HBR — Survey: 68% of CEOs Admit They Weren’t Prepared for the Job

CEOs are known for their confidence. It is, after all, one of the reasons they’ve made it to the top. And yet, that confidence sometimes flags, as we at leadership advisory firm Egon Zehnder learned from a survey of 402 CEOs from 11 countries—executives who together run companies with $2.6 trillion in sales.

Participating anonymously, CEOs told us that while they did feel ready for the strategic and business aspects of their roles, they felt much less prepared for the personal and interpersonal components of leadership, which are just as critical to success.
Here are some of the most surprising findings:

One of the issues is that there is not much CEO training prior to taking the reins.

Remarked one: “When you become the final decisionmaker, everything changes. It’s hard to train on this.”

That would apply to decision-makings in politics, too. How does one train to be president and commander-in chief of the military.

Harvard Business Review
Survey: 68% of CEOs Admit They Weren’t Prepared for the Job
Kati Najipoor-Schutte and Dick Patton

How Banal The Sum Of The Last 60 Years Is! Have Solutions, Won't Deploy Them.

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

See the context of this article, and then the killer comment about Kenneth Boulding.

RGE: "Anyone paying attention in anthropology-101 or biology-101 would have told you Graeber was right, before he had to document the obvious & well known, for unlearned audiences. [Reality is still ignored by most, no matter how well known by a few. That's why academia is largely academic.]" 

TH: "This is the great weakness of disciplinary education as a model. It breaks the wholeness analytically and never repairs it synthetically.

The world badly needs a meta-disciplinary model based on general systems theory.
This is why Kenneth Boulding switched out of economics and into general systems theory [GST] as one of the co-founders. He was somewhat of a precursor of MMT, btw, and Randy has written about him."

Great point, Tom. Couldn't agree more, though we might have different view on some aspects of deployment timing.

It's not clear that the entire world is ready for GST, any more than Europe is ready for the euro, but economics and several other social sciences certainly are!

Why aren't some disciplines ready, while some are? Simply put, GST became trivially not-helpful to the mass of specific researchers (because vague concepts like aggregate adaptation & macro economics are not ready to be fused with physics), yet something analogous to GST should STILL replace macro economics .... if there is still any intelligent life to be found in that discipline.

GST, stripped of over-promises to physics/chemistry/biology/etc, should be tremendously useful for universities seeking to fuse English/Philosophy/Anthropology/etc into a standardized form of "Liberal Arts" and "Social Sciences."

AMO?  For "adaptively modified academia?"

In fact, SETI should turn it's attention to helping to vet economic faculty & students - not to mention politicians! :)

Further, both GST and MMT absolutely must drop the trailing T as inappropriate. Replace it with an O.

General Systems Operations (or just call it culture).
Modern Monetary Operations (just fold it into general operations).

And where does this lead us? To how banal the sum of the last 60 years is!

All the sturm & drang of politics, policy & academic revolutions comes down to the pathetically slow metamorphoses of human cultural aggregates recombining minor components into new forms for new needs.

Yes, Maude, it really is that mundane.

What does it take to just do the obviously necessary, sooner? Perspective, mostly.

Aggregates fusing academic disciplines (or repurposing entire workforces) is as trivial as an individual combining shoelaces with shoes - or quickly taping 2 things together with duct tape, before rigging more permanent solutions. It could and should happen dynamically and without discussion ... and rapidly! That's what Cultural Adaptive Rate is all about. Adjusting and tuning.

Mostly, it's about redirecting preserved hoarding instincts, from local hoarding of tangible assets ... to distributed hoarding of coordination skills.

Hoarders of institutional momentum are terrified by change, while leaders & evolvers are not. In the end, surviving social species must RAPIDLY scavenge and re-purpose their own Luddites, in order to compete with the other social species that do so.

Nevertheless, we're on the same path as the first social species that evolved. Today we're just traversing trivially different contexts, at yet another scale.

We have met the enemy of autocatalysis, and he is us. "We" are both the sum of all, tangential, institutional [phenotypic] momentum ... and the pending adjustments too. It never ends.

Whatever.

We're now back to this.

  Methods drive results,
    Which demand reassessment of Desired Outcomes,
      Which drive coordinated actions,
        Which drive interactions,
          Which drive awareness,
            Which drive selection of new methods ....

A circle has no start and no end. You can come at this from anywhere and find ways to catalyze it further.

And an aggregate this big has members starting at every possible point, simultaneously & continuously. That's true for all recombinant systems.

So we're back to the obvious ... that we face an arduous, escalating tuning task (return on ever-scaling coordination) that will never end, as far as we can tell. So why isn't that reality the #1, consistent message throughout ALL forms of education & training, at all levels?

Again, don't ask me, ask your mirror.

We Can't Have Our Evolution And Centrally Plan It Too

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson.)

(Too bad financial liquidity isn't included in that plot!)

The image above drives home the ancient lesson that increasing capabilities always rest upon increasingly distributed foundations. That's true for weight in architecture, inter-relationships in resilient networks, and education in human populations.

As evidence, Bill Mitchell recently reiterated an idea that recurs periodically, but never quite often enough.

“A massive boost to public education is required."

Yet clearly, “more” education alone won’t necessarily help. “Different” education is also required.

For example, something along the lines of OBT&E, which is a method, and also a reiteration of Natural Selection.

It's also clear that each and every one of our methods is necessary but not sufficient without ongoing adaptive intent - which becomes a method for coordinating all other methods. The utility of all methods still depends upon slowly molding a human culture with a collective focus on Cultural Adaptive Rate as the common guiding light - for all the milestone, Desired Outcomes we pursue as we continuously muddle on.

We have countless options, and they are usually increasing. Increasing our cultural Adaptive Rate reduces to collectively sensing, on any given day, what permutations of our ongoing choices will actually optimally INCREASE rather than reduce our net options.

That’s a practical math problem. In fact, it's a constantly changing, massively multi-variate, adaptive cultural calculus task which we can only pursue via brute-force group calculation (utilizing massively parallel feedback, i.e., by Democracy). By definition, our survival challenges can never be modeled as fast as they change. We have to calculate them, via distributed, organized trial and error. That, plainly and simply, requires complete focus on re-connecting everyone to everyone, and summarizing all available feedback soon enough to matter.

No predictive power, but seemingly limitless adaptive power.

In other words, you can't have your evolution and Centrally Plan it too.

It seems that the baseline for all evolving organizations - of any sort whatsoever - is to have 80% of the components (whether cells, humans or even whole nations) enslaved & poorly managed by a minority still operating by yesterday's methodologies. Some things are always, briefly, the "keystone" species which both enforce existing structure & constrain Adaptive Change in every ecosystem. There are no clear lines separating phenotypic persistence, Institutional Momentum, and hegemony. Yet we must manage those distinctions as best we can.

That's our burden, as an evolving, growing aggregate. You better embrace & enjoy that task, 'cuz it's not going away.

That's the reality of organic growth. Central Planning is always fighting a staged retreat while racing to stay relevant to the expanding numbers who are escaping their comprehension.

On a personal level, it's not so different from what grandparents observe, as first their kids and then their grandchildren spiral out into the future.

It's up to us to make OUR continuous AND INCREASINGLY DISTRIBUTED transitions either relatively graceful, or rather tumultuous. How? Equally clearly, that depends on how we prepare our future citizens, by managing distributed education.

Cultural embryology, that is.

I’ll liberally paraphrase Joshua Chamberlain, circa 1865. 

“We have zero predictive power, but through training and education, we can determine what aggregate adaptive rate we can generate, when each novel group challenge appears.” 

What's that old saying? If you really love something - even the future for you, your kids and your nation - then set it free? No, not unprepared in the middle of the road, figuratively, but in a somewhat protected practice field, and then make the sacrifices necessary to protect it as it learns how to be free from your constraints.

That seems to be what human evolution is all about. We can't have our aggregate evolution and Centrally Plan it too.

No, 2 + 2 (+ something unexpected) never equals just 4. Yet our electorate has to keep making that calculation on a national level, every day, and adjust to the continuous surprises. Human cultures compete on the basis of their aggregate cultural-CPU designs.

What's that mean for citizens? Probably the following message.

If you can't stand the physical math, get out of the evolution!

The alternative is already apparent.

(Right now, we're not using our brains in any organized way, either.)

Who Leads A Democracy - Including Ours, Back Here In The USA? Well?

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

[Uh ... it's now tens of trillions.]

“The biggest issue is that [the Iraqi's] were decently equipped when we left,” said Jones. “But they were not well-led"

If that doesn't say it all about the MICC, I don't know what does.

No wonder ISIS soon took large amounts of said equipment from the Iraqis, at will. And no wonder the MICC continues taking ever larger amounts of resources from the American people, also at will.

That said, the current training effort in Iraq could actually work? In spite of the MICC?

ps: Who leads us, back here in the USA? Well?

Is some domestic self-retraining & increased practice at Democracy also long past overdue? If quality (including tempo) of distributed decision-making is our best asset, why aren't we focusing on our investment in improving that asset?

                   ---

(the following is forwarded with permission from Chuck Spinney)

Who is inside whose OODA Loop? 

 'Attached below is a prima facie evidence that ISIS has spooked everyone — except, of course, the defense contractors joyously cashing in on the the latest war. Note particularly the absurd self-referencing statements in the last two paragraphs. Apparently General Austin, the commander of Centcom, believes holding a meeting is an achievement in itself (a “milestone”) and that this “milestone” is an indicator of what the enemy fears the most — a huge ungainly coalition addicted to holding meetings. 

What we are witnessing is a closed mentality that smacks of increasing entropy inside a system that cannot communicate in an ordered way with the real world. This is precisely what happens when an OODA loop folds back on itself, sees what it whats to see, and succumbs to the temptations of incestuous amplification. (as defined in slides 40-50 of this briefing).'  Chuck Spinney

30 nations at MacDill AFB to plot Islamic State’s demise

Then what? Back to astray dogs & lead paint?

Stop Pegging Aggregate Policy Options To Narrow Interests & Perceived Personal Options. Aggregate Options Are Bigger Than Any Of Us.

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson.)



Personal hoarding of a hill of beans? All that ever produces is more old farts, plus grandchildren guaranteed to be neglected in diverse ways. Working harder to guide aggregate options by way of limited, personal perceptions just won't work, no matter HOW HARD our 1% Central Planners try to think for us, instead of with us. At our present rate, we might as well beat our collective heads against a wall, in unison. Democracy is simple. Just LISTEN, all the time, to all of us. If that keeps getting more difficult, then develop the needed methods, instead of bickering about old methods that can't scale to present needs and opportunities.

Fiscal & monetary policy almost always comes down to attempts to yoke or peg constantly expanding aggregate interests & options to narrow interests & perceived personal options. Aka, pegging public dynamic fiat to private static wealth metrics, which is always and only a function of trust and organizational alignment.

The rare times the two align are most often in times of war ... if even then.

By definition, a growing aggregate ALWAYS needs better/faster/leaner methods for practicing ways to grow affinity, trust & alignment. That seems to be our primary gating issue.

Ironically, the only - widely accepted - formal methodology that comes close to addressing our primary need is the science of military mobilization, which is itself still far off the needed mark needed for our national agenda, and is mostly misused by clueless electorates & policymakers. Luckily, that whole approach seems to be slowly transitioning back towards a timeless, OpenSource science of "outcomes based training & education" or OBT&E.

First [perfected] by Colonel Casey Haskins at Fort Benning, Georgia, OBT&E develops individual confidence, initiative, and accountability in addition to mastery of specific skills. While most training focuses on drilling students to a basic level of performance, with OBT&E the focus is on the total outcome of a task or event rather the particular way it was achieved, [thereby] encouraging the development of tangible skills and intangible attributes such as [group agility,] creativity and judgment.

Just let easy happen ... instead of mobilizing to fight ourselves?

Perhaps more flash MOBT&Es* will be the trigger that transforms us to our next level of achievement?

* Mobilizing OBT&E

Surviving Looming Challenges

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson.)




Ian Welsh does a great job of recruiting more of our unpracticed thinkers to facing our neglected but critical challenges.

44 Explicit Points on Creating a Better World

The list gets a little long and redundantly precise, but all his points are helpful in recruiting the great, unwashed masses to things more important than pop culture and overly local gratification.

Of course everyone is looking for a better way. Welsh helps out by suggesting a number of options to consider selecting from. We're drowning if naive suggestions, of course, which makes it difficult to select where to start. Welsh helps, right off the bat, because he focuses on surviving the looming challenge of ourselves, as the gateway to all other challenges. That's a lifesaving way to start.

Many of the subsequent topics Welsh draws attention to should be familiar to past readers of this blog. Welsh does us all a service by accelerating recruitment of even more newcomers to these necessary discussion topics. After all, it doesn't matter what some people know, if they can't get enough others to listen!

Points from Welsh's blog post that are worth expanding on.

1) At any one time, the bulk of individual as well as group decisions are ideological, not rational. Most decisions are quickly, automatically driven by assumptions or beliefs, not slow, emerging proofs. That's an inescapable reality for ANY evolving system in ANY unpredictable universe. We are only testing survival paths. Some times we have to back out of short - or very long - dead end paths. That's reality. Live with it ... or stubbornly die at the end of some cultural dead end.

2) As a corollary, most instantaneous problems that any system faces are ideological (i.e., system or institutional momentum), not practical or absolute limits. Most impediments involve how individuals or groups respond to challenges. It's not the challenges themselves that are tough. Recognizing that a situation or niche has changed is usually the slow part. Emerging perspective is what's always root-limiting.

3) Ergo, in our case, change is easier when people "believe" they should do things differently. Long before they prove why.* That's just driving home what we always knew, but fail to teach. Evolution proceeds by discovery, not calculation. We have zero, net predictive power, but lots of adaptive power. It's up to us to actually utilize our adaptive power, by driving an adequate pace of exploring, testing, assessing and recursively adjusting EVERYTHING in our long logistics chain (i.e., in our cultural "embryology" process; aka, our education and training systems).

4) Another implication is that, at any one instant, "leadership" of self or others, by individual leaders - OR BY CATALYST GROUPS - is mostly about loosening allegiance to old beliefs, as a prelude to establishing trust in new ones. That's a continuous "shaping" process. Cold calculation of emerging data can never keep up. This is an obvious corollary of the prior points. It's also one which some specialists are always forced to learn, yet one which we fail to teach systemically. That's a failure of reverse perspective. As we discover new extensions to our old methods, those new discoveries ALWAYS imply subtle refinements that smooth the path for new students to arrive at our current, take-off point. Neglecting that process-tuning only slows the process of individual and group trains of thought boarding at the right stations. Want to know how to steer a "vehicle" - even a culture - through the same or emerging obstacle courses, faster? Rethink and subtly change nearly everything about the vehicle - including the deveepment process for all components - back down to the original details. We do that ALL THE TIME in all industries. What on earth makes us think that that same lesson doesn't apply to our own education, training and policy-development processes? To every aspect of our democratic institutions and our entire culture? The last time we had a Chip Kelly as POTUS was FDR. We need to increase the pace of deliberative change, everywhere.

Welsh's essay is a great, example recruiting tool for some audiences. It could be even simpler for, say, younger audiences. It could also go even further for more mature audiences. Assuming that the readers of this blog include at least some of our more mature citizens, here are some extensions to consider.

There's no explicit mention of instilling doubt as the 1st, shaping step in recursively tuning belief patterns. Letting go of the old accelerates forming new habits. Habits work, until they don't. So get in the habit of changing habits - when required. When is change required? When individual or group assessment methods indicate that it is. This isn't rocket science. Just the old cascade of adjusting what did work, once it no longer does. It's not new. All that's new is how many people we have to teach perspective, doubt, altering beliefs and experimentation to, and how early in our education & training programs to introduce those changes.

There's no mention of the value of developing a more agile population, or team. One instilled from the get-go with the added perspective of - and appreciation for - evolving systems. An electorate consisting of people who always expect to have doubts & to change beliefs, and are quite comfortable with that condition .... are better prepared to keep starting and completing those tasks. Establishing perspective beforehand accelerates willingness to tackle all barriers. A culture which teaches it's citizens to expect and pursue their own changes, will be least likely to fall into Cargo Cult tangents, and will be more likely to leave other cultures in it's dust.

Enough additions for now. Let's return to a particularly useful point that Welsh DOES make, from a refreshingly different perspective.

He does everyone a service by expanding perspective on one chokepoint topic that is the focus of especially, comically constrained ideological arguments among economists.

I'll expand his point even further, in order to drive home it's value:

"[Full-time] Jobs aren’t [necessarily, or always the best or only] way to distribute surplus, but if that is how you do it, you will only get surplus in a tight labor market."

Kudos to Welsh for opening up the full-employment issue for broader perspective, and hence broader discussion. What are the underlying Desired Outcomes? Achieving AND KEEPING a more Adaptive electorate? If so, then surely we should remain open to simultaneously employing multiple approaches, so we can select from a finer range of more subtle adjustments, sooner rather than later. Ultimately, isn't that what "a more perfect union" is all about? A union that never stops increasing it's Adaptive Rate?

Duh!


* The fatal flaw of many "Austrian" economists, who assume supernatural local abilities to instantaneously calculate infinite variables, simultaneously. It's a massively self-evident fallacy, given the massively-parallel nature of both our universe and even our local contexts.