Status Quo Pep Talks That Can Threaten Your Leadership
FYI! We tend to assume that leadership is highly visible, a high-profile role in the limelight. In current business terms, that does not always create a high-performing culture.
Organizations live and die by results. Yet most organizations get a fraction of the results they are capable of. There are many reasons for this: poor strategy, poor leadership, insufficient resources, etc. But one main reason is overlooked by most leaders. Many organizations stumble because they are permeated with a robust status quo. The trouble with the status quo isn’t that it gets poor results. After all, if you know you’re getting poor results, you can do something about it. You can start taking steps to turn them into good results. The trouble with the status quo is that it gets mediocre results but represents them as good results. And poor results are less harmful to an organization than mediocre results misrepresented as good results. The status quo is simply the existing state of an organization. You might ask, “What’s wrong with the existing state of an organization?” My response is, “A great deal.” In fact, the status quo is always … not sometimes … always wrong. Leadership is not a measure of results. Results are a measure of leadership. A leader should be getting not average results but more results faster, and “more, faster” continually. FYI! Many organizations ensure that their most talented employees receive formal leadership assessments and attend leadership training programs. These can be conducted in the organization’s own educational facilities, at a college or university, through a computer simulation program managed by human resource companies that play the trainers’ role.
The status quo is the enemy of the “more results faster continually” because the status quo is in business to be the status quo first and get results second. Its number one priority is always self-preservation. Of course, without the impulse toward self-preservation, organizations would quickly fall apart. But when the impulse hijacks the need of the organization’s leaders to adapt to changing circumstances, the status quo is a threat. For instance: For years until the mid 20th century, IBM flourished by having their machines perform calculations using punch cards. But then the digital revolution came along. However, during the late 1940s and early 1950s a strong status quo of employees were wedded to punch cards and were convinced digital would lead to disaster. As IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson Jr. said in his book, “Father, Son & Co.”, “There wasn’t a single, solitary soul in the company who grasped even a hundredth of the potential the computer had.” It took his strong leadership to fight off the status quo and move IBM into the digital age. If the status quo had prevailed, IBM would have been out of business in a few years. Still, the status quo put up such a fight that switching the organization from punch cards to digital processes nearly destroyed the company. FYI! We often think that leadership is rare, but in fact it is quite common. Leadership does not only happen in high-profile business environments, but in all sorts of contexts, such as within families and in social and charitable organisations outside work.
The IBM example is not the exception but the rule: The success or failure of any organization hinges to a great extent on how its leaders deal with the status quo. No question about it, if you try to get into the realm of achieving more results faster continually, the status quo will attack you. The question isn’t, “If ” but “How?” and “When?” One way it attacks is through status quo pep talks to gain ardent support. When you are ready for them, you are better able to deal with them and get ahead of the curve in thwarting the status quo. FYI! Tenure or longevity does not equate to effective leadership capabilities. Just because you may have been with your organization for over thirty years does not mean you are an effective leader.
“Pretend to go along and they’ll go away.” FYI! It may only be seen to be necessary to train the top people in leadership, when in fact this needs to happen at team, operational and strategic levels too. Succession planning demands that tomorrow’s leaders are identified and developed from the present day.
Now that you have an idea of what the status quo is and how dangerous it can be; don’t let its pep talks dissuade you from your mission as a leader of achieving more results faster continually. 2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved. PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 20 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com Realize Your Personal, Professional, and Business Potential With A Little Help From Your Friends. Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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