The Wrong Tree

We know that perfect executives do not exist; and that, in any case, each managerial role requires different behavior, a different style of managing. Furthermore, we know that no organization can succeed without a senior team that, collectively, can perform the four basic roles – (P)roducing, (A)dministrating, (E)ntrepreneuring, and (I)ntegrating – with excellence.

Nevertheless, for years organizations have been chasing down some mythical perfect manager. In their quest to find this incredible faultless genius, they raise salaries, increase stock options, and give all kinds of special incentives and rewards to CEOs.

But even if you could find one, it would be dangerous to rely on genius. Why? Because let’s face it: Genius appears very, very seldom. Any corporation that depended solely upon the talents of one individual, even if that individual were outstandingly competent, would be extraordinarily limited. There is a military expression that illuminates this point: “Organizations should be organized by a genius so that even an idiot can run them, rather than organized by an idiot so that only a genius can run them.” The reason is that there simply aren’t enough geniuses to staff all organizations and all the positions in them.

Suppose an organization did have a manager who was so superior to everybody else that he naturally assumed all the decision-making power? If that man made a mistake, he could easily point the organization in the wrong direction, and even geniuses make at least one mistake once in a while. In their book Corporate Management In Crisis: Why the Mighty Fall, Joel Ross and Michael Kami suggest that “what causes big corporations to fail is one-man rule”1 – even though it is also true that one-man rule has often been the key to a start-up company’s initial success.

The problem is that if no evolution to a longer-term style occurs over time, eventually the company grows so complex that no individual manager can fill all the essential roles – nor is he likely to let go of them – and the collapse of such conglomerates has often been swift and dramatic.

So it’s clear that organizations must make it a priority, not to scout out one all-purpose, perfect manager, but to use the innate talents of all of their employees to promote a cadre of managers, each with expertise in one or two managerial roles as well as the ability to perform the other roles with competence. In addition, organizations must provide these managers with opportunities to develop their lesser skills; thus ensuring a source of future leadership from within the company.