13 August 2007
Colin Powell: Trust the Element of Instinct
Last week Your Business Blogger took The Dude to The Leadership Summit simulcast by the Willow Creek Association.
Seminars of this nature are excellent overviews. It has been said that we don’t need to be taught as much as we need to be reminded.
If The (pre-teen) Dude needed to be taught, I certainly needed to be reminded.
To a point.
I didn’t need to hear the session with Jimmy Carter. No leader does. (But if the country ever needs a good roofer, Carter is ready…)
So we skipped Carter and went to Colin.
Colin Powell outlined his Powell Prinicples. One of my favorites is,
“Trust the element of instinct.”
Powell tells the Civil War story of General Grant in his siege of Richmond.
Grant was awakend by his staff, alarmed that the opposing General Robert E. Lee would be out flanking the Union line.
Disaster was about to happen. The staff feared that Lee would do great harm or at least escape to continue the fight.
General Grant instantly assessed this situation. Considered and thought, “Can this be?”
Grant determined that no, Lee would not be able to conduct such a maneuver. He dismissed his staff, rolled over and went instantly back to sleep.
And Grant was right.
Colin Powell says that Grant trusted his gut, his instinct that in the fog of battle and the necessity of making decisions with limited information, that instinct must be considered.
When Your Business Blogger was a young Army Officer, I had occasion to brief a General or two. I was constantly amazed at the Generals’ abilities to think 8 moves down the chess board of analysis. I was sometimes tasked to do more research. Or, if time did not permit, watch a senior flag officer make a decision based on my flimsy recommendations.
Every manager has been there. To make a decision on incomplete information. Right now.
Powell uses the shorthand word, calling this: trusting his instinct. Jack Welch called it trusting his “gut.”
I would submit that a more elegant and descriptive phrase would be from Henry Ford,
Experience and Judgement.
These are the two qualities for which every manager is, or should be hired.
There is no greater mistake a manager can make today than to make a bad hire.
Many factors were considered when you were brought on the payroll. Including your particular set of knowledge, skills and abilities.
And competence was certainly the first hurdle you cleared when you were brought on payroll.
But it wasn’t the real reason.
Henry Ford once said:
If you take all the experience and judgment of men over fifty out of the world, there wouldn’t be enough left to run it.
This doesn’t mean only post-fifty geezers have what it takes to run the world. It means that there are two necessary characteristics to lead and manage significant processes, projects, or people.
Ford suggests that experience and judgment are the only two reasons to hire anyone.
Ford, famous for the assembly line and interchangeable parts, knew that, in contrast, management talent was not a commodity. Management talent was, and remains unique.
No matter what your age, the emphasis in hiring — as hire-ee or hire-or, should be wisdom.
The ability to think.
You got hired for your experience and your judgment.
You can always outsource management training.
In your next hire, go thou and look for wisdom and judgement.
And trust your instincts per Powell’s Prinicples.
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