A Conversation with Laurence Haughton…

• Author: Amitai Givertz
• Posted: April 2, 2007
• Category: Business Matters
• Tags: No Tags
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…Storyteller, Change Agent & Coach
 
I was lucky to be introduced to Laurence Haughton a couple of weeks ago. Laurence is the author of two books which have received enthusiastic reviews It’s Not What You Say… It’s What You Do – How Following Through at Every Level Can Make or Break Your Company and It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small… It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow - How to use speed as a competitive tool in business. I have added both titles to my bookshelf and you should add them to yours too.
 
Among other things Laurence is a story teller in the tradition of Stephen Denning and Larry Prusak. We’ve shared a couple of calls about our interest in organizational dynamics and change management. Our last conversation left me scurrying around, pulling together stuff that would bear out some of our hypothesizing about “organizational dysfunction.”

Laurence was telling me a true story about two companies that had many similarities. They were alike in size, market-orientation, ambition and capability. Both pushed the limits of work, innovation, risk and reward. Both companies were led by charismatic and visionary CEOs who were flying high.

Both companies were in competition. And both were forced to deal with unexpected, catastrophic problems that threatened their very existence. Inexplicably it would seem one company came out on top and is enjoying renewed good fortune; the other is still struggling to survive the misfortunes that continue to beset it.

The story raised this burning question: How could one organization come through the fires of adversity annealed and strengthened while the other — dealt the exact same winning hand — was swamped in the lava of an organizational meltdown? Was it a systems thing? Could it just be a case of SOL?

One of the threads we pulled at was the notion that organizations have personalities and other human-like traits that make them act in ways that might reflect the personas, biases and behaviors of the organizations’ leadership, CEO. How do ego and humility, risk aversion and self-confidence, flexibility and stubbornness, faith and resignation for example, manifest themselves in corporate decision-making, execution and consequence?

Super-charismatic, high profile leaders like Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey illustrate this taking place in the extreme. Contrast the corporate cultures, values systems and outlook that are so easily identifiable with these personalities — all who have survived hard times — with the what was left behind by Worldcom’s Bernie Ebbers, Enron’s Ken Lay and Adelphia’s John Rigas, personally and corporately programmed for self-destruction.

The thread then frayed into loose ends about behavior and brain wiring; creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving as drivers for change; self-limiting beliefs, and the whole brain/business metaphor. We concluded there was indeed a correlation between things such as AHDD and dyslexia and corporate dysfunction and business failure. Um, a right-brain/left-brain thing really.

I wonder what we’ll talk about next time. More of the same perhaps.

Buy Laurence Haughton’s books online:

• It’s Not What You Say… It’s What You Do
• It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small… It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow

PDF Downloads:

• The Three Biggest Flaws in the Execution Process
• How to Read Between the Lines
• 9 Lives of Leadership

Listen:

• It’s Not the Big that Eat the Small…It’s the Fast that Eat the Slow