July 7, 2012 · 4:00 pm

How we tell history


Some while ago, a group of individuals dissatisfied with British rule plotted violent insurrection against what they saw as illegitimate authority. In an effort to suppress what in turn it saw as terrorist activities, the British Government sent in the Army. An initial effort to seek out and destroy an illegal arms cache led to the violent deaths of 40 British soldiers.

The rebel leadership subsequently issued a statement declaring the establishment of a breakaway government. Several years of violent conflict followed, resulting in the death of thousands more British soldiers, before a peace treaty was finally agreed. Leaders of the rebellion, including the commander of their so-called “Army”, took prominent roles in the new government. However, fearing reprisals, 60,000 loyalists (i.e. individuals loyal to the British) fled from the new regime, uprooting their families and leaving home, former friends and businesses behind.

A few days ago the annual celebration of this victory was celebrated, with fireworks and communal meals; several of my (British) friends joined the former rebels in their festivities.

Funny how things work out.

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February 17, 2012 · 8:45 am

Book Publishing’s Branding Problem – and why it matters in the new self-publishing era


Book publishers have always had a branding problem, and they’ve been getting away with it for years. My feeling is, however, that it may be at the root of their problems in the developing realities of self-publishing. The problem is this: the real ‘brand’ involved in their industry is that of the author, and the more people know an author, the less they know, or even care, who the publisher is. Nobody – no consumer, anyhow – goes looking for ‘the new Random House book’, or the new best seller from Macmillan. It’s more-or-less  irrelevant as far as the book-reading public is concerned. Publishers have always known this, and it’s always been a source of some unease.

Until recently, however, this hasn’t mattered. Not much, at least. Publishers provided a solution to a readily-identified series of problems, essentially around production, warehousing, marketing and distribution. They connected writers with readers – with booksellers help, of course – in ways that it was hard for writers to do on their own. Not impossible, but hard enough to be discouraging to all but the most self-confident, persistent, and with access to at least some capital. Publishers could build a business, and a brand, on the basis of building a significant number of individual author brands and bathing in reflected glory.

But now that the tools for self-publishing are so ubiquitous and cheap, and the need to hold large inventories of books has all but disappeared with the march of print-on-demand and the rise in popularity of ebooks, publishers find themselves squeezed from both ends.

On the one hand, the likes of J K Rowling – an author brand par excellence – is going her own way publishing ebooks of the complete Harry Potter series; on the other, you have the rise and rise of new writers such as  Amanda Hocking and John Locke who have eschewed the use of mainstream publishers altogether, and done very nicely thank you.

Ah, Amanda Hocking, you say. But look what has happened there – indie author returning to the dark side? Well, it is of course an interesting development, and one that I hope ends well for all parties. However, it will be fascinating to see how the two parties get on over time: whether Hocking really finds herself freed from the things she finds distract her from writing; whether she finds that publishers really live up – over time – to the obvious promises they will have made; whether the grass really is greener.

I’d be willing to bet that Hocking returns to self-publishing in the future when she comes to terms with the realities of working with corporate publishers, and that she may thus turn out to be the exception that proves the rule. Her arguments appear to focus extensively on the market share of ebooks vs print and the difficulty of getting physical books into bookshops. The former will evidently become more significant; the latter will solve itself over time, if it has not already.

All of which is of course bad luck on publishers. It must be extraordinarily galling to have brand name authors who up-stick and do it themselves after you have spent time nurturing their talent and building their brand.  And of course they will argue that new authors are better off with a traditional publishers, that they’ll get to where they want to get to faster and with less hassle. They may be right on that, but any author who has tried to publish through a traditional publisher – except for the lucky few – will how time-consuming and thankless that task can be.

Take Kathryn Stockett for example, who wrote her best-selling novel The Help in 18 months. It then took her another 3 1/2 years to get an agent and then a publisher. Good for her for her dedication, of course, and she as much as anyone will argue that the time lag allowed her to work on the book – even while in labour! – and improve it.  But how many people in future are going to have the patience for that kind of wait, and just get on with it themselves? The loss will be publishing’s. The value of the publisher brand will evaporate quickly in this environment, if too many potential best sellers slip through the net.

But hey, that’s capitalism, with its famous creative destruction for you.

Publishers aren’t evil, as Jan Velterop, in a slightly different context, has been at pains to point out. The challenge is that traditional publishing is structured to solve a series of problems that are fast disappearing. Unless they evolve and innovate, they will be overtaken by entirely new models and types of organisation we may not even recognise as ‘publishers’ any more at all.

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February 15, 2012 · 8:00 pm

Why don’t people say ‘Sorry’ properly any more?


After ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’, ‘Sorry’ must be, as well as one of the hardest, also one of the most powerful words available. I’m not saying that just because, as an Englishman, I am probably guilty of over-using it – regularly apologising, for example, when somebody treads on my toe, or bumps into me by accident – and I’m not referring to its usage as an alternative to ‘what?’

No, I really mean that saying sorry is a very powerful thing to do. Think about what happens when someone apologises. It says: I’m human, I made a mistake; what I did was wrong, I shouldn’t have; I will try to improve.”

‘Sorry’ (accompanied by appropriate forgiveness of course) defuses situations, takes tension out of the atmosphere, allows a situation to be addresses rationally, sensibly, with those involved able to step into the future without being mired in the past. It humanises. A boss who apologises isn’t diminished by doing so, but rather admits to a flawed humanity that garners respect from subordinates. (Caveat: if a boss – or anyone – is constantly apologising for the same set of mistakes or faults, there may be a bigger problem that needs addressing!) Saying sorry is a powerful way to put the past away, without merely brushing it aside. It’s not a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card, any more than crying ‘No blame culture’ should be, but it’s the beginning of a road to reconciliation, recovery, learning and progress.

But lately I’ve noticed something insidious creeping in to people’s apologies. Instead of coming across as contrite, they come across as self-serving and whiney; instead of being humble, they come across as proud; in place of taking responsibility, they subtly insinuate that the blame lies with others.

Take the following statements. Say them out loud if you have to, it helps to get the full effect.

“I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

Do you hear the difference?

The first is a genuine admission that what somebody did was wrong, and that it had certain consequences. It takes responsibility.

The second is a wave of the hand that implies that any offence felt was somehow the other person’s fault – with a further implication that, given the same set of circumstances, I would behave or speak in exactly the same manner.

This struck me forcefully when reading about the Carlos Tevez/Manchester City imbroglio. It seems obvious that, whatever else was going on, Tevez’s behaviour was questionable, but rather than be the bigger man, this ‘strings-attached’ apology is likely only to inflame the situation further.

This kind of sorry is purely functional; no inner adjustment, however small, of emotion or outlook has taken place. They are purely self-serving. Far from defusing tension, they merely stimulate it through their self-righteousness.

“Sorry that…” is authentic and makes us human, allowing growth.

“Sorry if…” diminishes us, and drag us into blame and recrimination.

If you have to be sorry – and we all have to be at some point or another – be sorry that, not sorry if.

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January 2, 2012 · 4:00 am

Books No Longer Furnish A Room


What is it about books furnishing a room? I’ve been a book lover for as long as I can remember, a publisher for most of my working life and joint owner of a rolling inventory of well in excess of 1,500 books, and I’ve always held to the notion that they do. Lately however, I’ve been wondering rather more about what that might actually mean. Is it just about covering wall space – look at the pretty spines!- or is there something more?
I love my own bookshelves, especially those custom-built in the study that have a sturdy, permanent feel about them that the IKEA Billy never quite achieves. I love that books come in different shapes and sizes, creating challenges of organisation, so that order is matched with aesthetic appeal. A challenge, by the way, never shared by music or film lovers, whose wares only really come in one basic physical shape. Books really are different to the extent readers have a physical relationship with them that isn’t true for music or film lovers, whose consumption is – and always has been – mediated by other technologies.
But all his is now changing for book people such as me as it has for music and film people over the last 10 years. I’m going though that change as an iPad owner of something over 6 months, a piece of kit that I have also supplemented with a Kindle. Of the 20+ books I have bought and read during that period, only 2 have been physical books (ironically, one of these was the biography of Steve Jobs).
On the whole, I am loving this transition: if I’m interested in a book, I can sample it easily, purchase it in moments and be reading almost straightaway; I no longer have to lug heavy hardbacks around on the train; I can highlight, annotate and share in ways that will make reading collaborative and interactive in exponentially more creative ways than they are now. In a sense, it puts the focus back on the Art of Reading, the words, the ideas – after all, the point of the exercise – without the flimflam of ‘liking the way a book feels in my hands’.
There, are however, things I will miss. Actual shopping is one of these, for despite all the clever algorithms that Amazon has developed, there’s nothing quite like the serendipity of browsing a well-stocked and well-informed bookshop. This is still possible, of course, but for how much longer now that Borders is gone? And I confess that whilst I still go into bookshops, I rarely buy there, as I prefer the lower cost of ebooks and their greater convenience. I’m not sure how much longer I will do this anyway, as browsing without buying  makes me feel dishonest.
The other kind of browsing I have always loved is that of other people’s bookshelves. This isn’t just nosey, it’s about human cultural interaction, about the revelation of character and discovery of shared interests. It’s the essence of why books do furnish a room – they put our souls on display. How will this discovery, this sharing take place when we sit around in empty rooms void of books, void of music CDs or DVDs of films? Following each other on twitter, or friending each other on Facebook, for all the good thing these technologies bring, isn’t going to be quite the same thing. I like browsing and borrowing, and I reciprocate by being a promiscuous lender;  my lending tends to have a permanency about it too, both because it gives me pleasure to pass on my treasure, but also because it frees up space for more purchases.
For, alas, bookshelves are finite (even for a colleague of mine who built a whole extension to house his burgeoning collection). So, effectively limitless digital libraries ought to be nothing but a boon. However, for one thing, outside of a tight circle (e.g. a family), it’s not possible to share. At the same time it dispenses with the need to cull. This might equally be seen as a good thing – no need ever to get rid of anything – but in truth, culling is a tortuous and essential pleasure. It forces choice: What books still really resonate, which books, in effect, would you put in a crate and have shipped to a desert island? Do you cull books you have read, or those that remain unread? (I’m an ‘unread’ guy, which people find weird, but my thinking is that if you haven’t read a book, it isn’t properly grafted on to your personality, so is in some way fraudulent.)
I think culling is essential. It allows you to take your library (or music or movie collections) down to the real you, eliminating the poor choices, the wrong turnings, the simply execrable.     Physical collections thus have a living, organic quality about them. Digital libraries will, I fear, never have that kind of integrity, and the cast-offs don’t have the chance – at least not yet – to find a new, better home, via re-selling. Everyone’s digital library will then be sustaining its very own Island of Misfit Toys, which may not do anyone any good.
So, something will be – is being – lost to our shared cultural life. Books furnished a room not just by having colourful covers, but because of what they said about the character of its inhabitants, and because of the ways they could spark shared cultural experiences. All that will be lost as our cultural life is mediated ‘invisibly’ rather than through physical artefacts. What remains in people’s homes will be more like museum displays than libraries, preserving what once was, but no longer is. Books will at that point become literally furnishing, simply covering wall space, like the vast library of Downton Abbey, to provide a backdrop in the same way a Persian carpet brightens and breaks up the ground beneath your feet, but with no greater meaning.
My library is headed in this direction. I cull now almost never, despite buying books at, if anything, more frequently. I know that if we move, we’ll take very little of it with us, due to cost, time ,effort and space. I can’t help feeling a little sad about this, even as I embrace the possibilities and opportunities of the future.

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December 14, 2011 · 4:00 pm

Was George Washington the Greatest Leader Ever?


Today (December 14th) is the anniversary of George Washington’s death. I believe that there is a serious case to be made that he was the greatest leader ever. Certainly for the US, possibly for the world.

His achievements are well-known. Chosen in 1775 to lead the Continental Army before there really was such a thing; Chairman of the 1787 Constitutional Convention; first President of the United States that the new constitution inaugurated. In Henry Lee’s formulation: “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

If you believe that the creation of the American Republic was a good thing – and I do – then it is hugely down to George Washington’s influence that it was created at all and didn’t descend into bloodshed, chaos or tyranny. This, after all, was the pattern of so many other revolutions before or since. Take the French Revolution as just one example – close in time  to the American Revolution, and conducted with lofty goals – but with very different outcomes. Think Caesar, Cromwell, Lenin, Mao. No wonder Albert Camus claimed that “All … revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the State… Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.”

Could anyone else have secured the Republic in the way that Washington did? With the obvious benefit of hindsight, I think it’s a moot point. Who were the contenders, after all? John Adams, that furiously puritanical New Englander suspected of monarchist tendencies (which his behaviour at times seemed only to reinforce, even supporting a motion that the President should be called ‘His Highness’); or Thomas Jefferson, that slippery, supple-minded chameleon (John Ellis’ ‘American Sphinx’) with his neo-anarchist views on Jubilee Years and effervescent support for the same French Revolution that ended so disastrously; or Alexander Hamilton, the ‘new Napoleon’ in Abigail Adams’ phrase, brilliant yet deeply flawed; or Aaron Burr, Hamilton’s killer, and so obviously a crook?

Could anyone else have straddled New England and Virginia – the twin powerhouses of the Revolution – without the whole enterprise falling into total disrepair? Nothing was pre-ordained in those days, thought it looks so now, and the new Republic was not without its detractors, home and abroad. It was an experiment in no way destined to succeed.

Washington was recognised by all his peers as the ultimate primus inter pares. That such a clearly brilliant group of men deferred to him so unanimously says something in itself.

It would be possible to write in more depth about all the things he achieved, and of course they would be marked by some lapses in judgement and outright failures. They would, alone, make him great. But really his greatest achievements, what ultimately sets him apart as a leader, were the things did not do quite as much as the things that he did. Yes, he was the victorious General in the War for Independence, but unlike so many victorious military leaders (think even of Oliver Cromwell), he did not use this position in an effort to grab power, but like Cincinnatus before him, retired back to his farm. Yes, he was elected unopposed to the nascent Presidency, but he stepped away from the office after 2 terms, despite pressure to stay (again, especially from Adams), thereby setting a precedent that lasted over 160 years.

In the West we may not see these acts as so enormous in their significance. We don’t expect victorious Generals to take over Governments, or politicians to go on and on past their sell-by dates. But there are many parts of the world where these acts would still stand out – and Washington did them nearly 250 years ago, when they were extraordinary.

These two acts alone put him head and shoulders morally and strategically above any other leader in human history. His physical stature, his undisputed physical courage, his sage taciturnity in the face of the garrulous book-learning of his peers, made him stand out and be chosen. His first test of leadership was to create followers and get power. But it was what he then did with that power that marks him as one of the most extraordinary people ever to have lived. And the evidence suggests that these self-denying acts came not from diffidence or lack of care, but from truly remarkable insight into his own capabilities, and the destructive and corrupting force that came with the unfettered wielding of power.

For this, the world as well as the US have much to be grateful for.

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November 10, 2011 · 4:00 pm

The problem with ‘No Blame’ cultures


I must confess, alarm bells ring in my head when people tell me “There’s a no blame culture here”. On the other hand, I mind much less, but am still wary, if they tell me “There’s no blame culture here”.

Ok, did I confuse you there? Sorry if I did, but I think there’s an important distinction. Let me be clear. I don’t for one moment think that organisations should go around ‘blaming’ people when things go wrong; even less that leaders and managers should pass the buck downwards and use subordinates as scapegoats. ‘Blame’ is always negative, always somehow ‘personal’, from which little positive can emerge.

I do, on the other hand, very much believe that organisations should develop a culture in which things that go wrong can be openly discussed without fear of retributive action. Absent that, neither organisations nor individuals can learn and improve; equally, it perpetuates a myth of perfection and invincibility that is unrealistic and unhealthy. Things go wrong, they always do. The key is always to take learning from the experience.

My problem starts when the ‘no blame’ mantra is trotted out too early in any post-mortem. If done so by management, it can seem like an empty gesture, at worst a trap, set to lure individuals into “‘fessing up” and thereby incriminating themselves – and letting management off the hook. If someone is to blame, that someone can be punished, and the rest of the tribe is unsullied. If staff suspect that is the motivation, it makes the discovery of ‘the facts’ is likely at this point to become much harder, not easier. If you have to tell people there’s a o blame culture, then I suspect that there probably is. If there genuinely is one, everyone will know, and it wouldn’t have to be articulated.

Used by staff, on the other hand, it can feel like an avoidance mechanism, a ‘get out of jail free’ card to be played when the going gets tough. Essentially, it can become way to avoid responsibility. It says: “I know I messed up. I know I should have known better. I know that the consequences have been bad for the company and/or my colleagues. But hey, we have a ‘no blame’ culture, so let’s just draw a line under it and move on.” I have seen this played time and again when people try to avoid being accountable for their actions.

That’s wrong. ‘No Blame’ can never mean: ‘No Accountability, No Consequences.’ We learn as children that actions have consequences. Why, when we enter organisations, does this moral sense have a tendency to leave us?

I suspect it has much to do with trust and fairness. We are honest with people we trust. We are honest with people we believe will act fairly with our honesty. That doesn’t mean brushing it under the carpet, just shrugging and ‘moving on’. It means properly looking and learning, and accepting consequences. If we are lucky, we learn this first and foremost in the home, from our parents. Then we learn it at school. And if we are really lucky we continue to experience it in the workplace. And the quid pro quo is that we accept the consequences of our actions, and grow and act responsibly as people, as learners, as members of a community, and yes, as employees.

In short, a ‘no blame’ culture appears to be a way of every party being able to avoid taking real responsibility; a no ‘blame’ culture is a way of acknowledging human fallibility in a way that enables understanding and learning.

The inflection is small, the consequences huge.

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November 4, 2011 · 4:00 pm

More Followers, Please!


I’ve been reading a number of leadership bloggers for the last few months, and I’ve marvelled both at the volume of words being written on the subject, as well as their quality. I’ve been challenged to think about the nature of leadership, and how it should look in practice. In my own small way, I have tried to add to the sum of this thinking.

I’ve also learned something of ‘management’ (‘managership’?). It doesn’t fare well. At best it sounds technical and workaday, although in truth it’s just as important as leadership. Managers get things done, and the best managers have ‘leadership moments’, and deliver the ‘discretionary energy’ needed for team collective achievement. We really don’t need to have people operating as ‘leaders’ every moment of everyday. It’d be exhausting, and we’d probably end up going in circles.

What I’ve not heard much about is ‘followership’ – a word that (Apple’s!) spellcheck doesn’t even recognise as I type this, which is instructive! On a quick word search on Amazon I found over 70,000 books with ‘Leadership’ in the title – and only 143 with ‘Followership’!

Yet isn’t it the number one fact that without followers, there can be no leaders? Isn’t the foundational definition of a leader the ability to create followers? There may be more to being an effective leader, but that’s the next stage – first you have to be a leader at all, then worry about being effective. Its also true that while some of us maybe called upon to lead, everyone – without exception – is a follower, of something, somewhere, and at some time in their life.

That all being the case, what is it that creates a follower? What do people follow?

At a very basic level, people follow courage. This is most obviously the case with wartime leadership, but in business it can most nearly translate to ‘taking decisive action’ (or, possibly,‘sticking you neck out’). For that to be effective, people must have belief in the action being taken. In this instance, people are following one or more of the 3 C’s of leadership – credibility, competence or character. Prior actions or behaviours of the leader instill confidence in followers to follow.

Character is linked to trust, transparency and honesty. Time and again over the last couple of months, trust above all else has been highlighted as critical to engaging a workforce and delivering exceptional results.

Classically, people follow ‘inspiring visions’. This is undoubtedly true, but it is a problematic area. It’s linked inextricably with demagoguery and ‘charismatic’ leadership. We want to believe that leadership has a moral quality to it – and effective leadership might – but the mere creation of followers is amoral: for every Martin Luther King, there is an Adolf Hitler.

Venturing further into possibly controversial territory, people follow power. A recent Management Today article makes this very clear. Recalling Rosabeth Moss Kanter calling power US management’s ‘dirty little secret’ more than 30 years ago, they write:

“Powerful leaders attract followers who feed their self-confidence, make them look good and give pause to rivals.”

Power  – and acting in a powerful fashion – is attractive.

Further, people follow formal authority. Oh, dear, I suspect people will start to part company with me here. But it’s true, alas. On the negative side, this is from fear of retribution. Neutrally, it might be a cynical ploy to get promotion by looking good. But it can also be positive.  Structure and hierarchy are important – they exist for a reason; adherence to rules and getting on with the job are not bad qualities. Debate and deliberation are all very well, but if everything is debated and deliberated ad nauseam, where would that leave us?

Finally, people follow the money. Yes, they do. I know all the theories of motivation, that it’s not all about the money, and I’ve written about this approvingly myself, but I think it would be absurd to assume that this isn’t the case for many people in actual fact.

Underpinning almost all of this is the fact that people will follow success. Almost any kind of behaviour will generate followers if the action is successful. Leaders can be a nightmare to work with – think of all the times this was brought up in all the Steve Jobs coverage – but if a leader is a winner, people will stick with them.

What are your thoughts? What do people follow?

I’ll return to this theme in later blogs to look at what makes an effective follower.

Articles I found helpful in writing this piece:

http://www.leadershipkeynote.net/articles/article-followership.pdf – psychology of followership

http://www.leadershipkeynote.net/articles/article-followership.pdf – matching followership & leadership styles

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