Business leaders use tech jargon and babble to hide their lack of inspiration. Does this language encourage men and women to achieve greatness or even do their jobs? Not at all, says Dr. Leandro Herrero.

It is August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC Martin Luther King addresses the crowd. “I have a 350-page strategic plan that first provides us with the situational analysis of our racial issues and then outlines a ten-point strategic program and milestones to achieve desired results and equality deliverables that will add value to our nation.“he says. Sound credible?

Actually, what he said was “I have a dream that one day in the red hills of Georgia, the children of former slaves and the children of former slave owners will be able to sit together at a table of fellowship.. “That’s better?”I have a dream that one day every valley will be exalted, every hill and mountain will be lowered, rough places will be leveled and crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together.. “Too much? I know you think this is populist rhetoric and you just can’t imagine your chairman addressing the annual shareholders meeting speaking ‘dream’ language.

Many years later, RD Laing, the British psychiatrist and father of what would become the so-called “antipsychiatric” movement, writes in despair at reality. “Gone was any sense of possible tragedy, of passion., “he says.”Gone is any language of joy, delight, passion, sex, violence. The language is one of those in the boardroom.. “

The issue here is not whether you agree with the first part of the statement, or even Laing’s contributions to society, but with comparative reality: the language of the boardroom. That is to say: quite boring, uninspiring and rich in jargon. Practically you and me (sometimes) in the environment of 9 to 5.

No dreams, just nightmares

There are no more dreams. Stating the organization’s vision in terms of competitive advantage and enhancing market capabilities that maximizes shareholder value is not a dream but a nightmare. Why have companies lost the ability (if they ever had it) to speak in terms of emotions and use the language of everyday life? Perhaps some people are motivated by competitive advantage and improved market capabilities of their company that maximizes shareholder value, but the question is, should they be treated professionally?

I’ve written before that we easily mistake metrics and surrogate indicators of success for a company’s vision. However, the rhetoric of metrics has taken over. Earnings per share is a measure, not a goal, but that’s what we talk about in boardrooms. It’s no wonder the overall inspiration in the workforce has waned. Maybe Laing was right.

Where are the compelling visions of today’s companies, the invitations to the pursuit of greatness? Lost in mission statements that swap words. Steve Jobs, when he was CEO of Apple, did not say: “Let’s make boxes that can produce text and graphics and that sit at desks computing data and information, easily translated into final results.” What he said was: “Let’s make a hole in the universe!” A dent in the universe! This is bold and ambitious language closer to King’s dream than to return on invested capital. How many times in your career have you been invited to make a dent in some universe? We are experiencing an epidemic of IDD (Inspirational Deficit Disorder). Living in the society in which ‘in the merger we trust’, we have lost the sense of destiny in our organizations. Many of them are largely paralyzed by the impending merger, the impending severance package, or the impending plastic surgery and skin reconstruction of the org chart.

Know what motivates people

Some people still mistake inspiration (and inspiring leadership) for charisma. Not all leaders need to be from the King School. In reality, many well-run organizations have leaders who would not pass the charisma test. It’s okay. I mean the total inspirational capacity of the company, be it technical, scientific, business or a combination of these. The litmus test is to pose the most irritating management question to people out of the blue, on a normal day without crisis: “Why are you still here? “This is the only way to understand and know staff motivations, something that top managers tend to assume they already know. Let’s be clear. What motivates your particular workforce is often based on a combination of unvalidated assumptions. Very often, nobody has been asked. I say often, because the wisdom is accepted that when pressured workers tell us, for example, that it is science that supports them, not necessarily salary, and that the The place is full of ‘good people’. So that’s it. A good duo. You might be surprised to see what you get when you try to validate those assumptions. main question is “why are you staying? “

The best reference I know of our own myths about motivation comes from Frederick Herzberg in an article written about 30 years ago. He said that to make a dog move you can show him a cookie. The dog takes it and is supposed to have done something for the dog’s motivation. Actually, the motivated one is you, the dog just moves. There is a lot to learn from this about leadership, believe me. We are very good at showing cookies to our staff. Staff members take them, things happen, memos are circulated, plans are made, actions are taken. Are they motivated or just moving? I suppose we can save this philosophical discussion for another day.

Back to inspiration and language. Huston Smith, who has written and disseminated extensively on religions, studies the language of Jesus Christ in his beautiful book World Religions. It gives us three interesting ideas. First, in terms of volume, Jesus would not compete today with self-help, New Age, or socio-political authors. His work could easily be captured on a single tape, not a 30-cassette program, three videotapes, two brochures, and the added bonus of a glossary and CD-Rom, which is a typical ‘follow it and you will.’ Self-help program -be-OK ‘. Second, his language, for example, that camels can pierce the eyes of needles, was what Smith calls “gigantic.” Third, their language was inviting: let’s do it, come with me, move on, etc. And it is this third element that I insist on discussing with my clients: how much invitation language do you use? Most of the time, not much. We use a bulleted statement, PowerPoint statement language: these are the goals, 1, 2, 3; this is what we have to do; these are our objectives and critical success factors. Here is another list. And other. That is all. There is no invitation here. There is no ‘let’s do it’, ‘come with me’, ‘let’s get together’, ‘let’s walk as a team’, ‘let’s transform the way medicine is practiced’. It is as sexy as reading the phone book.

The field of ‘inspirational messages’ is confused with that of ‘motivational language’. Sometimes people hire what are called ‘motivational speakers’ for sales conventions or company retreats. These meetings are primarily designed to boost morale, create a climax, or raise adrenaline levels. Okay, but a cynical friend of mine says its use correlates with the inability of local leaders to articulate a compelling message. They turn to entertainment in the absence of their own inspiration. My friend is often cruel, often right, and often both. The reality is, if you can’t find anything truly inspiring in your business, no matter how many Himalayan mountain climbers you bring into the after-dinner speaking space, you’re running a pretty bland company.

In pharmaceutical companies, the language of mergers, increased market share, the so-called R&D synergy, global critical mass and a higher return on investment from shareholders has replaced the language of quality of life, the mastery of diseases, the generation of health and the search. for greater well-being. There are no dents in the universe, only on the market.

In 1963, King also said: “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, suffocated by the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.. “Big goals, big ambitions. We all have dreams. We may or may not fully share the dream of the company we work for, but we can aspire to have compatible dreams. Without compatible dreams there is no commitment.

Dreams are not goals and objectives. There is still, in some quarters, the idea that the grand vision of the company, translated into objectives, must be cascaded down to all members of the organization in the form of a logical and pristine tree. My boss’s goals, a translation of his boss’s goals, should be broken down into several goals for me, which then become critical to the success of my boss’s goals. So in the annual business and strategic planning ritual, the entire company becomes a logical web of goals and objectives: Give me a goal for the lowest-level employee and I should be able to trace it back to the president’s goals. Thousands of hours have been invested at corporate headquarters to make sure everyone has guidelines for the goal network, which can eventually be presented in a binder of several thousand goals and objectives PowerPoint slides that can be used for reference. by managers. These binders make excellent book ends, their primary use being for holding all the magazines and papers that tend to fall off one end of the shelf.

Assuming that one could streamline and create that network or waterfall and that the exercise would be of some benefit, the staff would be sharing goals and objectives but not dreams. I can share goals, commit to actions, and perform homework with the same transformative inspiration needed to recite the phone book out loud. Or I can do it because my company and I have compatible dreams.

I make no apologies for this one-sided, biased, black and white, subjective, cartoonish, unfair, biased, and prejudiced first article of the year. Right now, my clients, my industry, myself, we need a dream or two.

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