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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walters, Amy, author.
Title: Ruthlessly caring : and other paradoxical mindsets leaders need to be future-fit / by Amy Walters.
Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2023. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022056917 (print) | LCCN 2022056918 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394177172 (cloth) | ISBN 9781394187058 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394187041 (epub)
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056917
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056918
Cover Design: Wiley
Set in 12.5 / 15pt Minion Pro by Straive, Chennai, India
To my family and friends, for all your love, laughter, and support.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks go to all those who helped and encouraged me in the writing of this book.
With special thanks to Dominic Mahony, Kate Bamford, and Thomas Hacker.
PREFACE
This book will not make leadership easy, but it will help you evolve and expand your thinking. Consequently, if you are looking for a simple paint-by-numbers guide to leadership, this is not it.
Leading a business is hard and involves grappling with numerous conflicting demands, tackling unprecedented challenges, and making tough decisions. Especially in today’s environment, where megatrends such as advancing technology, climate change, rising inequality, and hyper-connection via social media are converging, across all industries, leaders are finding themselves operating on shifting sands. Required to carve out success in a landscape that is constantly changing and highly complex.
This book tackles the reality of senior leadership and explores the mindsets and skills that determine high performance in today’s context.
Specifically, whilst the title highlights the ‘ruthlessly caring’ mindset, there are in fact five paradoxical mindsets leaders need to thrive in today’s business landscape:
1. ruthlessly caring
2. ambitiously appreciative
3. politically virtuous
4. confidently humble
5. responsibly daring.
These mindsets originated from interviews with award-winning leaders from around the world, who had been recognised for their future-thinking, innovation, and disruption. Following this, two years of research was carried out to dig deep into what underpins each mindset and how to develop it. This research also explored the nature of paradoxes and leadership identity.
While being heavily based in research (with evolutionary, occupational and neuropsychology woven in throughout), the book (hopefully!) avoids being overly academic, theoretical, or jargony. It aims to be practical and action orientated, synthesising what is most useful to know and staying focused on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ – what you need to do differently and how to do it.
In the spirit of staying practical, alongside the insights from research, there are numerous ‘leader-to-leader’ stories throughout the book. These were gathered via first-hand interviews and aim to bring key concepts and ideas to life with real-world examples. Each leader interviewed was candid in their advice and support, and it is hoped this will help others in senior leadership positions feel they are not alone, as well as spark fresh conversations and idea-sharing across leadership groups and networks. Essentially, these ‘leader-toleader’ stories offer up practical wisdom – top tips and ‘lessons learnt the hard way’ – providing something of a learning fast-track, by enabling you to draw on a greater bank of experiences, maximising your own ability to exercise judgement and wisdom at critical moments.
It is worth emphasising that no leader mentioned in the book is being held up as perfect. None of the leaders interviewed in the
initial research had perfectly mastered all five paradoxical mindsets. Not all the leaders cited as examples in text via second-hand sources have a ‘perfect-10’ track record of behaviour or performance. Similarly, the leaders interviewed for the ‘leader-to-leader’ stories would be the first to say there are still areas they are working on and are keen to develop. This is not a catalogue of leaders who are perfect and over-the-finish-line of development. It is a collation of leaders who have different strengths and development areas and who are on their own journey with it. This book is therefore not about helping you on a quest to be perfect – it aims to help you on a quest to keep developing, unlearning, and relearning, so you can adapt effectively to the context you are in and the challenges you will face, now and in the years to come.
Finally, whilst many people in the corporate world talk about ‘future- proofing’ – this book instead refers to leaders becoming ‘future-fit’. The notion of ‘future-proof’ suggests building up a protective shield against the future. It suggests installing something fixed and durable against all elements, whatever comes. This is an unhelpful mindset to have. The future is not something to be guarded against, tomorrow will come, circumstances will change, and events can be influenced. The last thing leaders need is to be ‘proofed’ against the future. What they need is to be fit and well-matched to the context they are in and adaptable to changing conditions.
Other key points to flag to you as a reader:
• This book is best nibbled and digested slowly (after Chapters 1 and 2, go straight for the chapters that appeal the most). Like a buffet of evidence and brain food, there’s a lot in here and it will be hard to digest in one go. Read Chapters 1 and 2. But then, after that, do not feel the need to work through Chapters 3–7 diligently in a linear way. Go straight
to the mindset which looks most appealing to you. Tuck in. Digest. Come back later to explore something else.
• Read the last chapter. Implementing these paradoxes into your day-to-day world requires identity-level change. The final chapter discusses identity in detail so do not miss it out. Understanding how to expand your identity is critical if you want to embrace all five paradoxical mindsets and enhance your leadership performance.
• Be critical. Feel free to violently disagree or agree, add in your own ideas and thinking – these are ideas based on interviews with leaders and research into the topics of megatrends, paradoxes, identity, and each of the mindsets. Not all concepts are new (that would be bizarre and worrying), it is an evidence-based proposal that aims to add to existing knowledge and ideas. It can and should be challenged, discussed, added to, reviewed; it is a contribution to what is known about leadership, not a conclusion. It is a synthesis and proposal to spark further thoughts and prompt an evolution in leadership practice.
CHAPTER 1
MEGATRENDS THAT ARE RESHAPING THE WORLD
Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.
—Isaac Asimov, writer and professor of biochemistry
There are certain periods and moments throughout history where significant change and trends have occurred, yet leaders failed to respond to them prior to their impact – often caught out by continuing to think and operate in outdated ways.
Take World War I, for example – the course of events had started to be shaped over 160 years earlier, as the first Industrial Revolution got underway.
In response to the need to find efficient ways to scale production, British manufacturers invented game-changing technologies, such as steam locomotives for army transport, ironclad steam-powered warships, and cast-iron cannons. Enabled by advancements in metal-shaping precision, the United States, Germany, and France brought in the first machine guns and rapid-fire rifles.
These technological changes disrupted the business-as-usual routines in militaries across the world. However, many leaders failed to shift their thinking and approach and were slow to respond even when the stark new reality of war was brutally apparent. The French army, for example, was still using the same drill formations and colourful uniforms as they had been 100 years previously, but now they were sending their troops to face machine guns in those bright blue coats, red trousers, and plumed helmets: a tragic case of leaders failing to adapt to the times they were in.1,2
History is also littered with examples of business leaders who failed to evolve their thinking and keep pace with the trends occurring. Take America’s so-called ‘retail apocalypse’ as an example. In 2017, the overall disposable income in America rose along with an increase in consumer spending, and yet many prominent retailers found themselves in trouble. By April 2017, already the number of bankruptcies had nearly surpassed the entire total of the previous year.3
Whilst the media’s use of the term ‘apocalypse’ was not without controversy, there is no doubt that many retailers were (and continue to be) hit hard by a fast-changing landscape.4 The rise in online shopping, shifts towards experiential consumer spending (i.e., restaurants and travel over material possessions), and an oversupply of malls changed the game for brick-and-mortar retail stores. But, many leaders missed the defining issue of the day: shopper experience.5 They did not realise they needed to switch from a transaction mindset focused on, ‘how do we sell more stuff?’ to a value-creation mindset exploring, ‘how do we create value beyond the transaction?’6 This mismatch between context and thinking led to several years of industry devastation, and in 2019, American retail store closures due to bankruptcy reached a new record high.
Why is this relevant to you? Because the business rulebook is being rewritten. The context in which senior leaders are operating has fundamentally altered, and a significant recalibration of thinking is required.
Of course, there have always been turning-point moments where specific industries were disrupted, with leaders forced to evolve their approach or risk going under. But what is different today is the scale, speed, and complexity of the change occurring in the business world. At least 12 megatrends are interacting and redefining ‘the way the business world works’, as a whole, not piece by piece. Every industry is being disrupted as numerous trends converge.
Alongside these trends, company life expectancy is shrinking, with sustained high performance becoming ever more elusive. Specifically, there is a long-term trend of declining corporate longevity, with the average lifespan of a company on the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) currently at 20 years, having reduced from 36 years in 1980, and forecast to shorten further to 16 years throughout
the 2020s.7 Credit Suisse reviewed the reasons for company removal from the S&P 500 Index, between 2000 and 2016, and found 52% of these removals were a result of merger and acquisition activity and 32% were due to business failure.8 Consequently, while some of this shortened performance lifespan can be accounted for by M&A activity, a third cannot. It is also clear that younger companies are outperforming long-standing companies, indicating that leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain high performance in the long term and keep well-established organisations successful.
To sustain high performance in today’s megatrends environment, leaders must challenge their entrenched assumptions and embrace new ways of thinking. As survey results show, 60% of C-suite leaders report that these mega trends require them to think and act differently,9 with 79% of C-suite leaders agreeing that senior leaders throughout their organisation will need to adopt a different set of mindsets for their business to succeed in the future.
The key message here is that leaders cannot tackle new challenges with old thinking and outdated approaches: the game has changed. A new form of leadership will be required to take on the scale, speed, and complexity of changes occurring. A fundamental shift in thinking and decision-making is called for.
Before we dig into how leadership thinking needs to evolve to match the context that leaders are facing, let us first explore the drivers of change: the megatrends.
The Megatrends Shaping the Current and Future Leadership Context
Megatrends are major patterns or directions of development that occur at a global scale. They are the driving forces that define the
Megatrends t hat a re r eshaping the World
world today and shape the world of tomorrow. They permeate all sectors and impact all types of organisations.
As shown in Figure 1.1, reports and forecasting data from businesses, governments, and think tanks collectively show how at least 12 megatrends are shaping the current and future landscape. Therefore if you wish to be aligned with the times you are in, lead in a way that is ‘future-fit’, and safeguard the future of your organisation, these are the global trends you need to be aware of and actively consider.
Let us look at each megatrend in more detail:
Technological Changes
• Advances in technology and biological science.
Technology is advancing in multiple directions at great speed.10 For years, there has been rapid innovation and progress across many areas of technology; for example, in physical technology (e.g., with autonomous vehicles, drones, 4D printing, and robotics) and digital technology (e.g., with the Internet of Things, edge computing, 5G, digital twins,
Advances in technology and biological science
Evolving workforce and customer expectations Increasing and high levels of inequality
change and scarcity of resources
through social media Urbanisation
Figure 1.1 The 12 megatrends shaping the current and future leadership context.
Aging populations and multigenerational workforces
Global skills gap and competition for talent
Rising geopolitical tensions
Big data and the rise of the behavioural economy
Growing numbers of disruptive start-ups
Shifting economic powers
Climate
Hyper-connectivity
digital platforms, digitally extended realities, blockchain, and distributed ledgers).
Similarly, in fields like material technology, 2D materials (namely, graphene and borophene) have sparked huge excitement and investment over recent years. Specifically, these new monoatomic materials are super-strong, flexible, have extraordinary heat conductance, and conduct electricity a thousand times better than copper. They have the potential to fully charge an electric car in minutes, unlock clean drinking water for millions, improve health testing, and create a new generation of electronics.11,12
Meanwhile, already artificial intelligence is all around us in various forms, and, with the advances in quantum computing, 5G connectivity, and precision sensors, much progress is anticipated in the next decade around human augmentation (where technology enhances our human capabilities, either permanently or temporarily).13
Significant advancements are also being made in the field of biological science, with the past decade seeing a growing wave of innovation in synthetic biology and microbiology. For example, microbiome advances (‘microbiomes’ being the communities of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and their genes that naturally live on and in our bodies) are expected to influence innovation of nearly every industry, with microbiome applications unlocking a wealth of new products, services, and operational approaches to tackling key challenges like climate disruption, chronic diseases, and urban pollution.13 As Steve Jobs put it, ‘the biggest innovations in the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning’.14
Leadership implications: The pace of technological advancement is hard to comprehend. The impact of all the innovation occurring in different sectors is nearly impossible to anticipate. What is clear is that no organisation is exempt: leaders must stay alert to change and drive ongoing transformation to survive and stay relevant. Whether it is staying ahead of the market and harnessing new technologies or keeping up with market disruptions and protecting their business against the emerging risks that technologies present, no business is immune.
It is also critical for leaders to remember that, even though technological advancements are driving change, investing in the right technologies is only part of the challenge. People (i.e., human emotions, responses, and behaviours) remain the determining factor in whether a transformation is successful.15
• Big data and the rise of the behavioural economy.
Like the size of the solar system, the exponential growth of data is difficult to get your head around. Every year, over 94 zettabytes of data is created, captured, copied, and consumed.16 Every day, 319.6 billion emails are sent and over 28 petabytes of data is generated by wearable devices.17,18 Every minute, close to 42 million WhatsApp messages are exchanged.19 And, this is just a snapshot. The amount of data in existence is skyrocketing and it has frequently been said that the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil but data. But it is the insight into human behaviour that holds real value.
By harvesting and analysing the wealth of data generated about our lives, organisations can now understand and shape behaviour like never before, using increasingly precise and sophisticated tactics of persuasion. There is increasing
awareness that if something is free or low-cost, as a user, you and your data are the product they are selling. But it still does not stop us entering our details or clicking ‘accept all’ when asked to ‘allow cookies’. As a megatrend report published by EY stated:13 ‘we unwittingly reveal more about our desires and fears to search engines than to our families or friends. Our phones and social media platforms have more data about our behaviours, preferences, and states of mind than we may realize’.
Leadership implications. While the advancement of behavioural economics (the study of the factors influencing human decision-making) can be a force for good, with governments and organisations using the insight positively to help people lead healthier lives and make more planet-friendly choices, the potential to exploit data is also very real. As we enter an era where the datasphere is growing and behavioural insight is the most valuable commodity, both individuals and leaders will need to tread carefully.
• Hyper-connectivity through social media.
Current figures show 58.4% of the world’s population now uses social media,20 with the average user spending 2 hours 26 minutes on social networks per day.21 While the percentage of the population using social media is steadily increasing (by an average of 10.1% year-on-year), the time spent appears to have plateaued (averaging 2 hours 22 minutes for the past five years).20
Social media is still predominantly about connecting with friends, family, and communities across the world; however, for a while now, these platforms have not just been a place to connect but a key source of news. For example, a survey by Pew Research Centre showed how 48% of adults in America get their news from social media ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’.22
