The Untold Power of Concentrated Weakness

When I look at the state of business and leadership today, it’s easy to become angry. Worse, it’s very tempting to believe that mankind is such a wretched, flawed kind of creature that there is little hope for any better future. The comments sent in to me and to this blog contain so many heart-wrenching stories of abuse by bosses and organizations. It’s enough to dampen the most optimistic outlook. Yet I am still hopeful. While realism must be faced and all the failures pointed out, there is really no point in doing even that, if no change is possible. We can build a better kind of organization, as long as enough people want to do it.

Greed, arrogance, and meanness are everywhere. That is true. Too many bosses are bullies and jerks. That is also true; even one jerk in a position of authority is one too many. Organizations are frequently short-sighted and obsessed with quarterly financial results, even though that usually harms them in the longer term and frequently limits their success. “Business as usual” too often means making all the same old mistakes, over and over again, as if no one had a brain capable of learning from experience or grasping the inevitable relationship between cause and effect. Most executives are highly educated and, presumably, well above the average in intelligence. Yet there are times when they act like the most foolish, intellectually-challenged of creatures. Most pet cats have a greater sense of the need for balance between action and reflection (often alas, in cats, indistinguishable from sleep) than do the inhabitants of the boardrooms of major corporations.

So why do I remain optimistic? Simply because we got ourselves into this mess, consciously and deliberately, and we can therefore get ourselves out.

We created today’s organizational nightmares by focusing on the short-term, by putting money before everything else, and by clinging to a faulty assumption that immediate profit is the sole interest of shareholders. Because most managers are clever and hard-working, and applied these mistaken notions diligently, they built organizations that are extremely efficient at making quick money and supremely ineffective at making the majority of those who work in them happy or satisfied.

What might happen if leaders took a long-term view? If they saw money as only one of the potential ways of measuring the success and value of an organization?

Suppose you changed the focus and the assumptions? What might happen if leaders took a long-term view? If they saw money as only one of the potential ways of measuring the success and value of an organization? If they assumed that shareholders might be interested in owning part of a business that made them proud of its achievements, as well as producing steady returns on their investment?

Probably some of you will object that this is all very well, but is hopelessly idealistic. I agree—but reject the “hopelessly.” Pragmatism won’t change the world—or even the outlook of a single organization. Pragmatism demands fitting in, following the current trends, doing what appears to work on the basis of current assumptions. No pragmatist ever took the opposite point of view from the majority. It’s an excess of pragmatism that helped bring us into the sad state we are in. Only idealism ever caused anyone to see what others are doing and decide, deliberately, to do something else.

Human beings are an odd mixture of exalted ideals, tremendous capacity for love and altruism, and an equally extensive ability to be mean, petty, selfish, and downright evil. Few are angels. Few are total devils. Most stand somewhere in between, sometimes leaning in the direction of better behavior, sometimes towards what is worse. We have the capability to create a more civilized, less destructive society, if that is what we want.

It’s so easy to complain privately, but go along with the status quo in public. We assume we are the only ones who dislike the way things are and want to change them.

We don’t use that capability enough, not because it is too weak to serve, but because we don’t have sufficient confidence in ourselves and our ability to change things. It’s so easy to complain privately, but go along with the status quo in public. We assume we are the only ones who dislike the way things are and want to change them. In reality, we are part of the vast majority of people: eager to see a better world, if only we had the courage to walk away from things as they are, and the vision to know what to put in their place.

We can do it. It doesn’t need riots, civil disobedience, or even fights with the boss. All it needs is to hold on to our ideals and try, every day, to put them into practice whenever and wherever we can. We don’t need some massive uprising by a few. We need millions upon millions of random acts of kindness and civility by innumerable people. The Grand Canyon was not cut out by a sudden cataclysm. It was cut away, fragment of rock by fragment of rock, by untold billions of gallons of water over millions of years. What needs changing in our organizations is far softer than rock and has been in place for less than a century. Imagine what could happen if it was systematically attacked by all those ordinary people, each one chipping away at at some part of the edifice.

Remember the power of random drops of water. Random acts of kindness and thoughtfulness can be just as powerful.

Don’t despair. You can make a difference, today and every day, even if each one seems tiny. Remember the power of random drops of water. Random acts of kindness and thoughtfulness can be just as powerful. So can taking a few moments out of the rat race to think and refresh your mind. We built our organizations the way they are. We can pull them down and build something better, even if it has to be one brick at a time.

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