Easier said than done. One day I was running with my wife, who was then a law student, and she told me how demoralized she was that her professor hadn't called on her that day. She'd had the insight for the case being discussed--one that would have benefited everybody in the class. It was the best insight she'd had all quarter. But though she had her hand up the whole time, the professor just didn't get around to her that day.
And I thought to myself, "With 66 students, I'll bet that that happens in my class every day--and I don't even know it." How could I ensure that it wouldn't happen again?
Well, the next day I walked into my classroom with a stack of 8 1/2-by-11-inch bright red sheets of paper. I gave one to each student. And I said: "This is your red flag. You get to raise it only one time in a quarter, but when you do--no matter what's going on--the world will stop for you. So when you have your best contribution to make, your key insight or challenge or story, that's your red-flag point. You're the only screen. Raise the flag, and the floor is yours." Of course, that put students in the position of asking themselves, "Is this really my red-flag comment, or should I just raise my hand?" And as a teacher, you knew that if somebody raised a red flag, well, what that person was going to say would be special.
One day we were doing a case study on the Body Shop--asking the question, Is the Body Shop doing the right things to be an enduring great company? Founder Anita Roddick had come to speak with the class. Now, Anita is used to being in charge and in control. But I said, "Anita, you have to understand that when you go into my classroom, the students' learning trumps everything, including you and me. And I've got some mechanisms built in that ensure that." I told her about the red flags.
I did the case discussion, and then she got up and began talking. One of my students from India raised his red flag. This was an absolutely brilliant student--very soft-spoken and thoughtful--who had hardly said anything all quarter. First, Anita wanted to keep talking. I said, "No. He raised his flag. He gets the floor." In a very respectful but incisive way, he began to push her--to question her, speaking as an Indian, about what the Body Shop was doing in the third world.
In the next 10 minutes there was the most amazing interchange, making a gigantic contribution to the class, which changed the entire quarter. Without the mechanism of the red flag, it never would have happened. He would have raised his hand, and not knowing how important what he had to say was, I would have let Anita continue. Instead, the red flag forced the challenge to be entertained.
So, the mechanism rewired the class. And it got built only because I knew what I wanted the class to stand for, had a problem, and invented the mechanism as a solution.
What most executives do instead is to try to solve problems with an initiative, an intention, a memo. The typical CEO might have come into class and said: "It's come to my attention that people may not be getting their comments in, even though they could really help the class. I really want to emphasize again that if you have something important to say, make sure you get heard."
The step is to go from there to saying: "No, I need a mechanism. What mechanism can I build?" And then to build it. That's the process.
THE DEATH OF THE CHARISMATIC LEADER (AND THE BIRTH OF AN ARCHITECT)
Almost by definition, an enduring great company has to be built not to depend on an individual leader, because individuals die or retire or move on. What's more, when a company's identity can't be separated from the identity of its leader, it can't be known for what it stands for. Which means it sacrifices the potency of being guided by its core purpose.
So the charismatic-leader model has to die. What do you replace it with? The task that the CEO is uniquely positioned to do: designing the mechanisms that reinforce and give life to the company's core purpose and stimulate the company to change.
Building mechanisms is one of the CEO's most powerful but least understood and most rarely employed tools. Along with figuring out what the company stands for and pushing it to understand what it's really good at, building mechanisms is the CEO's role--the leader as architect.
The old role is still seductive, though. Past models have glorified the individual leader, especially when he or she was an entrepreneur. And charismatic-style CEOs understandably find it hard to let go of the buzz that comes from having an intense, direct personal influence. But a charismatic leader is not an asset; it's a liability companies have to recover from. A company's long-term health requires a leader who can infuse the company with its own sense of purpose instead of his or hers, and who can translate that purpose into action through mechanisms, not force of personality.
However hard the transition to architect might be, there are three issues, affecting every CEO, that encourage it--and eventually may even force it. One: time for creativity. Two: time span. And three: scale.
First, let's discuss creativity. As personally energizing as it is to have an effect on an employee and to touch his or her life, it's so energy absorbing that you're never left with enough time or spirit for real creative reflection or real creative work. Which is what mechanism building should be. The absence of that time is one great source of burnout.
The second concern is time span. Clearly, building a mechanism will have a much longer-lasting effect than leading by virtue of your presence. A mechanism doesn't depend upon you. If a truck hits you tomorrow, the mechanism will still be there.
