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Executive Times |
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2006 Book Reviews |
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Integrity:
The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality by Henry Cloud |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Character Psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud helps
readers look at integrity in new ways in his new book, Integrity:
The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality. Few executives or other
readers think of ourselves as lacking in integrity,
and many become weary of approaches to this topic that are heavy on moral
certitude and light on practical advice. In this book, Cloud focuses on
character, and observes that a successful leader: 1)
Creates and maintains trust 2)
Is able to see and face reality 3)
Works in a way that brings results 4)
Embraces negative realities and solves them 5)
Causes growth and increase 6)
Achieves transcendence and meaning in life Nothing in these observations comes as news to
many readers, nor does Cloud back up his observations with data. What he
offers is a way to think about integrity that may allow readers to reflect on
personal behavior, and pay attention to some areas that could lead to
improved success. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning
of Chapter 4, titled, “Building Trust Through Connection,” pp. 45-53: I had been called into a
merger situation in the health-care industry. Two companies were becoming
one, and therefore, the board had to choose a new leader for the merged
entity One of the companies was being led by an innovator who was strong in
marketing and branding. His strengths were in casting vision, and finding how
to position a product line or service in a way that could make the world
think the fried egg had been invented for the first time. He had experienced
growth pretty much everywhere he had been. Many thought that he would be the
choice to lead the new company. The
other company was led by different guy with an entirely different background.
He was strong in operations and quantitative analysis and had found ways to
make complicated businesses profitable. Known for his optimism and
problem-solving abilities, he exuded positive energy, and when he looked at
any kind of obstacle, he just put his head down and fixed it. To him, no
problem seemed unconquerable, and he had the temerity to tackle tough situations. At the time, the medical industry was undergoing massive
changes as managed care and HMOs were ramping up their takeover of the entire
landscape. For companies to make money in the land of bundled payments,
absence of third-party insurance, reimbursements of half of what had been
paid for services just a few years previously, and complicated contractual
panels that confused everyone as to who the customer was, was to say the
least confusing and daunting. Especially when companies had built entire
strategies, infrastructures, services, products, and teams to address a
world that was quickly becoming nonexistent. As a result, the board chose the
analytical genius, feeling that they really needed his brainpower to find a
way through those complicated waters. And, he was a nice guy. On this particular morning, the new president was to
address the upper-management teams of both companies, in their first meeting
together as a team. It was that exciting day of the new blended family, where
the new leader would call them to be one, cast the vision and set the tone
for the new entity and bring everyone together to become the army that would
rule the world. You could feel the anticipation in the room of what a big
moment this was. The new president’s strengths showed through as he gave
his analysis of the industry, the forces that had driven things to where they
were then, and the opportunities that had been created by such a changing
world. His view was that the resources and talents of the new combined
company were exactly what was needed to make all of those gloomy numbers add
up to good ones. His brain clearly operated on a different plane from most,
and if you were there, you no longer felt the gloom and doom of health care,
but realized that there were still formulas by which a business could operate
and do well. Then it happened. He ended his presentation and opened the
room up to questions. The first was from a woman, who said, “In light of some
of the strategic initiatives that you have talked about, I start to wonder
what is going to happen to our division and my people. In the last few years
we have done a major restructure and I have moved people from all over the
country, brought some on from other companies, and put together a sizable
budget to keep that going and all of them going for the next two years, at
least. As I read between the lines here, with both companies somewhat in this
direction, I start to wonder what is going to happen to some of the paths
that we have been going down, and what might happen to some of the people. I
mean, I see the possibility of some huge shake-ups with this.” You could hear the concern in her voice and even see it in
her eyes when she talked about the people. She was that kind of seasoned
manager who is also coach, den mother, and career steward for people. You
could tell that the people part of what she was asking was as big a factor
as the business question. At the same time, you got the feeling that many
other managers in the room had other employees’ pictures in their own heads,
wondering who they might have to lay off or move. It brought a kind of
immediacy to the air. “Well, that’s not going to be a problem,” the new
president said. “You won’t have to worry about that at all because of the
offshoot lines that are going to come with the merged strategy” He then gave
some figures that supported his thoughts. “There is going to be plenty for
them to do, and I don’t think in that sector we should lose anyone. Don’t
worry about it. That’s not going to happen. There, over there against the wall. . . what
is your question?” While the eyes of most of the room went over to the next
person asking a question, I was fixated on the woman who’d asked the first
one. It was as if her eyes glazed over. He
had totally missed her. It did not matter one iota what he had said about
the numbers, or whether there were going to be a zillion new product lines.
It did not even matter if he was right. What mattered, as the eyes told, was
that he had not come close to understanding what it was like to be in her
shoes, leading hundreds of people who had moved families, given up other
jobs, and trusted her with their futures. He did not get it that she had to
face tons of e-mails and phone calls from real people who were scared, and
she was scared for them. And he also did not get that his quick answer was
not going to fix that. And, she got it
that he didn’t get it, as did others in the room. The next question came from a man about the strategy
itself: “When you said that we can merge some of our existing lines into the
managed-care sales force, I wonder how that is going to work. My experience
is that the teams that call on doctors have very different backgrounds and
strengths than the ones who hammer out the contracts with payers. I am
concerned about how we merge those two cultures and get them on the same
page. I can see some of the salespeople bottoming out in the big institutional
environments. It could be really rocky” As he said that, others in the room
were nodding, leaning over and whispering to each other the way people do
when someone has hit upon something they feel. “That won’t get in the way,” the new president quickly
said. “The new product lines themselves will take care of whatever their
backgrounds lack. They will virtually sell themselves, so the people will
adapt very quickly and actually be a lot better off. The numbers just are on
their side.” I looked at that the man with the question. He had a
little bit of a steel-eyed stare with a quizzical note. I could tell it was
not the expression of “What am I missing here?” but more “Is he seriously
thinking there are going to be no problems with our salespeople?” It was as
if he could not quite believe that this concern had so quickly been dismissed
and explained away The room was a little quieter than it had been a moment
ago. “Who’s next?” the president asked. “I have a question,” another man said. “What is going to
happen to our benefits package? There are a lot of differences in the two
companies and the ways things are covered, and vested. I know that a big part
of our group’s motivation comes from some of the security stuff we have
built in, and is that going to be enlarged to cover the other side of the
company, or are we going to shift to theirs? It will mean that we have to
redo a lot of compensation packages, I think.” “That will work out OK. I think when people get the big
picture of what is happening here, they will be happy with the overall net.
Whatever their benefits package said before is going to be overshadowed by
the new possibilities. They will love it,” the president encouraged. What he
did not see was that people were not going
to love trying to walk their teams through to the place where they loved it.
The questioner knew that in between changing an employee’s benefits and that
person’s “loving the future” was the employee’s
twelve-year-old’s asthma machine and many
emergency-room visits. You could feel the air kind of going out of the room.
People were still attentive and focused on the president, but the feeling had
changed. It was nothing bad or any big elephant in the room. But, the energy
was gone. I could see people’s faces and their eyes glazing over. They were
just no longer there. I know from experience when an audience is with you and
when they aren’t, and this group had exited. The president fielded some more of their questions and
talked about another initiative or two, then ended the meeting. He and I
walked out of the room and through some double doors into a lobby. Before the
doors had completely swung shut, he turned to me with an exuberant smile on
his face and said, “Wasn’t that great! It
went so well.” You could feel his energy “No!” I said. “No! It
wasn’t great at all. It was one of the worst meetings I have ever sat
through. You completely lost them. You did not connect with one of their
concerns whatsoever. You just systematically went through the room and told
them why what they were concerned about wasn’t true. You invalidated all of
their experiences and fears. “I am telling you, you
missed them big-time and you are going to have to do something to get them
back. It was awful.” I surprised myself a little at how strongly I came out
of the gate with him, but it was so true. “That’s not true,” he
said, a puzzled look on his face. “I didn’t do that!” “See? You just did it
again, right then, to me. You just
negated and invalidated what I was trying to tell you. You didn’t hear it at
all. You’re not getting it when people tell you what they are experiencing.
That is what I mean, right there.” I went on to try to explain to him how he
did that, and he just didn’t get it. Why? Not because of a
lack of talent, brains, or competencies. It was because of the lack of
character integrity in the manner we have described: “unified, whole,
undivided, unimpaired, and sound in construction.” As I followed him through
the next year, I could see the lack of those things in this situation, in his
entire wake. In less
than a year, he was gone. Now, here is the
point. He was a very nice guy a
caring guy He would have thrown himself in front of the train for any of
those people and also for their employees and their families that he had
never met. That is just the kind of person he was. When a receptionist in
his office was having a birthday or some other occasion, he was the one who
would get everyone to buy a gift, get a cake, and hang up the balloons. He
loved to make people feel good and treated them well. But, and this is a big but, his makeup was impaired and not whole. Although he
was a caring person, he was unable to connect with what people were really
thinking, feeling, and experiencing. As a result, as much as he cared, they
often did not experience that he really understood and often felt that he
just missed them altogether. He could be nice and cheer everyone up, but he
did not tune in to what people were experiencing, feeling, thinking, in a way
that made them feel that he had heard their hearts. That is what happened in that meeting and continued to
happen in his leadership. He could not make people feel as if he entered into
their reality so although he had their attention through his position, he did not have their hearts. And this
was not only with regard to the emotional material such as the woman who was
concerned about her people, but also with the real business and strategic
realities that other people had as well. He would hear the facts, but if he
had another reality they would not know that he had heard them at all. To illustrate, let’s go back to that meeting and see what
he was missing. When the woman talked about the people she had moved and the
things that they had poured themselves into for two years, what if his makeup
was one that actually drove him to
enter into her experience? What if he possessed the kind of empathy that desfred to know what it was like for her and
what she was going through? In short, to be there with her, instead of
telling her why her experience Was wrong. It would have sounded something
like this instead: “Wow, you’ve poured a lot of yours and other
people’s lives into this. How long have you guys been going down this path?” “Really. . . how many people have
you moved? That must have been really hard to make that call, and alsofor them to do it. How did it go? Was the restructure
messy?” “I can
see if I am In your shoes why you would be worried for them. They
have got to be scared too. . . . What have they been
saying to you? I mean, they have had all of this change and now another one. . . . Anyone close to leaving?” “So you’re dealing with some people who must
be really on pins and needles, I’m glad you’re worried about them.” “Of course I can understand your concern. I
would be feeling like that too. Let me tell you what my thoughts are on it,
and then you tell me what that sounds like. Tell me if you think it will help them or if we need to understand
more.” Can you feel the difference in the room? If he were
leaning into her reality and experience, and joining it, they would have been
together, and the room would have been right there with them too. He would
have had them because they would have felt as if he really understood and
connected with where they were and what they were experiencing. And by
“having them,” I don’t mean in a manipulative way. He would have them in a
real way because he really cared and was putting his arms around their
experience. They would have each other. Now, here is an important point. Perhaps, in the end, he would have made no different decisions from
the ones he had made. Perhaps he was exactly right about the new
opportunities blowing away anything that they were previously doing, and it
would truly be good in the end, just as he said. If he had understood their
concerns, he would not have had to change anything in the end. He was the
leader, and it was going to be his call ultimately. Understanding someone
doesn’t mean that you will necessarily agree with them. But it does mean that if you are going to get them to come
with you in your final decision,
and trust you, you have to understand where they are and join them in that
place first. if you have kids in The
entirety of Integrity
is written in this conversational style, and for a psychologist, Cloud is not
heavy handed with jargon. Most readers will find something of benefit on
these pages. Steve Hopkins,
May 25, 2006 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the June 2006
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Integrity.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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