Business Feel: From the Science of Management to the Philosophy of Leadership PDF
Preview Business Feel: From the Science of Management to the Philosophy of Leadership
Business Feel This page intentionally left blank Business Feel From the Science of Management to the Philosophy of Leadership Dr Steven Segal © Steven Segal 2005 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-3592-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2005 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan®is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-51832-6 ISBN 978-0-230-50528-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230505285 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Segal, Steven, 1959– Business feel : from the science of management to the philosophy of leadership / Steven Segal. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Industrial management. 2. Leadership. I. Title. HD31.S438 2004 658.001–dc22 2004048579 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 To Margot, my wife, Di, my sister-in-law and Annette, my mother-in-law Whose love and support have liberated me. This page intentionally left blank Contents 1. In the Cracks of Conventions 1 2. Philosophical Experiences 6 3. Managers and Leaders: The Unnamed Philosophers 18 4. Unmasking Management Theoreticians 31 5. From a Science to a Philosophy of Management 44 6. Leading Managers out of Plato’s Cave 54 7. Strange Bedfellows: Jack Welch and Martin Heidegger 67 8. How Touchy Feely is Jack Welch? 75 9. Welch’s Outsiders Perspective from the Inside 87 10. Turning Intuitions into Visions 101 11. Leading out of Confusion: Grove’s Crisis at Intel 113 12. From Control to Reflection in Management 127 13. Organisational Nationalism at Intel 140 14. Philosophical Education in the Context of Management 148 15. The Socratic Perplexity of a Leader: The Case of Mort Meyerson 163 16. Ricardo Semler’s Philosophical Experience 180 17. Philosophical Narratives for Managers 198 Bibliography 202 Index 205 vii 1 In the Cracks of Conventions Jack Welch is recognised as one of the great corporate leaders of the modern world. It is natural that many managers and leaders would want to learn from him. To this end a number of books have been written on Jack Welch, many of which outline the “Jack Welch way” of leadership and organisational management. Yet one of the outstanding features of Welch is that his way of doing things cannot be reduced to a set of techniques or formulas. Business, he maintains, is not a great science. It is under- pinned by being able to trust in “one’s gut.” His success lies in his uncanny business feel. Welch is not alone in exemplifying the importance of business feel. It is central to the leadership practice of, for example, Andrew Grove of Intel. Worry is the primary form of business feel that underpins Grove’s technical expertise in a number of areas. As we inquire more into the practices of other leaders we see business feel playing a central role in their leadership styles. George Soros, for example, talks of the central role that anxiety has played in his management style. Anita Roddick speaks of herself as having the passion of an obsessive. Ricardo Semler has written of the role of stress in transforming his understanding of organisations. Mort Meyerson identifies the role of uncertainty and despair in leading him to rethink leadership. And Lou Gerstner in his time at IBM came to recognise the role of emotions in leadership. The interesting thing about business feel is that it cannot be learnt in a purely cognitive way. It relies on a feeling for the situation, on being able to make instinctive or intuitive judgements in the situation, judgements in which we feel that we are doing is correct without necessarily being able to explain in abstract and rule-like terms why it is correct. If we try to follow principles of “business feel” in too conscious and rational way, we lose the very feel that is the most vital element of business feel. How, then, can we talk and learn about business feel? What we shall see during the course of this book is that these leaders dis- covered the importance of business feel in a “philosophical experience,” an 1 2 Business Feel experience in which they could no longer take their habitual or conven- tional ways of thinking about management for granted. Their day to day experiences as managers challenged them to think about their practices as managers in new ways. As they questioned their habitual ways of doing things, they began to see their own practices and the practice of manage- ment in general in a new light. All the leaders mentioned in this book experienced themselves, at one time or another, as being outside of the socially approved habitual way of doing things. Ricardo Semler, for example, thought of himself as a maver- ick. Jack Welch says that one needs to be “crazy” to be a leader. Andrew Grove sees himself as “paranoid,” while Anita Roddick sees a sense of being an “outsider” as central for her entrepreneurial attunement. Perhaps the only one who does not fit this mould clearly is Lou Gerstner but it was as an “outsider” who was invited inside to lead GE from its old way of doing things into a new way of being. And CEO’s like Mort Meyerson have shown how their experience of depression and anxiety opened up oppor- tunities for moving from old but stale ways of doing things to new and invigorating ways of leading. Yet none of these leaders is or was so crazy that they were out of touch with the world in which they worked. Far from being out of touch with the world, their view from the outside gave them a perspective on the inside that those who were on the inside could not see. For like a fish in water we do not see the water that we are in. Only when we are deprived of water do we begin to see the water that we are in. The experience of gaining perspective on a situation by being an out- sider is an “existential experience.” Generally speaking existential philo- sophers have developed a framework in which to show how experiences of “craziness,” “paranoia,” “stress” and being an “outsider” enable us to see the world in new ways. Existential philosophers were both part of but unhappy with the society in which they found themselves. Fredric Nietzsche, for example, felt very alone and isolated from the mainstream. Soren Kierkegaard was tormented by a sense of profound alienation from the Christianity of his childhood. Jean Paul Sartre writes of intense feel- ings of alienation generated by mass culture and Martin Heidegger’s early life was spent caught between the familiarity of his Catholic upbringing and the uncertainty of the unfamiliar new and modern world. Martin Buber speaks about a “holy insecurity” which linked him to the traditions from which he felt estranged. In all cases they were able to turn this experience of being on the margins of society into opportunities to reflect on society and to develop philosophies which have inspired both scholars and those grappling with the question of the meaning of existence. In this book we shall see how some of those recog- nised as outstanding corporate leaders have been able to turn existential experiences into opportunities for leading and managing in new ways.
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