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The Three Laws of Performance — Front-Matter: Front matter (cover, title, contents, notes, foreword, and introduction)
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The Three Laws of Performance Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan
Further Praise for The Three Laws of Performance ‘‘I believe this book may be one of the most important written in many years. The ideas are much larger than we normally see in business books. They aren’t tips, tools, or steps, but are in fact laws that govern individual, group, and organizational behavior. In striving for what’s possible, not just for what’s likely, this book can be a resource for generations to come.’’ From the Editor’s Note by Warren Bennis ‘‘God invites each of us to participate in the process of transforming the world—to create a world in which every person knows their infinite and irreplaceable worth and can truly fulfill their potential. This book, filled with insights, real-life encounters and experiences, shows us how we may do this work of transformation. Applicable in the corporate, labor, political, and civil society sectors—Steve and Dave have written an inspiring, practical book that will assist all who seek to rewrite the future of our world.’’ Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate
‘‘The world needs this book; it is a gem. The ideas and stories presented are empowering tributes to leaders and orga- nizations who create space for success.’’ Paul Fireman, founder, Reebok International; now chairman, Fireman Capital Partners, Boston and New York ‘‘I am the founder of a fast-growing public company that has surfed the backbone of the ideas in this book, and I attribute much of our success to applying them. When we realized that the company was operating in silos, we used applications derived from The Three Laws of Performance to have cross-functional teams create exciting, aligned futures that have resulted in unprecedented business results.’’ Chip Wilson, founder, lululemon athletica ‘‘This book is filled with powerful illustrations that show what organizations and individuals can do to make the world work. It gives hope to leaders at all levels.’’ Jack Canfield, coauthor, The Success Principlesand the Chicken Soup for the Soulseries ‘‘I invite all readers to be open to what may occur as an unfamiliar and perhaps even strange way to think about people and organizational issues. There is much to learn and the payoffs are huge.’’ From the Foreword by Michael Jensen, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business, Emeritus, Harvard Business School
‘‘For a person in a leadership position or someone aspiring to take a leadership position this is a worthwhile read. As a compendium of relevant experience, it will be hard to beat.’’ Sir Bob Reid, chairman, International Petroleum Exchange, former chairman and chief executive, Shell UK ‘‘At the Anthony Robbins’ Companies we have a huge commitment to people achieving total peak performance and optimum results in life. This book delineates the laws that allow people, companies, and organizations to create these unprecedented results. The thinking is novel and nothing short of brilliant.’’ Sam Georges, CEO and president, Anthony Robbins Holdings ‘‘This is an amazing book! It captures the principles behind applications and processes that were implemented with most of the 15,000 employees I managed within Telemar, Brazil’s largest telecommunications company. One year after the start of that process, the company successfully entered a growing and profitable new market. In my view, without the ideas in this book, we never would have gotten there that fast. It was the most exciting adventure of my life.’’ Marcio Roza, former CEO, Telemar Rio ‘‘By applying the Three Laws I noticed an instant trans- formation in all areas of my life. In business, sport, and relationships, I was able to rewrite my future, which is now full of endless possibilities.’’ Natalie Cook, four-time Olympian, Australian Beach Volleyball Team; gold medalist, Sydney, 2000
‘‘Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan have produced a book which illustrates how companies, and people, carry through the kind of transformation that occurs when water turns into steam or into ice. If you’re only interested in mediocrity, in water that’s a little warmer or a little colder, this book won’t matter to you. But if you really want to create your own future, the numerous real-life examples they give and the crystal-clear explanations they use to make their experience available to us are essential. How would I know? Well, I guess it’s because I was able to survive 16 years in wrongful solitary confinement in Chinese prisons and emerge to enjoy a Hollywood happy ending, primarily because I followed the basic laws that this book illuminates to dissolve my ‘default future’ and create a new future for myself. It’s what works—really!’’ Sidney Rittenberg, founder, Rittenberg Associates; consultant on business relations in China; coauthor, The Man Who Stayed Behind ‘‘This book is a perfect combination of fine storytelling and rock-solid ideas. It makes accessible a powerful way of thinking which has the capacity to transform businesses and their communities. I definitely recommend you read this book.’’ Peter Block, author, Community: The Structure of Belonging ‘‘In this thoughtful book, Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan show how leadership can be nurtured through becoming more aware of some fundamental laws that govern human behav- ior and thereby organizational outcomes. Those who aspire for more joyful and productive ways to lead their lives and organizations will find it to be an invaluable read.’’ Mark Zupan, dean, Simon School of Business, University of Rochester
‘‘This book is one of a kind. It explains how life truly works, offering, as it were, a view of the elephant in all its glory, not merely the tusk or the tail. Included are instructions that are guaranteed to boost performance in ways that are utterly unexpected and wholly reliable. One gets the impression that having discovered the secret of life, the authors have a deep and genuine desire to share it with their readers.’’ Rosamund Zander, coauthor, The Art of Possibility ‘‘I have seen and witnessed the power of this realization in a dusty mining community in post Apartheid South Africa, where thousands of South Africans said that together their future would be written differently, creatively. Practicing the principles as outlined in this profound and readable book, a whole community was empowered to become the space for a transformed future. This book isn’t about ideas and theories; it is about the rugged hard work of writing a different future for you, your community, your company or organization—a future that is inclusive, alive, possible, and sustainable. It’s the only future we have. I acknowledge Steve and Dave for their unique and excep- tional contribution and for showing us how to do this work. It couldn’t come at a more momentous time.’’ The Reverend Chris Ahrends, former chaplain to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, CEO, Four Consulting, South Africa The Three Laws of Performance gives access to being a person of integrity and an extraordinary leader. Using the ideas in this book, you will see that there are no limits to what you can achieve.’’ Richard V. De Mulder, professor, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands
‘‘At the end of the day when you implement solutions identified in a Six Sigma and/or Lean project, your ability to execute the solution is not dependent on the set of technical tools. It is people embracing the solution and acting on it. This is a book that will help you understand and respect the importance of language and how it can be used to leverage communication into a powerful business improvement tool.’’ Mike Carnell, coauthor, Leaning Into Six Sigma, president and CEO, CS International, LP ‘‘The Three Laws of Performance is a fascinating book that will change your perspective on your organization, your people, and on yourself. Through a combination of a deep, practical, and often philosophical understanding of what it is to be human, a wide range of telling examples, and a set of exercises, this book has the rare capacity of delivering insights that ring home and will make a difference. Our personal experience is that this not only generates new and unprecedented opportunities but does so through passion and joy of play.’’ Jaap Winter, partner, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek Kees Cools, executive director, The Boston Consulting Group in Amsterdam Principals, Wintercools corporate governance advisors ‘‘Great performance is about people. The Three Laws of Performance gets to the heart of how leaders learn about their employees, their organization, and themselves. You will have a clearer understanding of how you can unlock the power of people when you are done reading this book.’’ Garry Ridge, president and CEO, WD-40 Company
The Three Laws of Performance
A W A R R E N B E N N I S B O O K This collection of books is devoted exclusively to new and exemplary contributions to management thought and practice. The books in this series are addressed to thoughtful leaders, executives, and managers of all organizations who are struggling with and committed to responsible change. My hope and goal is to spark new intellectual capital by sharing ideas positioned at an angle to conventional thought—in short, to publish books that disturb the present in the service of a better future.
Books in the Warren Bennis Signature Series Branden Self-Esteem at Work Mitroff, Denton A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America Schein The Corporate Culture Survival Guide Sample The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership Lawrence, Nohria Driven Cloke, Goldsmith The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy Glen Leading Geeks Cloke, Goldsmith The Art of Waking People Up George Authentic Leadership Kohlrieser Hostage at the Table Rhode Moral Leadership George True North Townsend Up the Organization Kellerman, Rhode Women and Leadership Riggio The Art of Followership Gergen, Vanourek Life Entrepreneurs Frohman, Howard Leadership the Hard Way George, McLean, Craig Finding Your True North: A Personal Guide Kleiner The Age of Heretics
The Three Laws of Performance Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan
Copyright 2009 by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan. All rights reserved. Published by Jossey-Bass. A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741—www.josseybass.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. Jossey-Bass also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zaffron, Steve, 1944- The three laws of performance : rewriting the future of your organization and your life / Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-19559-8 (cloth) 1. Performance. 2. Organization. 3. Leadership. I. Logan, David (David Coleman) II. Title. BF481.Z23 2009 650.1—dc22 2008044975 Printed in the United States of America first edition HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents Editor’s Note, by Warren Bennis xvii Foreword, by Michael C. Jensen xxi Authors’ Note xxv Introduction: The Power of Rewriting the Future xxix Part I: The Three Laws in Action 1. Transforming an Impossible Situation 3 2. Where Is the Key to Performance? 31 3. Rewriting a Future That’s Already Written 65 Part II: Rewriting the Future of Leadership 4. With So Many Books on Leadership, Why Are There So Few Leaders? 93 5. The Self-Led Organization 117 Part III: Mastering the Game of Performance 6. Who or What Is Leading Your Life? 143 7. The Path to Mastery 169 8. Breaking the Performance Barrier 199 xiii
xiv CONTENTS Appendix: The Three Laws of Performance and the Leadership Corollaries 207 Notes 209 Acknowledgments 211 The Authors 215 Index 217
We dedicate this book to our wives, Olga and Harte, who kept our dream alive, even when we forgot it.
Editor’s Note There must be a Jay Gatsby gene in all of us who are involved in the improbable task of transforming organizations. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, our avatar, embodied this with his ‘‘passion for the promises of life.’’ I’ve been brooding and thinking about this for more than a half century, and at times I think it’s a bootless chase; in more promising moods, a Sisyphean task; and at other times, one of Zeus’s cruel hoaxes he pulls on us susceptible mortals from time to time to prod us further in search of a vivid utopia. Then every once in a while a book comes along with a jolt that uplifts and restores your simmering passion and brings it to a boil. This book of Zaffron and Logan does just that. And I’m still happily surprised that they managed to pull it off. I first heard their ideas, several years ago, in a quietly elegant restaurant in Santa Monica. I listened to them with equal amounts of wonder and skepticism. What fascinated me that evening, most of all, was their gutsy aspiration: to integrate an interdisciplinary slew of disciplines as disparate as brain science, linguistics, organizational theory, and com- plex adaptive systems with a few fundamental laws of human and organizational behavior that could lead to palpable and xvii
xviii EDITOR’S NOTE profound change in both domains. That’s a mouthful—and hearing about this for the first time, I tried unsuccessfully to suspend my disbelief. So I asked them to write it up. Words do have a way with me, and I needed a lot more assurance than words thrown about in a star-kiss’d evening over too many drinks. That was five years ago. Since then, I worked with Steve and Dave, reviewing one draft after the other. There’s something to be said for wallowing and marinating, and with each draft my enthusiasm mounted. I wasn’t quite the midwife to this book; godfather better describes my role. I believe this book may be one of the most important written in many years. The ideas are much larger than what we normally see in business books. They aren’t tips, tools, or steps, but are in fact laws that govern individual, group, and organizational behavior. The stories aren’t the normal ones we read about in business; rather, they are illustrations of organi- zations bringing out the best in people and in communities. These aren’t just companies making a profit, but companies doing well in the world, by any measure. Leaders would be well served to think about these laws and find ways to apply their insights. Working through this book, the reader will have an advan- tage that I didn’t have when I first listened to Steve and Dave. The reader can pause, think, reflect. Even set the book down and talk about it with others. Then go back and continue on. I found the stories in the book to be like movies, ones that surprised me in their poignancy. I keep recalling the pictures and images of the different cultures and companies in the book and the people who struggled to make new realities hap- pen. For me, the most surprising, improbable, and inspiring are the glimpses into the world of Lonmin, the platinum mining
EDITOR’S NOTE xix company in South Africa. As many times as I’ve read the story through various drafts over the years, it still inspires me about what organizations can become, and should become. Chapter Five, on self-led organizations, is rich for a different reason. It paints a vision of what organizations can become, in which the organization itself becomes a leader in the world. That chapter is paradigm-busting, and I hope business leaders will go through it slowly and with reflection. As we move into the heart of the twenty-first century, it’s time for business leaders to ask what impact they want their career and their entire organization to make. The future that’s already written about organizations is not the most ideal. We can do better; we must do better. In helping us to strive for what’s possible, not just for what’s likely, this book can be a resource for generations to come. Warren Bennis December 2008
Foreword I have no doubt that the ideas, distinctions, and methodologies that underlie what Steve and Dave so expertly present will have a substantial impact on the world. I’m honored to be invited to write this foreword. When I was first introduced to some of the ideas contained in this book I saw the extraordinary impact they made on the audience. I was struck by the enormous potential, relevance, and applicability of this approach to transforming human beings and organizations. But from my worldview I could not understand how this dramatic impact occurred. Since then I have spent considerable time and energy researching these ideas on my own and in collaboration with Steve and Dave with the intention to see them become universally available. It has not been a simple task. This book takes a substantial step toward accomplishing this aspiration. My congratulations! I contacted Steve early in my efforts to get to the bottom of these ideas and to fully grasp their ability to dramatically influence the power and productivity of people and organi- zations. Much of my research and writing is now devoted to these efforts. In 1997 I was hitting the wall as a leader with my Faculty Unit at the Harvard Business School. To be blunt I was xxi
xxii FOREWORD failing. I asked Steve to help and he generously agreed to work with me and my group (the Organizations and Markets Group at HBS). That two days of work (during which he undertook a task that most of us thought impossible in such a short time) put us, as a group, back on the track to becoming a formally sanctioned unit of HBS. For that, and for being the teacher, counselor, partner, and colleague that Steve has been for me, I am deeply grateful. Steve has a proven track record over decades of designing and implementing large-scale initiatives that elevate organiza- tional performance, and that talent was truly required to bring the Organizations and Markets Group at HBS to its current status. In addition to witnessing his successful work with my group, I’ve been fortunate to both observe and work with Steve in designing and delivering programs in other client and academic settings. He is a master. I met Dave Logan through the Barbados Group (see Authors’ Note). Dave has deep expertise in researching and designing programs that synthesize organizational change, management, and leadership. I have been privileged to work with him in delivering sessions of an executive development program for a large multinational company. I am always amazed at Dave’s ability to penetrate to the core of what it takes to bring about progress. I recall one particularly difficult situation I faced when Dave coached and guided me in a way that quickly turned this situation around. Dave is also a master. I must recognize the members of the Barbados Group; in particular, Werner Erhard, for being the catalyst that brought these extraordinary thinkers together and for his superb lead- ership of the group’s discussions. I am deeply grateful for the contribution these conversations have made to me personally and to this book.
FOREWORD xxiii I especially invite all readers to be open to what may occur as an unfamiliar and perhaps even strange way to think about people and organizational issues. There is much to learn and the payoffs are huge. Michael C. Jensen Jesse Isidor Straus, Professor of Business Emeritus Harvard Business School Sharon, Vermont September 2008
Authors’ Note This book stems from a unique partnership, and it wouldn’t have been possible without input from an extraordinary group of individuals. Steve has been called a ‘‘Zen Master in a business suit,’’ and Dave has the nickname ‘‘Dr. Phil to the Fortune 500.’’ In the 1960s, Steve was getting his education, both in grad school and on the streets of Chicago, around the time that Dave was born. Somehow, in the course of our very different lives, we both became passionate around the same question: How do people perform beyond their limits? Steve’s involvement with this question started thirty years ago, when he first met Werner Erhard, the founder of est and originator of transformational ideas and applications. Today, Steve is the CEO of Vanto Group and has worked with more than a hundred thousand people and a wide range of businesses, in over twenty countries. In addition, Steve is an executive and board member with Vanto’s parent company, Landmark Education, where he spearheaded the development of Landmark’s programs. Today, Landmark has over a million graduates. xxv
xxvi AUTHORS’ NOTE Dave took a very different journey. After becoming an associate professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, and one of the youngest associate deans in the institution’s history, he wanted to play a more direct role in making businesses work. Today, Dave balances teaching at the Marshall School of Business with consulting to many of the Fortune 500 companies as a senior partner in CultureSync. We first met ten years ago when Dave invited Steve to lecture to his graduate business class at USC. During that first meeting, Dave proposed writing a case study that would highlight the impact of what Steve had developed in applying transformation in a corporate setting. When that case study broke sales records, we realized there was a demand for these ideas far beyond what we had originally thought. Around the time of that realization, we joined with about a dozen academics, corporate executives, and consultants to examine the impact of personal and organizational transforma- tion. This group, which became known as the Barbados Group after the location of our first meeting, investigated situations in which performance surpassed expectations and then studied the theories that might explain these surprising results. In the course of its work, the group reviewed models from brain sci- ence, linguistics, complex adaptive systems, philosophy, many other disciplines, as well as ideas from the oral tradition of est and Landmark Education. From this inquiry, a new model of performance emerged. Several years into the process, the Barbados Group felt an urgency to get these ideas out to a wide audience. This book is a first step toward that end. To say we are indebted to our fellow members is an under- statement, as everything we write here stems from their hard
AUTHORS’ NOTE xxvii work, relentless focus, and fierce commitment to produce a model of performance that would make a real difference in business and in the lives of people. The members of the Barbados Group are Sir Christo- pher Ball, Patron, Talent Foundation, and former chancellor, University of Manchester; Peter Block, author, and business and community consultant; Allan Cohen, strategy consul- tant; Joseph DiMaggio, director of research and development, Landmark Education, and former research physician, Memo- rial Sloan-Kettering Research Center; Werner Erhard, creator of transformational ideas and applications; Bruce Gregory, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Science Educa- tion; Michael Jensen, senior advisor, the Monitor Company, and Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus; Olga Loffredi, managing director, Vanto Group Latin America; Brad Mills, former CEO, Lonmin Plc.; Robert Rosen, psychologist, author, and chairman and CEO, Healthy Companies International; Harry Rosenberg, CEO, Landmark Education Enterprises; Allan Scherr, management consultant, and former IBM Fel- low and Vice President; Michael Zimmerman, professor and director, Center for Humanities and the Arts, University of Colorado, Boulder; Mark Zupan, dean, Simon School of Business, University of Rochester; and both authors of this book. This book pools contributions from many difference sources: the Barbados Group; Steve’s time with Landmark Education and the Vanto Group; Dave’s teaching, research, and consulting through USC and CultureSync; and the thousands of people we’ve worked with over several decades. The result: Three Laws that provide concise, elegant access to elevating performance far above what most of us think is possible.
Introduction: The Power of Rewriting the Future In our work lives, when something isn’t working, we struggle with which part of the problem to tackle first. Do we start with cost reduction? What about morale? Or should we begin with process improvement? In our personal lives, it’s the same dilemma—which prob- lem do we work on first? Should we resolve to do better with home finances? Make our marriage more fulfilling? Get rid of ten pounds? Spend more time with the kids? The optimist says there’s opportunity everywhere we look. The pessimist says everything is messed up, and it’s as though every system is perfectly designed to stay messed up, no matter how many things we try to fix. We pick the problem to work on, and we either fail or succeed. If we fail, we add ‘‘frustration’’ to our list of problems. If we succeed, a new problem pops up to replace the old one. The solution to a problem becomes the next problem. We cut 10 percent out of our department budget, and our star performers leave in frustration, experiencing a lack of support for projects important to them. We quit smoking and gain ten pounds. We go to the gym to lose the weight, and our family xxix
xxx INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF REWRITING THE FUTURE complains we’re not home enough. We spend more time at home, and our boss gripes that we’re not getting enough done, the budget is out of control, and when are we going to fire the next person we can’t afford to lose? It’s so much stress that, before we know it, we’re smoking again. It’s as though the system we’re working on—the company, finances, health, our personal life—is an old inner tube. The moment we patch one hole and add pressure, another spot rips open. People spend their lives perfecting the art of improve- ment—more, better, different, and faster. Using this approach, many problems seem intractable. As the French proverb says, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Why is that? Imagine a company that is missing its financial targets, selling products people aren’t buying. The cubicles are packed with frustrated people who take their malaise home. Dissatis- faction spills out into family life and, through the employees’ children, into the schools and community. If we try to fix this problem in patchwork style, we may never get ahead of the corporate death spiral. Create new products, only to find investors have pulled out. Work on financial reporting—as the competition releases a new product that puts ours further behind. The reason fixing problems often doesn’t deliver expected results is that the result is only superficial. What’s left untouched are the underlying dynamics that perpetuate the problem. For every ‘‘problem,’’ there is a future that’s already been written about it. This future includes people’s assumption, hopes, fears, resignation, cynicism, and ‘‘lessons learned’’ through past experience. Although this future is almost never
INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF REWRITING THE FUTURE xxxi talked about, it is the context in which people try to create change. If you went into the company described earlier, and got employees talking about the future, they’d probably say some- thing like It will never work out. We’re mired in politics, so when we do bring a product to market, it’s two years too late, and that’s not going to change. Our leaders will never lead—it’s not in them. We’ll just waste away until we’re bought or shut down. Although most people have never articulated what they really think will happen to them personally or organizationally, they live every moment as if it’s destined to come about. Employees are reduced to going through the motions, never fully engaging, never taking on the politics that they believe is holding the company back. If you interviewed the leaders in this company, you’d hear a future that is correlated with what the employees describe, something like People here don’t care, and they never will. We invite their ideas, but they never come through with anything good. We don’t have the money to replace them with star performers, and so we’ll always be a B player in this industry at best. We’ll continue to do the best we can, but as a company, we’ll never really succeed. Like the employees, the leaders do their best in a situation that is doomed to mediocrity. They ask employees for input, already thinking to themselves that the suggestions will be second-rate. Leaders work hard, but the company continues to lose ground against the competitors. People at all levels are frustrated but don’t see anything they can do to help. Two points are critical here. First, everyone experiences a future in front of them, even though few could articulate it. It goes beyond what they expect to happen, hope will happen, or think might happen. This future lives at a gut level. We know it’s what will happen, whether we can give words to it or not.
xxxii INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF REWRITING THE FUTURE We call this the default future, and every person has one. So does every organization. Second, people’s relationship with the default future is complex. If someone described your default future to you, you might disagree, perhaps even get angry at how different that future is from what you think will happen. (Remember, the default future lives at an experiential level. It’s underneath what we think and hope will happen.) Yet you (along with the rest of us) live as if that future is preordained. You live into your default future, unaware that by doing so you are making it come about. To see the complexity at work, think about people you know who have wrestled with the same personal problem for years—weight, drugs, alcohol, or an unhappy personal relationship. Although they might say, ‘‘I want to get help,’’ or ‘‘this will be different,’’ their actions show a recurrence. Why is it so hard to change? Because wrestling with that problem, over and over, lives in their future—sometimes winning, sometimes losing, but always struggling. No matter how much they try to change, or how many self-help books they read, their default future has a predictable shape. The same dynamic exists at the organizational level. Sta- tistical evidence shows that most significant change efforts fail. The reason for this is that regardless of the management inter- ventions tried, the default futures of employees and leaders are still in place. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This book isn’t about change management—more, better, or different. It’s about rewriting the future. The result is the transformation of a situation, leading to a dramatic elevation in performance.
INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF REWRITING THE FUTURE xxxiii Imagine, in the example we presented, what the company would look like if the people rewrote their future. What if it were this: We’ve turned around the company. We have come from behind and set the standard for the industry. We are people that work together, innovate, and succeed. Notice that we’re not talking about motivational speeches or slogans that people repeat. We’re talking about rewriting what people know will happen. Rewrite this future, and peo- ple’s actions naturally shift: from disengaged to proactive, from resigned to inspired, from frustrated to innovative. If we could rewrite the future across a critical mass of people, we could transform a tired company into an innovator, a burned-out culture into one of inspiration, a command-and-control struc- ture into a system in which everyone pulls for each other’s success. This kind of transformation creates a wave of momen- tum: investors want in, companies want to partner with us, potential employees want to join our ranks. Notice that all this happened without targeting the problems themselves. Rewrite the future, and old problems disappear. After reading this book, you will see how to rewrite your future and the future of an entire organization. Applying the ideas here will produce levels of performance many people believe is impossible. Seem far-fetched? This book is filled with examples that are this dramatic. The power in this book stems from using the Three Laws of Performance. A law isn’t a rule, tip, or step; it distinguishes the moving parts at play behind an observable phenomenon. A law is invariable. Whether you believe in gravity or not doesn’t lessen its effect on you.
xxxiv INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF REWRITING THE FUTURE The greatest advances in history have come from applying newly discovered laws. Think of Newton’s three laws of motion. Each on its own is interesting and insightful, and when combined together and applied, they become powerful and predictive. When theThreeLawsin thisbook areapplied, performance transforms to a level far beyond what most people think is possible. It doesn’t happen bit by bit, but all at once, as individuals and organizations rewrite their future. Part One (Chapters One, Two, and Three) takes these laws, one at a time, and shows how to apply them. You’ll see how to jettison what’s holding you back and create a future for your business and your life beyond what’s predictably going to happen. Along the way, you’ll likely see and transform much of what is holding you back, both professionally and personally. Through the journey of these first three chapters, we’ll visit companies in South Africa, Japan, South America, and the United States, looking into diverse industries such as aerospace, energy, construction, and mining. We’ll make stops in a high-tech start-up, a major Brazilian oil company, even the Harvard Business School. We’ll see that the Three Laws always hold—they are universal principles that apply any time human beings are involved in any kind of effort. We’ll see the result of understanding and applying them—dramatic elevations in performance. Part Two (Chapters Four and Five) looks at leadership in light of the Three Laws. This section identifies key leadership principles and how to apply them in organizations. We also look at the new frontier of organizations: working effectively in the developing world, creating sustainability in communities, and generating the expansion of wealth (both material and in the well-being of people). This section is intended for people
INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF REWRITING THE FUTURE xxxv interested in organizational leadership. If your interest is mostly personal application, you may want to skip to Part Three. Part Three (Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight) is about the personal face of leadership. Chapter Six shows how you can apply the Three Laws to yourself—and in the process expand your own leadership. Chapter Seven is about taking the walk down the path to mastery of the Three Laws. Chapter Eight offers some guidance on how to take these new ideas out into your world. This book is not an academic study, although its conclu- sions draw on well-established lines of research. Our intent is to introduce these laws and illustrate how their application can enhance performance. The examples almost all come from cases in which we and our colleagues have been personally involved. We’ve been there, we’ve seen it, and now we want to share it. In reading this book and applying the Three Laws, you’ll do more than find fixes to your problems. You’ll find the power to rewrite your future.