Tom Asacker

• Home
• Tom's books
• About Tom
• Thought pieces
• Contact

Watch highlights from Tom's speeches

 

We read too many business books.

That's the sentiment expressed by Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, in an interview in The New York Times this past weekend.  Despite that fact that I write business books, I happen to strongly agree with him.  Here are a few more of his comments:

"At the end of the day, retailing - but you could apply this to many other businesses - is not as complicated as we would like to make it. It is pretty logical and simple, if you think about the way that you yourself would act, or do act, as a customer."

"I’ve worked 30 years now in management roles, and a number of times I’ve seen a new C.E.O. come in, and the first act is typically to get the leadership team to an offsite. And you get a consultant - because you can’t do it without a consultant - and the consultant then helps the team design a vision. And then you’ve got all these words, and several thousand dollars and a couple of days of golf later, you go back to the company to actually try to communicate that vision throughout the organization. So you hire another consultant to do that. It shouldn’t be like that."

"I think the best source of strategy is your customer and the people who work for you. I’m not saying there’s no room for a vision statement or anything like that. I’m just saying that we tend to spend too much time on that and not enough on the more practical, down-to-earth requirements that drive business."

Can I get an Amen!  One would think that the harsh realities of the economic slowdown would have forced organizations to strategically focus on adding value in meaningful ways to the lives of their constituents. In fact, it has had the opposite effect.

Instead of inspiring what's left of their organizations with a meaningful goal of helping others through their people's unique ideas and involvement, leaders are either:

1. Holed up in their offices, because the uncertainty of the times has left them uncertain about how to communicate with their people;
2. Spending way too much time rearranging the deck chairs and contemplating their futures (which, by the way, will be very different than what they imagine once it arrives); or
3. Becoming increasingly autocratic and bureaucratic, as if the answer to their problems lies in better reporting of the activities that haven't been working very well in the first place.

There is another, much more sensible option: Start doing things with and for your people and your customers.  They all know that the future is a big unknown.  What they want right now is respect and understanding. They want to feel special. They want to express themselves and they want control over their lives. And they want you to help them get there.

Business is no longer a simple cause and effect, transactional, quota-driven environment. Now it's all about trust and involvement - relationships. And relationships are messy. Relationships are hard to quantify. Relationships take time.

This is a moment in time that holds more possibilities for you than any period in the history of humankind. And the only thing standing between you and the results you truly want is you - and your need to control it. That's right! Your mind is your enemy. And control is your albatross.

Control destroys relationships. Control blinds you to opportunities. Control shuts down your inner voice. Control is driven by your ego's need to serve itself. Control is an illusion you cling to primarily to alleviate your fears.

Great leaders give up the need to control, come to terms with their own egos, and dedicate themselves to helping others. They inspire. They embrace change. They accept the uncertainty of the future. They trust people and help them live their dreams.

Posted May 27, 2009
Email this post     

The comments to this entry are closed.