Leaders are expected to be decisive, react quickly to new situations and use their vast past experience to make decisions that will benefit the organization. But isn’t that exactly how organizations develop incestuous thinking that allows them to continue to repeat the same mistakes as in the past.
Outstanding leaders develop a team around them made up of diverse thinkers with different backgrounds who can quickly and efficiently provide the leader with the data she or he needs to make an informed decision. But that requires the ability to appreciate people who are different from us.
Ethnocentrism is the belief of superiority of one's personal ethnic group. Colonialism, particularly as practiced by Europeans over Africans and peoples of South Asia, demonstrates both how easy it is to develop a sense of superiority and how totally unsatisfactory it is as the basis for a long-term productive relationship.
We all observe when in the presence of people with different beliefs and value systems that they behave differently. Too many people are quick to judge those differences in a negative way. Once that process is allowed to happen it is quite difficult to learn about people who are different from us. They have already been put on trial in our mind and found lacking. Instead, we need to develop in ourselves a deep curiosity about others which is free from judgmentalism. Some Native American tribes had a saying that you should not judge a person until you have walked for 30 days in his or her shoes. That leads us to the D I E model for learning about cultures. Detect what is different, interpret why they do it differently and only then evaluate how to deal with the difference.
Don’t assume too much — especially when working in unfamiliar territory
If I buy a car it is reasonable to assume that it will have four wheels, seats and an engine. But as we go throughout the world contracting product and services, we sometimes encounter different assumptions about what fulfillment of that contract means.
In a South American country, I was faced with holding the huge plenary sessions of the Rotary World Congress in an exhibition hall rather than an arena as we preferred. This meant that in addition to building the stage and technical equipment like lighting, sound and projection screens, we also had to lay 18,000 seats, some on risers to improve the view for those sitting in the back. Our first performance was on a Saturday evening. Our construction contractor said that we had to commence with construction at a minute past midnight on Wednesday morning in order to be ready. Since overnight shifts cost a premium labor charge, I asked if we couldn’t wait until 7 am to start but was told that could jeopardize the Saturday completion.
The exhibition center told us we could have the facility at the requested time. At 11:45 pm the contractor foreman and I along with his crew entered the hall. You can imagine my disbelief when I saw that it was still full of exhibition stands and products. The facility informed me that the trade show that had occupied the space closed at 10 pm and workers were beginning the tear-down.
It never occurred to me to insist in the contract that the facility needed to be empty when we took over. But they insisted that the contractual terms were being met. So after a quick discussion with the foreman, we located where the stage was to be constructed, made a deal with the exhibitors occupying that space and my expensive graveyard shift laborers were put to work alongside those of the exhibitors to rapidly clear that part of the hall so the stage construction could begin.
That experience hasn’t turned me into someone who has to add every little obvious detail into the contracts I sign, but I do spend more time than I once did confirming in discussion my expectations. And whenever I see someone reluctant to give enthusiastic confirmation, I start adding things to the contract.
One such example where things went more smoothly was when Rotary came to Munich. We were using the Olympic Hall and a number of other building on the Olympic ground which were built for the 1972 Olympics. Next door to our meeting with an expected 27,000 was the Olympic stadium where the world-famous Bayern München soccer team plays its home games. The regular season was over at the time of our event. But Bayern was in the league playoffs and a game was scheduled for the opening day of our event. It would sell out with 60,000 fans. Some open discussion resulted in an adjustment to the times of each of our events so that we were not using the parking lots and public transportation at the very same time. And everything went smoothly.
The secret is to not assume everything is the way you want it and be ready to find that win-win compromise where everyone gets what they want.
Herb