Flashback from Allan Cox

New York Times Sunday Business

BUSINESS FORUM: FORGET CHARISMA; Focus

on Teamwork, Vision and Values
February 26, 1989

By ALLAN COX; ALLAN COX IS A MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT. HIS FIFTH BOOK, ''THE
ACHIEVER'S PROFILE,'' HAS JUST BEEN PUBLISHED. (NYT) 1024 words

Charisma is our elixir. We swallow it as a cure-all for what ails us. Nowhere is this more
apparent than in our companies. It shows up even in the way we use language. We say
we want leaders for our corporations, not mere managers.

Charisma is our elixir. We swallow it as a cure-all for what ails us. Nowhere is this more
apparent than in our companies. It shows up even in the way we use language. We say
we want leaders for our corporations, not mere managers.

The word ''leaders,'' in this case, is spoken with lilting voice and bright eyes, conveying
that these are especially winsome creatures with endowments not quite of this world.

This is all nonsense. A rich mixture of judgment and timing contributes more to effective
leadership than a captivating, swashbuckling presence.

We have been through a decade of gross hucksterism in which executives have been
admonished to undergo assertiveness training, spruce up their images and even forgo
wearing brown suits to the office.

Just a few weeks ago, when beginning a teambuilding project for a chief executive and
his staff, I was taken aside by two staff members and told, ''He (the chief executive)
needs to work on the charisma factor.''
But when it comes to enhancing their leadership qualities, executives have better places
than charisma to direct their attention and yearnings. I suggest three alternatives:

First, executives will be better leaders by giving their energies to the evaluation and
management of corporate values.

When executives behold the corporation as the social institution it is - an interpersonal

network committed to some mission in the service of customers, employees,
shareholders and the public - it is not surprising that they think the management of
values may be the ultimate description of their jobs.

Some chief executives become spokespersons on this point, while others, not as vocal,
have just as energetically put such conviction into play in their companies.

Perhaps the most important example of a chief executive who is concerned with values
is James Burke, the genuine, but uncharismatic chief executive of Johnson & Johnson
Inc. Mr. Burke, you will recall, has received much praise for managing Johnson &
Johnson's response to the Tylenol poisonings. Yet, as deserving of high praise as these
actions were, they are not what is most remarkable about him.

Rather, it is simply his day-by-day, year-by-year, layer-by-layer involvement in

recognizing, evaluating, prioritizing and articulating Johnson & Johnson's ethical values.

A gimlet-eyed friend of mine who has worked with Mr. Burke said: ''What's typical today
is for the C.E.O. to send out a staff-drafted two-paragraph ethics statement to his
managers. The managers are asked to read and sign it. They do this perfunctorily, and
that's it. A guy like Burke knows that's ridiculous, that it's not enough, that there's no
reinforcement without the C.E.O.'s involvement. By spending the time that he does on
values, Burke signals their importance to his people.''

This people-sensitive, customer-responsive, long-range thinking chief executive makes

us forget about charisma while he gives ethics and values a good name. But this would
not be the case if Johnson & Johnson's financial performance were not also impressive -
which it is. Mr. Burke says companies that follow ethical credos generate superior
financial performance.

An executive's second alternative to charisma is the exercise of vision. Ironically, there is

a need to distinguish vision from charisma. This is because popular business thought, in
error, rolls up charisma and vision into a tight little ball.

A common notion is that vision is the province of a charismatic, almost clairvoyant

corporate leader. Vision is routinely taken to mean (1) gazing at a crystal ball rather than
(2) understanding where a corporation finds itself at present and where it's headed.

In its simplicity, option No. 2 is the wiser course. Consider this little gem of Chinese
wisdom: ''Unless we change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are
headed.'' Despite low scores on the ''excitement'' test, executives who are able to take
this earthy wisdom to heart - to develop a sense of their corporation's purpose and
trajectory - will be leaders of distinction.

2
What all effective leaders do is labor with their associates to gain an understanding of
place and direction. And that is a special way of seeing circumstances that we are
correct to call vision. Leaders like Mr. Burke, who win lasting admiration and work to
insure their companies' futures, are the ones poised to blow the bugle in front of new and
needed initiatives - or blow the whistle to stop their companies dead in their tracks when
they think the course is wrong. The truth for them is that a desirable tomorrow is
dependent on the decisions they make today.

A superior leader's third alternative to charisma is collaboration. He is committed to

collaboration because he knows first-hand that it produces management team
effectiveness and assures improved corporate performance. It does so by re-enlivening
and tapping into the souls and minds of a company's executives who may have gone
stale. And it makes them see themselves as valued contributors once more.
Collaboration is the way to generate the best ideas and options for running a business.
And these times demand it. Corporations that do not ''think'' teamwork, will not prosper.

The spirit of complex organizational life these days is increasingly collaborative. In our
finest companies, much gets done daily without dazzle or hype by teams of people
pulling together. Words like ''we'' and ''our'' replace ''I'' and ''my.'' The team - not the
leader - becomes the star, while the latter serves primarily as the articulator and sponsor
of the vision that emerges out of the team's collaboration. Two or more heads are better
than one. What better explanation than team involvement can account for the
achievements of a Johnson & Johnson and the rock-solid, management style of Mr.
Burke? But the management technology of real teamwork is not in the typical executive's
repertoire even though that technology is not complicated and can be learned without
difficulty.

There is no more appropriate quest for a manager than to build team involvement. That,
after all, is the prize of effective leadership.

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