TBM 2/52: "High Standards"
I recently asked on Twitter:
If you've been in a company that "held itself to high standards"...what do you think was behind that ability to stick to those standards? What made that possible?
One response from Mani Fazeli stood out:
Founder CEOs with uncompromising zeal for excellence and an ability to unapologetically get into the details of their products, operations, sales, and marketing. When they do this with respect and collaboration, it's unbelievably effective.
It isn't that I disagree with Fazeli's reply—it feels right, and "respect and collaboration" covers a lot of ground—but it plays out in various ways in practice.
The first thing that jumps out is that I have met many founders who believe they have an "uncompromising zeal for excellence", but don't have the chops to back it up. They "unapologetically get into the details" of everything while lacking the humility and self-awareness to acknowledge their efforts may not be helping. In short, the leader plays the part of the charismatic, zealous, uncompromising, detail-oriented hero founder but isn't very good at it.
Competency is a thing.
Imagine a reply to my original questions like:
Founder CEOs with high self-awareness, deep competence in X, broad skills in Y and Z, and a keen sense of when to coach, mentor, "play", lead from the front, lead from behind, etc. Has strong beliefs, loosely held—willing to show conviction AND has the humility to pivot.
It feels a little less heroic and exciting. I shared this with a friend, and they remarked that the leader in this reply feels "more experienced, and probably a better generic leader, but probably doesn't have the charisma of a founder." That response was interesting. They continued, "there's something exceptional about a founder because they have the ultimate skin in the game, even if they aren't as skilled, AND they have the vision!"
The statements are compatible but stress different perspectives—one zealousness and being uncompromising, and the other competence and self-awareness. Depending on your work and life experiences, one will resonate more. There's also the interesting puzzle of putting the sole leader in context with their surrounding team.
I've been reading the book Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, and one thing I enjoy about the book is the interplay between stories about "uncompromising Jeff" (Bezos), and then the rich, detailed, nuanced operational thinking Carr and Bryar describe. It's easy to imagine Bezos as the sole catalyst (it helps that he was right often), but in reality, it is that and a tapestry of leadership principles, thoughtful chops, and discipline. One fuels the other.
Above all, one thing the book left me with was the importance of congruence and coherence. This detail was missing from Mani's reply (though I'm sure we would have gotten there in more than 280 characters). Imagine how five different CEOs might encourage "uncompromising zeal for excellence":
Individual CEOs might choose to focus on:
Setting ambitious goals and holding everyone to high standards
Leading by example
Investing in training and development
Promoting a culture of continuous improvement
Encouraging risk-taking and innovation
Note how the How can vary while the "holding ourselves to high standards" stays stable. You could probably pick out an example of one "high-performing" company for each of the tactics above. What appears more important than the particular approach is the coherence of the approach. Do words match actions? Does the leader walk the talk? Are their chops congruent with the approach? Do they hire people who are a good fit for—and potentially shape, for the better—the culture and leadership style?
I'll end with a broad hypothesis:
We overweight specific archetypes (specific Hows) and underweight coherence. This is especially true of some heroic tech founder CEO archetypes. However, it may be less about how particular companies do it or how specific leaders do it, and more about the coherence of those actions with the culture (that they can shape, but can’t necessarily “control”). Perhaps:
"When they do this with respect and collaboration in the context of a coherent environment and culture, it's unbelievably effective."
Thank you, Mani, for getting me thinking!
Nice piece, John. Seems to me that focusing on congruence and coherence rather than any specific notion of what high performance looks, allows for a greater diversity of management styles. An ethic of leadership, that admits differences in temperament, experience and capability mix, rather than a recipe or model.
Regardless of whether I look at the different autobiographies, which in essence tell you that there was not just one Steve, Jeff, Elon, and what all their names are but many lower level and often not so well known figures that all together set the tone and direction in that company. So I totally agree that of course it helps to have people with such values in the first place. E.g., high standards but it then all comes down to how it trickles down. And it only does if the teams around such figures then also follow through with it and again hold their direct reports accountable to these same values. I guess Amazon, as your example, are a good one given their leadership principles that they all hold so dearly. Similarly when reading BUILD you can tell that high performance or in their case design excellence is a thing that still ripples through Apple. But it’s the people living and breathing that not just one person. It’s like a fire. You need an igniting spark but if there is “no fuel” it would just go out.