Alan Hurwitz, a fellow columnist with my syndicate, recently wrote an interesting piece about how organizations tend to take on the personalities of their leaders. Alan’s column focused on the presidential campaign, but used his longstanding experience consulting with companies and other organizations to illustrate his point.
I think he’s right, and this worries me. It’s bad enough that my company has to live with the decisions I make. If it starts taking on my personality as well, there may be nothing that can save us.
I am a strange person. For one thing, I’m exceedingly quirky. I continually repeat actions that I know are weird because it’s more comfortable than not doing them: wearing certain things; eating certain things; driving this way when it would be quicker to go that way. It’s probably no wonder I attract the attention of such odd individuals, creating fodder for the exploits about which you read in this space each month. None of them are odder than I.
To some degree, I suspect anyone who endeavors to start a business and be a CEO has to be a little strange. It’s not a normal thing to do, per se, which is why the vast majority of Americans never do it. It can be a very rewarding thing to do (although it can also be the opposite), but the decision to attempt it in the first place definitely takes you outside of what most people would consider safe and rational behavior—and that right there should be an indication that your banana cream pie might be short a few dashes of vanilla. (Come to think of it, so is that metaphor.)
Some CEOs make a concerted effort to make their organizations mirror their personalities. For these people, it is all about them. Lee Iacocca comes to mind. When he was chairman of Chrysler Corporation, top executives would joke that his last name was actually an acronym meaning “I Am Chairman Of Chrysler Corporation Always.”
When the company ran commercials, you didn’t see cars. You saw Lee. Often, he was yelling about something. I guess that was supposed to mean if you bought a Chrysler, it would scream to all the other cars on the road that AutoLee was coming, and they’d better get out of the way.
When Carly Fiorina was CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she hired Gwen Stefani to perform at a product launch and then decided to invite herself up on stage to sing along with Gwen. This was about as effective as HP’s customer support staff is when you’re trying to figure out why the paper feeder keeps jamming, or why you can’t print to one of HP’s desktop printers when you’re using an operating system implemented since 1979. She really left her mark on the place.
As for me, I can already see where my company is, in some ways, mirroring my personality. I’m trying to get it to stop, but it seems very stubborn and unwilling to yield to common sense. How did it get like that? Oh yeah.
For example:
Details, schmetails. No one seems very interested in logging time, tracking the use of office equipment or applying expenses to the relevant accounts. The attitude is basically that it’s all money, and we spend it or we don’t, so why would we waste time accounting for every cent when we could be using that time taking care of clients?
Did I bring that attitude into the company? And, if so, where did I pick it up? I don’t know. Probably somewhere. I could try to figure it out, but what difference would it make? I could spend that time just going on to the next point.
Client/vendor/competitor mockery. Go to a meeting of your local Economic Club and listen to the speaker’s carefully chosen words. You will hear of the great respect business people have for each other. You will hear of the profit-driven, supply-chain consciousness in which we all create multiples of value through our great mutual respect for everyone in the field.
Or come to my company. Hear jokes made about almost everyone: Our clients are silly; our vendors are weird; our competitors are doofuses. It’s not that we don’t like them. It’s not that we don’t respect them. But what fun would it be to sit around being respectful all the time? Pointing out the idiocy of others is the spice of life. A wise CEO told me that once. And I listened to me.
A falling stone gathers no moss. In our office, tiny little black pebbles fall from the ceiling onto our heads. Why? Our landlord explains it’s “part of the charm of an old building.”
I see it as similar to many other irritations in life that we need to brush away on a regular basis. Leaves blown into the garage. Accumulated empty water bottles on the kitchen counter. Certain clients. Certain editors. (Just kidding, of course. Of course!)
Sometimes people scream, “Why don’t you do something about this?” It’s because, long ago, I came to the conclusion that certain problems are simply meant to be with us. I could expend all kinds of time and energy solving the problem, but that same afternoon, a new problem will move in to occupy the same space.
I make accommodations and live peacefully with my little pebbles. And my employees just keep making that sweep onto the floor.
K.R.A.U.S.E. Keep Repeating All Useless Stupid Exercises. It’s not quite as grandiose as I.A.C.O.C.C.A. but, then again, I won’t find it necessary three years after retiring to join a hostile takeover attempt of my old company. More likely than not, my employees will simply take up a collection and pay me to stay away.
It may not be the best use of their money, but somewhere along the line, they learned to do things like that. Don’t ask me where.
