The Momentous Nature of Courage

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Jamal A. Said
Management Consultant
Meirc Training & Consulting

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Nelson Mandela

On December 5 2013, Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid activist and leader passed away at the age of 95. People around the world mourned his death, and at the same time celebrated his life, his courage, his ideals and his achievements.

As the first, post-apartheid democratically elected South African president, Mr. Mandela faced some of the most challenging and charged conditions a country could confront. Yet, because of his wisdom, his value system, and the decisive and courageous decisions he took, Mr. Mandela managed to steer his country away from absolute anarchy and a destructive civil war to leave behind a wonderful and long lasting legacy of humanity, humility, tolerance, hope, reconciliation, and a forward looking rainbow nation for all South Africans to enjoy.

The magnitude of Mandela’s decisions, and the conditions under which they were taken, may not have a parallel in the business world. However, this does not detract from the fact there are many courageous corporate and business leaders who face demanding and formidable business challenges on a daily basis. Such challenges still demand from them the unwavering courage and decision making acumen to ensure the success and growth of the business they lead in an ever changing and riskier environment.

Business leaders regularly find themselves battling difficult decisions and complex situations on issues related to changes within their organizations. Challenges of globalization, shifting consumer demands and customer satisfaction, retention or attrition of talent, market trends and uncertainties, government regulations, shifting technological landscapes, and boards of directors and stakeholders with ever increasing expectations are some of these challenges. Only a few leaders manage to successfully negotiate their way through these terrains and propel their organizations toward greatness while leaving an enduring legacy on the company’s future and success for years to come.

Why those few select leaders and not the rest boils down to one key human attribute. We call it courage. However, it is not the impulsive courage that heroes are well known for. Without a doubt that is a very admirable trait, and bless those who have it. I am referring to a different classification of courage; that which many world and business leaders, past and present, possess or exhibit when it comes to doing what is right when everything around them is far from simply black or white. It is courage a la Mandela style!

In his article “The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Times…” Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last, highlights the tremendous courage that some of those CEOs exhibited when standing for what they believed in, against what clearly were insurmountable opposing forces.

In 1949, David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett Packard (HP) asserted during a meeting with his business team that “A company has a greater responsibility than making money for its stockholders. We have a responsibility to our employees to recognize their dignity as human beings." The likelihood of hearing today’s CEOs so boldly state such statements and opinions is a rarity. At least, there aren’t many who would venture into such sensitive territories. However, it is those same bold actions and decisions that kept HP an iconic market leader for many decades.

In 1953, Bill Allen saw in Boeing a lot more than just a manufacturer of fighter jets. He saw the future of Boeing in commercial aircrafts. Boeing today is the result of a courageous decision Bill Allen took to pursue a vision very few saw. His vision resulted in Boeing producing some of the most successful commercial aircrafts which until today are rolling off production lines. His courage helped him see things a lot clearer into a future he believed Boeing should take a leading role in.

In 1979, James Burke, former CEO of Johnson & Johnson, pulled his executive team into the meeting room, and pointed at the J&J credo, which was written 36 years earlier by R.W. Johnson Jr., and said: "We hold these truths to be self-evident of the Johnson & Johnson Co., among them a higher duty to mothers and all others who use our products." James Burke had the courage to stand up for “responsible” capitalism, which he demonstrated so fearlessly during the 1982 Tylenol cyanide-poisoning crisis. The Johnson & Johnson team did not need to debate how to handle that crisis, for the decision was made three years prior to that when they reaffirmed their trust in the J&J credo. The contaminated capsules were swiftly pulled off the shelves. Johnson & Johnson suffered a financial hit in the short-run, but in the long-run they managed to salvage what is really important and that is the consumer confidence in the company’s products.

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The Right Improvement

Chaouki M. Eid
Deputy Managing Director
Meirc Training & Consulting

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And yet we are witnessing more and more organizations doing precisely that! Are they insane, or simply misguided?

We have seen initiatives that ruined a company’s performance when the objective was the complete opposite. Few of the classical initiatives that failed to produce the desired results include the unsuccessful HP-Compaq merger which Carly Fiorina, one of the most powerful women in business then, championed and in the end lost her job as a result of. In the February 2005 issue, Fortune magazine commented: “The HP-Compaq merger was a big bet that didn’t pay off, that didn’t even come close to attaining what Fiorina and HP’s board said was in store. At bottom, they made a huge error in asserting that the merger of two computer operations, HP’s and Compaq’s, would produce a financially fit computer business”. Michael Dell, of Dell Computers called it “the dumbest deal of the decade”.

Another unfortunate example of failed initiatives is how hospitals in the USA have been unable to improve the medical health procedures to avoid mistakes leading to thousands of deaths. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous "To Err Is Human" report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. In the same year, hospitals put initiatives in place to reduce that figure by fifty percent in ten years. However, statistics show that ten years later the figures became worse. In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care in the USA contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year. That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America – behind heart disease (first), and cancer (second).

It goes without saying that no company plans to embark on initiatives that produce negative results. Having said that, the question then becomes: why do such bad initiatives continue to surface? Is it that companies do not know how to select the right initiatives, or is it because those initiatives are not being implemented properly? In short, is it a problem of selection or bad execution? Or is it both? More importantly, are these improvement initiatives linked to the overall strategy of the organization? If so, are these initiatives aligned with the vision and mission of the organization? Are they strategic or simply continuous improvement initiatives? Once these questions are answered, the selection and implementation decisions will follow.

Making decisions is one of the most important tasks for any executive. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE spent six years, five months, and two days before he finally chose his successor, Jeffrey R. Immelt. While making decisions is one of the toughest jobs for executives it is also the riskiest. Bad decisions can damage a business sometimes irreparably. So what makes executives choose the wrong decisions? Put in another way, what are the decision making traps that executives fall into and need to bear in mind prior to finalizing their decisions? The answers to these questions are many, and they include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. No other better alternative was sought or was available at the time
2. Did not have sufficient information or data
3. Personal bias (I have seen this one many times)
4. Competition is following a similar initiative
5. Company culture is not innovative, and is perhaps resistant to change
6. Did not spend enough time beforehand to evaluate the potential risks and benefits (both qualitative and quantitative) of the initiative.

Selection of initiatives

So, is there a foolproof process to guarantee that each selected initiative will lead to positive results? The answer is no. While with hindsight it is always easy to figure out why an initiative failed, the trick is to do our homework before we begin, and there are several tools that can be employed at this early stage. Examples of such tools include:

Decision Matrix: The Decision Matrix has many alternative names among which are: decision grid, selection matrix or grid, problem matrix, solution matrix, criteria rating form, and criteria-based matrix. The decision matrix helps executives evaluate and prioritize available options based on a list of weighted criteria.

Plus-Minus-Interesting (PMI) tool, developed by Dr. Edward de Bono: PMI helps us make decisions quickly by weighing the pros and cons of a decision. It's also useful for widening our understanding of a situation or decision, and for uncovering issues that we might not ordinarily have considered. PMI is particularly helpful when we have decision makers who strongly favor a particular idea, point of view or plan. The tool encourages everyone to consider other perspectives, and it can help the group reach a balanced, informed decision (or at least see an issue from someone else's point of view).

Financial Analysis and Capital Budgeting: There are several financial tools that can be used to evaluate initiatives. Organizations use tools such as Average Rate of Return, Payback Period, Net Present Value, or Internal Rate of Return to evaluate the financial gains from an initiative. However, not all initiatives can be financially evaluated at the start given the qualitative dimensions of some decisions. Keep in mind that: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”. As such, after completing their homework using multiple tools, executives still need to make their final decisions based on their knowledge and wisdom as well.

After spending a quarter of a century in consulting and training assignments, I still wonder and often get surprised by how many executives approach decision making in a way that is neither logical nor analytical. Many still do not evaluate multiple options prior to choosing the right initiatives. Also, while some executives solicit views from other parties prior to making their decisions, they unfortunately use this process to prove to others they were open to suggestions when the decisions were taken. Executives need to evaluate and choose the right options and not select the ones based on personal preference. They need to be open to ideas and feedback to ensure thoroughness and gain the commitment of those who will eventually implement the initiatives. On the other hand, some executives unfortunately delegate the decision to the “experts”. While it is easy to ask experts for their opinion because it gives us a sense of safety in doing so, going along with the experts’ advice without examining the advice thoroughly can sometimes lead to unfortunate results.

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