Story Man. People in the story department, mostly men, were called "story men." Story men had their own story telling styles. Kinney catalogued four styles: cool, violent, emotional, and irreverent.

Deconstruction.

1. Style. Each style has a distinct story performance style and relationship between teller and audience.

2. Supervision. During the ritual storyboard events, there was a supervisor approval process that depended up the story man's story performance skills.

3. Formality. The storytelling style was less formal when Walt was not around, and more formal when he was present. Story men did not insult the Duck or the Mouse when Walt was around.

4. Circulating Fear Stories. Walt took actions that circulated stories of fear throughout his kingdom. The story's recipe was: if you do things Walt's way, you are treated like royalty by Walt. If you cross him or break the rules, then you are gone. People did things the way they heard that Walt would want them done.

5. Walt after Death. After his death, people shared stories about Walt to answer the central question: "What would Walt have done?" Then people would recount a story of how Walt had responded to an analogous situation. In fact, training for new cast members at the Disney Theme Parks is informally handled by a mentor. After a brief tour of the facility, the mentor tells stories. And, who could argue with these stories. After Walt's death revenues increased by 230 percent and profits by 285 percent.

6. Sequencing. In the case of rides, the storyboard unfolded the ride like the sequences in a toon. A set of pre-planned visual events where the audience is the camera moving on rails through the events of the story line as they walk or are carried through the theme park. You walk up Main Street (the Midwestern Town scene) then your eye catches sight of the Sleeping Beauty Castle. Reaching the Castle, at the center of the park, the themes are arranged clockwise around the castle tower: Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. A railroad, monorail, and other rides are the take the visitor from one setting to the next, in a sequence that tells Walt's story, unfolded in the very design of the park as a whole. It is a calculated sequence of visual events.

7. Harmony. Taylor, Mayo, Skinner and other utopians had their vision of how to create harmony between the individual and the organization. Walt's harmony was fashioned on a story board as a set of continuity sketches to perfect his particular vision of a corporate structure. Walt deconstructed and reconstructed the continuity of each project in his empire by storytelling and story boarding. He had a sense of harmony that was pleasing to the common man and revolting to intellectuals. Each action, each sketch, each voice contributed directly to the whole design. There was no clutter, no waste, and there was a place for everything and everything and every body was in their place.

8. Leadership through Quality. Walt's production machine was fabricated quality products and services.

9. Storytelling as Inquiry. For example, as Michael Eisner tells his story, he is making sense of how the pieces fit together. He is culling the stories of Roy Jr. and other Disney people to find out what is going on at Disney. Why does it not make sense to him? Eisner is using his story as an inquiry system to discover that the script is in the mind of Walt and Walt is no longer here. Eisner and his recruit: Katzenberg use scripts to discuss, select, and then product stories.

 

Mr. Fear Story

Once upon a time the MiniScribe Corporation, a computer disk-drive manufacturer, hired Mr. Q.T. Wiles to be their CEO. Everyone was so afraid of Q.T. that they faked financial statements and went through hell to falsify sales and inventory records.

"In one instance, the company shipped bricks to distributors and marked them down as computer component sales. In another, repackaged scrap metal and obsolete parts were made to appear to be new products." 16

For division managers, their life depended upon reaching the goals set by Q.T.

Dash Meetings Q.T. held court in his "dash meetings." "At one of the first such meetings he attended says a former division manager, Mr. Wiles demanded that two controllers stand, and then he fired them on the spot, saying to everyone, "That's just to show everyone I'm in control of the company."

"At each dash meeting, division managers had to present and defend their "dash books," Mr Wile's term for business plans that had to conform to a set formula. Invariably Mr. Wiles would find such plans deficient and would berate their authors in front of their peers. A former controller said Mr. Wiles would throw, kick and rip dash books that displeased him, showering his intimidated audience with paper while yelling, "Why don't you understand how to do this?"

Q.T. and the executives he brought with him to run MiniScribe became known as "the VC" derived from "venture capitalists."

"Basically," a former MiniScribe accountant says, "Q.T. was saying, "This is the number we want to hit first quarter, second quarter, third quarter and so on, and it was amazing to see how close they could get to the number they wanted to hit."

...On one occasion, an analyst relates, it shipped more than twice as many disk drives to a computer manufacturer as had been ordered... the excess shipment was worth about $9 million.

..."Everyone wanted to do good by Q.T.," says a customer representative, describing how division reports would be doctored as they rose from one bureaucratic level to the next.

Before long, the accounting gimmickry became increasingly brazen. Division managers were told to "force the numbers," ... one division controller ... quit when ordered by a vice president to lie about financial results. In this tense atmosphere, wild rumors abounded. Workers whispered that bricks were being shipped just so a division could claim to have met its quota. Others joked that unwanted disk drives were being shipped and returned so often that they had to be repackaged because the boxes were wore out."

..."It was almost like a fraternity party, with everybody huddling together to figure out how to keep the house dad from knowing what was going on."

Q.T.'s Denial The house dad may not have wanted to know. After investigators showed him several memos that had been distributed at a meeting he attended, Mr. Wiles acknowledged that they "indicated the opposite of what he had previously been told." He denied having seen them and noted that if he had seen one particular memo, "he would have certainly read it as saying 'somebody's cheating.'"

After the scam was exposed, stocks dropped from $15 a share to $3 a share. Before the news broke, MiniScribe executives collectively sold 350,000 shares.

As the story goes, Q.T. "abruptly resigned, telling board members that the company's problems were far more pervasive than he had realized."

Deconstruction Points.

1. Addicted System. An addicted system is an addict (Q.T. Wiles) and an entourage of co-dependents (the executives and managers of MiniScribe). Addictive systems always have these two components: addict and co-dependents.

2. Illusion of Control. Q.T. tried to control by fear in order to stay in control. His "Dash Reports" were designed to do the Gaze, to monitor and control the executive's performance. But, the co-dependent, executives just told Q.T. what he wanted to hear.

3. White Male Myths: Q.T. was a God and everyone else was his subject. There was no women's reality, no accounting story, no black reality. There was only Q.T. reality. 16

Myth # 1. The White Male System is the only thing that exists. Q.T. was the only person who understood reality.

Myth # 2. The White Male System is innately superior. Anyone not using Q.T.'s system was innately inferior.

Myth # 3. The White Male System knows and understands everything. Anything outside Q.T.'s system did not exist.

Myth # 4. It is possible to be totally logical, rational, and objective. Q.T. believed by being fearful people would reach the numbers.

 

4. Process Addiction. What kind of addict was Q.T. By all accounts he is addicted to work and addicted to his own system of fear. These are process addictions as opposed to substance addictions. Like any addiction, the addict lives in a perpetual state of denial, compulsive-perfectionism, dependency, and crisis. The role of his co-dependents is to keep everything all right by perpetuating the denial even if it means deception, lies, and loss of self. 17

Leadership Archetypes. An archetype is a characterization, a metaphor, a story theme that frames relationships. For example, Q.T. Wiles archetype was "V.C." (Viet Cong) because of his system of fear and dependency. Walt Disney has many archetypes in his stories: from rags to riches, Gestapo, to fear. Michael Eisner's archetype is the Prince in the Sleeping Beauty theme. Eisner rescued Sleeping Beauty from the Mouse Museum and with the help of the princely Bass Brothers from Texas drove away the evil take-over knight. Sleeping Beauty got some new rides. Eisner brought in George Lucas and other geniuses to once again do the Disney Magic. The Disney magic is a package approach to marketing. You do a film with Speilberg like Roger Rabbit. Then you franchise the dolls, build the theme rides, and fold the characters into the park. You bring in Michael Jackson and create Captain EO. They are working on folding all aspects of "Honey, I shrunk the Kids" into the Disneyrama.

Keep the notion of the hero's archetypes (good or bad hero) in mind in the next stories.

Modernist Leadership in the Edison Utility

SCENE One: Carbon Copy Heroes and Customer Service Rediscovered. In this next part of the transcript, I ask the group about corporate heroes.

Boj "Who are the heroes of Edison?

Mike "We don't have any strong heroes, if anything it is a hero committee that makes the decisions.

Rich "If anything the hero is a faded image, an image that has been photocopied too many times.

Doug "I think wherever Watson went, Wood would ever go. He would probably do the same things that he did at IBM. But, I guess I go back to the old line company. Maybe its not a person, but its a square-dealing, courteous treatment thing that we tattooed on our wall. What is it? Square dealing, courteous treatment and (pause)

Mike "I always forget the third part.

Rich "Good Service.

Mike "Ok, then its the courteous treatment I always forget {lots of sustained group laughter at this inside joke)... they used to have these great big signs you know? Square dealing, courteous treatment, and good service. You know? And I dare say, the company does pride itself on that still. And there is nothing wrong with that. That's good.

Boj "What about the heroes?"

Doug "Its the legendary officers, each one of them, a carbon copy of the one before that kind of define the company.

Boj "It's interesting that there is no hero. No, there is no person now you would define as hero.

 

Rich "But follow the carbon copies. You get the eighteenth generation carbon and you loose resolution.

Mike "You loose some of the clarity of the image (said with humorous tone)

[Group chimes in many voices in many ways to say "Right, I think that's it."]

Rich "And [still laughter in group] I don't know about the real early leaders, but to come up with a third of a slogan that says "square dealing" that's faded to me.

Mike "Yeah.

Rich "And although we may try to apply the principles of what we are saying. I don't know that any employee would say those three things with a straight face.

Mike "Rich, notice how we laugh.

Doug "There's the customer too. It's not that I'm a square dealer with you Rich, but I am a square dealer with the customer. That's the company motto or credo was that--- dealing with the customer, good service, square dealing --- but, that doesn't mean we, but that's what you're talking about.

Mike "In effect, in the last couple of years they've made a big effort to go back to that original motto. Remind everybody to put out statements like corporate goals. That sort of sign that some people feel that people have forgotten about it --- that was the way we did it...

Boj "Hum, I'm sort of intrigued with the hypothesis that maybe we've Xeroxed too many copies and the image has gotten a little diffused.

Doug "That's a goodie.

Mike "Because the leadership of this company is really truly a corporate body, not an individual. Mr. G., they say, rules with an iron hand in a very subtle way. I don't believe that entirely. Because I think this operation is so immense, so massive and so diverse that it can't be headed by one person anymore than a government can and I think that as CEO we have statesmen. As president we have politician. And both of them are superb at that and they are not in the same body. Up in there we have a couple of financial geniuses, at least one, which the other statesmen and the politician aren't. And the company is structurally organized for participative management. Even right from the top. We have a management committee. I don't think they function as a team.

Doug "But they still function as a committee.

Mike "They function as a committee but not as a team in an interpersonal way. And a lot of the stories that I hear in my work --- you know --- are the interpersonal you know? Unfortunate games that get played at that level and they are very costly.

SCENE Two: Revising the System Reproduces the Same System.

Rich "If you wanted to do a content analysis of this little book (he had gone next door to get the history book of Edison sometime after discussion of the faded motto started) It would tell you something about the values of the company. This is our management guide. This [is] a credo, the corporate philosophy. First edition, 1956, and it has been revised five or six times since then.

Doug "Every time there is a new president.

Boj "They revise it?

Mike "But nothing changes.

Doug "Nothing changes! (with emphasis on the word nothing) {lots of group laughter ensues].

Summary. As we began looking at modernist leaders such as Patterson of NCR, Walt Disney, and Q.T. Wiles, we found very forceful and authoritarian leaders who ruled their organizations with a controlling hand. As the modernist era became increasingly bureaucratic, leaders like Ron Miller of Disney and the carbon copy leaders of Edison Utility were not nearly as swashbuckling and decisive or pivotal. They were more the manager-types, stuck a top a pyramid, part of the panoptic strings and levers that is the bureaucratic machine, but far less impactful on changing the rules or the game. We think that this transition to carbon copy leaders, with less heroic journeys, has become the role model and prescription for too much of today's writing on leadership, as well as the sacred text of traditional management texts.

POSTMODERN LEADING

The Journey via Storytelling. Leaders lead us on the journey. They tell the story of how life will be when we reach the next port, cross the next bridge, and win the next battle. We see ourselves on the ocean tacking and hauling canvas; we see ourselves laying the planks for the bridge; we see ourselves gathering the hay to feed the horses, polishing the armor, and mounting our steeds to head for the battle field. The leader is the storyteller of our future. We see ourselves playing valuable roles in some realizable future. Gifted leaders are able to see how diverse, talented, and unique people can have supporting story lines that contribute to the grand vision. The leader does not mount a stage and walk to the microphone to convince in a few minutes, with a few home spun phrases, an entire organization to tackle the next mountain. Each day, each meeting, each golf game, each drive is an opportunity to get one person's story line in the open and figure out how it will contribute to his own campaign. Instead of cloning, he is diverging. Instead of taming, she is unleashing. Instead of manipulating, he is understanding. Instead of preaching, he is listening. They are co-producing the story line that will bring the future into the present. Together, they go off on the hero's journey.

Two legendary organizational story tellers are Sam Walton of Walmart and Fredrick C. Crawford of TRW. Both were spellbinders. Crawford was self-effacing with his success. "I could never fully accept the fact that I was head of a business. It seemed a mistake. I know people in their forties are supposed to be serious and grown up, but I never felt that way. That's why I love stories." 18

Jack Welch, CEO, of General Electric is another accomplished storyteller. Bob observed Welch in the Pit-lecture-hall at the Management Development Institute. Welch could not only captivate the audience for hours with his stories of speed, simplicity and self-confidence but was also adept at drawing out stories from the listeners. The dialogue became a real working session.

When John Thorbeck assumed the presidency of Bass Shoe Company in 1987 he recognized the value of stories in the 111 year old company. He began resurrecting stories about George Henry Bass, who founded the company in 1876 and about the shoes made for Admiral Byrd and Charles Lindberg. He also hired an archivist to put together a company history. By identifying the company's personality, values, and idiosyncrasies, he would then try to match them with new market realities. The archivist uncovered a loyal work force who closely associated with the hallmark of quality of the original Bass family. There was, in short, a set of historical organizational values that could be used to make a whole framework out of manufacturing, marketing, sales, and accounting. 19

The Leader's Role in Diversity Storytelling. What kills diversity is not knowing the stories of others who are different from you, who think different from you, who act different from you. The leader's job is to get other people to learn stories about diversity. People fear and do not trust what they do not apprehend. Stories are windows into the differences that make people unique and the similarities that derive from being on the same planet. Before people can celebrate and value diversity, they have to hear the stories. Leaders need to evaluate people on their understanding of diversity. The best thing the leader can do is clear away some bureaucracy to create some space where the storytellers can do their educational thing. Report the successes that come from diverse teams of folks getting a new idea to market, toppling an obstacle to performance, finding a synergistic path to quality. Stories get people past their entrenched opposition and their distrust for differences. The leader's job is to increase diversity by creating story sharing times.

Servant Leadership. To summarize what we know this far from our chapter sections on planning, organizing, and influence ---- the postmodern organization will be a network with many nodes, flatter than before, more skilled than its bureaucratic predecessor. The periphery will consist of many semi-autonomous working units, there will be a high proportion of minorities, and there will be an equal mix of males and females. What will leadership look like in a postmodern setting?

Postmodern leadership is usually defined in terms of telling a "vision" of the future to teams of people, empowered to achieve that vision. 20 We would like to expand the postmodern concept of leadership by looking at servanthood and networking as leadership constructs.

De-Differentiation. One answer is that it will not be Theory X, like Walt, nor will it by the Theory Y of Human Relations theory. The answer lies in de-differentiating people and their leaders. De-differentiating means getting rid of status differences. That includes privileged parking, separate dining and washrooms, and glutinous salaries. Why should executives in the US be the most highly paid in all the world, while they lay off more people than their lower paid counterparts in Japan, West Germany, and Sweden? Leaders are farthest away from the productive action of the firm, and have all the privileges and make all the money too. De-differentiation means moving the worker closer to the leader. Let the worker plan, organize, influence, control, and even lead. Lessen the manager's authoritarian monopoly. This means training and skilling the worker to think. De-differentiation is a re-balancing of power between leader and follower. The leader gets a little less status, money and managerial prerogative. The worker gets a little more.

Servanthood. After de-differentiation, the next task is servanthood. The role of the leader will be to serve customers by serving the people in the network of relationships. Peter Drucker and Tom Peters both advocate that the purpose of business is to create and to maintain a customer. One of the silent customers is the environment. The role of the leader is to empower people to make a value-added difference for the customer. The servant leader pays attention to customers, supplier, people at the core, and people at the periphery.

The servant leader is setting an example. Being courteous to customers requires being courteous to people. If the network is customer focused, then the leader puts the customers and the peoples interests ahead of his or her own. In the age of Michael Milken and Mr. Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan, this is a radical ethic. These leaders sought to be served and to serve themselves, not to serve the interests of others.

In Matthew 20:26 the verse reads "whoever would be first among you must be your servant." The concept of servant leader has therefore existed since the time of Christ. The servant leader does not take maximum bonus for him/herself when the people are being laid off, as in the case of Chrysler's Lee Iaccoca.

Those customers, vendors, and network workers affected by a decision should participate. Instead, the status leaders seek to impose their will on others, to "lord if over them." In pre-modern times, the sovereign ruler ruled over the people. In modern times, the bureaucratic manager lead from a position of authority. The military leaders issued commands that were to be obeyed without question. The recent books on leadership by Bennis and Nanus (1985) and Peters (1987) advocate that leaders communicate a vision that inspires people to follow, rather than relying on orders, commands, rules, and rights. In the postmodern networks, the leader will not have the power to coerce that s/he has enjoyed these past centuries. The vision must be attractive and reasonable and inspiring to the participants in the network. Without vision the people perish; without vision the network perishes. The job of the leader is to help people in the network fashion the vision that will take them forward. Vision gives order to the transition to the future. Vision lets people focus on what needs to be changed. This duality is expressed by Whitehead:

Precision Lenscrafter, a division of the United States Shoe Corporation, opened its first store in 1983. Since then it has gone to grow over 250 stores throughout the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico and is quickly becoming the number one super-optical in this country. The guiding theme of Lenscrafters is complete customer satisfaction. Not only are the highest quality lenses and frames guaranteed, but a commitment to make the glasses in about one hour provides the basis for customer service. This common goal is attained through the joint efforts of the Lenscrafters associates including: frame stylists, cashiers, lab technicians and opticians, all coordinated under the General Manager (GM). The GM of the store #153 in Yonkers is a Mr.Smith.

On an average Saturday, in a 11 hour period, store #153 can have as many as 75-100 jobs to complete. On hectic days like these, the one-hour service is put vigorous test and tensions occasionally flare among customers and associates alike. The one hour service, working on the basis of an assembly line, is very affected by unpredicted absences. On Saturday two lab technicians called in sick leaving four to do the work of six. By 2:00 p.m. the store was filled with customers expecting to receive their glasses in one hour. One customer, an elderly lady with a very high bifocal prescription, had her frame and lenses sent into the lab at 3:00 p.m.. The frame stylist failed to realize that due to the help shortage the job may be delayed. The lady, returning at 4:00 p.m., grew quite irate when she learned her glasses were not started yet. An argument broke out between the frame stylist and the lab technicians which resulted in all jobs being put on hold. The one hour service was thrown into disarray. Mr. Smith witnessing the growing hostility in the lab, rushed in to resolve the conflict. He stated that arguing would not get the glasses done and that they all should calm down. The lab was under a lot of pressure and in desperate need of assistance with the jobs. Mr. Smith put on a lab coat and started cutting lenses in addition to working on the floor dispensing eyewear. Using his laboratory skills he made and dispensed the elderly lady's difficult prescription in 45 minutes. Although quite upset at first, she grew very satisfied when she witnessed the personal care and attention received.

Later that evening when the crowds diminished and everyone was a bit more relaxed, Mr. Smith held a store meeting. He congratulated the lab on its efforts to keep up the one hour service even when they were short handed. In order to avoid a similar situation in the future all frame stylists were told to inform the lab on any more difficult jobs so a proper completion time can be passed to the customer. Mr. Smith also proposed an idea of cross-training associates. Lab technicians would be taught selling techniques and customer service while frame stylists would be trained basic lab skills as cutting and grinding, This way a shortage in the lab or on the floor would be avoided by utilizing idle labor.

1. Vision. Smith articulated his vision of the eyewear production from choosing the frame to dispensing the final product.

2. Servant. He was servant to the network by coordinating the activities of frame stylists, cashiers, lab technicians, and opticians.

3. Networker. He acts as liaison between the lab and the floor to insure one hour service.

4. Empowers. To anticipate problems, closer links were drawn between the frame stylists and lab technicians.

5. Team-builder. Cross-training of lab technicians and frame stylists would provide complementary skills.

6. Voyager. The leader must voyage into the network, visit all its participants, and listen to what is going on. The servant works with the people on the firing line, at the point of contact with the customer, and the people that are adding value to the customer's products and services. As the leader encounters the vital point in the network, s/he learns what makes the network work, instead of assuming that s/he knows what makes it work, or worse, that what made it work last year is what will make it work effectively this year.

 

The scene is downtown Manhattan-Wall street to be exact. Mr. Gallo is walking towards his office from the subway station. On the way, he stops to talk to Jerry Campbell, a construction superintendent, about a job that has recently been completed. It is Mr. Gallo's responsibility to see that all constructions projects for the New York Stock Exchange are architecturally sound since he is both a project manager and a licensed architect for the corporation.

At the office, he begins to make arrangements for a meeting at Metrotech with representatives from SIAC and the NYSE. A few months ago, Mr. Fearon, V.P. for Recovery and Planning conceived the idea of having a contingency trading site for the NYSE. This site would need to be totally independent of trading floor on Wall Street. Since Mr. Fearon did not have a strong background with projects of this magnitude, he was forced to rely upon the skills of others. For all practical purposes, the job of finding a site was given to Mr. Gallo.

After a great deal of consideration, Mr. Gallo found the Metrotech building to be a suitable site. The only problem was that the building already had an existing tenant. The Securities Industry Automation Corp. (SIAC), a subsidiary of the NYSE was already established in the building. SAIC was resistant because there was nothing for them to gain and they stand to lose approximately 20,000 sq. ft. of office space and control over their electric, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and telephone systems.

There has not only been a problem with the terms of the proposal, but also with the way the negotiations were being handled. Due to his lack of experience, Mr. Fearon has hindered the progress of the project. Instead of holding group meeting with the outside architectural firm, engineering firm, construction consultant and Mr. Gallo, Mr. Fearon had held his own separate meetings with the individual parties where he was unable to work effectively and efficiently. Mr. Gallo has since brought the team together. He has brought all of the outside consultants together with the representatives from SIAC and the NYSE to try and come to a compromise. Through these meetings, SIAC has come to the realization that the NYSE is going to follow through on their projects. SIAC is not entirely pleased with the arrangement, but they have agreed to work with the NYSE in accomplishing their goal.

1. Servant. Gallo successfully coordinated the activities of the consultants, SIAC, and NYSE.

2. Networker. A deteriorating situation was turned around by deft interpersonal skills.

3. Vision. Gallo has a clear picture of the final outcome and facilitated the final outcome.

4. Team-builder. SIAC is a reluctant participant, but it showed sufficient commitment to work with the other members.

5. Celebrator. Celebrate successful customer service, successful product improvement, successful cost savings, and failure. People need to be celebrated for taking a risk, trying something out, finding out what does not work.

I work at a men's clothing store in the Galleria Mall in White Plains. The majority of our clothing consists of finer men's clothes and suits, on which we offer expert tailoring at no additional charge. In front of the store there is a sign which reads "Instant Pants" - referring to our better dress pants which all have unfinished bottoms and require tailoring. The tailoring is done right on the premises and our tailor, Alex Hernandez, ranks among the best in his field. Our objective is complete customer service and satisfaction.

On an average day, the tailor does approximately six to eight of these "Instant Pants" while the customer waits. In addition to this, Alex has other suits and garments sold previously and promised for specific days. A day filled with several requests for pants-while-you-wait, therefore, can hinder the already promised work and set the tailor behind schedule.

One particular Sunday a customer came into the store to pick up a suit which he was to wear that same day at a wedding. After the customer tried the suit on, it was obvious the pants were substantially mismarked and far too short. Alex does not work on Wednesday or Sunday, which presented a big problem. The customer demanded the pants to be either replaced or re-altered. We assured him that the situation would be rectified as soon as possible yet explained there was no tailor available on a Sunday. The customer referred to the "Instant Pants" sign out front and demanded an explanation. At the bottom of the sign it read, in considerably smaller letters, "almost always". By this time the customer became quite irate and an argument broke out between the customer and the salesman. At this time Jerry Aaron, the store manager, witnessing the growing hostility rushed over to attempt to resolve the conflict. Jerry took the pants downstairs to Field Brothers, a competitive store, to see if their tailor would help him out and correct the bottoms in time for the gentlemen to attend his wedding. As it turns out Field Brothers does not have a tailor on Sunday's either, but their store manager is trained to perform simple alterations such as plain bottoms on pants. Understanding the predicament Jerry was in Field Brothers corrected bottoms.

The following day Jerry contacted our district manager Ed Dobson and informed him of the transactions which transpired the previous day. Ed agreed that cross-training the store manager and assistant manager to perform simple alterations on pants would help dissolve many conflicts which arise. Very often customers who need pants while they wait are turned away on Wednesday and Sunday and hiring a part time tailor for those two days would prove to be rather expensive.

In this particular business, the tailor shop's relationship with the sales crew is extremely important. One cannot function without the other. Ed congratulated Jerry and the staff on their efforts to maintain customer service during this rather unpleasant incident. In order to avoid a similar situation in future, the manager and assistant manager were taught to perform simple alterations using the blind stitch machine. The task is not difficult and would be limited to situations when customer service is threatened. Discussions are still in process regarding the validity of the "Instant Pants" sign and the repercussions of having "almost always" in such small print.

1. Servant. Jerry knew that the customer should be served. He took the unusual step of using a competitor's facility to accomplish the feat.

2. Empowers. Jerry did not hesitate to do the right thing. Ed Dobson had set a climate for the proper activity.

3. Recognition. Ed congratulated the team for their superior performance under adverse conditions.

4. Beaming. The staff congratulated itself for outstanding customer service.

 

 

 

The Third Dimension of Power. Steven Lukes (1974) defines it as the power to shape perceptions, cognitions and even preferences in ways which promote the interests of one group over another. People are complicit in their own oppression and accept the status quo; some groups are even aware of the their oppression over other groups of people. In pre-modern times one groups subordination to another group was ordained by God. In modern times it is merely survival of the fittest. The advancement of these claims by one group versus another is itself an exercise of power.

The new leader. The new leader cultivates uniqueness and diversity. Each person is the hero of their own journey and the leader's role is to help each person along their individual journey. Rather than put people into normalized categories, find out unique ways each person can serve customers and add value. Clear the field of bureaucratic barriers so each individual can assert their uniqueness. Jack Welch of GE claims that leaders have a passion for excellence and hate bureaucracy and as well as all other nonsense that comes with it. 21 Help everyone tell their story in a way that gains respectability in the organizational community. Give them their voice, rather than having them mimic the bureaucratic monologue.

The leader's role is to get the person's success story broad casted. The system adapts to its heros. The leader can find the heroes that others in the system need to model. Get the individuals to tell their story. Xerox, once a year has "Team Xerox" day. Teams of innovating people, who have innovated, improved quality, fashioned a new service, saved money --- are brought on stage and televised to Xerox audiences around the world. Each team tells its success story and receives the attention of everyone at Xerox.

LEADERSHIP BY VISION.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968 )

"I Have A Dream"

... I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.":

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that: let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

 

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!" (Civil Rights demonstration, Washington, D.C., in 1963).

1. Vision. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a vision for America. A vision is a story of the future that empowers people to take action. His vision was persuasive. It recommends a particular course of action.

2. Equality. Aristotle wrote, "Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons."

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"You're a professional designer. You're far and away the most knowledgeable person there is about what we ought to do," the visitor said. "Do you like these cars? Do you feel proud of them? Would you park one of these cars in your driveway?"

Telnack wasn't quite sure what to make of it. You see, the visitor was Donald Peterson, the company's president and chief operating officer. At first, Telnack was tempted to stand by he company's plan. But he saw an honesty in Peterson's inquisitive face that he couldn't ignore .

"Actually, no, I don't like these designs," Telnack told him.

Peterson granted Telnack a few weeks to come up with a new model. Telnack sketched the kind of car he'd personally love to own - a sleek, aerodynamic model with features similar to the European styling found in Mercedes-Benz's and BMW's. Telnack didn't realize it at the time, but the sketch he had just made... Ford Taurus, destined to become the best-selling midsize care in the United States.

"That one conversation turned everything around," says Telnack. 23

 

Deconstruction.

1. Empower. Don Peterson empowered Telnack to do the design he wanted without worrying about bureaucratic B.S. Telnack already knew how to design a better car. He just need to be empowered to self-define his job.

2. Listen. Don Peterson heard Telnack's story. He diagnosed the story and the rest is Taurus history.

3. De-bureaucratize. If you know Ford, you know that the designer is at the mercy of bureaucratic review and monitor and approval committees. Peterson cut through all that by making Telnack the champion of the new design. The enemy is not the Japanese flexible manufacturing system, it the American bureaucratic pyramid!

4. Leadership by Dialogue. Peterson's simple conversation was transformational because it opened the door to moving out of the pyramid and into team work.

5. Customers. Telnack was thinking like a customer.

6. Servant. Peterson got out of his office and went down to the trenches to see how he could serve his people. A servant asks other how to improve the job, how to make things better, how to become more successful. The people doing the work know more than the high-priced experts.

7. Implement Suggestions. By 1984 employees of Ford Tempo and Mercury Topaz made 666 suggestions and implements three fourths of them (p. 76). It is not as impressive as Toyota's hundreds of thousands of suggestions with 95% implemented, but it is a damn good start.

Peterson & Deming

After watching a TV documentary on what Deming did for Japan after World War II, Peterson spent the next five months trying to convince Deming to visit Ford.

"Deming wouldn't come until Peterson got on the phone and assured him that he personally would listen to what Deming had to say. When Deming arrived in January 1981, he went straight to Peterson's office. What he offered was a statistical system that ensured that products would be built right the first time - without defects that would have to be repaired afterward... What he preached was "continuous improvement."

... In meetings at Ford he came on strong, ridiculing management for what they'd done to Ford employees. Deming says that 80 percent of quality problems are caused not by hourly workers but by poor management" (p. 79-81).

Networking Leadership. Clegg (1990) thinks Japan has postmodern organizations because their structure is more flexible and flatter (in number of layers) than the Western model. Further the ringi-ko decision making structure focuses on wide participation and consensus processes. The networking of suppliers, enterprise, and government is part of network leadership in Japan (zibatsu). Japanese workers trust their leaders to make decisions for the benefit of the enterprise which will also benefit the people of that enterprise.

Postmodern Japan. A post-Weberian and post-Fordist rationality is in place in Japan. Where Japan falls short is in the restricted role of women in Japan and in the U.S. the restricted role of minorities. Women and minorities attain only the more peripheral leadership positions. In that peripheral position skills and wages are less than in core (central) positions. Japan has gone beyond Fordism (modernism) by reintegrating the workers' skill, knowledge and creative thinking back into the production process.

Flexible manufacturing system While Japan uses flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) to produce niche products the U.S. uses FMS to further control the worker. While Japan is using FMS to produce a higher variety of output in many niches, the U.S. is using FMS to produce larger batches of standardized products with de-skilled workers (Clegg, 1990: 213). According to case studies by Shaiken, Herzenberg and Kuhn (1986) FMS is being used to diminish worker autonomy and responsibility for planning. In Japan, workers are part of multi-skilled work teams using KAIZEN systems to continuously improve production processes. The U.S. is still using the modernist strategy of using capital to buy fancy robotics as a way of getting rid of skilled workers so they can show short term profit.

Building Worker Skill While West German auto production has focused on building worker skill and increasing their participation, the U.S. auto industry has de-skilled the auto worker. According to Clegg's (1990: 215-216) review of West German organization studies, the automotive, machine tool and chemical industries have stayed focused on worker skill training, while trying to find ways to treat workers as an intelligent part of the production system. Production is being re-organized to allow for more multi-skilled workers to be utilized. One of the added skills, is the ability to work on the production system itself, rather than relying on experts. The final result is that the division and specialization of the work force is being lessened. This development allows for more sophisticated technologies to be implemented with a more and more skilled workforce. The problem is, that the workers who do not get on the training bandwagon are being left behind (displaced). They will find that their lack of skill or multi-skills will keep them out of higher paying jobs. In the U.S. automotive jobs are dumbified so de-skilled workers can perform the jobs at lesser rates of pay. This de-skilling is relevant to leadership, because it increases the gap between leaders and the people doing the work in America.

Working Partner. While the Swedish Automotive industry has focused on making the worker a more democratic & economic partner in the enterprise, the American Automotive industry is still de-skilling the worker. Within Sweden, workers participate in the capital ownership of the firm by the investment of "wage earner funds." And why not? Why should U.S. executives get stock participation and ownership incentives, but those same opportunities are denied to American workers? The division of labor between menial and manual work versus brain work is less in Sweden than in the U.S. Can participating in capitalism be opened up beyond just the behind-the-scene investor to the worker? In Sweden, labor has a high profile in economic management: investment and labor planning, decision-making, and control. In Sweden the problem is not defined as "unemployment." Instead it is defined as labor "redeployment." 24

A series of statutes, known as the Aman laws, redefined the rights of shop stewards, safety committees and employees in general, as well as imposing obligations on employers to accept worker directors and to disclose and negotiate over all corporate plans affecting their workforces (p. 231).

Exclusionary versus Inclusionary Postmodern Leadership. The metaphor of the brains versus the hands fits here. In the U.S, the postmodern movement is being stalled, in comparison to both Japan, West Germany, and Sweden because in the U.S. leaders are investing in themselves first, then in capital & technology, and least in skilling the workers. Japan's postmodernism is exclusionary, while Sweden's and West Germany's is inclusionary. American postmodernism is a dream. It is a dream because American leaders do not want to increase worker skills or to grant democratic participation in capital control. Why should they? As Clegg (1991: 234) suggests, leaders participate in the "enclaves of privilege" which are barred to workers. American leaders would rather take their fat bonus, row off to shore, and watch their ship sink.

Enthusiasm. Select the leader who is enthusiastic about bringing the network's vision into being. Be enthusiastic about quality improvements. If a leader can locate quality improvements and spread the story of quality improvement to the rest of the network, then that leader is a servant to the entire network. That leader is affecting the positive growth of the network by being enthusiastic about change and innovation and quality. A leader who is enthusiastic about customer service is a servant to the customers of the network. Networks survive because they effectively meet customer needs. Enthusiasm is contagious.

Skeptical Analysis of Postmodern Leadership.

1. Servant. Take the case of H. Ross Perot. In his speeches, he typifies himself as a "servant to the people." He says he will create electronic town hall meetings to allow people to vote their preferences on policies he is considering. He is not going to run unless people in every state collection signatures to put his name on the ballot. Is H. Ross Perot a servant leader? Certainly, General Motors' Board of Directors does not think so. It is one thing to use the rhetoric of being the servant to the people and quite another to be that servant.

Bureaucrats will often say that have been appointed to serve the people. The motto of the Los Angeles police force is "to serve and to protect." The Los Angeles riots suggest that there has not been enough serving.

 

2. Empower. How can leaders empower anyone but themselves? Can another individual empower you or do you have to empower yourself? Empowerment means that you were somehow disempowered. In fact, when someone says "I empower you" they usually hand you a stack of work to do. Is putting a suggestion into a sealed box empowering? Jack Kemp wants to economically empower the people of housing projects across America to self-manage their own buildings, to take on jobs running their own community from which they had been excluded, and to even get into apartment ownership. But are these people really empowered? To be empowered, the people of public housing developments would have to be let off their reservations and made powerful participants in white, middle class society. To be empowered is not to be on the margin or periphery of a society, corralled into a housing development, while armed and dangerous Los Angeles police patrol cars keep poor people away from non-poor neighborhoods. Is this empowerment or containment? There is a language game in the empowerment approach to leadership. Political leaders promise empowerment, but people are losing power.

3. Recounter of Stories. In the Michael Eisner stories, as he took over Disneyland, he revised the Walt legends to empower his own vision of command and control. Telling stories of history, heros, and the future options does not mean it is a postmodern leadership approach. The thing that Eisner did do that was postmodern was to put in more voices and points of view into his stories of Disney. In this way he de-centered his own voice and became somewhat more responsive to the many voices of Disney.

4. Visionary. Martin Luther King's speech was empowering and captured an agenda for our times. However, now every executive and bureaucrat and college dean across the country is using the word vision on top of every planning and control document that is reviewed by countless committees in countless retreats. Surely calling something a vision does not make it postmodern. Some visions are worthy, others are holocausts, bureaucratic control strategies, and most are fluff without connection to the ethics and dynamics of corporate life. The question to ask is who participates in the vision? Who is privileged and marginalized by the vision? Who implements the vision? How does the vision change or reinforce the status quo? Does it open up or narrow participation? Is there more or less exploitation? The British had a vision of the U.S. as a colony. We responded with the American Revolution. This means that there can be a conflict of visions and that leadership is helping people sort through that diversity.

5. Androgynous. There is a male and a female voice. The male voice dominated pre-modern and modern discourse. It also dominates in postmodern discourse. The female voice has been socialized to be weak: to please, to mother, to agree, to relate, to listen, to empathize, to appreciate, to follow, to show empathy. The male voice has been socialized to be strong: to command, to tell, to father, to direct, to dominate, to lead, to be rational. For women, the choice is to fit in by using a weak and subordinated voice or to be self-assertive and to adopt a stronger voice.

In the postmodern organization, both voices are viable and worthy. Both genders can use both voices without getting stuck in one or the other linguistic practice.

Real androgyny, defined not as simply adding together the misshapen halves of male and female, but rather as a complex process of calling out that which is valuable in each gender and carefully disentangling if from that which is riddled with the effects of power, is a political struggle" (Kathy Ferguson). 25

In a centralized leadership system, American organizations adopt a White Male Voice. Everyone on the periphery of the core White Male structure adopts a subordinate and decidedly female voice. De-centering and de-differentiating leadership as we move to flatter, more networked, more equalized patterns of organizing --- will mean more self-defined, self-managed, and self-directed human action. Female skills for relating, nurturing, opening, expanding, and inviting in will be more valuable than male skills of pyramiding, demanding, closing, excluding, and expelling. As power balances shift, the gender skill needs will also shift.

Dominance is more a characteristic of pyramid and bureaucratic life than of network life. The leadership of post-bureaucratic organizations will necessitate androgynous voices.

Women need power in order to change society, but power within bureaucracies is not change-making power. The organizational forms and discourse of bureaucratic capitalism institutionalize modes of domination that recreate the very patterns of oppression that feminism arose to combat... Bureaucratic discourse both creates and reflects the masculine notion of the subject, then posits that version of subjectivity as universal. But women's experience provides a vision of human relatedness and autonomy in which subjectivity is rooted in relatedness and autonomy... Feminist discourse would insist upon judging technology in light of the standards of autonomy and community named in the discourse. Many kinds of modern technologies.... are compatible with decentralized and participatory decision-making... Under the value system named in feminist discourse, calculations of efficiency and productivity would include an ongoing concern for the development of the individual, the needs of the community, and the requirements of nature (p. 203-5)

6. Networker. Just because we move from pyramid builder to a networker approach to leadership does not mean that it is postmodern? Electronic surveillance can be used in very flat networks to achieve leadership command and control in ways that are confining and exploitative. It is not the configuration or the global span of the network that makes it postmodern, it is how it equalizes and de-centers the power relationships and privileges.

7. Team-builder. Most of the postmodern teams are in fact, just bureaucratic committees by another name. For the Japanese, as we have discussed at length, the team concept in manufacturing makes every worker a generalist, while denying that specialist brought into synergistic relation as on a baseball or football team is a viable model. Putting people in teams is not all that positive. Students, working in student project teams, know that when you are dependent on one another, the team members and the team leader can exploit the allocation of work loads, scheduling, and the administration of rewards for results. Teams are often not too empowering. Maybe it would be more postmodern to recommend fewer teams and a return to an emphasis on individualism.

Postmodern Leadership Summary. The postmodern project is to de-hierarchize, de-centralize, and de-differentiate bureaucratic division of labor. In planning we looked at the re-integration of planning and doing. In organizing, we looked at network patterns that move from vertical divisions of labor to horizontal arrangements. In influencing, we looked at self-discipline and self-initiative. In leading, we have looked at post-white male leading. In leading, we substituted service for dominance. To lead is to empower the network to participate, to coordinate, to reconfigure, to invite diversity, to enlighten discourse, to envision alternative to bureaucratic life, to equalize participation, and to get a dialogue of many voices with many stories to happen.

Sun Tsz, the elite master, intimidates the troops. Attila the Hun, the self centered tyrant, displays his control through fear. Remnants of these premodern leaders exist today's organizations.

Modernist leaders are illustrated in the John Patterson's authoritarian control at the NCR pyramid and Walt Disney's storytelling gaze.

The visionary, networking, team-building, empowering postmodern leader serves and tells stories. This leader is particularly sensitive to both male and female voice. Examples range from Lenscrafters to the New York Stock Exchange, and from the United States to Sweden, Japan, and Germany.

Study Guide Question

1. What is the difference between master, panoptic, and servant leading?

2. What are key differences between managers and leaders?

3. Deconstruct the Sun Tzu story of command leadership?

4. What is the story of Attila the Hun?

5. What is the basis for Attila's PMA?

 

6. Compare Sun Tzu and Attila leadership skills? Which are similar and which are the most different leader skills?

7. Why is Patterson, founder of NCR, a modernist leader?

8. What is a knockout man?

9. What was Walt's method of panoptic gaze?

10. Who was the White knight? Who is Steinberg? What has this all got to do with Modernism?

11. Describe the role of the Story Department in Walt's Division of Labor?

12. What are the four storyman styles of storytelling?

 

13. What is leadership by Fear?

 

14. What lengths did Charles Shows do to get his ideas approved? How does this relate to modernism?

 

15. How did Merrill De Maris sell Walt?

16. What did Eisner discover about Walt's method of leading Disney?

17. Compare the Storyboard and the Script system?

 

18. How did Q.T. Wiles employ management by fear? What were the results? Deconstruct the story?

 

19. What is a leadership archetype?

 

20. What happened to leaders at Edison over time?

 

21. What are the three stages of the Hero's Journey? What is the Journey of two characters in Star Wars?

 

22. Why is Magic Johnson a Postmodern Hero?

 

23. How do Navajo Indians use Archetype Hero stories?

 

24. In what ways are the Japanese postmodern?

 

25. In what ways are the West Germans postmodern?

 

26. In what ways are the Swedes postmodern?

 

27. Define De-differentiation? How is it different from de-centering?

 

28. What is leadership by vision?

 

29. What was the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.?

 

30. What is leadership by storytelling?

 

 

31. How is General Patton applying the situational leader model?

32. Deconstruct the Pattersen story of the Ford Taurus?

 

33. What is the difference between inclusionary and exclusionary postmodernism?

 

34. What are male and female voices? How do they relate to postmodernism?

35. What is the feminist case against bureaucracy?

 

36. How do you replace control by procedure with control by vision and trust?

NOTES

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