The Flasher

Williams on Real Leadership

If you don’t know Dean Williams, you really should look him up. He’s a very smart guy, Harvard lecturer,  and author of a book called Real Leadership: helping people and organizations face their toughest challenges

In this meaty tome, Williams talks about the concept of real leadership vs counterfeit leadership. The latter refers to the modern day style of lead and follow, the setting of a ‘vision’ and use of dominance and control to get people to ‘follow’ a certain course of action - even if the vision is misguided! In contrast, he defines real leadership as mobilizing people in a way that helps them to face difficult problems themselves.

Real leadership means getting people to focus on the ‘real’ threat or opportunity that will ultimately help the organisation progress. This approach demands adaptive behavior from an organisation and its people: shifts in values  and behavior, as well as new ways of thinking about a problem. But it’s also where the real work begins and breakthroughs are made. It’s a very powerful model, and one relevant to any company (in the book, Williams uses examples from his experience in government and a bunch of corporates). It’s also an approach that we as communications experts should be thinking about when engaging with clients.

Too often, clients don’t want to hear what the real problem is (hey, neither do some agencies). Often it’s easier for a client to apply a solution they are already comfortable with (like advertising) and avoid facing a difficult business reality.  But that’s not leadership. And our clients will never be leaders in their field just by doing what they know how to do.  It’s our job to mobilize people around the problem (clients and otherwise), in a way that facilitates the shifts in behavior and thinking that doing business in today’s (and tomorrow’s) world demands. - Kate

It's about culture, stupid

Nasty words like media fragmentation are keeping marketers awake and prompting even the most cautious executives to dip their toe in the shimmering waters of brand entertainment. Brand entertainment is a powerful potion for avoiding the pitfalls of the marketing new world. After all, we live in a culture where people expect to be entertained. All. The. Time. One of the limitations of advertising is that people rarely find it entertaining.

Harnessing the power of entertainment in communications can enable a brand to connect with their consumer in a way that resonates on a cultural level. The way ads may once have done.

If the brand’s involvement is authentic, transparent and above all truly entertaining, people will generally see the commercial nature of the content as a fair value exchange. If it’s good enough, they’ll embrace it.  And when this happens it can inject cultural resonance into a brand in a way that’s become just too hard for advertising. - Kate

Check out the full article which will appear this week in B&T Weekly.

The Abilene Paradox

I’ve been re-reading The Abilene Paradox by Jerry B Harvey. This is one of my favourite little theories. It was given to me during Sydney Leadership 07 – a course I did last year with an emphasis on the dynamics of group decision making.  We fell into all the usual traps that groups do (forming, storming, norming as they say) and we definitely ended up on the ‘road to Abilene’ a few times.

For the uninitiated, The Abilene Paradox describes what happens when a group of people make a collective decision that is contrary to their individual preferences. They don’t make known their true feelings about a course of action, perhaps fearing isolation or criticism from the rest of the group. They effectively elevate the perceived group preference above their own, putting consensus ahead of conflict in a kind of groupthink. Because conformity feels a lot more comfortable than conflict, you can easily end up on ‘the road to Abilene’… heading down a path which is counter to the real goals of the organisation.

It’s interesting (if not really ground breaking) to think about the implications of this idea in focus groups or any face to face testing environment. But perhaps more interesting would be to explore how it may or may not play out in online communities where people are protected by anonymity and group decision making isn’t governed by quite the same rules. - Kate