Friday, September 28, 2007
I’m finally getting around to an article (“To Understand Sheiks in Iraq, Marines Ask ‘Mac’) written by Greg Jaffe in the Wall Street Journal that appeared in its September 10 issue. It is about a former Marine Corps officer, William “Mac” McCallister, who has created a role for himself as the Marine Corps’ expert on tribal culture in Anbar Province and as an advocate for incorporating these insights into the military strategy for stabilizing Anbar Province and the country overall.
Mac comes across as a great role model for “leaders” of any stripe who are looking to achieve challenging results within an unfamiliar or complicated organizational culture. For example, his curiosity about the origins and dynamics of tribal culture, as compared to early American administrators who downplayed their importance, seems to have played a key role in his success to date. But curiosity without humility usually shortchanges the learning process. This doesn’t appear to have been the case with Mac. It appears he recognized his ignorance in the beginning, which fueled his desire to fully understand the situation, no matter what uncomfortable path he ended up following. Contrast that with the “I know what I know and full steam ahead” mindset of the initial American strategy or of business leaders who either ignore or downplay the power of an organization’s culture.
I was also glad to read that people recognized how valuable context is when dealing with a fragmented and foreign situation. As Marine Brigadier General John Allen (deputy commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq) says in the article, “virtually everything Mac said added context to things we had been learning ourselves.” Context pulls everything together and gives it meaning. Without context, actions and words can come across as random events that prevent participants from drawing meaning and patterns, dooming them to a predominately reactive strategy.
Something else that caught my “OD” eye was the quote from Montgomery McFate, a cultural anthropologist with a doctorate from Yale whom the Army hired last year to help draft its new strategy for battling insurgents. Dr. McFate, who the article says has helped mentor Mac, has this to say about her charge. “Mac does exactly what good anthropologists do: He enmeshes himself in foreign societies, and attempts to see the world from their point of view while retaining his own objectivity.” Given how the article describes Mac, it would appear Dr. McFate is on target. But what I would add to her assessment of Mac’s skills is that of a change agent. Mac seems to be going beyond just an advisory role. I suspect because of his Marine Corps background and sense of duty, he is determined to influence and change the U.S. military strategy in Iraq. And I think he has a good shot at success for the reasons described above and for one more reason – he is able and willing to work within a framework rather than ignoring or trying to change the framework. In other words, as he learned more about the tribal culture, his conclusion wasn’t the culture was wrong or outdated or in need of change, rather -- it is what it is. Because of this, he wisely shifted his effort to changing the military strategy. And because he is working within an institution he is very familiar with and which views him with a fair amount of credibility, there is a greater likelihood they will listen and take in what he has to say.
If you’re interested in seeing an unclassified version of Mac’s PowerPoint presentation that he gave to Marine Corps brass this year on the tribal culture and implications for the military strategy, click on the this link.
http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/07/coin-in-a-tribal-society-1/
I particularly found his comparison with the Marine Corps culture to be very interesting. Even without his speaking points, you can get the gist of his argument and insights.
Role Model: Mac McCallister
The Granddaddy of Them All
Friday, September 7, 2007
As I was thinking about Adizes’ life cycle stages recently, the Adolescence stage particularly intrigued me. This is the stage when the organization needs to transition from the Founder running the business to hiring professional managers to do so. This is when a lot of drama can occur. It doesn’t always go as smoothly as, let’s say, the Google experience when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin recruited Eric Schmidt from Novell to run Google. It also seems regrettable that the transition can go so badly that circumstances conspire to separate the founder from the very company he or she created (witness Steve Jobs in his first go-around with Apple). I understand that some founders are serial entrepreneurs and are quite happy to move on to the next challenge. But what about those founders who clearly aren’t cut out to be CEO’s of the companies they start but still want to play a significant role in the company’s development and success? They represent the most tangible link to the early days of the company when its values and mission were fresh and energized. Must the new regime push him or her to the sidelines? Is there a role for them?
I think there is and I think we need to look to the role of grandparents in our families to give us some ideas of the role a Founder can have as his or her creation grows up. There are a variety of dimensions to the grandparent role. In some cases it serves as a bridge between parents and children. In other cases, it can reinforce and perpetuate the values and beliefs of the family. Given their position of once-removed from the primary responsibility of raising the children, grandparents can add an objectivity and “long view” to day-to-day activities that parents can’t.
How could this translate into a business setting? I see a need, particularly in companies at the Adolescence stage, to have someone of authority have the responsibility of making sure the organization develops both adaptability and resiliency to ensure its longevity. The common CEO and COO roles divide along areas of focus and somewhat along time – the CEO role primarily has an external focus with a medium term view while the COO role primarily takes an internal focus with an immediate term view. What is missing in these two roles is the long view. Who has primary responsibility to ensure the organization has an organizational infrastructure that will help it continue into the future regardless of market conditions or particular leaders? I think this can be an invaluable role for the Founder as the company matures. They can provide a degree of support, stability, and credibility to the organization that an outside, professional leader would be hard pressed to replicate. And this job need not be just a seat-warmer.
With a title like “Chief Culture and Sustainability Officer,” their primary responsibility would be to build and maintain an organizational culture that gives the organization core survival skills and strategic drive. To make this concrete, I would give him or her primary responsibility for developing the key organizational capabilities and management practices that the Denison Model (see my July 27 posting, “Next Time Call Me”) has identified as key to long-term, bottom-line, organizational vitality. Otherwise, this effort can fall through the cracks – too “big picture” for the COO, too operational for the CEO and too critical for the VP of Human Resources. With such a role, the founder could bring a perspective and context to executive deliberations that would otherwise be missing. And they could serve as the bridge between the past and the present and as the guide between the present and the future.
In the right situation, this role would give certain types of founders the greatest reward for the creativity and hard work it took him or her to get the company started and off the ground – the legacy of a company that lives on past them.
