Devil in the Details provides a step-by-step pragmatic guide to leading teams. The experiences Kevin Kennedy shares here are real and will help you practice your own leadership in a new way -Penny Herscher, president and CEO of FirstRain Inc. "In the bloated world of management books, this is an all-too-rare license to think. The chapter on working with the board alone is worth the cover price" -Ric Andersen, partner, Milestone Partners "When journalists, technology beat writers, or business historians write the story of a high-tech company, they tend to lapse into clichés. Devil in the Details is the opposite of such books. It allows you to observe things at close range and get an unvarnished picture of how management and leadership really work. Kevin Kennedy is direct and unafraid" -Betsy Atkins, president and CEO of Baja Corporation "In business as in other aspects of life, the best leaders balance emotion and inspiration with a meticulous understanding of the details. With respect and compassion for aspiring leaders at all levels, Kevin Kennedy guides the reader using situational techniques that work equally well in the back office and the board room" -The Honorable Gregory W. Slayton, founder and principal of Slayton Capital; former US Consul General and US Chief of Mission to Bermuda "An insightful journey through real-world case studies of leadership, both the good and the not so good" -Marty Kaplan, chairman of the board, JDSU

Devil in the Details

The Practice of Situational LeadershipBy Kevin J. Kennedy

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Kevin J. Kennedy
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-2014-7

Contents

Foreword.........................................................................ixPreface..........................................................................xiiiAcknowledgments..................................................................xxiIntroduction.....................................................................xxiiiPart 1. The Human Factor.........................................................1Chapter 2. Hardwired for Drama...................................................3Chapter 3. Tourists, Gatherers, and Collectors...................................11Chapter 4. Peewee Soccer in the Conference Room..................................17Chapter 5. Too Many Demands or Too Little Discipline?............................23Chapter 6. Hiring Winners........................................................29Chapter 7. Tribal Rituals........................................................33Chapter 8. Letting Go............................................................39The Human Factor: Looking through the Lens.......................................47Part 9. Situational Awareness and Judgment.......................................49Chapter 10. Managing Risk........................................................51Chapter 11. The Planning Imperative..............................................57Chapter 12. Schedule or Quality?.................................................61Chapter 13. Reducing Glare.......................................................67Chapter 14. Managing Customer Expectations.......................................73Chapter 15. Leader as Casting Director...........................................79Chapter 16. Early, Not Elegant...................................................85Situational Awareness and Judgment: Looking through the Lens.....................89Part 17. About Alignment.........................................................91Chapter 18. Demystifying Gross Margins...........................................93Chapter 19. On Post-M&A Integration..............................................101Chapter 20. Working with the Board...............................................107Chapter 21. The Fish and the Mailman.............................................113About Alignment: Looking through the Lens........................................119Conclusion.......................................................................121About the Author.................................................................127

Chapter One

Hardwired for Drama

There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything ... is an inseparable compound of the two so that our best judgment is continuously demanded. — Abraham Lincoln

Whatever opinions you may hold about the Civil War in the United States, most professional and even armchair historians agree that President Lincoln was an effective leader in the face of a conflict that threatened to destroy the very essence of the United States. If you study his behavior, you see that he attempted to avoid drama in the way he thought about people and issues. He tended to probe beneath the apparently obvious solution to a problem until he found one he considered sensible and practical. Relying on the conventional wisdom of the day or getting swept up in the polarizing political rhetoric of a divided nation was not his style.

That's not an easy line to walk, either in the 1860s or today. Drama appeals to something basic in us, whether it plays out on television, in the headlines, or in the boardroom. The tendency to oversimplify, too, is deeply ingrained in the human psyche; it probably serves some essential survival purpose, helping us to distinguish between friend and foe in a dangerous situation, for example, or helping us make faster decisions in a crisis. But in everyday life, oversimplifying can cause problems. Just ask a trial attorney how often potential jurors pick the apparent hero over the apparent villain, even before they learn the complex nuances of a case.

As Lincoln suggested, drama and oversimplification don't work in your favor as a leader. One reason is that they narrow thinking rather than expand it. A business discussion can start to look like a caricatured debate, polarizing participants into either an affirmative or a negative position relative to the conventional wisdom about the situation at a particular moment in time. Meanwhile, the most positive choice may lie hidden among all the momentary details, invisible to those who are looking only at the surface. Effective leadership requires skill in navigation, answers are often found in the situational details, and it's usually more helpful to make a series of thoughtful operational judgments than to seek a quick fix.

Here, for example, are three pieces of conventional wisdom. They all sound good on the surface, but if they're swallowed whole, without any situational understanding, they can lead bright and well-meaning managers down a rat hole that's hard to climb out of.

Conventional Wisdom #1: Employees are naturally motivated to do what the company needs them to do. All they need is an inspiring leader who listens to them and to the company's customers.

Having observed several companies try to restructure and grow, I have come to the conclusion that everyone has an agenda of self-interest. It varies from employee to employee, and it may show up as any number of things: a thirst for compensation, work assignment, recognition, learning, a more comfortable office, and so on. That said, employees are not the same as their self-interest, and various situations may influence their choices. For example, it is not unusual to see a longtime employee operate in defense mode to protect his or her position, while a new hire may assume more risk when doing the same job. The new hire may lack institutional knowledge and organizational savvy, but she also has little attachment to the status quo and so may be more open to disruptions that will ultimately help the company.

Leaders, too, are powered by self-interest. They enjoy the respect and stimulation they get from guiding a business to success, and they also want to protect their positions and compensation. In an ideal world, the leader's self-interest will be linked firmly with the advancement of the company. Effective leaders find ways to bridge all the self-interests involved in the equation—their own and the employees', as well as the best interests of the company.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it takes more than an inspiring mission and a charismatic leader to motivate employees. Any leader who thinks the secret of good management is simply to listen to employees and customers is essentially picking two sets of heroes and ignoring the subtle interactions of multiple self-interests, including the leader's own.

Conventional Wisdom #2: A company's success is just a matter of its leadership.

We have all seen sports teams go from one coach to another with very little improvement in the lackluster results that spurred the leadership changes in the first place. The same thing happens in companies. Contrary to conventional wisdom, poor results are not solely the fault of the leader; a dynamic leader can be cut off at the knees if the organization doesn't know how to follow.

The reality is that many employees will never be in a formal leadership or even...