Some Leadership Lessons

Dear friends

Thank you for the replies to last week’s letter, What World Do You Want? It is never an easy decision for me to turn my attention to the broader socio-political themes that frame our individual journeys, so it was gratifying to read your thoughts on the topic.

Thank you also for sharing the letter so widely. It means a lot to me that you found the ideas worth sharing.

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As promised, today’s letter is shorter to compensate for the length of last week’s letter.

In getting started I thought you’d like to see this gorgeous work by Nambian artist Tuli Mekondjo. And given that remote working will still be a thing for a while, imagine working at this Italian-designed desk from the mid-50s.

Today we look at how we can be more intentional in our life and leadership journeys.

/ strategy

Peter Drucker is a fascinating person. When globally acclaimed strategist Jim Collins met him, Drucker was 86 and had published 26 books. He published 10 more. He taught his last course at 93. He viewed his work as a lifelong journey, a mission.

In Collins’ words, Drucker had dedicated his life to answering one question, “How can we make society both more productive and more humane?”

In Ten Lessons I Learnt From Peter Drucker, Collins describes meeting Drucker as one of the ‘ten most significant days of his life.’ That got me wondering what my top ten days were. What are yours?

I particularly enjoy Lesson No. 2 “Do What You’re Made For”, Collins says “your first responsibility is to determine your own distinctive competences—what you can do uncommonly well, what you are truly made for—and then navigate your life and career in direct alignment” (If this lesson resonates with you, you may want to read Working With Soul).

To do what you’re made for effectively requires that one uses time effectively. It is a resource that we all have, and one that is most often squandered.

It leads to Lesson No. 4, “Count Your Time and Make it Count.”

Collins describes Drucker’s approach to time saying, “The ‘secret’ of people who do so many difficult things, writes Drucker, is that they do only one thing at a time; they refuse to let themselves be squandered away in ‘small driblets [that] are no time at all.’ This requires the discipline to consolidate time into blocks, of three primary types.

“First, create unbroken blocks for individual think time, preferably during the must lucid time of day; these pockets of quietude might be only 90 minutes, but even the busiest executive must do them with regularity.

“Second, create chunks of deliberately unstructured time for people and the inevitable stuff that comes up.

“Third, engage in meetings that matter, making particular use of carefully constructed standing meetings that can be the heartbeat of dialogue, debate, and decision; and use some of your think time to prepare and follow up.”

Collins reflects that “We are all given only one short life, composed of the same 168 hours a week as everyone else. What will it add up to? How will other people’s lives be changed? What difference will it make? Peter Drucker—one man with no organization, a modest house, and a wicker chair—models how much one highly-effective person can contribute, and that we should never confuse scale of impact with scale of organization. He was, in the end, the highest level of what a teacher can be: a role model of the very ideas he taught, a walking testament to his teachings in the tremendous lasting effect of his own life.”

You can learn more about Collins in How Will You Be Useful?  that I wrote in the heart of last year’s lockdown.

/ self

Collins reflects that Drucker’s first principle was “Manage Thyself.”

Here are some resources that you may find useful on your journey.

Harvard Business Review’s Ideacast is an incredible resource of over 780 episodes. They’re typically no longer than 30 minutes and showcase the latest research from the world’s top organizational thinkers. Listen to one a month, they’ll definitely strengthen your leadership insight.

Drucker’s work was driven by a desire to see a more humane world. It is a value that is at the core of my coaching practice. I regularly visit Krista Tippet’s On Being for more soulful inspiration.

Wharton Business School professor, Adam Grant’s list of Leadership Books to Launch in 2021, is packed with leadership learning opportunities.

I follow Aspen Words and Brittle Paper for literary inspiration. So often fiction provides the most compelling insight into what it means to live and how we might imagine differently.

I hope that these resources are useful for you.

/ soul

In Kenyan activist and Nobel prize-winner, Wangari Maathai’s auto-biography Unbowed she reflects how her older brother Nderitu had one day asked her mother why Maathai didn’t attend school. Her mother concluded that there was no reason that she shouldn’t go, and so started a journey that culminated in a PhD and global impact.

Maathai says that although it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary for girls in their family to be educated, it certainly wasn’t common practice.

She wrote, “How grateful I am that she made the decision she did, because I could not have made it for myself, and it changed my life! I have often wondered what would have happened if Nderitu had not asked my mother his question, and if she had not answered as she did.”

Sometimes, like Nderitu’s question, our smallest action of truly seeing someone else can have an unquantifiable impact.

Thank you to my friend, respected Kenyan journalist, Uduak Amimo, for bringing Unbowed to my attention. I shall share more with you in future letters.

Best wishes

Karl

(This letter was first published on 28 March 2021)