Month: April 2012

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You Can Make a Difference – Why Don't You?

We Saw it in the Arab Spring – How about a Corporate Spring?

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world[1]

The events of the Arab Spring affirm the observation that revolutions do not start at the top where the past and tradition is especially venerated – revolutions start at the bottom where the most diversity and possibility of broad-based adoption. But the Arab Spring could dwindle into narcissistic self-absorption like many of the “revolutionaries” of the 1970s in the United States who are now near retirement some of them wondering what happened to the idealism of their youth.
I was talking to a more experienced friend of mine about the challenges I faced in one organizational context in which I work.  “You need,” he said after listening for while, “to read Gary Hamel’s book.”
He loaned Leading the Revolution and I have thought about a couple of the insights that live between the covers of this fascinating thesis.
Hamel insists that in business (or any organization) the responsibility for innovation must be broadly distributed.  I know from experience that the caveat is that those at the top typically derail attempts at broadly distributing responsibility for innovation as a means of protecting precedent (the prerogative of a few). In fact when operating models, business models, mental models and political models are in perfect alignment then the chance of innovation breaks down under the pressure to silence dissenters who threaten the status quo and the rewards inherent in being at the top.
Nurturing innovation requires that the organization’s mental model (deeply cherished beliefs) be challenged (pushed out of alignment with the business model) so that assumptions can be rethought.  This however is not possible without first throwing the political model (distribution of power) out of alignment long enough to redistribute power so innovation can take hold. If power remains narrowly distributed at the top then the chance of successfully innovating from the bottom is next to impossible.  This gives me pause to think about (1) how I have acted when I have been at the top and face dissenters who want to review how we do things and (2) how I manage the political power of organizations in which I do not exist at the top.
Figure 1: Creating Space for Business Concept Innovation[2]

So what is it that moves the mental and political models of an organization to make room for innovation as illustrated in Figure 1?
It takes two things to push mental and political models off-balance enough to introduce innovation according to Hamel: imagination and passion.  The risk is the potential for political backlash (e.g., Bashar al-Hassad in Syria during the Syrian uprising of 2012).  However, without becoming an imaginative and passionate activist unleashing innovation has little or no chance of occurring. Hamel makes an important point about becoming an activist in an organizational sense:

Activists are not anarchists.  They are, the “loyal opposition.” Their goal is to create a movement within their company and a revolution outside in.[3]

In discussing activism in a purely organization sense, activists are committed to their company and to a cause that is at odds with pervading values or practices within the organization. Activists can behave responsibly and be a source of alternative ideas according to Hamel. Activists refuse to fit in on the one hand and live out street-smart pragmatism on the other hand.  It is this second point – street smart pragmatism – that is often missing in inexperienced activists.  They fail to see the potential backlash or pitfalls inherent in activism and so become the walking wounded who give up because they miscalculated the severity of the backlash.
So why care enough to engage in the behaviors of an activist?  Hamel offers three compelling reasons:

  1. A person needs to live and work with purpose over and above their paycheck.  Research demonstrates that those people who experience flow are also people who work out of a sense of purpose.[4]
  2. The organization is not “them” – it’s you. Whining about “them” is simply an excuse to justify inaction.
  3. You owe activism to your friends and colleagues – they deserve to make a very cool difference in the world.

Conclusion
Many of the leaders I work with both in the class room and in the board room can profit from this insight by Hamel. They don’t want to be  an empty suit or disillusioned has-been. On the other hand some people simply don’t want to risk the potential backlash nor the work needed to engage in true innovation. How about you?  Are you an imaginative and passionate contributor to purpose and meaning in work?
Here is another question, what if you are at the top?  Are you ready to be an activist?  What does it mean for those who follow you?  What does street smart pragmatism look like for you around your board or other stake holders?  Remember, your employees and colleagues deserve to make a very cool difference in the world.

[1] John Lennon (credited as Lennon-McCartney) Recorded: July 10-12, 1968 (Studio 2, Abbey Road Studios, London, England)
[2] Gary Hamel. Leading the Revolution  (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 150.
[3] Hamel 153
[4] Csikszentmihalyi, M & Rathunde, K (1993). “The measurement of flow in everyday life: Towards a theory of emergent motivation”. In Jacobs, JE. Developmental perspectives on motivation. Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 60.ISBN 0803292104.  Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1975), Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass,ISBN 0875892612. The concept of happiness and “flow” both observe that happy people or people who experience flow possess a sense of purpose in their work.
Posted on

You Can Make a Difference – Why Don’t You?

We Saw it in the Arab Spring – How about a Corporate Spring?

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world[1]

The events of the Arab Spring affirm the observation that revolutions do not start at the top where the past and tradition is especially venerated – revolutions start at the bottom where the most diversity and possibility of broad-based adoption. But the Arab Spring could dwindle into narcissistic self-absorption like many of the “revolutionaries” of the 1970s in the United States who are now near retirement some of them wondering what happened to the idealism of their youth.

I was talking to a more experienced friend of mine about the challenges I faced in one organizational context in which I work.  “You need,” he said after listening for while, “to read Gary Hamel’s book.”

He loaned Leading the Revolution and I have thought about a couple of the insights that live between the covers of this fascinating thesis.

Hamel insists that in business (or any organization) the responsibility for innovation must be broadly distributed.  I know from experience that the caveat is that those at the top typically derail attempts at broadly distributing responsibility for innovation as a means of protecting precedent (the prerogative of a few). In fact when operating models, business models, mental models and political models are in perfect alignment then the chance of innovation breaks down under the pressure to silence dissenters who threaten the status quo and the rewards inherent in being at the top.

Nurturing innovation requires that the organization’s mental model (deeply cherished beliefs) be challenged (pushed out of alignment with the business model) so that assumptions can be rethought.  This however is not possible without first throwing the political model (distribution of power) out of alignment long enough to redistribute power so innovation can take hold. If power remains narrowly distributed at the top then the chance of successfully innovating from the bottom is next to impossible.  This gives me pause to think about (1) how I have acted when I have been at the top and face dissenters who want to review how we do things and (2) how I manage the political power of organizations in which I do not exist at the top.

Figure 1: Creating Space for Business Concept Innovation[2]

So what is it that moves the mental and political models of an organization to make room for innovation as illustrated in Figure 1?

It takes two things to push mental and political models off-balance enough to introduce innovation according to Hamel: imagination and passion.  The risk is the potential for political backlash (e.g., Bashar al-Hassad in Syria during the Syrian uprising of 2012).  However, without becoming an imaginative and passionate activist unleashing innovation has little or no chance of occurring. Hamel makes an important point about becoming an activist in an organizational sense:

Activists are not anarchists.  They are, the “loyal opposition.” Their goal is to create a movement within their company and a revolution outside in.[3]

In discussing activism in a purely organization sense, activists are committed to their company and to a cause that is at odds with pervading values or practices within the organization. Activists can behave responsibly and be a source of alternative ideas according to Hamel. Activists refuse to fit in on the one hand and live out street-smart pragmatism on the other hand.  It is this second point – street smart pragmatism – that is often missing in inexperienced activists.  They fail to see the potential backlash or pitfalls inherent in activism and so become the walking wounded who give up because they miscalculated the severity of the backlash.

So why care enough to engage in the behaviors of an activist?  Hamel offers three compelling reasons:

  1. A person needs to live and work with purpose over and above their paycheck.  Research demonstrates that those people who experience flow are also people who work out of a sense of purpose.[4]
  2. The organization is not “them” – it’s you. Whining about “them” is simply an excuse to justify inaction.
  3. You owe activism to your friends and colleagues – they deserve to make a very cool difference in the world.

Conclusion

Many of the leaders I work with both in the class room and in the board room can profit from this insight by Hamel. They don’t want to be  an empty suit or disillusioned has-been. On the other hand some people simply don’t want to risk the potential backlash nor the work needed to engage in true innovation. How about you?  Are you an imaginative and passionate contributor to purpose and meaning in work?

Here is another question, what if you are at the top?  Are you ready to be an activist?  What does it mean for those who follow you?  What does street smart pragmatism look like for you around your board or other stake holders?  Remember, your employees and colleagues deserve to make a very cool difference in the world.

[1] John Lennon (credited as Lennon-McCartney) Recorded: July 10-12, 1968 (Studio 2, Abbey Road Studios, London, England)

[2] Gary Hamel. Leading the Revolution  (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 150.

[3] Hamel 153

[4] Csikszentmihalyi, M & Rathunde, K (1993). “The measurement of flow in everyday life: Towards a theory of emergent motivation”. In Jacobs, JE. Developmental perspectives on motivation. Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 60.ISBN 0803292104.  Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1975), Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass,ISBN 0875892612. The concept of happiness and “flow” both observe that happy people or people who experience flow possess a sense of purpose in their work.

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Business Acumen – the Tale of Two Companies

Developing Leaders Must Include Business Acumen
A friend of mine described his firm’s leadership development process.  They defined what their leaders needed to know at every level of their organization.  This publicly traded company maintains consistently high profits and draws top talent.  Their talent assessments and succession planning was impressive.  They created development plans for every leader.  In contrast I know another manufacturing firm that dreams of being successful.  Their idea of leadership development is showing a video recording on the 21 unsupported anecdotes of motivational gibberish.

I interviewed both teams.  One significant difference emerged like a slap in the face.  The leaders of the publicly traded firm were clear about their purpose. They were clear about their metrics and driven to achieve results. They exercised business in daily decision-making.

The leaders of the privately held firm were ambitious but could not define business acumen.  As I interviewed more of the management I found that managers had no P&L responsibility.  They were unable to offer concrete descriptions of their market and what their customers wanted.  They had a ball-park mentality best described as “if we build it they will buy it.”  The difference between the two teams was stunning.

Business acumen integrates financial literacy (the ability to interpret numbers on financial statements) with business literacy (recognizing how daily decisions and strategies affect the financial numbers).

Great organizations require that every leader have and refine business acumen.  The bottom line is that when managers, sales professionals and employees increase their business acumen they are capable of thinking and acting with the bigger picture of organizational success in mind.

Business Acumen Defined

Business acumen is a perspective of the total business and a resultant ability to make decisions that enhance its overall performance.  It is a characteristic that enhances personal capacity and increases effectiveness in personal decision-making. The basics of business included in business acumen include: sales forecasting, inventory, merchandising, advertising, (increase the value to the customer through lower prices or other value proposition) product mix, cash, profit margin, return on assets, consumer focus, best practices, and shareholders.[1]

Explanation the Basics

Charan contends that every business is the same inside. The challenge is cutting through to cash, margin, velocity (movement of inventory), growth and customers.  The goal of any business is to turn their product into cash to continue operations.[2]  To carry out this they work with pricing, advertising and product mix to design the greatest yield.  Problems occur when companies sink cash into inventories or debt and therefore cannot generate enough cash to stay in business.  As a child Charan learned best practices (what the competition was doing well) by listening to his father and uncle debrief their days.

Business acumen requires that one learn the building blocks of money i.e., cutting through to cash, margin, velocity (the speed at which inventory is turned over to generate cash), growth and customers.  Note that return = margin x velocity (R= M x V).

The rule is that the cost of capital has to be less than the return on assets or the business is loosing money. Everything in a business emanates from this focus.  Besides understanding what products generate cash every firm needs to have cash management (including AR and Debt collection) practices that enhance their cash flow.  If cash is not being generated a company must look at why.  In a small business this may mean seeing the need to generate cash for the business as well as personal living needs – to set the sights higher.  Everyone impacts cash generation.  Everyone impacts how cash is used.

Margin is the net profit after taxes or the money the company earns after paying all its expenses.  The gross margin is the total sales of a product line less its cost.  Gross profit is also critical to business management because it provides clues about changes affecting the nature of the business – if the gross margin falls then ask why.

Growth is sustainable profit. Sustainable profit energizes a company and draws top talent to it.  It is important to note that size is not the ultimate measure of growth – profitability and return are the benchmarks. “If the money-making is improving and the cash is growing too, you have some interesting choices.  You can use the funds to develop a new product, buy another company, or expand into a new country.”[3]

Regardless of how a company measures the responses of customers to their products the importance of being close to the customer is essential for survival.  When thinking about customers, keep it simple – what are they buying or not buying and why?  Stay close to customers and talk with them about what they are looking for.  Observe them directly – not through middle men.  Put the entire set of concepts to work by using the return formula to test company performance one period to the next and to ask why this may be the case.  This is how all the pieces come together.

Business Acumen in the Real World.  Exercising business acumen is a leader’s responsibility, “The world has complexity, leaders provide clarity.”[4] Using business acumen the leader has to gauge the environment and make decisions on prices, margins and purchases.  Leaders with business acumen scan the environment and look for trends that offer opportunities.  Business acumen helps the leader find the three or four business priorities that will leverage the business toward growth by retaining customers and achieve all the important money-making goals at the same time.  Setting the right priorities and communicating them consistently is essential to success of the business.

Doing the right things day in and day out builds value.  In publicly traded companies this is measured in their P/E ratio i.e., price of the stock as compared to the earnings per share. The higher the better such as if the P/E is 7 then for every dollar of earnings per share the stock is worth seven times that much thus creating wealth.  The significance of this ratio is especially clear if a company misses its forecasted earnings – investors begin to question whether the company has the discipline to meet its future obligations.  How can mid-level managers affect P/E?  How about overcoming the “not designed here” syndrome and modifying an important part from an existing supplier thus increasing their volume and lowering your cost.

Getting Things Done.  “Leaders have to deliver results day in, day out, relentlessly over a long period.  Delivering results is what gives an organization energy, builds confidence, and generates the resources to go forward.”[5] The drive to achieve results is characteristic of every effective leader.  Without a results orientation an organization suffers from a lack of clarity that makes it little more than a mechanism for evasion of responsibility and leadership.[6]

Conclusion

I would work for the publicly traded company.  People there want to achieve results together.  They possessed a sense of purpose and mission.  In the private firm on the other hand one manager described the environment as a “need to know” Theory X monarchy – this is not exactly the recruiting slogan one wants to promote. So what does business acumen look like at your company?  Use the prompts below to define what your leadership/management team members need to know.  When you complete your definitions train your team and hold them accountable for their results.

Cash

Margin

Velocity

Growth

Customers

[1] Ram Charan. What the CEO Wants You to Know: Using Business Acumen to Understand How Your Company Really Works.  (New York,NY: Crown Business, Crow Publishing Group, 2001), 20.

[2] Charan 24

[3] Charan 49-50

[4] Ibid 67

[5] Ibid 93

[6] Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith. Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader 4th ed.  (New York,NY: Basic Books, 2010).

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Cross-cultural Lessons – Learning to See Through Other Frames

Elephants and Power
The lecture was on ethics in decision-making and the discussion moved, as it always does when I teach outside the USA toward American foreign policy.  In the midst of the discussion these Kenyan graduate students gave me a proverb that fits political realities all leaders have to work with in corporate as well as in public service contexts.

“When elephants fight the grass gets crushed, when elephants make love the grass gets crushed.”

Effective leadership (leadership that does not destroy or damage people) recognizes how organizations allot and display power. It is not uncommon for good leaders to get crushed not-with-standing their skill, insight and alliances when they are at the wrong place and time e.g., a regime change or economic downturn. Such experiences push leaders through crucible experiences and boundaries to growth. I did not catch a sense of fatalism from these students as much as a clear view of reality and a warning to know where the elephants were at all times. I found this helpful in corporate life. One of my graduate professors was a specialist on organizational change.  “Ray” he said on several occasions, “remember power wins.”  It was his way of reminding me to be aware of the elephants.

Eels and Change

A friend of mine had invited me to China to help train managers in a start-up hospitality consulting firm. The hospitality market in China was on fire, hotels and motels were springing up everywhere.  The challenge for my friend (we had met in graduate school) resulted from a rate of growth that threatened to outstrip the firm’s ability to develop the necessary leadership skills not to mention any kind of bench.  At the end of the session on recognizing the predictable barriers to personal development in career and personal growth my interpreter turned to me with the mixture of epiphany and interrogation.

“You are an eel.”

“Help me understand what you mean by that,” I said.

“Do you see the fish in the market when you come to the office?”  He aked. “They sit in the tanks all day and over time they become listless.  When this occurs no one will buy them because they don’t look fresh.  So, the fisherman places an eel in the tank.  This makes the fish come back to life,” he explained.

The insight about change has a bearing on trust.  The effect of the eel depends on the perspective of the viewer.  To the fish the eel is a threat.  The fish snap to in the presence of the eel yet the effect is short-lived. The observation of my interpreter made me stop and think about the pace at which I was moving and whether I was helping these managers think through the concepts I explained in the lens of their own worldview.  From the owner’s perspective I challenged lethargy and encouraged action. The larger challenge my interpreter helped me see was how to synthesize the needs of the owners for rapid change with the needs of the managers for deeper understanding and engagement i.e., a function of trust.

Can an eel be simultaneously a source of change and hope?  Not if you are a fish.  Leaders must exercise awareness of how followers perceive your actions. The ends you expect may not be the results others generate. Learn to use a variety of leadership roles and styles.

Storks, Frogs and Epiphanies

I was still chewing on the what to do with the eel story a couple of days later when my interpreter served also as my mentor with another bit of wisdom.

“You are a stork.”

“Is a stork better than an eel?” I queried.

“No, a stork is different.” He responded in what I understood as a correction of my western proclivity for either/or resolutions to ambiguity or dissonance. He reminded me to exercise an “opposable mind” as Martin calls it. Highly creative leaders avoid reducing decisions between alternative options but seek instead to hold the tension of apparently opposing decisions to create an entirely different kind of approach.  This ability to rest comfortably in the ambiguity of tension results in an integrative thinking that seeks out “…less obvious but potentially relevant factors…” then considers “…multidirectional and nonlinear relationships among variables….”[1]   With this done the effective leader pursues the problem as a whole and not the parts and “Creatively resolve tensions among opposing ideas; generate innovative outcomes.”[2]

“What does the stork do?” I asked with a greater awareness of my need to learn.

“The stork shows the frog that there is a greater reality than that which the frog sees from the bottom of the well.  You see, the stork appears to be supernatural (read exceptional or unreachable) to the frog.  It appears and disappears at will at the top of the well and the frog cannot understand how the stork accomplishes such a miraculous feat.  One day the frog asked the stork to help him understand the wonders of the stork’s miraculous existence.  The stork laughed and lifted the frog from the bottom of the well to see the world from on top of the well.  You are helping us see a different world.” (Remember Plato’s cave of allegory?)

I was moved and encouraged – apparently I inspired both fear and hope in my time with these leaders.  More importantly I was learning to hold apparently opposite or mutually exclusive views of reality in a dynamic tension.

Conclusion

Parables or stories connect with the experience of the hearer and offer a lens for dynamic reflection.  So, my conclusion is simply a launching point for many more insights in fact if you have other cultural unique parables please share them with me in the comments.

  1. Highly effective leaders exercise awareness of how organizations assign and use power.  Leaders who lack this awareness end up trampled to death. The leader who is unaware of their power will trample to death those he/she leads.  All good leaders have a tool kit of influence, authority and power.  Power is the last of the tools a leader should use.  Those leaders who abuse the use of power are like a rogue elephant. The destruction caused by rogue elephants and toxic leaders motivates people to end the threat of damage by changing jobs or eliminating the threat.
  2. Highly effective leaders exercise self-awareness and situational awareness.  There are times all leaders must act like eels.  Recognize however that change management requires an awareness of the fear change engenders. In experienced leaders scare their employees to death resulting in disengagement and turn over. Neither alternative generates long-term success in meeting business goals. Great leaders understand that change is only as effective as a shift in how people see their situation.
  3. Highly effective leaders work to redefine reality.  They work with an opposable mind that discovers new alternatives and inspires people with the possibilities inherent in seeing a problem or challenge differently.

My students and the employees I work with often become my mentors and teachers. Part of the delight I have in leading rests in the influence I exert but the greater joy rests in the exposure I have to new insights and learning from the lives of those I have the privilege to serve.  Are you learning?

[1] Roger Martin, “How Successful Leaders Think,” Harvard Business Review, June 2007, 60-67.

[2] Ibid. 65.

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When Followers Attack: Facing the Inevitable Interpersonal Conflict of Leadership

Every leader endures the challenge of being under the microscope of critical dissatisfaction.  In my experience effective change agents and leaders face a myriad of disheartening personal attacks often from people they know and always with gut wrenching repercussions.  Slander, inference and complete misrepresentation are part and parcel of the leadership experience.  I was reminded of this again from a friend of mine grieving the betrayal they felt by members of their own leadership team. Members of my friend’s team masterfully undermined my friend’s leadership without ever specifically talking with them about the dissatisfaction they felt.
The conundrum faced by many leaders I work with is rooted in a misconception about conflict i.e., that interpersonal conflict is to be endured not addressed in hopes that at some future point the integrity of their motives and their service would be recognized by all and their leadership decisions vindicated. Often this misconception is rooted in faith convictions around the actions of Jesus Christ during his trial.  A quotation anticipating the betrayal and kangaroo court Jesus faced from the prophet Isaiah is regularly repeated to me as I ask them about their response, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7, NIV)  This strategy of silence is great if one anticipates dying I suppose.  However, while it reflects the outward confidence and inner character Jesus exhibited in the face of false accusation during his trial it is not literal – Jesus did speak during his arrest and trial and questioned the inconsistencies of his accusers and answered their direct inquiries.

When Making a Defense is Important

Silent leaders in times of conflict abdicate the narrative of the situation to their critics. The result is that followers feel rudderless in the organization and ultimately feel betrayed by the leader’s unwillingness to step up to the demands of the pressure. (See my Article, “Servant Leadership and the Exercise of Discipline” at http://raywheeler.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/servant-leadership-and-the-exercise-of-discipline/)

It occurred to me once in reading Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians that I was reading a blatant defense of his role (authority and influence) as a leader. Clearly the legitimacy of Paul’s leadership was at stake in the minds of the Corinthians who had already received a rather pointed missive correcting their misapplication of the Christian message.  The resulting dissonance in the relationship between the Corinthian church and Paul forced him to defend his integrity, position and role toward the Corinthians.  Apparently his first letter generated controversy and even rejection.  As is often the case in conflict, his authority was challenged (7:8-16).

Paul wrote his second letter to the Corinthians anticipating seeing them after his exposure to their slanderous incrimination of his character and motives (13:1).  Paul states he prefers a warm and collegial reception, but is prepared to be a disciplinarian if need be for the sake of the health of the Corinthian church (12:20-13:1).

The entire letter of 2 Corinthians models transparent and authentic leadership conversation.  Read Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Pay specific attention to the fact that Paul defends himself and does not allow misconceptions or accusations about his motives and intention to assert themselves without a challenge.

Recriminations Are Unoriginal – Don’t Give Them Too Much Power

The recriminations aimed at Paul were personal and direct.  They came from people for whom he cared deeply and for whom he had suffered greatly.  I found it to be extremely encouraging to simply list the recriminations Paul faced.  Why?  Because they once they are down on paper two things emerge. First, they are unoriginal.  Recriminations are common place and rooted in a variety of motives. Second, when I observed how common the recriminations leveled at Paul were (the same recriminations have been leveled at me as a leader) innuendo and incrimination lost the power to command my attention to the point of immobilizing my ability to make decisions and lead.  If you are a leader you will face incrimination unjustly delivered.  You will also make your share of mistakes.

Put Recriminations into Proper Perspective  

Review the list of recriminations made against the Apostle Paul.  As you read these think about the recriminations you face or have faced as a leader.  I am certain your experience will parallel Paul’s – you are not a distinctively bad leader if you face these recriminations.

  • 1:17; that he was two-faced, saying one thing and doing another (6:8).
  • 2:4; that he was insensitive and uncaring (6:12).
  • 2:10; that he was unforgiving.
  • 2:17; that he was into the gospel for the money or personal advancement (7:2).
  • 3:5; that he was ineffective (specifically inadequate to the task).
  • 4:2; that he was self-seeking and manipulative (7:2).
  • 4:5; that he was self promoting.
  • 5:9; that he was ambitious.
  • 5:12; that he was arrogant (boastful, 10:8).
  • 7:2; that he took advantage of others (11:9; 12:14; 12:11-17)
  • 8:13; that he was inconsistent in his policies.
  • 8:20; that he absconded with church funds.
  • 10:1; that he was a coward, afraid to personally face the issues.
  • 10:10; that he was not much of a teacher.
  • 10:14; that he claimed credit for things he had not done.
  • 11:5; that he was inferior in his gifts and abilities (it was this summary accusation that he pointedly addresses in ch.s 11-13).
  • 12:13; that he had treated the Corinthians as inferior.
  • 13:6; that he had failed the test.
  • 13:10; that he was overly severe in his treatment of failure.

Admit Mistakes Quickly and Learn from Them

Paul’s tone in response to these recriminations is authentic (personal) and direct.  He addresses both the overt and the implied attacks on his character and motives by holding out his life as an illustration and explaining details surrounding his decisions that the Corinthians could not have known.  Similarly Paul exhibits and openness to learning and feedback from the Corinthians.  The letter does not smack of arrogance of excuses.

Paul’s response indicates clear boundaries – he served, he willingly accepted suffering but also expected reciprocity.  He was neither a patsy nor a pushover.

Conclusion

If you lead well expect conflict from those closest to you. Engage the conflict humbly and honestly.  Keep the mission of your organization clearly in front of you.  Hold people accountable to that mission – hold yourself accountable to the mission. Do not shirk from defending decisions made with information not commonly available. On the other hand do not hesitate to admit bad decisions based on poor or incomplete information – they happen. Those who follow want to know two important things.

First, followers want the assurance that leaders stay engaged in the realities the organization faces and are willing to both listen and make difficult decisions.

Second, followers want leaders to help them define reality.  What external pressures challenge the organization?  What internal resources are needed to meet the challenge?  What strategy is in place to secure more resources if the internal resources are insufficient? What support exists for followers who are called upon to sacrifice for some future benefit?

If your communication as a leader is anything but authentic and personal the confidence of your followers (employees, stake holders, peers) will wane accordingly. Take a lesson from Paul and embrace conflict, address innuendo and communicate transparently.