Cultivating the Art of Leadership

Story is an ongoing interest of mine: how people use stories (or not) to enroll others, to get funding, to build support for new initiatives, etc. The latest book I've been reading is The Secret Language of Leadership by Stephen Denning, who is the former program director for knowledge management at the World Bank.

Denning's opening story is how, when a new World Bank president came onboard, his and many other directors' jobs were being reassigned to others. Denning reports that "There were no specific positions available" and that he was told to "look into information," a low-prestige backwater of the bank back in the mid-90s. Despite much discouragement from directors above him, Denning investigated the world of information and information sharing.

Ever optimistic, Denning pulled off a surprising move -- transformation of how knowledge was shared across the bank and with clients in third-world countries. To do so, he had to persuade skeptical, change-resistant senior managers of the value of knowledge management.

As I was reading, I remembered being in the middle of the knowledge management challenge at Lotus/IBM, in the Consulting division, at precisely the same time in 1996. Denning's story was incredibly similar to the stories our consultants told of knowledge management champions they were working with at client organizations. Anyway, I digress.

I found the "Ten Mistakes Transformational Leaders Make" quite interesting as the story behind the list is of Al Gore's candidacy for president in 2000 (Denning contrasts Gore's mistakes in 2000 with how he got it all right in 2006 with An Inconvenient Truth) :

1. An Unclear, Uninspiring Goal (Gore talked about 11 programs in 90 seconds of his first debate -- ahem, about ten too many - so if you're thinking about sharing all the important initiatives you've been strategizing on, think again and stick to one!).
2. Lack of Total Commitment for Change (Gore was guarded about sharing his sense of humor and the things he was passionate about and ended up coming across as wooden and less than fully behind himself much less his change platform -- so if you habitually reign yourself in and try to keep the conversation rational, your audience won't see a full sense of commitment).
3. Incongruent Body Language (Gore had a lot of experience but didn't come across as the poised, seasoned politician that he was, but instead sounded hurried, used excessively combative language, and used condescending body language-- as I so often mention to clients, it's not cheating to do a dry run of an important conversation or presentation and get feedback on how others receive the messages you're sending).
4. Misreading the Audience (Gore was proposing to "fight" for a lot of things at a time when people didn't feel so dissatisfied and on topics that weren't at the top of their agendas and thus lost his audience -- so, do as Lincoln used to do, spend 1/3 of your time on your content and 2/3 of your time on understanding how your audience is listening).
5. Lack of Narrative Intelligence (Gore told stories with confusing or discordant details that made listeners consider the stories implausible -- Denning goes on to illustrate that there is a pattern to good narrative)
6. Not Telling the Truth (Gore was pinned with a reputation for exaggerating and it lost him credibility points that he genuinely deserved -- so, when the stakes are high and your audience is not yet convinced, any exaggeration can be magnified in their minds as being untruthful).
7. Attention Misdirected (Gore told stories that did not make the case for his proposals and often inadvertently made the case for his opponent's points -- so, while stories are powerful attention grabbers, their inherent logic must support your case).
8. Inability to Elicit Desire for Change (Gore failed to get people's attention in positive ways -- ah, the problem-solving mentality is the culprit here, when all the research shows possibilities are far more inspiring and compelling than problems).
9. Reasons Backfired (Gore led with a rational approach and failed to make emotional connections first, the more reasons he offered for his proposals without an emotional connection, the more he started an argument with his audience -- hmm, I've been there, and so have most of my clients, attempting to persuade through reason and clueless to the need for more emotional connection!).
10. The Conversation Died (Denning states that "leadership communications begin as a monologue. If they are successful they turn into dialogue and then into conversation" and noted that Gore failed to get much past monologue -- alas, this is another common problem in intellectual circles, too much telling and not enough conversing to create ownership).

While Gore lost in 2000, he went on to become a rock star success story, no longer making the mistakes above, with his green revolution theme in An Inconvenient Truth.

We're in the middle of an historic presidential election that is all about change, between candidates from very different generations and with very different styles (McCain from the Silent Generation and Obama from the 13th Generation -- see my childhood friend's, Jamie Stiehm's, essay on this generational topic in US News & World Report).

See if you can detect which mistakes each of these candidates have made/are making and drop a line with your comments here or to me directly!