The Really Big Chunks Always Rise to the Top…And other muses on the Real Seat of Power
In our most recent article, The Mirror Effect: Why Your Brand is a Reflection of Your People, we introduced the concept that power in any organization is like a septic tank. The really big chunks always rise to the top.
We discussed how a company’s brand reflects its people. And we'd argue that it's not just any of the people, but specifically the authentic leader. There is an important point around this authentic leader who has risen to the top. Just like a waterfall where water flows from top to bottom, power flows from top to bottom, too. And as you seek the source of rules, culture, and values, it can be easy to mistake power, the real seat of power, for title.
Within our various structures, we might assume a CEO has the power. Yet it might be the founder, who might even be long dead. It might be the matriarch of a family. It might even be the secretary who controls what the CEO reads or who the CEO sees. When we think of countries it might be the prime minister or president, when sometimes it's actually the humble pollster who tells them what policies might sell. Sometimes it's Kim Kardashian or Lionel Messi to whom we give power. Sometimes it's a religious leader. We'd argue sometimes it seems like a fad, but it's never a fad. It's who we follow. Sometimes, without even realizing it, we give away our power to others. It has been said that we give our power sometimes to the mob - but it’s typically not the mob, but some individual that we have put on the pedestal.
If you want to know what a company, a brand will reflect, seek first to know the real seat of power. As we have worked with so many companies in our consultation work, and even as we now acquire companies or help them in their process of merging, we have had increasing reason to understand and honor these real seats of power.
As an example, Jack Welch from GE, we don’t think was good or bad. He likely did subordinate to Milton Friedman's view of primacy of profit for a business. And guess what? He turned an industrial giant into a corporate financial giant. Yet it is written, or at least rumored, that people might have suffered as a result.
At Amazon, Jeff Bezos was customer focused, to say the least. It was all about the customer. And stories abound about how undervalued the employees were. Yet eventually, the employees banded together, called unions to increase their leverage and took a corporate giant to its knees. It could be said that Amazon valued people. Those people were their customers. And they valued their customers above profit. Interestingly enough, Amazon Prime was not a profit center when it started out. It was launched to try and add value to the individuals, the customers, but at the same time the unions were being banded together to engage with the company. Herb Kelleher built Southwest into the giant it was while treating his employees as sometimes more valuable than the customer.
We even have an example from one of our own companies, which was a medical clinic. We have, for reasons that you might know by now, a relentless focus on the individual. We actually believe that an individual is within whom lies purpose. We've got a clear bias. Kumar, as the CEO of that organization, bled that into the company. On the surface it may have appeared that we were a company focused on its people. And yet, what it actually was is that we as a company were focused on the individual. And that showed up. We had rising stars within our company, but what we were missing was teamwork. And so one of the things about knowing yourself as the leader is to know what you value, where you place your value. And again, that's not good or bad, but it’s important to understand what the consequence of that was. And Kumar was a slow learner. It took us a while to realize that what we are building was individual superstars and not a team. Eventually, he smartened up and hired a manager who had an emphasis on team building. Knowing thyself comes with perks!
As we analyze these companies, it's the depth to which they know themselves which is going to be helpful to take those next steps. We need leaders who are focused on profit. And we also need a focus on the people, too. In fat times, we might emphasize employee benefits. And in lean times, we think we focus on survival. Yet it may be preferable to be aware of what your values mean and what that means for your focus. Where are your blind spots? Where is it that you are likely to ignore?
Sometimes as a business we turn to ranking people instead of ranking results, forgetting what it is that we seek to accomplish. When we map out what it is that we really want to accomplish and then use zero based thinking, questioning fundamental or apparently fundamental assumptions, we might find that our businesses and our lives get arranged very differently.
What does the leader's life demonstrate they value? It is only when we know that, that we get a deep understanding of what's showing up, what the leader is likely to be blind to. It opens up knowing what it is that you as a leader values helps you understand and leverage what I call the purpose of challenge. Because, not only is each individual, each entity existing on purpose, but our challenges exist on purpose too.
With Gratitude
Amit and Kumar Ramlall
P.S. There’s always more to discover with ChintanProject 🌱
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