The Essence of Leadership

Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths – Scott Keller and Mary Meaney (Bloomsbury Business)

Think about it; how much time has been spent studying leadership and at what cost? Now add all of the words that have been written in countless studies, white papers, presentations and books. It’s mindboggling to even ponder.

Well that is the basic concept behind the new book Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths, from McKinsey business consultants Scott Keller and Mary Meany. The pair utilized McKinsey and Company’s decades long experience and information database along with a catalog of articles from the Harvard Business Review to boil down a formidable mountain of accumulated leadership knowledge into a list of what they dubbed ten timeless truths about leading organizations.

The list of ten is disseminated in three categories:

Talent and teams

1. How do I attract and retain the right talent?

2. How do I develop the talent we need to win?

3. How do I manage performance to unlock our full potential?

4. How do I create a high-performing leadership team?

Decision making and design

5. How do I improve the quality and speed of decision making?

6. How do I reorganize to capture maximum value quickly?

7. How do I reduce overhead costs sustainably?

Culture and change

8. How do I make culture a competitive advantage?

9. How do I lead organization-wide transformational change?

10. How do I successfully transition into a new leadership role?

Just imagine, having the sheer volume of information distilled down to what amounts to the essence of leadership. This is a goldmine for leaders at every stage of their career and delivered in a easily accessible and ready to put into play format.

This is really the nuts and bolts side of leadership in a how to format. Will this make you the ultimate leadership machine? Probably not, but it does give you a starting point to tackle many of the issues leaders are charged with dealing with a regular basis.

A Story of Pervasive Influence

The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and It’s Secret Influence on American Business (Simon & Schuster) – Duff McDonald

I found Duff McDonald’s new book The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and It’s Secret Influence on American Business to be an interesting examination of the influence that the consulting giant wields not only in the corporate world in the corridors of government power. It is equally thought provoking when pondering the impact that business consultants have had in both positive and negative ways.

It got me thinking back over my career and how consultants have often negatively impacted the industries that I have worked in over the course of my career. McDonald makes a strong case that that the goals of the consultants don’t always work in harmony with the businesses that they are serving. Projects often snowball into seemingly lifetime appointments with lines being blurred and initial goals pushed to the wayside if not completely off the table.

While certainly there are any number of high profile successes that can be cited, there are an equal if not exceeding number of grand failures that can be laid squarely at the feet of the consultant class. The overriding question for businesses seem left unanswered; are the consultants delivering the expected outcomes or have they become just another crutch for a failure to lead on the part of upper management. Consultants can be the double edged sword of hero or scapegoat for leaders who fail to truly lead.

I have witnessed the limp leadership that is wrought by consultants. Having spent the first half of my career in broadcasting, I am firmly of the belief that the dire circumstances that radio broadcaster currently find themselves in can be laid squarely at the feet of consultants. In their determined rush to homogenize and make uniform the way “personalities” delivered their product, consultants gutted a business that thrived on creativity and left the door wide open for replacements like online streaming services and Ipods. Is it any wonder that advertisers have jumped ship and radio struggles to produce revenue.

It is that pervasive influence that is the underlying question that McDonald weaves through the McKinsey story. It is clearly a question that real business leaders must ask themselves as they ponder the role consultants play in their organizations.