Brave leadership is teachable - and essential to business success - Dr. Brené Brown
Several big companies failed, despite having great thinkers & capital, and the common factors responsible for the failure of each of these companies are - an inability to take initiatives, continue to stick to the status quo, prohibit employees in taking courageous and fact-based decisions and micro-managing their staff.
In our day-to-day professional & personal lives, we each encounter situations where we know by our experiences, available facts, and the gut feeling that our decision is correct, yet we push ourselves to failure either by
- Not trusting ourselves/unwilling to take ownership of our decisions
- Getting involved in “analysis paralysis” (gather & understand just the relevant & right amount of data & avoid analyzing much)
- Not learning from individual best practices or openness to find alternatives from industry
- Trust deficit amongst people
In a nutshell, the aforesaid have killed many success stories/products and organizations. The root cause is the absence of open culture, employee behavior largely stemming from past professional and personal experiences - primarily attributed to one’s upbringing and cultural values. Organizational culture is foremost and supersedes everything, and we must unlearn and forego our past professional and personal experiences/misconceptions.
Leaders must provide opportunities to people and encourage them to take “calculated” risks and the freedom to fail and learn. It is natural to fear, especially when it comes to things like modifying a company’s culture or people strategy, dumping a product or increasing its price point. During difficult situations, our brain contemplates unfavorable outcomes and prohibits us from being courageous. Nevertheless, companies must inculcate courage and capability to utilize facts to make such decisions.
Risk is a prerequisite of innovation and to take risks employees should feel free to take decisions, must be trusted, not just by their managers but also by their colleagues/cross-functional teams.
Companies are realizing this importance and are measuring the same in their employee engagement surveys. Companies like Glint that leverage real-time people data to help global organizations increase employee engagement, develop their people and improve business results measure indices like Empowerment, Challenge, Innovation, Change, Accountability, Collaboration, Culture to assess how their staff perceives such attributes.
However, most often, organizational culture or values are not practiced in the “letter & spirit.” While nearly all organizations have a written set of values, only 10% actually operationalize those values into observable behaviors—and hold people accountable for carrying them out (Dr. Brene Brown).
Courageous and fact-based decision making accentuates the collection of “just the right data” including assurance of the quality of data, perform non-judgmental analysis to gather insights through a collaborative approach evaluating the pros and cons of possible decisions and choose decisions well supported by analysis and not presumptions.
When this is commonly known to all then why some companies don’t adopt them – the answer to this is –
Courageous & fact-based decisions in Corporates are not about taking impetuous decisions; it is in fact about being both courageous and practical - using one’s experience & judgment before acting. I recommend you to read Professor Adrian Furnham, University College London “ four types of corporate courage necessary for successful leadership , necessary for successful leadership.
Companies don’t become successful because of a few competent people at decision making roles. Without having people to make and execute courageous decisions in all levels of leadership not much can be achieved. 97% of senior management believe that courage is a key attribute to lead a company in the right direction in today’s business climate (Daresay report). Companies should encourage senior leaders to trust their people and not micromanages them, such behavior drives responsible employees and great working culture. Accordingly, they should invest in driving this culture first amongst its top executives and then L1, L2, and L3 levels so that tough conversations, decisions, inclusiveness and problem-solving attitude is encouraged, embrace unpopular decisions, fear & setbacks, shame and blame is eliminated systematically from their minds.
Now let’s look at some facts around this - According to Daresay’s Courage report
Steve Jobs @ Apple felt that most people live in a small box. They think they can’t influence or change things a lot. He got his top executives to reject that philosophy. He used to say “If you can do that, then you can change things. If you embrace that the things that you can do are limitless, you can put your ding in the universe. You can change the world.”
This thought process from its leader continues to help Apple to develop a new product line with great customer acceptance. Each time Apple decides to enter various categories in the market, its leaders together ponder
If they can’t answer or can’t manage the key technologies, they don’t go ahead.
Smartwatches were there since 2012 and Apple wasn’t the pioneer. Nike launched its Nike Fuel in Feb 2012, Sony launched its Smartwatch in March 2012, Samsung’s Galaxy gear in Sep 2013 and its Gear Fit in April 2014 however, it launched its first Apple Watch in April-2015 and all this while these competitors were updating their products or launching a new product lines years after the first product was launched by its competitor.
With so many technologically advanced big players in the market no company would’ve forayed into launching a product which has to be better than the competition with premium pricing but Apple exhibited courage and did that in 2015 but it thought differently – Apple knew that while working with small screens the biggest the challenge is having a maximum user interface for the software hence, it conceptualized new ways for input: the “force touch”, to sense force, which allowed Apple Watch to distinguish between a light tap and a deep press (they revolutionized technology with the introduction of electrodes around the flexible Apple Watch display to detect pressure) this allowed another user the interface which remains hidden making the screen look larger & behold. If this challenge wasn’t enough their next challenge was that this product would need iPhone5, 6 or 6Plus to work on and just during the launch of AppleWatch, Apple's market share in the global smartphone market dropped from 20.4% in Q4 of 2014 down to 17.7% in Q4 of 2015 owing to strong Dollar and higher import tariffs in developing countries however the overall global smartphone sales in the December quarter of 2015 was up 9.7% versus the same period in 2014 (Gartner Report), however it launched the first “modern” smartwatch.
Apple used this approach in many products where they were not the first – MP3 player, tablet, Smartphone, but they took the courageous decision and using their cutting innovation they never stopped innovating and didn’t believe that just because they weren’t first, they couldn’t succeed. Not many companies can give examples of Courageous and fact-based decisions like Apple.
HR leaders across the world usually find it difficult to take/encourage tough conversations. I encourage readers to read Dr. Brene Brown’s research on the future of leadership in this context.
The world has always gasped in awe whenever it witnessed fact-based and courageous decisions rolling out in a favorable result, I am tempted to quote some corporate, historical and geopolitical evidence, where leaders/people/organizations, followed/encouraged/respected courageous behavior.
- Tim Cook’s decision to continue New Product development, despite COVID19 pandemic - He was asked about how investors should “think about product development” over the next few quarters amidst coronavirus outbreak. He emphasized that Apple is moving ahead as normal as it adjusts to working from home. Apple launched the iPhone SE, the iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard, and the MacBook Air. He was able to do so because he studied Apple’s customers. Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime also set new all-time records for daily use amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He relied not only on his instincts but also on facts like customer and market research, and usage patterns/trends of the products and services. Apple announced its fiscal Q2 2020 earnings- revenue of $58.3 billion amidst COVID-19 concerns.
- LinkedIn’s “Investment Day/In Day” Program - Each month, LinkedIn gives employees a day to focus on themselves, the company, and the world. A day to invest, inspire, and innovate and it is one of the most treasured traditions at LinkedIn. Across all locations, co-workers and managers connect, create, and collaborate to build the culture in which they want to work.
- Netflix - It is known about Netflix that it does one thing, but it does it exceptionally well. They invest in today’s content in tomorrow’s customer. Before Livestreaming, it was in the business of shipping DVD’s to its customers and when it decided to enter into Livestreaming Movie market in 2007, the industry already had HBO (since ’70s) and Amazon (2006). Reed is courageous & focused not just about winning this year or next year, he looks a long way in the future and the best example of this is his decision to take this radical step and cannibalize his DVD rental business.
- The Liberation of Bangladesh from Pakistan by India - No matter there are few people who don’t agree on many things with Mrs. Gandhi but will always respect her for this courageous act of her. Her name went down in history on a positive note as she liberated Bangladesh (erstwhile part of undivided Eastern India) as she took a very bold step. The 1971 India – Pakistan war was a military confrontation that lead to the birth of Bangladesh. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, who opposed the tyrannical and undemocratic military-bureaucratic rule of West Pakistan when despite having a clear overall majority to become the PM, but Pakistan was against to have a leader from its eastern province to rule. What followed was intense and ruthless persecution of the natives, an ethnic cleansing so depressing that history books would bleed with the death of around 3 Million Bangladeshis and the rape of lacs of women.
Mrs. Gandhi had a couple of odds - bear the enormous cost of war (India’s GDP was 67.35 Billion USD then, with its defense budget of barely 9 Billion, which was <1% of the current defense budget of 3.19 Trillion USD), ensuring safe custody of Mujibur Rehman (was about to be hanged for treason) by negotiating with Pakistan if it won and the diplomatic challenge involving national security and foreign policy. Leaving Jinnah’s two nation theory falling flat on the ground.
However, her biggest decisions were to go on a full-fledged war with Pakistan rather than remaining silent and take-in millions of refugees (India still took many a million refugees) and initially in Apr’71 when General Manekshaw (chief architect of 1971 war) told that his army was not prepared for full-fledged war, she did not lose her cool and resolved to wait and took the most important courageous and fact-based decision India ever took by engaging the Pakistani army in Dec’71 relying without being judgmental on inputs and confidence of India army with effective collaboration to protect the Bangladeshi’s from the onslaught and all this happened amongst one of the world’s bloodiest sectarian violence.
The war ended with Indian victory and liberation of Bangladesh however, she still had a challenge and it was the information related to Rehman’s possible execution by the Pakistani army which she smartly gathered from overseas (Heathrow airport London) using her intelligence services – since this was an insider information, she didn’t sleep over it and got this confirmed quickly from across the western side of India’s border. Though Rehman’s release came at the price of release of 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war but helped India forge an intact bond with Bangladesh which remains intact to date with Bangladesh’s gratitude of its current politicians. - Case Study - Länsförsäkringar’s story of becoming the best provider of mobile bank services in Sweden. Susanne Bergh, Head of Customer Success of this Swedish company told her team in a formal meeting that their company should be the best provider of mobile bank services in Sweden. She convinced the CEO. She continued to make the team envision that they are on stage to receive the award. When encountered with questions from her team on how would she achieve it, she calmly replied that she won’t be able to do it alone and encouraged participation and then set up a clear goal and gave them the freedom to achieve the set goals. The company won many awards in various categories.
A leader’s vision, an endorsement that it is achievable, living the dream, collaboration - made this possible - Arjuna’s Dilemma & Lord Krishna’s counselling – During the battle of Mahabharata, Lord Krishna asked Arjuna to perform the Karma yoga as he struggled to come to terms with fighting his relatives in the battle. Arjuna feels sad and does not know if he can continue. He talks to Lord Krishna and he makes him realize it is his duty (dharma). Krishna told Arjuna “You grieve for those who are not worthy of grief and yet speak words of wisdom, the wise grieves neither for the living nor for the dead.” Krishna emphasized on Karma & Dharma. He told Arjun that this was a righteous war - a war of Dharma. Dharma is the way of righteousness or a set of rules and laws laid down. The Kaurava’s were on the side of Adharma (non-righteousness) and had broken rules and laws and hence Arjun would have to do his Karma to uphold Dharma. He further tells him that he was troubled by the idea of killing his kin because it was against his desires. Arjuna had to let go of such expectations.