The Dark Side
Holding Out For A Hero
We have a strong narrative of the hero leader, the one who saves the day through their genius, bravery, bold actions and superhuman efforts. Even though, as a society, we have lost faith in our leaders, we still talk in heroic terms.
We see this in politics, of course, but it’s also strong in Business. The feted CEO who turns the company around, the wunderkind who builds a behemoth from nothing with pure genius. The Business Press just loves this stuff, splashing the latest hero over their front covers.
But it turns out many of them have feet of clay and, inevitably, they crash and burn. Right now we have two of biggest darlings of the technorati, Musk and Zuckerberg, proving that there’s a lot less to them than meets the eye. No matter, some new ones will be along soon.
Why are we seemingly stuck in this story loop? I am reminded of Tomas Chamorro-Premusik’s deadly triad of Confidence, Charisma and Narcissism, taken from his book ‘Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It)’. We have a a deeply flawed system that rewards arrogance rather than humility, and loudness rather than wisdom - and we don’t seem to be trying to change it.
The latest to join the Rogues Gallery is FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (no, me neither), another ‘wunderkind’ who seems to have more talent for promoting himself and persuading people to give him money than running an actual functioning business. He seems very much in the mould of WeWork founder, Adam Neumann, who inflated a balloon of nonsense to an extraordinary degree before it, inevitably, went pop. However, this is not the sole preserve of middle-class white guys, Elizabeth Holmes was ‘doing for the sisters’ with her Theranos ‘venture’.
When will it stop? Well, Adam Neumann has just been lent vast sums of money for his latest wheeze, another real estate based concept that seeks to bend known reality. So no time soon, it seems. Some of us are just suckers for that Confidence, Charisma and Narcissism.
Beat It
The more I find out about out about Elon Musk, the less I like him. I don’t know whether he’s a genius or not but he definitely looks like a psychopathic bully to me. The way he is treating people at Twitter is reprehensible and yet it seems it is pretty much his Modus Operandi. (The way this odious approach is defended by his fan-boys is pretty stomach-turning too.)
Yesterday I accidentally typed Trump instead of Musk, I wonder what could link them in my brain?
For some reason, I remembered that I had mentioned the Dark factor model (Moshagen, Hilbig & Zettler) in a previous newsletter. This builds upon the ‘dark triad’ of Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machiavellianism with the extra traits of Spitefulness, Moral disengagement, Entitlement, Egoism. Well, kinda fits Trump…
I’m sure that Musk’s removal of accounts that criticise him, his belief that regulations don’t apply to him and his high self-regard are just co-incidental. Underneath it all he really is a great guy, as his supporters insist, who loves mankind and just wants to make the world a better place.
Or, failing that, make Mars a better place. Sayonara, suckers!
Highway To Hell
Musk’s latest mandate to ‘Return to The Office’ is born of a desire to control and exploit, as evidence suggests it is likely to have negative impact. However, it serves the approach he has used at SpaceX and Tesla. This is to get people to work insanely hard to achieve breakthroughs and exceptional results, often burning them out in the process.
This is something he’s borrowed from the Silicon Valley tech companies, it’s most notable and stylish proponent being Steve Jobs and his insistence on only recruiting ‘A Players’. It worked because people bought into two things - an alluring and compelling vision and the chance to become massively wealthy through free stock options in a future ‘Unicorn’.
Only Musk can’t offer either of those at Twitter. It’s a mature product in a crowded and arguably declining market and he doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s going to do with it. It’s certainly not going to change the world, it’s already had it’s defining impact.
All he’s got to offer is intimidation and gaslighting, which is why he needs people in the office. He will almost certainly churn the workforce. If he’s lucky, he’s going to end up with a bunch of ‘C Players’ with a few ‘Z Players’ thrown in. Doesn’t sound a very promising crew, does it?
Chain Gang
The call to Return to The Office is expected to strengthen as the recession starts to bite and employers perceive they have more power. However, employees still highly value the flexibility of remote or hybrid or whatever you want to call it and employers aren’t doing anything to change their minds. This is coercion, plain and simple, and it won’t be without cost.
There is already evidence emerging that RTO mandates have negative impacts and it’s really not hard to figure out why. What’s more, the best and most talented will still have the upper hand. So how do you satisfy their requirements for flexible working whilst dragging everyone else back into the office? Maybe just not have any really good people?
It’s all a red herring anyway. Where people work is just not a critical issue anymore. Even if it matters now, it won’t in the future.
The real win is in embracing new ways of working - async, agile, networked, self-organising. Adopting these will deliver massive gains by reducing bureaucratic cost and drag, release innovation and realise people’s potential, enable close linkage with the customer and all sorts of other benefits.
The issue of location matters only because moving to a more flexible or remote style of working encourages and accelerates the adoption of these new ways of working. If you are a location and time independent organisation, then these not only make perfect sense, they are realistically the only way you can function and you have to get good at them.
But well-run organisations already know this. The rest will learn the hard way. Or they could go and set up on Mars, where I am sure they’d be welcome.
(Next week will be a Musk-free edition. Promise.)