How - Dov Seidman [113]
David and I built our relationship one interaction at a time, over time, as we both learned more about each other and found a way to reach across the divide of business that had separated us. Along the way we both struggled in the Valley of C, and the things we held dearest to us—our principles, integrity, reputation, honesty—were put severely to the test. Yet despite all the challenges during the journey, neither of us strayed from what he most believed; we kept getting our HOWS right. Years later, we were able to reconnect because, though troubled and strained, the synapses between us were never fully broken. Both of us sensed something strong and authentic in the other and so, with the intercession of time and reflection, we were able to rebuild those connections and make them strong and lasting. Although the Wave we tried to start in the third inning petered out, by the seventh we were all waving our arms and cheering together.
Part IV
HOW WE GOVERN
INTRODUCTION: INNOVATING IN HOW
Business, simply put, is a vessel that contains and expresses the results of human endeavor. Within it pools much that we aspire to: meaning, success, significance, excellence, and contribution to the greater good. There, too, live greed, self-serving attitudes, covetousness, consumption, exploitation, and a host of our less savory qualities. A company or an organization forms to achieve a goal unattainable by an individual alone—a greater service to others, a larger product, or an advancement of human knowledge. For business to find its greatest expression and achieve its loftier aims, it must organize and govern itself in a manner that unleashes these higher forces in those who join within it. Every group faces the challenge of how best to accomplish this goal, an organizational premise that attracts the best and brightest, inspires them to achieve at the highest level, and generates sufficient reward—both monetary and nonmonetary—to compensate their efforts.
In Part One, we discussed the many forces and factors that have fundamentally changed the world in which business operates, placing a new and intense focus on HOW we do What we do. In Parts Two and Three, we examined in depth these new HOWS and explored ways we can, as individuals and groups, learn to master a way of acting and thinking about the world that aligns us more closely with these new realities. Taken together, these three parts provide a new lens through which to see and react to the challenges we face day to day. This leaves us with a profound question: If HOW is the new fuel of human connectedness and achievement, can we conceive of a new organizing principle, a new way of binding ourselves together, in order to create groups, teams, and organizations more capable of making Waves? In other words, can we embed HOW horizontally across every aspect of our organization and make it something that informs everything we do?
To illustrate what I mean by that, let’s briefly discuss a concept that had a similar transformative effect on twentieth-century business: quality and process management, which I think of as the HOWS of WHAT. Since the mid-1980’s or so, global business heartily embraced the concept of designed-in quality and process reengineering. The impetus for the shift came from the success of Japanese manufacturing techniques. Before Japan’s rise as a manufacturing powerhouse, the rest of the world was stuck in the quagmire of the production