Bad bosses usually fail ...
But why also some of the excellent?
Ironically, even excellent leaders cannot entirely dodge some truly spectacular blunders.
What are the reasons and why does it keep on repeating itself?
Within the taxing demands and often elusive moments of critical decision making – come great risks. This is the case because state of the art decision making is mostly focused on the external barriers, pitfalls or conditions, e.g. leaders drilled like racing horses for strategical thinking, when in fact some of the greater risks may indeed be internal, generated by management itself.
These internal risks are present and regenerated all over the board, because it’s a concern about how managers are making, framing, staging or gate-keeping and repeating their decision style and procedures, a.k.a. The How.
External risks are usually well understood, but usually, the internal are not.
The How is about discerning what really is about to happen in the decision environment. It also involves the implementation of a behavioural map to get there. We call this the Decision-Making Architecture.
The main objective for management, to avoid unprecedented mistakes, is developing a framework that guarantees an unfiltered approach of information procurement by management.
The How is seldom available by even a few managers or a complete management team at the same time. This is due to an array of biases, e.g. the halo effect or sunflower bias, were subordinates look to their bosses with awe, trained respect or are not unfavourably but healthily reviewing their bosses decision soundness. Bosses may also expect the voice of their subordinate be heard right after their own or just find a subsitute subordinate that will.
Corporate, military and political history is full of exceptional blunders even by leaders with flawless reputations. However, don't be fooled by the dramatic examples, since a good deal of mistakes start with small mistakes at the middle management or the bottom too, at the time not evident to the more lofty ranks, who of course, still have responsibility. However, the two well known examples below present important parallels on how deeper awareness of risks in communication might have saved 2.000 lives in transportation disasters separated by 65 years, but still, occurring because of reasons with frightening managerial parallels.
Two of the most spectacular disasters in reasonably modern transportation history, namely the KLM/Pan Am plane crash on Tenerife killing 583 people and the Titanic killing 1.514, are eerie examples of flawed management. Both the commanders of the Titanic and the Rijn (KLM Flight 4803), were both seasoned officers with impeccable records. So how could this even develop? True, in both cases, many factors did indeed converge. But there is one unbelievably similar condition that occurred in both situations that managers were not aware of. There have been suggested all types of examples as to the reasons for them, e.g. that Edward John Smith ot the Titanic was intoxicated at the time of the collision or the co-pilot of the Rijn being junior and not daring to question flight captain Jacob van Zanten more than twice. It may well be true that Smith had more than a few drinks. However, had he been sober, it is not likley that it would have saved the ship. And in fact, the co-pilot of the Rijn was a seasond flight captain of another aircraft type of the KLM.
But on March 27, 1977, the two Boeing 747 passenger jets, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on Tenerife. It is well known that mutual interference on the radio frequency, which was audible in the KLM cockpit as a 3-second-long shrill sound, (or heterodyne), caused the KLM crew to miss the crucial portion of the tower's response before take-off, making it the deadliest accident in aviation history. So the problem was both technological with simplex radio system, that could block mutual correspondence. A negative message from the tower could be missed. Confirmation was not sought due to stress, the airport was over-crowded due to former meteorological conditions.
On board the RMS Titanic the similar harbinger of the collision on April 15th, 1912, was founded because of the the decision that all radio traffic concerning the greetings on the maiden voyage and personal telegram trivia for the first-class guests was to be prioritized. Thus, radio operators missed the vivid and numerous radio warnings that were relayed via the same radiosystem of the number of icebergs in the vicinity, ultimately killing 1.514 people.
So no ..., we don't usually learn from history.
The thing is, sooner or later we cannot see what is there to be understood before we are on the losing end. And unfortunately - no collage training can teach us this. All the training we get, too, may force decision makers more readily into denial. We are trained we should know, when in fact, it oftentimes is impossible to know.
The How and understanding of Decision-Making Architecture will also support ERM (Enterprise Risk Management). True, risk is about statistics, but behind the numbers that appear in statistics, is human behaviour. Thus, ERM is ultimately about Decision-Making Architecture, how is it done; who are asked; are there whistle-blowers allowed in; how is the agenda formulated; and by whom, are just a few examples of what is framing Decision-Making-Architecture.
Most often, the real problems are to be found around CX, who mostly assure their board, they are on top of everything. But this also means that it is at the CX-level that the possibility for change are present. It is about being aware that a new type of leadership is slowly evolving that must be more democratic, slower, but safer, that is evolving in corporations and other organisations.
We make sure that such denial is not possible. This management disaster usually comes from solo performance. In contrast, success achieved against all odds or in dire straits often come from broad participation of co-workers and highly dynamic, listening an interactive leadership with co-workers, critiques or well-developed versions of matrix management.
And make no mistake, the great blunders occur on every level. But the consequences tend do be the greater as one moves up the echelons in an organisation. Even when the tornado is already all over the place, most of us know that it may well be too late. When failure sets in, usually, denial sets in too.
The How is a necessity to dodge spectacular failure.
We may help you avoiding the big mistakes and help you implement The How!
