Dear Montaigne:

On Leadership & Metrics
 

We measure the hell out of soybean prices, baseball and the weather. But, our metrics for leadership are pathetic. It seems crazy to have inadequate measures of the performance of leaders who determine our individual and collective futures. We must demand the very best measures of the quantities of those who lead our institutions and societies.

I first heard the aphorism, “we measure the things we care about” from Peter Drucker, the father of management science. Over the years other leadership mavens like Warren Bennis, John Gardner, Jim O’Toole, and Charles Handy have lamented our pitiful leadership metrics. Alas, it seems that we “followers” fail in our responsibilities to demand performance standards and proof of performance against those standards.

Here are some of the glaring examples of how egregious our current models for selecting and assessing our leaders has become.

We have allowed the media to run the U.S. election process for their profits and notoriety. Thus the candidates get tarted up like models for underwear ads, the ads and debates are mostly impressionistic and lacking in true content. They aim to evoke anger, fear, and outrage, all emotions that feed our reptilian brains. Slick promises are made based on market research into fears, hopes, and subliminal desires of buyers (voters).

“We have been conditioned to trust John Wayne, Captain Kirk – type leader figures who rode through our childhoods” said Warren Bennis. Thus, ads and other presentations feature tough talk over thoughtful discourse. Outrage is more media appealing than compassion. And, perhaps most damaging, is the voter’s willingness to accept simplistic and often dishonest answers to complex questions. (read the Lincoln-Douglas debates for well-reasoned content and rich dialogues)

A tall, silver-haired, macho Oklahoma Senator walked into the US. Senate chambers to the podium holding a snowball to register his disdain for the “science” of global warming. Senator Inhofe’s purpose was to tell his constituents that he would not fall for what Republicans, including Donald Trump, call the “hoax of climate change”. It had snowed unseasonably in Washington D.C. and therefore, “it’s not getting warmer” was his child-like, yet cynical, message.

Voters, like consumers, want quick fixes to long-festering, intractable problems. This is most evident in the whole climate fight. Science-deniers like Senator Inhofe debunk the science or change the subject to something more immediate and frightening like job losses.

People have been conditioned to expect easy, entertaining answers to hard, complex questions. The entire lobby for easy access to firearms has perfected the art of obfuscation and attention shifting and they support their legislative toadies with talking points and money backed up by vicious, frightening ads aimed at tired opponents. It is leadership as three-card-Monty scams.

Today’s media, ranging from T.V. to social nets has severely reduced our attention spans. Thus any material on a complex subject is lost on consumers and voters when real sustained focus is needed. Studies have shown that mere presence of a handheld device on the table alters conversations between those engaged in discussion. To make matters worse narrow casting and personalizing news and “infotainment” makes us into cult-like consumers. We are known by the practitioners of artificial intelligence as likely to respond to certain fears and types of excitement or agitation. Thus, eagerly or unwittingly we are entering cults of like-minded people who will respond easily to the most base and simplistic cues and prompts.

Needed: New Metrics that focus on what matters

If hard evidence is needed for developing and using improved metrics of leadership some recent examples should provide it:

The market collapse of 2008 was caused by layer upon layer of obfuscating metrics starting with fake mortgage ratings. The practice of bundling mortgages, like mixing cocktails, was invented by the financial system and all benefited from it. The mortgage handlers (mostly banks) were aided by fake ratings, insurers, traders who took their fees and passed along junk.

In the splendid book, The Big Short, Michael Lewis walks the reader through the drama of odd ball short sellers who forced the whole bizarre, and lucrative and rotten practices and scams to the surface. Of course, in the end, the market fell and the taxpayers and individual property owners were the victims.

The metrics were corrupted at every level and the supervisors of the markets pleaded ignorance. Good leaders, courageous public servants, demanded more transparency, better measuring tools, accountability standards, and penalties. The financial lobbies never ceased in their efforts to shift public attention on the wrong issues by attacking Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Barney Frank personally for their reform efforts.

The system was so rigged and the regulations and penalties for misconduct so carefully crafted by the financial industry that few perpetrators suffered. Many walked off with fat payouts while hapless consumers lost their homes and their life savings. The people put in charge of cleaning up the mess had been integral players in the whole rotten system. The same rating agencies continue to operate with the same loose performance metrics and fee structures. Ratings are paid for by the firms creating them basically telling buyers “caveat emptor”.

Corporate balance sheets and annual reports are supposed to contain reliable information shareholders can rely on to determine the investment worthiness of the firm. Also, in that report the CEO and the Board Chair attest to the reliability of the data and statements made in the report.

Yet we see study after study of metrics that are manipulated and vouchsafed by “independent” auditors (paid by the company) and the boards of directors who are also paid by the company yet pledge their independence from management. Scam after scam reveals how often the metrics either obfuscate or fail to reveal deep, even fatal leadership flaws.

John O'Neil - December 22, 2017