Viewpoint: Giuliani, Welch and Clinton on Strategy, Vision and Leadership
By Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Ph.D.
Chairman and CEO, DSI
I was honored to speak - along with Rudolph Giuliani, Jack Welch and President Bill Clinton - this past May at the HSM World Business Forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Their presentations, simulcasted from New York city, highlighted important aspects of what DSI offers its clients in the area of managing uncertainty and provides welcome validation by these giants of industry, government and world politics.
Giuliani emphasized relentless preparedness in describing his views on leadership, reflecting his role as prosecutor, survivor of prostate cancer and mayor of New York city when the terrorist attacks occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. He emphasized the importance of values, optimism, courage, team building and commitment in leaders - and preparation. Although the terrorist strikes on Sept. 11 were unlike anything the city of New York had experienced before, there was a high degree of readiness because elements of this tragedy had been rehearsed. Starting with the scare of Y2K in 2000, the city had spent many millions on electronic back-up systems to safeguard sensitive communications (fire, policy, subways, hospitals, air traffic). The 1994 bombing of the World Trade Center had trained emergency personnel to deal with panic and chaos. Various other fire and bombing drills had prepared city officials for elements of the calamity that befell the city on September 11, 2001. Giuliani stressed that no amount of planning could have anticipated the specific details of those two horrific airplane attacks. But many aspects of it had been anticipated, rehearsed and transferred into the routines of those charged with the safety and daily functioning of the city.
What DSI does with clients is very similar. By exploring multiple scenarios, we create a high state of preparedness that enhances both early detection and timely response when the unthinkable happens. Enron's credit union is a case in point. It survived the collapse of its sponsor because we had asked it - a year before the fall of Enron - to imagine a future without Enron. The leadership was reluctant at first to contemplate this scenario, but once they did, it became evident that they needed to diversify their member base, have branches outside the Enron building, develop an e-mail system and database independent of their corporate sponsor etc. When Enron's demise did occur suddenly and unexpectedly, the credit union was able to survive - albeit with great challenge - the debacle around it. State regulators later told us that most other credit unions would not have survived this kind of shock.
So, perhaps contrary to Giuliani's second characteristic of leaders, optimism is good only up to a point. At least in private, and perhaps with their entire management teams as well, leaders must be willing to be brutally honest about what may lie ahead. This was the main message from Jack Welch. He stressed that leaders must above all assemble a strong team for succession and be completely frank in their appraisal of people. Everyone must know where they stand in terms of strengths and weaknesses. To Welch, it would be unfair to both sides for a leader to give managers false hope and pretend that all is OK when in fact they don't measure up. I fully agree and suggest that the same principle applies to an organization's own strengths and weaknesses. True leaders can stare the future in the face without rose-colored glasses and see both the upside as well as downside of the current strategy. Scenario planning, vision building, options thinking all require brutal intellectual honesty to succeed.
Finally, former President Bill Clinton emphasized a systemic approach to challenges in an interdependent world. He urged listeners to transform this interdependence into a deeper sense of global community, in which our common humanity as well as current dependence on one shared earth, brings us closer rather than farther apart. Against the backdrop of terrorism and Iraq, this vision seemed utopian in the near term but nonetheless an important ideal to strive for. In weighing options, he asks: Will this action or policy create (1) shared benefits, (2) shared responsibility and (3) shared values? With the majority of the global population living in or near poverty, the present state of the world is precariously unstable. And when we add the increasing likelihood that small groups of fanatics will get their hands on nuclear, chemical or biological weapons that can kill millions, the root causes of discontent - such as global poverty, lack of freedom and perhaps western imperialism - will need to be addressed rather than the symptoms.
I share President Clinton's global vision and admire his capacity to distill enormous complexity into a coherent vision with actionable guidelines. On a smaller scale, we strive to do this with our clients while recognizing the increasing interdependence among the social, technological, political and economic systems surrounding the organization. We like scenario planning because it not only highlights the inherent uncertainty of the future but also supports and embraces a diversity of viewpoints. In scenario planning, one thread will move another and only those who understand the deeper interrelationships will be able to navigate the numerous shocks and upheavals that will surely come our way. Although we can't predict them all, we can be prepared for many of the elements that they will contain.
This is the challenge of leadership in our age of interdependence and
uncertainty. It calls for vision, strategy and leadership of a new kind,
in which humility and agility will be required. Only then will chance
favor the prepared mind.
