No leader is master of everything
by Larry Mandelberg
Sacramento Business Journal - December 12, 2008

Hu•bris (hyü-bris) n. excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance

'Business leaders often find themselves in situations where they are expected to do things they have little knowledge of or experience with. With the multitude of things that can occur in business, it is unreasonable to assume anyone can be well prepared for every situation.'

What went wrong?  The more successful we were at coming up with new ideas and products, the more new ideas and products we came up with.  The more opportunities for unbridled growth and profits, the more people wanted to invest and the opportunities became fewer and fewer while the risk grew greater and greater, and the likelihood of success became fainter, and no one paid attention.  No one actually saw the weakness of the ideas they were investing in, not the laymen, not the venture capitalists.  The perceived reward outweighed the risk, and once that happened, nobody ever looked back.

I’m not naïve.  I understand our economy depends on technology.  Business, telecommunications, television, heck even cars and boats depend on it.  But technology has become a commodity, a low cost component of everyday life.  Can you say email, word processing, spreadsheet and power point?  Like gas for our car and folders for our file cabinets technology is merely the entry ticket to the arena.  The competitive edge still belongs to the creative leaders.  What will it take for the industry to come out of its malaise?

Ever since the release of Visi-Calc back in June of 1979 the industry has focused its energy on creating solutions in search of a problem and calling it innovation.  Innovation is about finding new ways to use existing products and services for purposes they were never designed for and often involves the combination of existing products that were never meant to be paired with one another.  Take the assembly line for example.  In 1913 Henry Ford introduced the world to his moving car assembly line, allowing Ford to produce chassis in just two man hours where previously it took seven.  The assembly line combined an agricultural invention called the conveyor belt along with ropes and pulleys and other ideas to form a new, never before conceived manufacturing process that revolutionized the automobile industry.

Talk to any expert on new product development and they will tell you to find a need and fill it.  I was talking to my broker the other day and he said “Nobody has ever taken the time to see how I use the technology.  My laptop does a lot of thing and it does them fast, but it still doesn’t do what I want.”  The answer for the technology industry begins by asking people what they need, identifying the underlying problems, and creating ways to solve them.  Before that can happen, management must change their attitude towards their staff, the engineers and programmers.

Ask a technology company what their single greatest asset is and they will tell you their technology.  Ask about their staff and they talk about replaceable commodities.  This is backwards!  Technology is a commodity that can be recreated by a whole world of technically competent individuals.  What you can’t replace is the knowledge, experience, history and commitment to an organization.  In order to preserve that asset an investment in management must take place, and that is not happening either.  Look at the training dollars of any technology firm and you will see total emphasis on developing new technical competencies and nothing for management or leadership.  How can people be expected to manage or lead if they are not taught and trained?  How can you expect an employee to be happy and productive if they are not well managed?  Now is the time to invest in leadership skills, not technology; to focus on healthy growth, not fast profits; to listen, not tell; to lead, not push.

The only other recovery solution I see are Federal mandates for the gathering and reporting of massive amounts of data that can only be done with technology.  This is the main reason the industry is still breathing, federal mandates, and technology is fast becoming the whipping post of government.  If that doesn’t make you nervous in today’s politically charged and divisive environment, I have the inside scoop on a great IT investment you may be interested in…