By Jack Cumming
Every leader, no matter the leadership level, starts every important initiative with optimism and high expectations. In senior living, it might be a CEO or executive director wanting to open the culture to more resident inclusion, or it might be a financing provider or development business wanting to help operating providers find success.
Most People Mean Well
Good intentions prevail for everyone. A young employee seeking to manage his or her career brings hope and optimism to their first position. The same is true of first-time supervisors or functional directors (e.g., activities, food service, maintenance, care services) in a senior living enterprise. It’s even true of those residents who seek to be helpful by making suggestions.
The trick is to find the most talented people to support the leader in that vision. That requires a number of factors. First, it needs a leader who can recognize the most talented people, not all of whom may be aligned with the leader’s thinking. Great leaders learn to listen to those who do not agree with them. Other wannabe leaders emphasize loyalty and may sideline or dismiss thinkers who are less than loyally subordinate.
Second, it calls for a leader with the charisma and modesty to attract the most talented people to be willing to work as a team with the leader. Those charismatic, inspiring leaders are rare. Most “leaders” are little more than administrators.
Third, these barriers to unleashing talent for the good of the enterprise are particularly evident in hierarchically run organizations. I can’t remember the last time a major in the U.S. military was promoted to major general. The military is the ultimate in hierarchy. Rank is even openly flaunted on uniforms. That may be necessary for the military, but it can lead to mediocrity in competitive undertakings.
Timeless Truths
The drawbacks of corporate hierarchy are not new. In 1969, a book by Laurence J. Peter, titled The Peter Principle, first appeared. It may have been intended as comedy, consistent with the movie from the same era, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. As is often the case with humor, it popularized a truth that might otherwise have remained buried in academia.
That truth: People are promoted up a hierarchy not by their suitability for a more authoritative position but by their reputation in their prior positions.
That truth leads to less suitable leaders stuck in smothering positions. The Peter Principle tenet in a nutshell.
“People rise to their level of incompetence.”
That blocks the rise of talent and leads to mediocrity in an underperforming enterprise, far from the vigor that made the organization a success in the first place. It takes that first generation’s success to fuel the comfort of hierarchy that leads to corporate drift.
No Tolerance for Complacency
Business requires constant rethinking since the pace of the business economy is rapid. The rising competitor that you’re overlooking is not going to wait for you to catch up. With subsequent generations, the Peter Principle can take hold, and a slow administrative pace can become entrenched and rationalized.
The most important task of a leader is to find, motivate, advance, and reward talent. It’s people, talented people, who determine how well the business purpose, aka mission, is fulfilled. For instance, it takes particular talent, infused with wisdom, business judgment, fast learning, and understanding people, to put into perspective what AI means for the future and how best to harness it.
Amazon?
I thought of that the other day when I was struggling with Alexa+, which is Amazon’s late-to-the-market foray into artificial intelligence (AI). Whatever else you may think of Jeff Bezos, it seems evident that he had an eye for talent. Alexa+ could benefit from some top talent right now.
The usual subsequent generation management response to a lackluster business unit is for the leadership – CEO, board, or executive – to ask the responsible business manager for a briefing. That can lead to a soporific PowerPoint presentation instead of the identification of needed fresh talent.
One source of talent is industry conferences, which can allow those looking for clear thinking to size up competitors’ leaders who might be just the tonic needed to shake up a lagging unit. That’s particularly true with the need for the kind of genius talent needed to prepare an enterprise for the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence and robotics.
Of course, there’s no reason why a mammoth organization like Amazon, under Jeff Bezos’s leadership, can’t hold its own conference, even inviting outsiders if desired, to allow inside talent to shine forth from under the weight of hierarchy above them. To the best of my knowledge and belief, such internal discussion forums are rare.
A Tough Leadership Transition
Andy Jassy, Bezos’s successor, got the top job after amazing results with Amazon Web Services. To an outsider, his focus appears to be on reducing costs to build profits, including eliminating or repurposing underperforming businesses. Loyal Amazon shoppers have noticed an increase in in-your-face pushes to get you to buy stuff as though Amazon were entitled to your patronage. Is that Jassy? It’s hard to tell.
AI is, of course, a challenge. Amazon’s Alexa proved to be an unlikely success. An attempt to attract businesses to what has been a consumer platform, called Alexa Smart Properties, is questionable and surprisingly disconnected from consumers and even from other Amazon initiatives like televisions. Into that murky siloing, Amazon has thrown its most prominent AI project, called Alexa+.
Needing a Closer Look
It doesn’t take much interaction with Alexa+ compared with other AI initiatives to realize that Alexa+ isn’t hitting the mark. The challenges are similar to those confronting senior living. When consumers are given second place in the direction of a business, it’s time to find new outside-the-box talent to win the enthusiasm of consumers. Ignoring consumer input, while claiming an overweening expertise, may bring short-term results but will inevitably fall short in the long term. Treating your consumer as a potential adversary is not a formula for success.
The key is always finding the right talent for the crucial positions. In senior living, that’s often the executive director position, but that’s another story for another day. Hint: good regional vice presidents can be more effective as autonomous executive directors than as a parking place for those caught by the Peter Principle. Executive directors make a community succeed or fail. Residents are not property. Senior housing is communal, much more than just a building. Residents are more than a revenue source.
