that beget other mergers, joint ventures, and alliances. Horizontal integration that begets competitive vertical integration and vice versa.
• Competitors that respond by cutting prices, locking up supplies, flooding distribution with product, or in some way nobody has even thought of yet.
• Competitors are suddenly attacking your traditional strongholds and gaining ground.

Competitive response raises the bar for the merger or acquisition.  What started out as adding a product or increasing capacity becomes a life or death struggle.  If nothing else, it speeds up the optimum integration timeframe.  What could comfortably be done over eighteen months now has nine months before the board starts discussing divestitures.

Spaghetti code and GIGO: information systems breakdown

Information systems touch every aspect of the business. IT and the degree to which the two companies’ systems are combined are critical success factors.  During mergers, people make changes without considering implications for IT.  Programmers make integration-expedient choices without considering the business needs of users.  Sometimes that takes the form of patching two systems together in very arcane and complex ways (spaghetti code). Other times  that takes the form of poorly defined or monitored input data that produces inaccurate or uninterpretable output reports (garbage-in-garbage-out, or GIGO).

Symptoms include:

• You can’t get data at all or on time or the way you need it or the way you used to get it, and “nothing can be done about it.”
• The system “crashes” again.
• “The person who wrote that code left last month.”
• The IT people ask for overtime, and you give it to them, doubling your IT salary costs.

Best practice Armageddon

Cultural warfare is about whose way of doing things is better.  Some of this will go on no matter what you do.  Some people will fight on for years.  But if most of your organization is paralyzed, if most people are internally focused on the past (as opposed to externally on the future), then there is a crisis.  Symptoms include:

• A lack of experimentation
• A lack of innovation
• A plethora of war stories and anecdotes about the “reason we do it this way”
• “Stonewalling” implementation of decisions you thought were made months ago
• Lots of we/they, us/them, and “you don’t understand”
• More discussion about “whose fault it is” than there is about how to solve the problem

Low-grade fever and general malaise

People are just “worn out” with the stress of integration.  Change is tough.  Change in a merger is tougher.  Sometimes it gets so bad that everything grinds to a halt.  Most people aren’t having fun anymore.  Symptoms include:

• Organization climate survey scores are declining, “We’re moving too quickly!”
• Others say, “We’re not moving quickly enough!”
• Absenteeism and tardiness increase.
• Employees are taking vacations at critical delivery times.
• There is a lack of attendance at company social events.
• A greater than usual number of people are swearing uncontrollably.

If your merger or acquisition is experiencing one or more of these symptoms, it may be time for a restart.  If it is experiencing three or more, it is time for a turnaround.

Key steps of a restart:

1. Align executives first:

• Agree on purpose of the merger, and the vision and strategy.
• Agree on the values of the new organization.

2. Plan a new integration that:

• Utilizes a joint-team (from both firms) participative approach
• Creates a cadre of change agents from both companies

3. Make IT a critical-path stream.
4. Mobilize the entire organization to make the change, impassioned by a new sense of urgency.

* Source: ”The Big Idea: The New M&A Playbook” Clayton Christensen, Richard Alton, Curtis Rising, Andrew Waldek; Harvard Business Review, March 2011, Updated and revalidated March 2021

Leaders require followers

“If you think you’re a leader look over your shoulder. If there is no one there, you might just be delusional.”

“I get what you’re saying, but. . .”

I was delivering leadership development; it wasn’t really training per se. Oh we did apply some new knowledge and practice some skills, but the real purpose was to communicate to a  group of middle managers that their corporation was undergoing tremendous change and they would need to step up and lead the change for their people.

I did my simplified differentiation between management and leadership:

• Managers are accountable for getting the work done, and developing their people to ensure that. They often work in a relatively steady state environment.
• Leaders work in abnormal circumstances. The military often talks about leadership because what could be more abnormal than war. In business abnormal circumstances are emergencies and times of change. Then leaders are accountable for direction and attracting followers. “Hey -this way -follow me!”

I went on to tell the participants that they had both responsibilities, but that the new circumstances required their leadership and emphasized the importance of followers and made my little quip about looking over your should to be sure people were following. It was a laugh line and it got some chuckles, but it also produced a  “. . .but.”

From a workshop point of view this “but” was terrific. (“Oh good a discussion.” I said to myself). It was a rich discussion and it went on a little longer than I thought it would. The inquisitive manager kept interjecting his signature phrase, “I get what you’re saying, but. . .”

Finally someone interrupted him, “Bob, don’t be a but-head!” The group exploded in laughter.

I was perplexed and they explained to me that they were echoing some training in another class, (Diversity? Creativity?) They had been advised to replace the word “But” with the word “And” and to remind them the facilitator. had said “Don’t be a but-head.”

I’ve heard this advice many times since, and this was the first time I’d heard it. We continued the discussion, making some points relevant to the leaders need followers point.

• But divides the conversation whereas And joins it
• Leaders need to promote unity among followers
• Either / or choices are sometimes necessary; more often Both / And is a more appropriate way to draw in more followers.

We moved on in the workshop, and the “Don’t be a but-head” comment became a running joke over the week. I was amazed how such a simple concept had captured the imagination of the group and had many applications to leading change.

Don’t be a but-head

But and And are both conjunctions, grammatically they join two ideas. And pulls two ideas together. But separates the two ideas. I was told by a co-worker early in my career how to get through performance appraisals.

“Listen for the ‘But” everything before the ‘but’ is B.S. What follows the ‘But’ is what they want you to pay attention to.”

I took this to heart and probably missed a lot of positive feedback over the years. It probably added mass to the chip on my shoulder toward managers and anyone with authority over me.

Imagine the change in effect of:

“Alan you get things done, and bring in projects on time and on budget, and I want you to work on ensuring that an editor goes over your writing before we go live.”

 

“I love the creativity of this approach. I think it will make a huge difference to the client, and I want you to gather more feedback about possible downsides.

So a leader might avoid saying “But” when there are two very valid points to communicate and you want both to be heard equally.

Another circumstance to avoid “But” is in any kind of divergent thinking. When we are trying to expand thinking or increase the quantity of information or ideas “Buts” get in the way. The most obvious example is brainstorming. “Great idea, but. . .” has the effect of shutting down idea generation.

In any discovery discussions, as when you are gather data about customer needs or the causes of an accident “And. . ?” says “Tell me more;” “But says stop and change your information,” or “I disagree with you.”

When anyone says to me “I hear what you’re saying, but. . .” I expect a counter argument. If someone were to say “I see what you’re saying and. . .” I’d expect agreement and perhaps action toward a solution.”

When but-heads are needed

Someone in the class made the leap that managers were ‘but-head’ but leaders were “and heads.” I said I didn’t know that that was true and I could think of times when the division of the “but” was really necessary in times of change.

Anytime a group is doing convergent thinking, testing a plan, searching for risks or unintended consequences, a but-head mentality shines.

“I see from the sales projections that this product will experience a thirty percent increase in sales in year four, but what is that projection actually based upon?”

 

“I see that we are increasing gas production four-fold by a combination multiple well drilling, an water injection into the reservoir, but have we tested the stability of the limestone barrier that separates the reservoir from the aquifer?”

 

“I understand that we can speed nuclear missile response time with an autonomous AI response system based upon satellite imagery of enemy silo launch, but exactly how confident are we in the accuracy of the satellite imaging system this is based upon?”

 

“I know our truck customer survey data indicates strong buying intentions for electric vehicles, but have we mapped customers by region vs. the availability of 220 volt lines on the existing grid and the density of new charging stations?”

 

So is being a but-head a matter of timing? Maybe. It is definitely a skillset that is more useful at the end of an innovation process. I think it may be more about the purpose of your communication.

Are you trying to improve quality, weed out the uncommitted, test for risk, including bias, or unintended consequences? Maybe saying “But” and uncoupling two somewhat unlike ideas is a good idea.

Are you trying to bring people on board as followers? Are you trying to generate ideas, or discover fact and opinion, ensure that all data has been looked at?

Then “Don’t be a but-head.”

A fun and fascinating read on early psychedelic research

“My book about Tim is up on Amazon. I hope you’ll read it and if you like it tell some other people about it. He was an important person in my life and it was an important time. Psychedelics took on a different meaning later and I want people to know there was there was more to it than the party.” George said toward the end of our recent phone call.

George Litwin is my friend and a significant mentor in my life. So I was very excited to read this book about his friend  and mentor Timothy Leary. As you might imagine, I had heard some of the stories before, but I was not prepared for the totality of the experience this book relates.

Inside the Mind of Timothy Leary is a personal history of the scientific and science-adjacent exploration of psychedelic drugs, psilocybin, mescalin, LSD and DMT. It is not an academic treatise, though there are many cited resources should you wish to continue reading. It is a memoir, the  biographical stories of the high profile psychologists and their research into substances which could produce a mystical experience.

Dr. Leary was George Litwin’s advisor as he pursued his doctorate at Harvard. Leary was originally opposed to Litwin’s interest in continuing his Michigan research in the potential for mental healthcare uses of mescalin. However, after a sabbatical in Mexico where Dr. Leary experienced an indigenous healer’s work with mushrooms containing psilocybin, he changed his position on the mescalin research and began research on psilocybin himself.

Litwin carefully explains the turmoil of the early 1960s at Harvard where BF Skinner’s behaviorism was in conflict with the Human Potential Movement and the more social forms of psychology. He also paints the conflict in the 60s culture between those who wished for more openness and freedom and those who argued for greater control in society.

Into this milieux came Drs. Tomothy Leary, and Richard Alpert (later Baba Ram Das). They were joined by Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, Beat writers Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, jazz musicians Maynard Ferguson, Paul Desmond, and Charles Mingus and a host of other characters. Litwin was in the room experiencing these substances and relates his and others’ experience. It makes a fun and fascinating read.

Some of the experiments were more classically scientific than others, but all indicated that these substances could briefly expand consciousness in the same way that religious mystics of many cultures experienced after long meditative practices. What was different was that the religious mystics have cont9inuallly access to the transcendent experience (enlightenment) through their meditative practices. It is no surprise  that many of these profiled researchers, Ram Das, Watts and Litwin himself went on to explore Easter meditative traditions.

Psychedelic drugs are being explored again for therapeutic uses helping to soften the ego such that destructive mindsets and behavior can be productively self-altered. This engaging history of the beginnings of research should be read by those considering therapy or those interested in this period of history.

I also think that this book together with the resources identified by Dr. Litwin would be an excellent reading course for those who aspire to transformational leadership. The transformational leader must transcend the bounds of ego and old culture and bring unity to the change they lead. Understanding the mystical experience these researchers pursued is a step along that path.