In a talk to the Drucker Foundation Advisory Board in 1993, Peter Drucker said, "The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask." The traditional hierarchical model of leadership will not work effectively for major organizations in tomorrow's changing world.
In the "old days," a person was hired into a position, learned the job, and - usually because of some form of functional proficiency - received a promotion into management. Then, as a manager, this same person could tell a few people what to do. Next, if the person was skilled and/or lucky, more promotions followed until he or she eventually became an executive who could tell lots of people what to do.
In most cases, the leader of the future won't know enough to tell people what to do. The world is changing too rapidly. No one person will be smart enough to keep up. As Edgar Schein notes in this volume, leaders will need to effectively involve others and elicit participation "because tasks will be too complex and information too widely distributed for leaders to solve problems on their own."
If leaders will not be able to keep up with the rapidly changing world, detailed policy manuals don't have a chance! Many organizations have historically operated on the "there is one best way" school of management. A classic example was the old Bell System. The basic philosophy was very clear: "There is one best way to do things. Let's figure out what it is, put it in a manual, and make sure everyone does it that way." One former Bell System executive, who later became a high-level executive in a "Baby Bell," jokingly remarked, "In the old Bell System we had rules, regulations, and guidelines on how to do everything but go to the bathroom - and they probably had a task force assigned to study that!" He went on to note that this regimentation was the philosophy of yesterday, not the philosophy of tomorrow.
Did the old Bell System, complete with its shelves of policy manuals, work? Pretty well! It worked in a relatively stable world without aggressive competitors. However, as leaders in the new AT&T now realize, the old command-and-control model of leadership will not encourage the creativity and responsiveness needed to get tomorrow's job done.
A classic example of a new-world organization is AT&T Wireless Services (formerly McCaw Cellular Communications); which AT&T paid twelve billion dollars to acquire. In the changing world of cellular communications, a company can go from state of the art to dinosaur in a matter of months. For example, imagine that AT&T Wireless needed to make major changes because of problems in a local market, but before the changes could be made:
1. Employees had to "bubble" their concerns through each level in the AT&T system
2. A task force had to be assigned
3. New policy manuals had to be written
4. The new procedures had to be disseminated down the chain of command to the local employees
What would happen? The local market would be lost, the bright, entrepreneurial employees would leave the company to work for competitors, and AT&T would lose an important part of its twelve-billion-dollar investment. AT&T is a great example of an organization that has realized that success in the past does not guarantee success in the future. In today's AT&T, leaders are trained to "break the mold," empower people, and consistently reach out to acquire new insights.
How will the leader of tomorrow differ from the leader of yesterday? The thought leaders represented in this book describe a variety of differences; I will describe one key process. The effective leader of the future will consistently and efficiently ask, learn, follow up, and grow. The leader who cannot keep learning and growing will soon become obsolete in tomorrow's ever-changing world.
Life is good.
Marshall
My newest book, MOJO, is a New York Times (advice), Wall Street Journal (business), USAToday (money) and Publisher's Weekly (non-fiction) best seller. It is now available online and at major bookstores.
http://www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com
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