The simple truths about leadership: creating a people-centric culture larry peters - The complete eb
The Simple Truths About Leadership: Creating a People-Centric Culture Larry Peters
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/the-simple-truths-about-leadership-creating-a-peoplecentric-culture-larry-peters/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover design by Fatima Jamadar
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
I am a student of effective organizations. From both my academic perch and consulting experience, I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to organizational effectiveness. It always amazes me that there is so much “bad and ugly”…and how often it is earned! Every now and then, I come across a truly effective organization and marvel at the underlying simplicity that seems to define and sustain its success. As I encountered more examples of truly effective organizations, in large and small companies alike, I have come to understand the few Simple Truths that seem to underlie and help explain their sustainable success.
After two decades of studying, consulting with, and talking about effective organizations, I’ve decided to share my ideas and insights to a business world that needs them now more than ever. In this book, I will speak about 10 Simple Truths that have always mattered for engaging the heads and hearts of people, and argue why they are so important today. In doing so, I will use examples from my consulting experience and share brief stories from several great companies (e.g., Southwest Airlines) that bring these Simple Truths to life.
Leaders who embrace these Simple Truths can produce what I call a PeopleCentric culture. It is one that puts the responsibility for long-term success— in a turbulent business environment where it belongs—on the people who have to embrace and enact new visions, strategies, business models, technology, and reorganizations if the business is to prosper. After developing these ideas, I will speak about the kind personal leadership necessary to earn the right to lead others in this direction. The last chapter of the book focuses on building a People-Centric culture and a call to action to those who are now clear about the “what” and “why” of a People-Centric culture. I will end the book by looking at a true People-Centric culture and leader. This company,
Beryl, has produced spectacular business results that are arguably closely connected to its culture. You will get the chance to learn from Paul Spiegelman, the founder and first CEO of Beryl, as he talks about his efforts to build a culture that gets the best from his people every day.
Why This Book? Why Now?
Our businesses have suffered serious harm during the middle of the last decade due to the worldwide economic slowdown and great recession. In the process of staying the course, business leaders have made a number of decisions and have taken a number of actions that have done harm to their relationships with their employees. They’ve essentially rewritten the psychological contract with their people in ways that many will have a hard time forgetting and leaders will have a hard time reversing. The new psychological contract tells employees that their leaders are in it for themselves, for their owners and stockholders, for positive reports from Wall Street, and for their customer base—for every stakeholder group other than the people who work there! This is the seedbed for serious problems. It cast a shadow on how willing employees had become to trust their leaders and, maybe, more importantly, on their willingness to commit to the long-term success of the business going forward.
Why now? This is the perfect timing for such a book. A return to a more positive business cycle gives leaders a reprieve, and they need to take full advantage of it before the business cycle reverses itself and they remain stuck in old ways of thinking and old ways of acting. Economists tell us that we’re now closer to the next recession than to the last one. It is in those down times that businesses need their people most…and leaders must start earning that support starting now. This book will provide an understanding of why this is a critical business issue and how leaders and their organizations need to change so that old patterns of dysfunction end and new patterns of effectiveness take root.
Purpose
I had several purposes for writing this book. First, I wanted to provide hope for business leaders who are currently struggling with getting the best their people have to offer. It is not surprising that surveys show American workers to be so disengaged, mistrusting of their leaders, and uncommitted to the success of their business. It doesn’t have to be that
way! Disengagement, lack of trust, and low commitment need to be replaced with heart, energy, and real commitment—where all people act as real partners in the business. I will describe what this alternative looks like and why it matters in turbulent and uncertain times. I will exemplify this purpose with examples from great companies like Southwest Airlines and Beryl, and other companies that have paved the way to this new understanding.
Second, I wanted to provide a roadmap for creating a more engaged and committed workforce. I will do this by addressing what I call the Simple Truths about creating and sustaining a successful business. These 10 Simple Truths are ones that many people seem to understand and agree with, but nonetheless seem to undervalue. Business leaders continue to look for some sort of secret sauce rather than the straightforward ways that great companies have always produced an engaged workforce and long-term success.
Third, I wanted to address how leaders can move in the direction of making these Simple Truths a part of their lives. In doing so, I point out that we, as business leaders, create most of the people problems we struggle with, and then need to address. When business leaders understand how their actions weaken and even break the psychological contract with their people, they can finally see, understand, and get on a new path to prosperous futures. The insight here is not in identifying and discussing each Simple Truth, but, rather, in speaking to why, as a set, they create the only path forward that assures the support of the very people who can make a company successful.
Fourth, I looked at People-Centric leadership from four viewpoints. First, I discuss what it takes to become a People-Centric leader. This involves being fully respectful of the people we lead—to all of our people, all of the time. I focus on a broader meaning of “respect,” and talk about several components that can serve as a guide to leaders who want to step up to this personal challenge. Second, I speak to what leaders can do to earn the right to lead others toward adopting a more People-Centric perspective. This is essentially a discussion of what it means to be a living emblem of People-Centric leadership; to model the way. Third, I discuss how leaders can help develop others, so that they become more effective leaders. When we can grow the next generation of leaders to be more People-Centric, we are on a path toward creating a more People-Centric culture. That’s the end-point in a journey—one that starts with you, moves to others, and ends with impacting the entire organization. Finally, I challenge readers to step up to move themselves, others, and their organization toward a more People-Centric way of being.
A Final Note
I far too often run into people who proclaim that they have little ability to influence their circumstance, and as a result fall victim to it…or, said more accurately, fall victim to their thought process. If we truly believe we cannot change anything, we will be right! Our actions follow our thoughts. Don’t fall victim to old ways of thinking. We can, and do, create our future, and it doesn’t have to be a linear extension of our past. We can make new choices; create new realities.
If you are not getting the best from your people, read this book with the goal of turning that around. If your people are disengaged and non-committed, don’t just blame them. After all, you helped to create the circumstances that led to disengagement and non-commitment. Begin by changing how you think about your people and about your leadership. Chose to value your people, and then, act as though this were really important to you. If you do this in ways that truly show your respect, you will have taken the first step in turning your people into your partners.
This can be a difficult first step for many who believe that leaders need to be strong and people need to be pushed to get the job done. That’s old thinking, and old thinking gets old results. In a new world, this is dangerous. So, I am asking you to fight this older, more traditional view of how we lead and what little to expect from our people. It reflects a bygone era. Today’s business challenges require us to get the best from our people…and they choose whether to give it or not! New ways of thinking; new ways of leading. Change your mindset and you are on the path that leads to a sustainable, positive future. Change others’ mindsets and you are on the path to building a culture where everyone has a responsibility to each other and to the company. It starts with you. Enjoy the journey.
Larry Peters
Website: http://www.SimpleTruthsLeadership.com
Email: Larry@SimpleTruthsLeadership.com
Fort Worth, TX, USA
Larry Peters
Acknowledgments
I am happy to share a revised, updated, and expanded version of my first book, The Simple Truths About Leadership. I decided to write a second edition based on the feedback I’ve received from dozens of readers. They loved it… and they told me they wanted more on:
• what partnership is all about
• how to help others understand and adopt a more People-Centric mindset and leadership style
• what it means to have a People-Centric culture
• how to bring about a People-Centric culture, and
• how these ideas work in a “real world” setting
This revision will do all that while maintaining the integrity of the ideas that make it distinctive from other books on leadership. The biggest change was to connect the dots from leadership to corporate culture. The second edition will underscore the role of corporate culture as a way to leverage the impact of leaders. To that end, I’ve expanded the ideas around culture and gone into more detail on how to shift toward a more People-Centric culture that can deliver the kind of results that are needed to adapt quickly to changing business realities. I still focus on the need, and path, for turning our people into our partners, and now speak about how to embed these ideas into the culture. I hope you like this shift in focus and find value in it for serving your needs.
I would like to thank Marcus Ballenger, commissioning editor at Palgrave Macmillan, for shepherding my proposal to final acceptance, and Jacqui Young, my editorial assistant at Palgrave Macmillan, for her responsiveness to my many questions during the manuscript preparation process. I also want to
Acknowledgments
thank decades of MBA students who shared stories about their organizations and leaders, who challenged my ideas with tough questions, and who provided critical feedback. As a result, they helped sharpen my thinking and build my confidence that I was bringing an important message into the world. I want to say thank you to Cynthia Young and Paul Spiegelman, who for over a decade have come to my MBA classes to talk about their businesses—Beryl and Southwest Airlines—and help teach my students the real applications of, and real business results that come from, living these Simple Truths in their organizations. A special thanks to Paul for graciously allowing me to interview him and share his story about a great People-Centric culture and business. I have always admired Paul and regard his story as a great example of what can be created and sustained by a true People-Centric leader. Finally, I want to thank my wife Dawn for encouraging me to bring newer ideas into written form and complete the work I started with her support a few years ago.
Please reach out to me with your thoughts, feedback, questions, and ideas for future editions. I listened to your feedback when deciding what needed to be added to this edition. Perhaps you can help shape the third edition…or other works that build on this foundation.
Feel free to contact me at Larry@SimpleTruthsLeadership.com.
Praise for The Simple Truths About Leadership
“Tremendous! Dr. Peters has written an engaging and accessible book on leadership that achieves that rare combination of being truly insightful while simultaneously being extremely practical. His advice on how to create a People-Centric culture really hits the mark, and his 10 truths might indeed be simple but they clearly are profound—and they can have a significant impact on you and your leadership. I highly recommend this wonderful book.”
—Stephen M.R. Covey, co-founder, FranklinCovey Speed of Trust Practice; NYT best-selling author of The Speed of Trust and co-author of Smart Trust
“Dr. Peters writes from long and unique experience as he helps us become not just better leaders, but better people. Investing in this wonderful volume is like engaging Peters as your personal mentor—you’ll never get a better ROI!”
—Joseph Grenny, co-chairman, VitalSmarts; NYT best-selling author of Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change
“The lessons in this book are critical for the new talent era. Employees as partners and investors in the ideas, purpose, product, and processes of our organizations is exactly what is needed in today’s fast-paced, changing talent landscape where employees are incentivized by an entirely new set of operating principles. Larry brings forth in powerful conversation the thing that excites and inspires us all: partnership. A must read top winner for any leader’s bookshelf—start treating your employees as partners or someone else will!”
—Louis Carter, CEO, Best Practice Institute; author of In Great Company: How to Spark Peak Performance by Creating an Emotionally Connected Workplace
“We all know that a company can only be as great as its people make it. The question is, how can you create a culture in which your people want to create a great business as much as you do? Larry Peters shows you the way in Simple Truths. He speaks specifically to the role that leaders play in getting the best from their people, and cultures that can sustain a great business.”
—Bo Burlingham, contributing writer, Forbes; best-selling author of Small Giants and Finish Big
“I have witnessed the impact of the Simple Truths that Peters discusses in my years at Beryl. We have been a very profitable business and are regularly acknowledged as an employer of choice. That has everything to do with our culture and the kind of leadership we foster throughout our business. As I look back on our journey, we have not only embraced these Simple Truths, but we have brought them to life in ways that I did not imagine possible when I started this company. I think this is a must read book
xi
Praise for The Simple Truths About Leadership
for everyone who wants to be intentional about getting the best from their people, who want partners and not just employees.”
—Paul Spiegelman, founder and former CEO, The Beryl Companies; co-founder, Small Giants Community; NYT best-selling author of Patients Come Second: Leading Change by Changing the Way You Lead
“At Southwest Airlines, these Simple Truths were alive for all of us, all the time. PeopleCentric Leadership captures what we called Servant Leadership, and it was vital to our long-term success. It was simply part of our DNA; it was part of who we were, because the Simple Truths were so embedded in our culture. As Larry shares in the book, benchmarking visitors to Southwest Airlines often didn’t ‘get it’—they wanted the recipe for the ‘secret sauce.’ They thought it had to be complicated, when it’s really simple in principle. But the truth is that we’re all capable of creating a People-Centric culture by living these Simple Truths. You don’t have to be Herb Kelleher or Colleen Barrett to create that culture, but you have to want to embrace Peters’ Simple Truths to be on that journey. If you do, be prepared to see the best of your people.”
—Cynthia Young, chief of staff, UT-Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
“Few books on leadership actually create a clear context for their discussion about and recommendations for leading. Peters’ book does this and more. We are clearly living in a time of increasingly rapid change, one that has strong implications for what we need from our people. It is the clarification of those implications that make Peters’ thinking about leadership so relevant. In a world that demands nimble, fast, and empowered behavior, business leaders need people to become partners, not just followers. The time has gone when people can be expected to wait for marching orders to do what is necessary. It has been replaced by the need for people to step up and do what is needed, when it is needed. It is more than empowerment, but reflects a way of contribution that can distinguish a business from its competitors. As Peters points out, leaders need to earn this level of partnership, and his RESPECT model for becoming a People-Centric leader clearly depicts what it takes to earn that partnership. I love that he doesn’t stop there, but talks about what it takes for leaders to develop new People-Centric leaders and how to embed a more People-Centric approach into the company culture.”
—Dr. Karie Willyerd, chief learning officer, VISA International; author of Stretch: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow’s Workplace
“Larry Peters does an outstanding job of painting a path forward for what it takes to truly be a People-Centric leader. His 10 Simple Truths are the building blocks for any leader interested in awakening the sleeping giant of human potential in their organization. His insights on what creates a People-Centric culture are invaluable!”
—Jim Haudan, chairman and co-founder, Root Learning, Inc.; best-selling author of The Art of Engagement and co-author of What Are Your Blind Spots?
“Finally, a current, practical, insightful book that I would have assigned as required reading for each of my graduate and executive students. In addition, I would have regularly both borrowed from it and recommended it as reading for both my strategy and change leadership clients. Larry pulls together wisdom from many recognized sources, combines it with his own personal experience, and presents it in a clear concise manner valuable for leaders in our rapidly changing times. The Application Activities he presents provide leaders with the tools required to make his ideas tangible and drive them down through their organization. Good read—Great book!”
—Edward J. O’Connor, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Management and Health Administration, University of Colorado Denver; retired founder and principal, the Implementation Institute
“Simple Truths is motivating, meaningful and shares a fresh look at real leadership. Dr. Peters connects how seemingly small decisions and actions can build to long-term lasting impact. His stories and examples provide real-life situations to help us incorporate these Simple Truths into our life. This is a must read for leaders who have purpose and want to have impact in the world around them.”
—Patti Johnson, CEO, PeopleResults; author of Make Waves: Be the One to Start Change at Work and in Life
“Leadership is often thought of and discussed in terms of a powerful individual directing passive, powerless followers. Larry Peters understands what so many others do not: (a) that a good leader must first be able to effectively lead himself or herself, and (b) true leadership cannot exist without mutuality between a leader and proactive followers. Perhaps every good leader ultimately comes to similar conclusions on his or her own, but as anyone who has tried and failed knows, the path to effective leadership is challenging, often non-intuitive, and never-ending. Simple Truths About Leadership is unique in that it provides practical and actionable guidance for navigating the path to better leadership—for oneself, others, and the organization. I am already sharing with students and managers the developmental approach presented in this book. I am also building many of Larry Peters’ ideas into my own People-Centric research.”
—Dr. Hettie Richardson, chair, Department of Management and Leadership, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University
“Peters gets it. The problems and issues I see when consulting with senior leaders are often of their own making…and they don’t see it, and, therefore, appear doomed to repeat them. This easy to read and powerful book captures the root cause of this sort of drama and not only helps leaders see their role in creating the problems they face but also shows how to avoid them in the first place. My consulting often addresses giving leaders the skill to deal with their messes, when the real skill involves how they think and act every day in support of those on whom they depend. This small book is packed with big ideas for today’s and tomorrow’s leaders.”
—Simon Lia, president, GEMS Consulting, Inc.; master consultant and trainer; author of Gapocrisy and CEO Psycho
1
Setting the Stage
I was part of a team of consultants that worked with senior leaders at a defense contractor that was attempting to win a very big government contract against long odds and strong competition. These leaders were well versed on what it took to win this contract—technical perfection in engineering design of a technologically complex defense product and an organization that could be counted on to deliver on requirements surrounding cost, quality, and schedule. Government auditors had made it clear—being technically perfect was only half the battle. All competitors for this contract had the engineering expertise to create a winning prototype. Their challenge was creating a culture where people would do all the things necessary to meet the cost, quality, and schedule requirements. That turned out to be a very big challenge.
Hard working leaders. Smart people. Great decision makers. Talented problem solvers. Disciplined in doing their work.
But…that was not enough.
This was new territory for them, one for which the company’s future hung in the balance. It was about creating a new state of being, a new culture, rather than addressing a big problem or making a tough decision. Everything they knew that made them a great management team worked against them—they acted like this was just another problem to solve, another decision to make, and another opportunity to prove their experience would carry them forward.
Culture doesn’t change as a result of great decision making and great problem solving. Culture permeates throughout an organization and its subunits and impacts everyday thought and action. Changing thought and action is about our identity as an organization, and culture change, therefore, is never a problem to solve or a decision to make. It involves a process that few under-
L. Peters, The Simple Truths About Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03958-5_1
L. Peters
stand because it involves not only senior leaders and formal leaders throughout the hierarchy, but everyone else as well.
Even if these executives truly understood this assertion, they had never lived it. This was new territory for them. They had read all the books. They knew what to say and they said it well. We didn’t have to teach them much about effective organizations or culture or change. They were experts!
And they were lost…and they knew it.
They understood the challenge they faced was more than change. It was creating a new order of things in an organization that struggled with simultaneously achieving cost, quality, and schedule goals in their past. Their history with change made it clear that they needed to change how they led change efforts. It was for this reasons that we were brought in. They wanted help.
They needed help.
Despite conversations in which they stated that they understood how to lead this change effort, they had never attempted change on anything of this type, scale, or scope before. Their choice of words suggested that they believed it would be impossible. They had a history of hiring consultants, creating plans, delegating assignments, and pushing programs forward—and going nowhere.
The time frame for the change effort was over two years out. Prototypes, plans, and government audits would fill that time, as the countdown began toward the final decision. Early on, we talked continuously about leadership, about their leadership, and about change. We talked about what it meant for them to show up as effective, trustworthy people first, and then as effective leaders. We talked about how culture can shift. We talked about their role and how it would have to evolve to lead this type of change effort. We talked about change strategy. We talked a lot about organizational conditions (e.g., work design, structure, metrics, and HR systems to include pay and rewards) that conflicted with their change goals. And, importantly, we talked about their workforce.
The workforce at this company was neither engaged nor committed to company success. They did what they had to do, and some of them, some of the time, went out of the way to make things worse (i.e., deliberate sabotage). Their union–management problems were long-term, deep-rooted, and welldocumented. There was no cooperation on anything. Their functions fought each other, and in the aftermath, winners and losers alike left the organization less able to meet company objectives and work goals. They struggled to attract young people or keep those they were able to hire. Their turnover rate among their best employees, and thus their “brain drain,” was alarming. The people there made pejorative reference to their executives who worked in what they
euphemistically called the palace—offices that conveyed a majestic status magnified by the drab surroundings and aging furniture and computers that others had throughout the organization.
It was no surprise that this executive team knew that winning this contract would require a deep change in everything to do with their people. It also came as no surprise that they believed that it would take a miracle to reinvent this culture in a two-year time frame.
Over time, these executives started to understand the role that their workforce needed to play in securing their future. The epiphany came when we had them conduct focus groups with their own people and they came away shaking their heads as they reported stories they heard from a cynical workforce that was in pain. They heard stories about their own decisions and actions that lead to this pain. This executive team finally understood the role they played in creating the conditions that led to a culture that now made change all that more difficult.
Had they experienced this epiphany several years earlier, they might have started to create a more People-Centric and effective workplace where their current change challenge would be neither as daunting nor so seemingly impossible. They finally understood the need to make their people partners in creating their future. Easily said, but a miracle indeed in a company where leaders had spent decades harming their relationship with the very people who now were needed to secure this company’s future.
This was my key learning from this engagement: The organizational conditions these leaders created became the very problems that they had to overcome. A famous 1970s’ syndicated comic strip (see Kelly 1971) had a very insightful cartoon character, Pogo, looking into the distance and proclaiming, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” That same thing was at work here.
These executives created their challenge. Had they better understood what it meant to treat their workforce as a critical stakeholder every day, cost, quality, and schedule would be everyone’s responsibility, and not just those who managed these metrics. Had they worked to create a real shared future with their people, that workforce would have been more readily on board for change when change was needed. Had they turned their people into their partners, the culture change that seemed so daunting to formal leaders would have been everyone’s responsibility to produce.
This learning point has stuck with me throughout the subsequent years. I began to see examples of and heard stories about executive teams and other leaders who managed to harm their relationship with their people and, as a consequence, experienced the blunt end of their power when their cooperation was most needed. Espousing values about how important people are is not Setting the Stage
L. Peters
enough to secure the real support that people must add in all modern organizations. Support like that takes time to earn, and it is easy to lose.
When we don’t understand the critical role that our people play, we can’t lead and manage in ways that truly make them our partners. We can’t (or won’t) see how we have to protect this stakeholder group’s allegiance. We will never see the Simple Truths I describe or understand the type of leadership that we need to live every day for all of this to happen, the foundation stones that help engage people in and commit them to an organization’s cause. We will never create the corporate culture where shared responsibility and change are just what people do every day.
In this book, I will describe 10 Simple Truths that, when taken together, arguably lead to more effective organizations and cultures that sustain that effectiveness. They are axiomatic. They are what it takes to create and sustain organizations where people not only perform up to their capabilities, but also show up when we need them most, in times of change.
I have presented these Simple Truths dozens of times to leaders, managers, and students who nod their heads in real understanding and agreement…and who also wonder out loud whether they are able to lead and manage in ways consistent with the principals they reflect. Simple does not mean easy.
For some, years of mental habits will make this mindset feel unnatural and uncomfortable. For others, prior success in older ways of thinking will make acceptance of some of these Simple Truths challenging. Still other readers will be excited to see a path to goals that they care about for their business. Don’t let prior mental habit and prior approaches get in the way of seeing this possibility. Allow yourself to become excited about a new path that can produce the results you want most—a sustainably successful business that can weather, and thrive in, the turbulent times that all businesses face.
I suspect that some of you might believe it would be hard to implement these Simple Truths in your business. In the company described above, these leaders spent decades dipped in a culture that made these truths hard to see and accept, and even harder to make come alive. They seemed too simple to be real; too simple to work. And yet we can find examples of organizations that live these Simple Truths every day…and who thrive.
Southwest Airlines is a well-known example. Even here, my friend Cynthia Young, former Director of Internal Customer Care for a decade, tells me that people find it hard to believe the Simple Truths that underscore Southwest’s long-term success. She would regularly make presentations on, or host visitors who come to learn about, the Southwest way, only to hear people repeatedly ask, “Cynthia, what do you really do to get your people to buy in so much to Southwest’s culture?” So simple they can’t be real; too simple to work!
Setting the Stage
The Simple Truths work because of leaders who are People-Centric at their core—in their mindset, their heart-set, and their behavior. They work because of People-Centric leaders who infect others with this approach, and who help embed these truths into their culture. They work because the culture it produces is one where people are engaged and committed to serving each other, their customers, and the business well. They work because it is a path to something that serves all stakeholders—a place to serve and to be served, a place to be supported, to grow, and be honored for contributions…and a place where everyone can prosper.
What form does this leadership take? It is leadership based on true respect for all people these leaders touch (employees, customers, stockholders, suppliers, distributors, etc.), built on a foundation of the Simple Truths.
Too simple to be true; too simple to work.
Imagine what could result if your organization culture produced engagement, commitment, and contribution from all of your people. Now imagine the consequences that would follow if you didn’t try to bring about this level of engagement, commitment, and contribution to your business. Then ask, where are we now? What direction are we headed in and what does our scorecard look like? Are your people highly engaged, committed, and contributing to your business’ success? Is there a gap…and does that gap have anything to do with failing to create the kind of culture that can create and sustain an effective organization?
You will find application questions and activities at the end of every chapter. Answer the questions and do the activities. I recommend that you bring your leadership team together to discuss these questions and do these activities together. Effective organizations do not just happen…they require leadership and sustained efforts at helping everyone in the organization (whether 100 people or 1000 people or 100,000 people) come to value and live these Simple Truths. The outcome will be an organization that can win today and tomorrow, that doesn’t struggle with creating the next order of things—either inventing new ways of competing or quickly catching up with those that do.
For most of us, that means that personal development has to be on our career journey. Indeed, as noted by Willyerd and Mistick (2016), personal development has become a necessity in today’s changing reality. We cannot fully predict what new business challenges will occur with changing technologies, global competition, geopolitical strife, government policies, regulations and law, economic well-being, consumer tastes, and so forth. We can predict that we, personally, will need to change to meet those challenges…or, like a bottle of milk that sits in your refrigerator, we will have an “expiration date!” Growth is our challenge. Look at the ideas in this book as an opportunity to see how you might need to grow to be more
effective in a rapidly changing work world. Look at these ideas as a growth path toward your ability to get the best of your people in organizations that will need the best their people can provide more now than ever.
Easy but difficult. Be patient with yourself as you start on the path toward becoming a People-Centric leader. Be patient with others, as you attempt to enroll them in a value system, maybe the only value system, that can promise sustainable organizational effectiveness.
Application Activities
This chapter was designed to give you an introduction to the major themes of this book. In this chapter, the questions were designed to create a baseline for these themes. Consider this an early snapshot of your business, leadership, and company culture. If you are part of a leadership team, do this together as a team.
If it would be useful, collect information and data from within your business. Use surveys or interviews or focus groups or social media to learn more from people who are in a position to see things you might miss or undervalue. Do so with an open mind…you may hear many things that you will not believe (and some that should not be given great consideration), but you may also learn about so much more than you have understood just because you’re located in the midst of the fray, busily working to accomplish your full agenda.
As a leadership team, come to an agreement about where your company is…where it’s going, and how ready you are to get there.
Application Activity 1.1: Your Baseline
I gave you a peek at the senior leaders of a company that needed to create significant change to win a government contract or face the likelihood of going out of business. These leaders struggled with their people, and when they needed them most, during a culture change, their people didn’t respond well, and these leaders, in turn, didn’t know how to respond either. Culture change is hard enough without having a broken relationship with the very people who need to implement those changes. Take a look at the questions below as they apply to your work setting— whether it be a department, function, or the entire company. Can you see the threads of the fabric that has already been woven into your company’s culture?
Answer the following questions. If it would be useful, discuss them with your team. It might lead to an interesting discussion.
• When you think about what business results are possible in your work area (department, function, or business), where do you stand? Describe any gap between what is possible and what you commonly observe.
• Do your current results, especially the gaps you identified, have anything to do with your people and their contributions? Explain.
• How would you describe the relationship between formal leaders and the people who report to them? …how about the relationship with those who report up to you?
• Have formal leaders in your area (department, function, or business) earned the trust and respect of their people every day? Explain. Have you earned the trust and respect of your people every day?
• Having answered these questions, is there a real opportunity for improvement in the way people are treated, their contributions, and business results you get? Explain.
References
Kelly, W. (1971, March 21). “Pogo” (comic strip). New York: Post-Hall Syndicate. Willyerd, K., & Mistick, B. (2016). Stretch: How to future-proof yourself for tomorrow’s workplace. Hoboken: Wiley.
2
Times Are a Changing – And So Is Everything Else
It’s true today, now more than ever, that change is everywhere. It has invaded our nightly news on global, national, and local scenes. Everyone is surprised with some of what we witness. No one is surprised that we’re witnessing something. Just in the first six months of 2018, for example, we’ve seen television, print news, and internet news site stories about the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, a Facebook scandal, a Royal wedding, more global warming warnings, a porn star accusing the President of covering up an affair, the “Me Too” movement, an accidental ballistic missile alert in Hawaii, genocide in Syria, a zero-tolerance policy at the US border accompanied by separating children from their mothers, action toward implementing Brexit, new highs on world stock markets, trade wars, mass shootings in Nevada, Florida, and Texas, deadly terrorist attacks around the world, and what seems like daily drama by and about the US President! Whew, I’m out of breath!
It’s news.1 It is unexpected, sometimes unthinkable, and always unstoppable. We have come to expect change, and yet we’re still surprised when we see what form it takes. The unthinkable happens. We can’t stop it; we can’t even slow it down.
The same holds true in businesses. Change is everywhere. Every day the Wall Street Journal publishes stories that speak about change. Industries shift, or disappear, as new technologies appear that make their offerings commodities…or irrelevant. Industries shift as consumer tastes reflect different, conflicting values or personal technologies inform them of alternatives to any company’s products, services, and prices. Industries shift as governments throughout the world address geopolitical threats, creating new opportunities
L. Peters, The Simple Truths About Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03958-5_2
for some; new threats for others. Trade wars impact selected industries as relaxed US government regulations and policies and reduced corporate taxes boost business growth everywhere else.
All of this impacts what happens at the company level. Companies buy other companies or merge with them to become strategically more capable of competing. Companies change their business model or their strategy or their scope or their reach. Companies change their processes, or their structure or their systems…or their cultures. Companies adopt new technologies that are supposed to impact their products, services, and way of doing work. Companies respond to pressures and challenges by tightening their belts or jettisoning weak product lines or shrinking their workforce. Companies respond to new opportunities by mobilizing talent and resources to pursue and capture these opportunities.
It comes down to this at the company level. New owners; change. New senior leaders; change. New business challenges; change. The predictable happens, and we have to respond to it!
Simple Truth #1: The Only Constants Are Change, More Change, and Faster Change
There was a time when reputation, brand, size, and customer loyalty guaranteed a prosperous future. Companies that figured out how to compete successfully could expect more of the same. It was, metaphorically, as though they sailed on calm waters that ran deep and straight. As James Champy, coauthor of Reengineering Management, dubbed it, we lived in an “era of smooth sailing.”
Today’s business reality is anything but smooth sailing. Winning today does not guarantee winning tomorrow. Change should not only be expected, but also expected to be disruptive. Now, we find ourselves in an “era of white water.” Businesses can be surprised, the surprises can be dangerous, and they always demand an immediate response. Winning today guarantees nothing because the next white water bend is always approaching, and around that bend, the need to respond is often inevitable.
There are always pressures for change that come from outside a business, from its business environment. New global competitors using new technologies and creating new product features or entirely new products create the crucible for intense competition. These new pressures to compete, coupled with what can be dramatic consequences if a company cannot compete successfully, put strong demands on businesses to act. The stakes are often so high that companies are no longer just risking a point or two of their revenues,
For example, consider the print media industry. It wasn’t that long ago that Borders went out of business. Borders! Why? Because electronic readers made printed books less relevant! Is Barnes and Noble next! Own stock in a major city newspaper? Same book, different chapter (pardon the pun). The Internet has become the first option for an exponentially growing segment of people who once would have turned to a printed newspaper first…not just for news, but for consumer needs—for example, car ads, real estate ads, coupons. As online media gobbled up consumers looking for new cars, houses, and coupons, they simultaneously shrank the advertising revenues that print newspapers depend on. Print newspapers are on the same path as Borders, but with a window for change. The print media industry will not reverse itself; the Borders of the world will become old news. Print newspapers, however, still have time to change—to survive—if their leaders react to industry changes in time, understand what a new future can look like in a media-rich cyber world, and are able to mobilize their people to move quickly to embrace changes that turn new vision into sustainable realities. And that is a critical challenge—we need to change inside our businesses at the rate of change outside of our businesses, or we risk the business itself.
market share, or earnings, but rather, they are at risk. Look at RadioShack for a recent example.
Bad decisions, slow decisions, or decisions that are not fully implemented can create crisis. It is no wonder investors are nervous. Every day the stock market can take sudden shifts as even the hint of such a pivot point leads to immediate Wall Street reaction…to sell!
“Win or die” was the mantra that iconic CEO Jack Welch used to capture this and to mobilize change at the General Electric Company when he took over as CEO and Chairman in 1981. He understood, over three decades ago, that you cannot rest on your laurels. Even the great GE had to adapt to changing realities.
This message still rings true today. For our businesses, particularly large, established businesses, “change or lose” is the reality of that mantra. Adapting to disruptive environmental changes takes more than a pronouncement of a new strategy. It takes more than conceiving what has to happen. It takes change—real change, meaningful change, and, importantly, sustainable change.
When we fail to create real, meaningful, and sustainable change, we increase the risk of our own obsolescence; of our demise. While this message is not new, it remains central to the long-term success of all businesses today. When the world outside changes faster than we can respond, we’re in trouble. The real trouble for businesses today is that the world is changing faster now than ever before.
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men…
Over the past several decades, in industry after industry, change has been at or near the top of every business leader’s agenda. Changes in one’s business strategy, business model, or scope were demanded as the environment shifted. Mergers and acquisitions made sense as a path to competitive advantage. Global reach was undertaken as a source of new customer markets and new revenues. Invention in terms of technology, product, and process was seen as the path to prosperity. For every one of these business changes, internal changes in the organization itself are needed to realize expected benefits. No vision of a better tomorrow, no matter how compelling, will implement itself!
While continuous improvement has always been an important principle to follow, the recent past has required much more. Staying competitive often demanded the need for dramatic, sweeping organizational changes. Starting in the mid-1980s, the most visible of these change efforts focused on total quality management. More recently, the change agenda has included business process reengineering, six sigma, and enterprise software solutions, in addition to, of course, large numbers of reorganizations, mergers, and acquisitions. Each change was done to make the business more competitive in an increasingly white water world. Each change was supposed to be a stepping stone to a prosperous future.
When we look at the scorecard for changes of this sort, however, the results are depressing: 70–80% of major change initiatives failed! They didn’t take, or if they did, they took too long, reversed back to the status quo, were too costly, and/or created a great deal of emotional upheaval in the workplace. It is not surprising that many businesses struggled with becoming more competitive when we look at these results.
To add insult to injury, there is no change that is the last change. The world will keep moving forward. There will always be new challenges that someone will meet. When our business meets those challenges, it puts pressure on our competitors to adapt. When our competitors meet those challenges, we are forced to catch up. Whether you are the prey or the predator, your business has to be moving. It is the cycle that fuels companies to be better…or to disappear. Like on the savanna in Africa, it is better to be the predator than the prey. In either case, being nimble becomes the key attribute for survival. White water is always changing, and it’s always dangerous to be catching up when the current runs fast and large rocks are just below the surface. Being nimble helps, but in practical terms, the everyday reality remains change or die.
All of this means that today’s businesses need to meet two overarching goals. First, businesses need to keep the promises they make to their current customers. Being successful today means that you are successful today! This is Management 101—identify and anticipate your customers’ needs, serve them flawlessly, and recover from mistakes quickly. All companies should understand their customers and meet their highest expectations to retain them. If we’re not good at this, we have no future!
Even if we are good at serving customers’ current needs, however, we are not done. Second, businesses also need to be constantly looking to the future, and be ready to take on tomorrow’s challenges, by building a platform today that allows them to meet the emerging set of business challenges and customers’ expectations down the road.
This is where it gets tricky. We cannot know what customers will want a decade from now. We haven’t yet invented the new products and services that we know will win in tomorrow’s marketplace. We don’t know what new technology is behind the curtain or how it will impact our business. We don’t know what our competitors will do…where, across the globe, they will be located…when they will strike.
Who, honestly, would have predicted Uber ten years ago? Really? Uber!
First, Walmart put a dent in small retail brick and mortar businesses, and now Amazon has put a dent in small and large retail brick and mortar businesses. Anyone want to guess what will happen in the grocery business now that Amazon has bought Whole Foods?
Change is everywhere and all the time—and when disruptive, it almost always demands a response. Being able to lead a quick, successful response is fast becoming a competitive advantage.
Win or die! Change or lose! Change now!
This means that we need to build an organization that can adapt to changing circumstances and does so quickly. Adaptive organizational forms are needed not only to respond to the challenges that competitors bring to our doorsteps, but also to allow businesses to move swiftly to bring the kind of innovation that will force their competitors to react and respond. The competitive advantage comes from creating a business where change is not a challenge but a way of life. When we can solve the adaptive organization puzzle, we can win today and tomorrow.
Obviously, this will be a daunting task for many companies, especially for those whose cultures are deeply rooted in preserving the status quo. They will require a major change in how they are organized, managed, and led, if people are to become willing to adopt, embrace, and realize the full benefit of the best-laid plans of mice and business leaders! If we don’t take up this challenge,
eventually the changing business reality will make us the latest Wall Street Journal headline. It won’t say Borders (or Radio Shack or Blockbuster or Sports Authority or…) is going out of business; it will say “…(insert the name of your company here) is going out of business!”
Simple
Truth #2: All Organizations Are Perfectly Designed to Get the Results They Are Currently Getting!
It should come as no surprise that some businesses have historically struggled with change. They’re metaphorically frozen by more traditional, bureaucratic, organizational forms, catalogs of formal policies, rules and procedures, and metrics and reward systems that honor the status quo. Organizations of this sort were invented at a time when the business environment was not so volatile. They were built for calm waters. This organization form was its own selffulfilling prophesy—built for stability; not change. Over time, they developed cultures that glued them in place! Stability, not change, became the rule.
Adaptive organizations are designed, managed, and led in ways that make change in response to new pressures or new opportunities more likely. They are organizational forms that challenge the way we have traditionally thought of successful organizations. They not only seemed different, but also were different in important ways that make change not just more likely, but inevitable.
The very term organization, itself, implies stability and predictability. We organize to reduce surprises. We organize so that everyone knows his or her roles; knows his or her job. We create organizational systems that reinforce this predictability and then ensure predictability by building in control mechanisms. Thus, we create job descriptions that instruct our people on what they are to do, and what they are not to do. We create performance management systems tied closely to performing assigned duties, and create reward systems tied closely to performance evaluations. We design a management hierarchy that segregates the parts of this organizational machine to simplify accountabilities and make sure that each part fits the grand plan. And, finally, we assign everyone a boss to make sure that the people assigned these specific roles in this rationally designed organizational machine do what is expected and root out and address exceptions when they occur.
In pursuit of predictability and control, we simplify everything and produce a complex organization!
What
were we thinking?
I have no issues with creating job descriptions, conducting formal evaluations, or rewarding those whose contributions are deserving of recognition
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
whom a general characterization would do no manner of justice. He was an overseer, but he was something more. With the malign and tyrannical qualities of an overseer he combined something of the lawful master. He had the artfulness and mean ambition of his class, without its disgusting swagger and noisy bravado. There was an easy air of independence about him; a calm self-possession; at the same time a sternness of glance which well might daunt less timid hearts than those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood to cower before a driver’s lash. He was one of those overseers who could torture the slightest word or look into impudence, and he had the nerve not only to resent, but to punish promptly and severely. There could be no answering back. Guilty or not guilty, to be accused was to be sure of a flogging. His very presence was fearful, and I shunned him as I would have shunned a rattlesnake. His piercing black eyes and sharp, shrill voice ever awakened sensations of dread. Other overseers, how brutal soever they might be, would sometimes seek to gain favor with the slaves, by indulging in a little pleasantry; but Gore never said a funny thing, or perpetrated a joke. He was always cold, distant, and unapproachable—the overseer on Col. Edward Lloyd’s plantation— and needed no higher pleasure than the performance of the duties of his office. When he used the lash, it was from a sense of duty, without fear of consequences. There was a stern will, an iron-like reality about him, which would easily have made him chief of a band of pirates, had his environments been favorable to such a sphere. Among many other deeds of shocking cruelty committed by him was the murder of a young colored man named Bill Denby. He was a powerful fellow, full of animal spirits, and one of the most valuable of Col. Lloyd’s slaves. In some way—I know not what—he offended this Mr. Austin Gore, and in accordance with the usual custom the latter undertook to flog him. He had given him but few stripes when Denby broke away from him, plunged into the creek, and standing there with the water up to his neck refused to come out; whereupon, for this refusal, Gore shot him dead! It was said that Gore gave Denby three calls to come out, telling him if he did not obey the last call he should shoot him. When the last call was given Denby still stood his ground, and Gore, without further parley, or without making any
further effort to induce obedience, raised his gun deliberately to his face, took deadly aim at his standing victim, and with one click of the gun the mangled body sank out of sight, and only his warm red blood marked the place where he had stood.
G S D
This fiendish murder produced, as it could not help doing, a tremendous sensation. The slaves were panic-stricken, and howled with alarm. The atrocity roused my old master, and he spoke out in
reprobation of it. Both he and Col. Lloyd arraigned Gore for his cruelty; but he, calm and collected, as though nothing unusual had happened, declared that Denby had become unmanageable; that he set a dangerous example to the other slaves, and that unless some such prompt measure was resorted to there would be an end to all rule and order on the plantation. That convenient covert for all manner of villainy and outrage, that cowardly alarm-cry, that the slaves would “take the place,” was pleaded, just as it had been in thousands of similar cases. Gore’s defense was evidently considered satisfactory, for he was continued in his office, without being subjected to a judicial investigation. The murder was committed in the presence of slaves only, and they, being slaves, could neither institute a suit nor testify against the murderer. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michaels, Talbot Co., Maryland, and I have no reason to doubt, from what I know to have been the moral sentiment of the place, that he was as highly esteemed and as much respected as though his guilty soul had not been stained with innocent blood.
I speak advisedly when I say that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot Co., Maryland, was not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman, ship carpenter of St. Michaels, killed two slaves, one of whom he butchered with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of having committed the awful and bloody deed. I have heard him do so laughingly, declaring himself a benefactor of his country, and that “when others would do as much as he had done, they would be rid of the d——d niggers.”
Another notorious fact which I may state was the murder of a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, by her mistress, Mrs. Giles Hicks, who lived but a short distance from Col. Lloyd’s. This wicked woman, in the paroxysm of her wrath, not content at killing her victim, literally mangled her face, and broke her breastbone. Wild and infuriated as she was, she took the precaution to cause the burial of the girl; but, the facts of the case getting abroad, the remains were disinterred, and a coroner’s jury assembled, who, after due deliberation, decided that “the girl had come to her death from severe beating.” The offense for which this girl was thus hurried
out of the world was this, she had been set that night, and several preceding nights, to mind Mrs. Hicks’ baby, and having fallen into a sound sleep the crying of the baby did not wake her, as it did its mother. The tardiness of the girl excited Mrs. Hicks, who, after calling her several times, seized a piece of fire-wood from the fire-place, and pounded in her skull and breast-bone till death ensued. I will not say that this murder most foul produced no sensation. It did produce a sensation. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Mrs. Hicks, but incredible to tell, for some reason or other, that warrant was never served, and she not only escaped condign punishment, but the pain and mortification as well of being arraigned before a court of justice.
While I am detailing the bloody deeds that took place during my stay on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, I will briefly narrate another dark transaction, which occurred about the time of the murder of Denby.
On the side of the river Wye, opposite from Col. Lloyd’s, there lived a Mr. Beal Bondley, a wealthy slaveholder. In the direction of his land, and near the shore, there was an excellent oyster fishingground, and to this some of Lloyd’s slaves occasionally resorted in their little canoes at night, with a view to make up the deficiency of their scanty allowance of food by the oysters that they could easily get there. Mr. Bondley took it into his head to regard this as a trespass, and while an old man slave was engaged in catching a few of the many millions of oysters that lined the bottom of the creek, to satisfy his hunger, the rascally Bondley, lying in ambush, without the slightest warning, discharged the contents of his musket into the back of the poor old man. As good fortune would have it, the shot did not prove fatal, and Mr. Bondley came over the next day to see Col. Lloyd about it. What happened between them I know not, but there was little said about it and nothing publicly done. One of the commonest sayings to which my ears early became accustomed, was that it was “worth but a half a cent to kill a nigger, and half a cent to bury one.” While I heard of numerous murders committed by slaveholders on the eastern shore of Maryland, I never knew a solitary instance where a slaveholder was either hung or imprisoned for having murdered a slave. The usual pretext for such crimes was that the slave had offered resistance. Should a slave, when
assaulted, but raise his hand in self-defense, the white assaulting party was fully justified by southern law, and southern public opinion in shooting the slave down, and for this there was no redress.
CHAPTER IX.
CHANGE OF LOCATION.
Miss Lucretia Her kindness How it was manifested “Ike” A battle with him Miss Lucretia’s balsam Bread How it was obtained Gleams of sunlight amidst the general darkness—Suffering from cold—How we took our meal mush—Preparations for going to Baltimore—Delight at the change—Cousin Tom’s opinion of Baltimore—Arrival there—Kind reception Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld Their son Tommy My relations to them My duties A turning-point in my life.
I HAVE nothing cruel or shocking to relate of my own personal experience while I remained on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, at the home of my old master. An occasional cuff from Aunt Katy, and a regular whipping from old master, such as any heedless and mischievous boy might get from his father, is all that I have to say of this sort. I was not old enough to work in the field, and there being little else than field-work to perform, I had much leisure. The most I had to do was to drive up the cows in the evening, to keep the front-yard clean, and to perform small errands for my young mistress, Lucretia Auld. I had reasons for thinking this lady was very kindly disposed toward me, and although I was not often the object of her attention, I constantly regarded her as my friend, and was always glad when it was my privilege to do her a service. In a family where there was so much that was harsh and indifferent, the slightest word or look of kindness was of great value. Miss Lucretia—as we all continued to call her long after her marriage—had bestowed on me such looks and words as taught me that she pitied me, if she did not love me. She sometimes gave me a piece of bread and butter, an article not set down in our bill of fare, but an extra ration aside from both Aunt Katy and old master, and given as I believed solely out of the tender regard she had for me. Then too, I one day got into the wars with
Uncle Abel’s son “Ike,” and had got sadly worsted; the little rascal struck me directly in the forehead with a sharp piece of cinder, fused with iron, from the old blacksmith’s forge, which made a cross in my forehead very plainly to be seen even now. The gash bled very freely, and I roared and betook myself home. The cold-hearted Aunt Katy paid no attention either to my wound or my roaring except to tell me it “served me right; I had no business with Ike; it would do me good; I would now keep away from ‘dem Lloyd niggers.’” Miss Lucretia in this state of the case came forward, and called me into the parlor (an extra privilege of itself), and without using toward me any of the hard and reproachful epithets of Aunt Katy, quietly acted the good Samaritan. With her own soft hand she washed the blood from my head and face, brought her own bottle of balsam, and with the balsam wetted a nice piece of white linen and bound up my head. The balsam was not more healing to the wound in my head, than her kindness was healing to the wounds in my spirit, induced by the unfeeling words of Aunt Katy. After this Miss Lucretia was yet more my friend. I felt her to be such; and I have no doubt that the simple act of binding up my head did much to awaken in her heart an interest in my welfare. It is quite true that this interest seldom showed itself in anything more than in giving me a piece of bread and butter, but this was a great favor on a slave plantation, and I was the only one of the children to whom such attention was paid. When very severely pinched with hunger, I had the habit of singing, which the good lady very soon came to understand, and when she heard me singing under her window, I was very apt to be paid for my music. Thus I had two friends, both at important points,—Mas’r Daniel at the great house, and Miss Lucretia at home. From Mas’r Daniel I got protection from the bigger boys, and from Miss Lucretia I got bread by singing when I was hungry, and sympathy when I was abused by the termagant in the kitchen. For such friendship I was deeply grateful, and bitter as are my recollections of slavery, it is a true pleasure to recall any instances of kindness, any sunbeams of humane treatment, which found way to my soul, through the iron grating of my house of bondage. Such beams seem all the brighter from the general darkness into which they penetrate, and the impression they make there is vividly distinct.
As before intimated, I received no severe treatment from the hands of my master, but the insufficiency of both food and clothing was a serious trial to me, especially from the lack of clothing. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost in a state of nudity. My only clothing—a little coarse sack-cloth or tow-linen sort of shirt, scarcely reaching to my knees, was worn night and day and changed once a week. In the day time I could protect myself by keeping on the sunny side of the house, or in stormy weather, in the corner of the kitchen chimney. But the great difficulty was to keep warm during the night. The pigs in the pen had leaves, and the horses in the stable had straw, but the children had no beds. They lodged anywhere in the ample kitchen. I slept generally in a little closet, without even a blanket to cover me. In very cold weather I sometimes got down the bag in which corn was carried to the mill, and crawled into that. Sleeping there with my head in and my feet out, I was partly protected, though never comfortable. My feet have been so cracked with the frost that the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes. Our corn meal mush, which was our only regular if not all-sufficing diet, when sufficiently cooled from the cooking, was placed in a large tray or trough. This was set down either on the floor of the kitchen, or out of doors on the ground, and the children were called like so many pigs, and like so many pigs would come, some with oyster-shells, some with pieces of shingles, but none with spoons, and literally devour the mush. He who could eat fastest got most, and he that was strongest got the best place, but few left the trough really satisfied. I was the most unlucky of all, for Aunt Katy had no good feeling for me, and if I pushed the children, or if they told her anything unfavorable of me, she always believed the worst, and was sure to whip me.
As I grew older and more thoughtful, I became more and more filled with a sense of my wretchedness. The unkindness of Aunt Katy, the hunger and cold I suffered, and the terrible reports of wrongs and outrages which came to my ear, together with what I almost daily witnessed, led me to wish I had never been born. I used to contrast my condition with that of the black-birds, in whose wild and sweet songs I fancied them so happy. Their apparent joy only deepened the shades of my sorrow. There are thoughtful days in the
lives of children—at least there were in mine—when they grapple with all the great primary subjects of knowledge, and reach in a moment conclusions which no subsequent experience can shake. I was just as well aware of the unjust, unnatural, and murderous character of slavery, when nine years old, as I am now. Without any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, to regard God as “Our Father,” condemned slavery as a crime.
I was in this unhappy state when I received from Miss Lucretia the joyful intelligence that my old master had determined to let me go to Baltimore to live with Mr. Hugh Auld, a brother to Mr. Thomas Auld, Miss Lucretia’s husband. I shall never forget the ecstacy with which I received this information, three days before the time set for my departure. They were the three happiest days I had ever known. I spent the largest part of them in the creek, washing off the plantation scurf, and thus preparing for my new home. Miss Lucretia took a lively interest in getting me ready. She told me I must get all the dead skin off my feet and knees, for the people in Baltimore were very cleanly, and would laugh at me if I looked dirty; and besides she was intending to give me a pair of trowsers, but which I could not put on unless I got all the dirt off. This was a warning which I was bound to heed, for the thought of owning and wearing a pair of trowsers was great indeed. So I went at it in good earnest, working for the first time in my life in the hope of reward. I was greatly excited, and could hardly consent to sleep lest I should be left. The ties that ordinarily bind children to their homes, had no existence in my case, and in thinking of a home elsewhere, I was confident of finding none that I should relish less than the one I was leaving. If I should meet with hardship, hunger, and nakedness, I had known them all before, and I could endure them elsewhere, especially in Baltimore, for I had something of the feeling about that city that is expressed in the saying that “being hanged in England is better than dying a natural death in Ireland.” I had the strongest desire to see Baltimore. My cousin Tom, a boy two or three years older than I, had been there, and, though not fluent in speech (he stuttered immoderately), he had inspired me with that desire by his eloquent descriptions of the place. Tom was sometimes cabin-boy on board the sloop “Sally Lloyd” (which Capt. Thomas Auld commanded), and when he came home
from Baltimore he was always a sort of hero among us, at least till his trip to Baltimore was forgotten. I could never tell him anything, or point out anything that struck me as beautiful or powerful, but that he had seen something in Baltimore far surpassing it. Even the “great house,” with all its pictures within, and pillars without, he had the hardihood to say, “was nothing to Baltimore.” He bought a trumpet (worth sixpence) and brought it home; told what he had seen in the windows of the stores; that he had heard shooting-crackers, and seen soldiers; that he had seen a steamboat; that there were ships in Baltimore that could carry four such sloops as the “Sally Lloyd.” He said a great deal about the Market house; of the ringing of the bells, and of many other things which roused my curiosity very much, and indeed which brightened my hopes of happiness in my new home. We sailed out of Miles River for Baltimore early on a Saturday morning. I remember only the day of the week, for at that time I had no knowledge of the days of the month, nor indeed of the months of the year. On setting sail I walked aft and gave to Col. Lloyd’s plantation what I hoped would be the last look I should give to it, or to any place like it. After taking this last view, I quitted the quarterdeck, made my way to the bow of the boat, and spent the remainder of the day in looking ahead; interesting myself in what was in the distance, rather than in what was near by, or behind. The vessels sweeping along the bay were objects full of interest to me. The broad bay opened like a shoreless ocean on my boyish vision, filling me with wonder and admiration.
Late in the afternoon we reached Annapolis, stopping there not long enough to admit of going ashore. It was the first large town I had ever seen, and though it was inferior to many a factory village in New England, my feelings on seeing it were excited to a pitch very little below that reached by travelers at the first view of Rome. The dome of the State house was especially imposing, and surpassed in grandeur the appearance of the “great house” I had left behind. So the great world was opening upon me, and I was eagerly acquainting myself with its multifarious lessons.
We arrived in Baltimore on Sunday morning, and landed at Smith’s wharf, not far from Bowly’s wharf. We had on board a large
flock of sheep, for the Baltimore market; and after assisting in driving them to the slaughter house of Mr. Curtiss, on Loudon Slater’s hill, I was conducted by Rich—one of the hands belonging to the sloop— to my new home on Alliciana street, near Gardiner’s ship-yard, on Fell’s point. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld, my new master and mistress, were both at home and met me at the door with their rosy-cheeked little son Thomas, to take care of whom was to constitute my future occupation. In fact it was to “little Tommy,” rather than to his parents, that old master made a present of me, and, though there was no legal form or arrangement entered into, I have no doubt that Mr and Mrs. Auld felt that in due time I should be the legal property of their bright-eyed and beloved boy Tommy. I was struck with the appearance especially of my new mistress. Her face was lighted with the kindliest emotions; and the reflex influence of her countenance, as well as the tenderness with which she seemed to regard me, while asking me sundry little questions, greatly delighted me, and lit up, to my fancy, the pathway of my future. Little Thomas was affectionately told by his mother, that “there was his Freddy,” and that “Freddy would take care of him;” and I was told to “be kind to little Tommy,” an injunction I scarcely needed, for I had already fallen in love with the dear boy. With these little ceremonies I was initiated into my new home, and entered upon my peculiar duties, then unconscious of a cloud to dim its broad horizon.
I may say here that I regard my removal from Col. Lloyd’s plantation as one of the most interesting and fortunate events of my life. Viewing it in the light of human likelihoods, it is quite probable that but for the mere circumstance of being thus removed, before the rigors of slavery had fully fastened upon me; before my young spirit had been crushed under the iron control of the slave-driver, I might have continued in slavery until emancipated by the war.
CHAPTER X. LEARNING TO READ.
City annoyances Plantation regrets My mistress Her history Her kindness My master His sourness My comforts Increased sensitiveness—My occupation—Learning to read—Baneful effects of slaveholding on my dear, good mistress—Mr Hugh forbids Mrs Sophia to teach me further—Clouds gather on my bright prospects—Master Auld’s exposition of the Philosophy of Slavery City slaves Country slaves Contrasts Exceptions Mr. Hamilton’s two slaves Mrs. Hamilton’s cruel treatment of them Piteous aspect presented by them No power to come between the slave and slaveholder.
ESTABLISHED in my new home in Baltimore, I was not very long in perceiving that in picturing to myself what was to be my life there, my imagination had painted only the bright side; and that the reality had its dark shades as well as its light ones. The open country which had been so much to me, was all shut out. Walled in on every side by towering brick buildings, the heat of the summer was intolerable to me, and the hard brick pavements almost blistered my feet. If I ventured out on to the streets, new and strange objects glared upon me at every step, and startling sounds greeted my ears from all directions. My country eyes and ears were confused and bewildered. Troops of hostile boys pounced upon me at every corner. They chased me, and called me “Eastern-Shore man,” till really I almost wished myself back on the Eastern Shore. My new mistress happily proved to be all she had seemed, and in her presence I easily forgot all outside annoyances. Mrs. Sophia was naturally of an excellent disposition—kind, gentle, and cheerful. The supercilious contempt for the rights and feelings of others, and the petulence and bad humor which generally characterized slaveholding ladies, were all quite absent from her manner and bearing toward me. She had
never been a slaveholder—a thing then quite unusual at the South— but had depended almost entirely upon her own industry for a living. To this fact the dear lady no doubt owed the excellent preservation of her natural goodness of heart, for slavery could change a saint into a sinner, and an angel into a demon. I hardly knew how to behave towards “Miss Sopha,” as I used to call Mrs. Hugh Auld. I could not approach her even as I had formerly approached Mrs. Thomas Auld. Why should I hang down my head, and speak with bated breath, when there was no pride to scorn me, no coldness to repel me, and no hatred to inspire me with fear? I therefore soon came to regard her as something more akin to a mother than a slaveholding mistress. So far from deeming it impudent in a slave to look her straight in the face, she seemed ever to say, “look up, child; don’t be afraid.” The sailors belonging to the sloop esteemed it a great privilege to be the bearers of parcels or messages to her, for whenever they came, they were sure of a most kind and pleasant reception. If little Thomas was her son, and her most dearly loved child, she made me something like his half-brother in her affections. If dear Tommy was exalted to a place on his mother’s knee, “Feddy” was honored by a place at the mother’s side. Nor did the slave-boy lack the caressing strokes of her gentle hand, soothing him into the consciousness that, though motherless, he was not friendless. Mrs. Auld was not only kind-hearted, but remarkably pious; frequent in her attendance of public worship, much given to reading the Bible, and to chanting hymns of praise when alone. Mr. Hugh was altogether a different character. He cared very little about religion; knew more of the world and was more a part of the world, than his wife. He set out doubtless to be, as the world goes, a respectable man, and to get on by becoming a successful ship-builder, in that city of ship-building. This was his ambition, and it fully occupied him. I was of course of very little consequence to him, and when he smiled upon me, as he sometimes did, the smile was borrowed from his lovely wife, and like all borrowed light, was transient, and vanished with the source whence it was derived. Though I must in truth characterize Master Hugh as a sour man of forbidding appearance, it is due to him to acknowledge that he was never cruel to me, according to the notion of cruelty in Maryland. During the first year or two, he left me almost
exclusively to the management of his wife. She was my law-giver In hands so tender as hers, and in the absence of the cruelties of the plantation, I became both physically and mentally much more sensitive, and a frown from my mistress caused me far more suffering than had Aunt Katy’s hardest cuffs. Instead of the cold, damp floor of my old master’s kitchen, I was on carpets; for the corn bag in winter, I had a good straw bed, well furnished with covers; for the coarse corn meal in the morning, I had good bread and mush occasionally; for my old tow-linen shirt, I had good clean clothes. I was really well off. My employment was to run of errands, and to take care of Tommy; to prevent his getting in the way of carriages, and to keep him out of harm’s way generally. So for a time everything went well. I say for a time, because the fatal poison of irresponsible power, and the natural influence of slave customs, were not very long in making their impression on the gentle and loving disposition of my excellent mistress. She regarded me at first as a child, like any other. This was the natural and spontaneous thought; afterwards, when she came to consider me as property, our relations to each other were changed, but a nature so noble as hers could not instantly become perverted, and it took several years before the sweetness of her temper was wholly lost.
M . A L H R .
The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the Bible aloud, for she often read aloud when her husband was absent, awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Up to this time I had known nothing whatever of this wonderful art, and my ignorance and inexperience of what it could do for me, as well as my confidence in my mistress, emboldened me to
ask her to teach me to read. With an unconsciousness and inexperience equal to my own, she readily consented, and in an incredibly short time, by her kind assistance, I had mastered the alphabet and could spell words of three or four letters. My mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress as if I had been her own child, and supposing that her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret of what she was doing for me. Indeed, she exultingly told him of the aptness of her pupil, and of her intention to persevere in teaching me, as she felt her duty to do, at least to read the Bible. And here arose the first dark cloud over my Baltimore prospects, the precursor of chilling blasts and drenching storms. Master Hugh was astounded beyond measure, and probably for the first time proceeded to unfold to his wife the true philosophy of the slave system, and the peculiar rules necessary in the nature of the case to be observed in the management of human chattels. Of course he forbade her to give me any further instruction, telling her in the first place that to do so was unlawful, as it was also unsafe; “for,” said he, “if you give a nigger an inch he will take an ell. Learning will spoil the best nigger in the world. If he learns to read the Bible it will forever unfit him to be a slave. He should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it. As to himself, learning will do him no good, but a great deal of harm, making him disconsolate and unhappy. If you teach him how to read, he’ll want to know how to write, and this accomplished, he’ll be running away with himself.” Such was the tenor of Master Hugh’s oracular exposition; and it must be confessed that he very clearly comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of master and slave. His discourse was the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture to which it had been my lot to listen. Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of what he said, and like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by him. The effect of his words on me was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed. This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man. “Very well,” thought I.
“Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I needed, and it came to me at a time and from a source whence I least expected it. Of course I was greatly saddened at the thought of losing the assistance of my kind mistress, but the information so instantly derived to some extent compensated me for the loss I had sustained in this direction. Wise as Mr. Auld was, he underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife. He wanted me to be a slave; I had already voted against that on the home plantation of Col. Lloyd. That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance only rendered me the more resolute to seek intelligence. In learning to read, therefore, I am not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the opposition of my master as to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress. I acknowledge the benefit rendered me by the one, and by the other, believing that but for my mistress I might have grown up in ignorance.
CHAPTER XI. GROWING IN KNOWLEDGE.
My mistress Her slaveholding duties Their effects on her originally noble nature The conflict in her mind She opposes my learning to read Too late—She had given me the “inch,” I was resolved to take the “ell”—How I pursued my study to read—My tutors—What progress I made—Slavery— What I heard said about it—Thirteen years old—Columbian orator— Dialogue Speeches Sheridan Pitt Lords Chatham and Fox Knowledge increasing Liberty Singing Sadness Unhappiness of Mrs. Sophia My hatred of slavery One Upas tree overshadows us all.
I LIVED in the family of Mr. Auld, at Baltimore, seven years, during which time, as the almanac makers say of the weather, my condition was variable. The most interesting feature of my history here, was my learning to read and write under somewhat marked disadvantages. In attaining this knowledge I was compelled to resort to indirections by no means congenial to my nature, and which were really humiliating to my sense of candor and uprightness. My mistress, checked in her benevolent designs toward me, not only ceased instructing me herself, but set her face as a flint against my learning to read by any means. It is due to her to say, however, that she did not adopt this course in all its stringency at first. She either thought it unnecessary, or she lacked the depravity needed to make herself forget at once my human nature. She was, as I have said, naturally a kind and tender-hearted woman, and in the humanity of her heart and the simplicity of her mind, she set out, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another.
Nature never intended that men and women should be either slaves or slaveholders, and nothing but rigid training long persisted
in, can perfect the character of the one or the other Mrs Auld was singularly deficient in the qualities of a slaveholder. It was no easy matter for her to think or to feel that the curly-headed boy, who stood by her side, and even leaned on her lap, who was loved by little Tommy, and who loved little Tommy in turn, sustained to her only the relation of a chattel. I was more than that; she felt me to be more than that. I could talk and sing; I could laugh and weep; I could reason and remember; I could love and hate. I was human, and she, dear lady, knew and felt me to be so. How could she then treat me as a brute without a mighty struggle with all the noblest powers of her soul. That struggle came, and the will and power of the husband was victorious. Her noble soul was overcome, and he who wrought the wrong was injured in the fall no less than the rest of the household. When I went into that household, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The wife and mistress there was a model of affection and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling “that woman is a Christian.” There was no sorrow nor suffering for which she had not a tear, and there was no innocent joy for which she had not a smile. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner who came within her reach. But slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these excellent qualities, and her home of its early happiness. Conscience cannot stand much violence. Once thoroughly injured, who is he who can repair the damage? If it be broken toward the slave on Sunday, it will be toward the master on Monday. It cannot long endure such shocks. It must stand unharmed, or it does not stand at all. As my condition in the family waxed bad, that of the family waxed no better. The first step in the wrong direction was the violence done to nature and to conscience, in arresting the benevolence that would have enlightened my young mind. In ceasing to instruct me, my mistress had to seek to justify herself to herself, and once consenting to take sides in such a debate, she was compelled to hold her position. One needs little knowledge of moral philosophy to see where she inevitably landed. She finally became even more violent in her opposition to my learning to read than was Mr. Auld himself. Nothing now appeared to make her more angry than seeing me, seated in
some nook or corner, quietly reading a book or newspaper She would rush at me with the utmost fury, and snatch the book or paper from my hand, with something of the wrath and consternation which a traitor might be supposed to feel on being discovered in a plot by some dangerous spy. The conviction once thoroughly established in her mind, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other, I was most narrowly watched in all my movements. If I remained in a separate room from the family for any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called to give an account of myself. But this was too late: the first and never-to-be-retraced step had been taken. Teaching me the alphabet had been the “inch” given, I was now waiting only for the opportunity to “take the ell.”
Filled with the determination to learn to read at any cost, I hit upon many expedients to accomplish that much desired end. The plan which I mainly adopted, and the one which was the most successful, was that of using my young white playmates, with whom I met on the streets, as teachers. I used to carry almost constantly a copy of Webster’s spelling-book in my pocket, and when sent on errands, or when play-time was allowed me, I would step aside with my young friends and take a lesson in spelling. I am greatly indebted to these boys—Gustavus Dorgan, Joseph Bailey, Charles Farity, and William Cosdry.
Although slavery was a delicate subject, and very cautiously talked about among grown up people in Maryland, I frequently talked about it, and that very freely, with the white boys. I would sometimes say to them, while seated on a curbstone or a cellar door, “I wish I could be free, as you will be when you get to be men.” “You will be free, you know, as soon as you are twenty-one, and can go where you like, but I am a slave for life. Have I not as good a right to be free as you have?” Words like these, I observed, always troubled them; and I had no small satisfaction in drawing out from them, as I occasionally did, that fresh and bitter condemnation of slavery which ever springs from nature unseared and unperverted. Of all conscience, let me have those to deal with, which have not been seared and bewildered with the cares and perplexities of life. I do not
