Intentions and Attention
Ah, great organizations. There’s a topic that has occupied pundits, scholars, consultants, and amateur all-of-the-above for quite some time. Like a lot of people I’ve read a lot of the literature. Some of it is interesting. Some of it you really wonder about. One of the better business books I’ve read recently is Good to Great, by Jim Collins. He writes well and the rigor that he brings to identifying and understanding excellent organizations seems impeccable to me.
It happens that I was simultaneously reading Joseph Campbell’s epic The Hero With A Thousand Faces and Carolyn Myss’ book The Anatomy of the Spirit at the same time and I was struck by the thought that truth is truth; greatness is greatness. For some reason, many of us in business don’t want to believe this.
We have somehow come to the conclusion that there is no place in business for thinking about and talking about fundamental human truths. Instead, we separate business from the rest of life and hope that both work out. A strange way to deal with what most of us spend a third of our lives doing. Perhaps that’s why there are a fair number of good organizations, but not that many great ones.
Greatness, an ineffable notion if there ever was one, is not built on advanced technology, brilliant supply chain management, or steely-eyed cost controls. It does not spring from the forehead of heroic leaders. It doesn’t come from a strategic plan. It does not come from branding. It’s not a result of strategic partnerships. It’s not a result of “digital thinking”. It doesn’t come from any of those things, though all of those may find a home in a great organization.
No, greatness finds its roots deeper than that. Where you find it, it’s discussed—to the extent anyone can really tell you about it—in terms that are far simpler than most of us are taught to use in business.
Tom Peters is someone who talks easily and with penetrating insight about great organizations. In his world, at least as I understand it, Greatness comes from a revolution in organizations, works, and employees, or what he calls the five transformations for a new world of work:
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Employees: brand your professionals.
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Managers: leaders at all levels.
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Departments: professional service firms.
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Work assignments: Wow projects.
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Customer service: customer experience.
Good list. Even if the concepts aren’t immediately obvious, they seem like the right topics. In Jim Collins world, greatness comes from discipline.
Disciplined People:
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Level 5 Leadership. Not heroic, outside leaders, but self-effacing, humble, and completely dedicated to the success of the enterprise. More like Lincoln than Patton.
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First Who . . . Then What. First get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and everyone in the right seats. Then figure out where to drive the bus.
Disciplined Thought
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Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith). Speaks for itself.
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The Hedgehog. Build your business at the intersection of three circles: what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be the best in the world at, and something that drives your economic engine.
Disciplined Action
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A Culture of Discipline. Disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action.
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Technology Accelerators. Technology for technology sake gets you nowhere but poorer and more exhausted. Yet the right technologies, properly applied, create terrific acceleration.
I like that list better. Discipline is a theme that appears again and again in ancient and contemporary philosophy, metaphysics, and pretty much anywhere anything great gets done. What’s interesting is that Collins and his colleagues arrived at what seem like basic truths and insights through such painstakingly hard work and research. That is either elegant testimony to the obvious, or to a much deeper insight: that it takes a lot of hard work to get past the complex and the convoluted and get to what’s really going on.
I’ve spent nearly twenty-five years as a consultant to and observer of businesses. The list of companies I’ve worked with includes some of the biggest and best known in the world, and some of the smallest and most obscure. Most of my thinking and doing has been focused on the sales, marketing, and service end of things. There is a lot more to building great businesses than that, but I’ve never been able to convince myself that what goes on where people, process, and offers touch customers isn’t the most important part of all.
My observation on greatness? Most large organizations have a tough time getting the customer interface part right. It matters because it’s the symptomatic location of greatness or the lack thereof.
Part of the problem lies with the customers: their expectations of a seamless, wow experience have gotten pretty high. Part of the problem lies with business: we in business are, after all, the ones who raised these expectations through our expansive brand promises and high-toned vision statements.
The root cause? We’re making promises but failing to match our intentions with our attention. In my mind, greatness pivots on those two words, and the really important one is “attention.”
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Kevin Hoffberg
Last modified:
05/03/06