The Kings Who Would Be Emperors
Everywhere I go, I see them. In the manufacturing plants, the retail stores, the HQ buildings and the boardrooms. People at all levels of the business hierarchy seeking one thing: Not profit. Not quallity. Not breakthroughs.
Just power. Raw power. Power for the sake of power. Power to have dominance over others. Power for stature. Power to have the vote to say “No” or “That won’t work” or to consider themselves free to do nothing of importance at all. To reject change. To endorse failure. To be advocates for it.
We can see this in the spotlight of the auto industry where CEOs were content to watch a once-great industry crumble in disgrace because they had the power to do so. When outsiders or underlings (i.e., those with less power) presented powerful new ideas, developed innovative thinking that would drive true progress, they were brushed aside. Not because their ideas were meritless, but because they did not come with the “authority” of others who had more power.
When a whistle blower in the SEC’s Boston outpost smelled out the Madoff scandal and stuck it in the faces of the bigger fish in the New York central command, he was dismissed repeatedly because he lacked the power of those who used that power to cover their ears and bury their heads in the sand.
Power is majestic and absolutely essential. The power to commit budgets to the development of life saving drugs, to mass armies against tyrants, to bestow personal fortunes in the battle against hunger, to marshall corporate resources in the quest to develop high-risk breakthrough products, to take chances on promising but unproven talent. To invest in people and ideas and the possibility of miracles.
But this same dazzling potion is also highly toxic and dangerous when it is used to accomplish little more than to build on itself, to place an exponent over its title, to build a mote around the holder of the power and to assure that it is left in grand and arrogant isolation.
Contrary to popular myth, entities bestow power on individuals rather easily. It comes from tenure, priviledge or a single successful initiative. And once that power is granted, it is rarely challenged and even less rarely withdrawn. In part because the holder of the power wields the sword they hold to protect their position and to perpetuate the status quo that is so often their firewall. Their safety net.
Who holds power in your organization? Who did you or others grant it to in error? What damaging impact does it have every day that you allow it to continue on the basis of entitlement as opposed to meritocracy?
Facing up to this issue is the primary difference between vibrant companies, alive to all of the market’s potential, and those that move inevitably to bureacracy and ultimate demise.
These are the companies, large and small, run throughout the ranks by kings whose only goal is to become emperors.
</ Article by, Mark Stevens, the bestselling author of “Your Marketing Sucks,” “Your Management Sucks” and”God Is A Salesman.” Stevens is CEO of MSCO, a global marketing firm, who has advised many clients over the years such as Estee Lauder, Virgin Atlantic, Guardian Insurance, MONY, Giorgio Armani, Starwood, Intrawest, etc. Stevens delivers more than 40 speeches annually and is a regularly featured media commentator, lending his insights and opinions on Fox Business Network, to the Associated Press, on CNN International, BBC Radio and Bloomberg TV.
