Saturday, August 04, 2007

How successful leaders think

In June's Harvard Business Review, the mechanics of how successful leaders do what they do. I'm writing this into a piece for viewmag, because I believe it's inherent to the way journalism and some extent creativity within it works.

Written by Roger Martin the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and author of the Opposable mind, his credentials need no scrutiny.

Mine on the other hand bear no empirical hurroomph, other than having worked within advertising with a respected thinker in Jon Staton ( ex head of Saatchi and Saatchi ) and news in different fields. News doesn't do creative, unless a small "C" and then. Video journalism is all about creative, big "C" APPROPRIATE to the story.

That is an adherence to the school of Charles Wheeler of Walter Cronkite. If it's a tragic story, don't embellish it with hackneyed phrases and music.

The four stages of decision making says Roger Martin reveal the exceptional leader

1. Determining importance: take in wide opinions
2. Assess how all these have a bearing on one another
3 " Integrative thinkers don't break down a problem into independent pieces and work on them seperately or in a certain order. They see the entire structure of the problem" - Roger Martin
4. Don't trade off on problems, resolve them all - the salients etc.

Now if we could all but think that way. Truth is perhaps some of us aren't hard wired, and there may well be a genetic disposition at play as much as the environment that groomed you. But the real crux if you're going to practice this mantra seems to lie in 1. ie knowing what is important and being a leader of cabinet by committee rather than the kitchen approach. Mind you wasn't Thatcher a fine leader?

No, no, that's not my politics,it's a genuine question.

And then in our equally pragmatic profession, we hear: research, news gather, streamline and process. What might we learn from Mr Martin, that perhaps successful reportage is about a wider body of opinion, views and dialect.

Watch how the news this summer will say almost what it said last year about crammed airports, stuffy temperatures, and the great getaway being the great standstil.

Wider opinion? Now that's where the politics of multimedia could play a significant role!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

But why do none of these biz school types write about unsuccessful business leaders - they'd have a lot more material to work with!

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr David Dunkley Gyimah said...

Mischief making! LOL I mean would you read this likely best seller: How to crash your company's stock and be incredibly unsuccessful.