Leaders: face the brutal facts!
Posted by Steve Botham
November 25th, 2009
“What’s going on?” “Can we make this work?” “What do you think?” Three normal questions. Do we get honest answers? Jim Collins in Good to Great talks about facing the brutal facts; history tells us of lots of situations where groups working together failed to face the brutal facts - whether it be Hitler in the Führer bunker or airlines where the crew did not challenge each other with fatal consequences. The ability to gather all the information needed; to encourage the introverts to share, the nervous to be bolder and the reluctant to take some risks is a key leadership skill. Given the long term impact of many of the decisions we are making at the moment, leaders need the ability to ensure people are engaging in conversation, thinking things through robustly and challenging “group think”.
It is worth reflecting - next time you ask “can we make this work?” how do you get your colleagues fully engaged? How might you challenge them to raise their game in the next round of decision making?
Tags: decision+making, Jim+Collins, Leadership
November 25th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Steve makes some important points in his blog entry about facing brutal facts. A graphic and illustrative example of the potentially disastrous effect of having an organisation culture which dissuades grappling with so called ‘brutal facts’ is a phenomenon called the Atlantic Baron Syndrom. This is a situation where co-pilots are so overwhelmed by Bombastic Captains that they will sit on their hands and even allow the Aircraft to crash and be killed, rather than say anything. Consider for instance, what happened at 16:11GMT on Sunday, 18 June 1972 when, less than three minutes into its flight from Heathrow, flight British European Airways Flight 548 (BE548) crashed near Staines (U.K.). All 118 persons on board died. Allegedly, Captain Stan Keys moved the wrong lever against procedures without being challenged. Was this a question of not facing brutal facts? The investigating British Airways Air Safety Committee certainly felt this was a case of having over-powering or dominant senior members or officers. I think Steve is right.
February 4th, 2010 at 3:26 am
This book is on my list of ones to read this month. I’ll keep your post in mind as I read it. Good post. Thanks.