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.
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.
This reminds me of the EOS concept of "Visionaries and Integrators", and how important that interplay is.
“The Visionary needs someone who is detail-oriented, who knows how to keep the team harmonious and productive, who is great at resolving conflict, and who can execute detailed plans for maximum results. Enter the Integrator.”
“The right Integrator for any organization is the person who has the Unique Ability to manage daily issues as they come up and the ability to integrate all three major functions of the business – Sales and Marketing, Operations, and Finance – into one harmonious group. Put simply, the Integrator acts as the glue that keeps the team together.”
It’s extremely rare to see both skills in the same person (Bezos, Jobs...)? So in most orgs you need both.
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.
I have been doing User Experience work for a while. When I am learning from Jared Spool the standard he helps me focus on is "If we make a great product, how will it improve someone's life". On occasion this may be the difference between a founder, with insight in how the "end" user views the product's impact, and a financially driven CEO with standards related to impact on ROI.
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.
This reminds me of the EOS concept of "Visionaries and Integrators", and how important that interplay is.
“The Visionary needs someone who is detail-oriented, who knows how to keep the team harmonious and productive, who is great at resolving conflict, and who can execute detailed plans for maximum results. Enter the Integrator.”
“The right Integrator for any organization is the person who has the Unique Ability to manage daily issues as they come up and the ability to integrate all three major functions of the business – Sales and Marketing, Operations, and Finance – into one harmonious group. Put simply, the Integrator acts as the glue that keeps the team together.”
It’s extremely rare to see both skills in the same person (Bezos, Jobs...)? So in most orgs you need both.
https://www.eosworldwide.com/blog/visionaries-and-integrators-are-essential-part-one
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.
I have been doing User Experience work for a while. When I am learning from Jared Spool the standard he helps me focus on is "If we make a great product, how will it improve someone's life". On occasion this may be the difference between a founder, with insight in how the "end" user views the product's impact, and a financially driven CEO with standards related to impact on ROI.