Leadership: what you know or who you know?
Andrew Kakabadse
Steve Macaulay
When it comes to leadership, is who you know more important than what
you know? To explore this issue is Professor Andrew Kakabadse. Now,
Andrew, is who you know more important than what you know?
Andrew Kakabadse
To a certain extent, the answer is yes, but that depends on the level of
complexity that you are dealing with. The functional skills and
professional skills required to do a job, let me tell you, are absolutely vital
and sometimes we get the boundaries wrong between appointing
somebody for their professional competence, as opposed to their network
reach if you like.
And where I am seeing an area that requires attention – and people do not
wish to discuss really what is happening – is the area of boards. Still too
many appointments to boards, even using search consultants, are based
on the fact of comfort and fit and having that network reach rather than
that independent, functionally skilled opinion that you need on a board in
order to prevent risk and minimise harm to the organisation.
So who you know, what you know is partly a question of providing a
professional skill, as opposed to dealing with complexities; and one of the
complexities are the varying agendas that people have in order to position
resources in a particular direction. This is nothing new, this has been ages
old and this is why we have networks and this is why we have colleagues
and friends and individuals that we can talk to; partly because we need to
understand what are the natures of these complexities and partly because
there has to be a momentum that you have to be able to stimulate in
order to have your point of view, your strategy, your vision realised.
Now it is an interesting theme for human beings that whatever we write in
books, the best learning through interaction. I suspect that is why we
have universities, that is why we have schools – otherwise you could sit at
home and be fed data in a very linear way. But the real learning takes
place through emotions, through the sharing of experiences and getting
people on your side and getting them engaged so that they accept more
your point of view, as opposed to another point of view is the network. So
when you have a network based complexity, when you have conflicts of
vision, when you have conflicting priorities on a grand scale, it is very
important to be able to influence and usually the influence that works is
from the inside but not from the outside. That is why, who you know now
predominates over what you know.
Steve Macaulay
Now some people see rather sinister aspects to this of things going on
behind closed doors; I know that you have just written a book, for
example, Bilderberg People, where very high level people meet and make
decisions and discuss things in a very confidential way. Is there something
dangerous about that and bad? Or is it a good thing?
Andrew Kakabadse
It is both; the dangerous and bad cynical part is when you would get one
group that has an overwhelming reach and is pushing their agenda in one
direction. The good thing about it is you will always get people who will
talk to each other under confidential circumstances because they need to
explore, because they need to let their hair down and because they need
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to have a confidential conversation that allows, if you like, half-truths to be
spoken and half ideas to be explored. I mean, just imagine if the CEO of a
major corporation was at a meeting expressing his doubts about the future
concerning his strategy – which are real doubts by the way – and that
became public. The share price of that organisation would drop. But
most CEOs have doubts about the future; how can a CEO predict what is
going to happen for years with the rapid turbulence that we face right
now. So you always need the confidentiality of a meeting to explore ideas
that help you clarify your own. The cynicism is when one point of view
predominates over the other; and I have to say that is a concern.
Steve Macaulay
Some people say in this world of Facebook, social media, Tweeting and so
on, that the wisdom of crowds, that things have opened up completely and
that we don’t need these closed conversations any more. What is your
view?
Andrew Kakabadse
Makes no difference actually. The whole IT movement is basically there
for people to get together and discuss issues; I doubt if you will find highly
confidential issues that have behind them a massive capital support that
could put thousands of people out of work being discussed over Twitter.
What you may have is people’s personal lives being discussed over Twitter,
but we did that in the pub in any case thirty years ago.
So I don’t see that there is any real pattern or shift in the way we are
communicating, we are just using different channels. The conversation
that friends had between themselves at some sort of informal gathering
they are now having through electronic media, as well as meeting in the
pub. The conversations that were held behind closed doors are still being
held behind closed doors and you will never see any public medium trying
to capture that in a meaningful way; hence, the paranoia, hence the
conspiracy theory.
Steve Macaulay
Andrew, thank you very much.
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