I've been reading a bunch of books on CEOs and their first "100 days" -- a reference to President FDR's enormously pivotal and successful first hundred days in office. The United States was amidst the crisis of the Great Depression, and Roosevelt's team swiftly brought forward the New Deal as a means to bring greater structure, stability, and finally recovery to the US economy. Opponents to Roosevelt's actions have given the counterargument that although the New Deal may have saved the US, it also vastly tipped the lever of power on the side of the government over the people's will in a manner that seemed undemocratic. I am reminded of the adage "damned if you do, damned if you don't" which underlines the paradox of leadership -- to lead with no action and maintain the status quo leads to criticism for inaction; whereas to lead with all action leads to criticism of affecting unwanted change and doing too much.
Through all the haze of CEO-isms in these books, the one thing I have been able to extract as the core and essential principle is the fact that people are the singlemost important elements in a company. When you think about it, "company" implies that one person is in the company of another. Or an "organization" is a system of people, and certainly not a bunch of computers or other inanimate objects. Human resources are the critical factor to winning a game of basketball (not the basketball itself), to taking a company public (lawyers are people too), to fixing a great bowl of chicken soup (the ingredients do help, but it takes a person to collect those ingredients), and so forth.
Humans have feelings. It is why they are the most difficult resource to maintain within a company. Non-humans are different in maintenance requirements. Computers are happiest when they are plugged in. When they are unplugged, they don't really care (or know) at all that they have been put out to pasture. Sure, resources like a copy machine are the biggest complainers in an organization -- always needing to be massaged and fixed by a human repairperson. But a copy machine has no feelings ... at least yet. Many researchers would like to instill emotions into machines so that our devices can better reason and judge their ways out of complex situations. I find it funny to think how all this effort to make the computer reason ... might ultimately ironically help it (the computer) figure out how to become truly unreasonable. Woah! Scary thought.
When you work with great people, you have trust -- which makes everything truly simple. Great people have a choice as to where and to whom they wish to invest their most precious resource of trust. And since great people are often your most expensive resource to attract, hire, develop, and retain, it would seem that the motto "people first" makes a great deal of sense. When you put another person's interests above your own, and that act of faith is made sincerely, then trust is a natural and implicit outcome of the exchange. A simple idea, but difficult to implement in practice -- why?
There is a famous comicbook character for preschoolers in Japan named Anpan-man. Anpan-man is not in any way a dark, brooding character like the vengeful Batman or has the post-teen angst of a figure like Spiderman. No, Anpan-man is simply a superhero made out of a Japanese roll with sweetened red bean paste as filling called anpan as his head (literally) and he's a guy ... so he's literally anpan-guy ... err ... -man (in reality it would be more accurate to call him anpan-boy).
Anpan-man can fly as part of his repertoire of superhero powers. But his greatest hero-asset is the ability to feed lost, or unenergized, or sad, or any do-gooder (or even do-wronger) by plucking a part of his face off and feeding another person. Immediately, the helpless soul becomes energized and whole; whereas by Anpan-man's sacrifice, he becomes tired and unable to battle crime. Anpan-man is returned back to wholeness by going to the bakery where he was conceived; the baker bakes him a new head and pops it on Anpan-man and he's all good to go again. There are various religious connotations to the Anpan-man persona that can be drawn of course.
But the core principle here is that Anpan-man can be such a giving soul because he has an infinite well of heads (that can be readily baked) from which to heal and help others. Anpan-man as a leader in real life is hard to find because at the end of the day, we all have our insecurities that make ourselves wonder, "If I give away that ... one ... last ... important thing ... I have nothing left ... can I afford to do that?"
My father was (and still is) an Anpan-man style of person in a way that befuddled me when I was growing up. He'd give every single thing he had to anyone around him -- not as a means to curry favor of course, but simply because he felt that it was the right thing to do. That if you had more you could always get by with less. He is still healthy and in the twilight phase of his life, and I recall how I used to find myself frustrated thinking how he gave so much to those around himself throughout life, but the people whose lives he touched rarely came back to him even with a simple word of thanks. I would talk with him about this but he never seemed bothered -- a man of few words and little education, he'd just smile and shrug it off.
Now I realize that perhaps it's because he didn't do it for anybody around him necessarily -- he just did it for himself, and maybe for his family to see so that they might emulate his behavior and maybe instill it in others. It's nearing the end of the year, and I do get a bit sentimental for natural reasons at these times. So I wish to express my sincere thanks to my father for his example of rare leadership in its purest form, and to all parents and guardians that lead their families and friends by best-intentioned examples. My own parents don't access the Web so I relate this story for my own sanity-giving purposes, and to share with you on this sunny day in Massachusetts.
In summary, if you give a piece of your head away like Anpan-man, don't worry as it will either grow back whole, or else you can always reach into your stock of spare heads. To not give a part of your head away to a helpless person would be silly -- otherwise why have a head in the first place?
Posted by maeda at November 17, 2007 09:47 AM