Comments on: Soul of the corporation, scourge of the corporation

By: M E-L

M E-L — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:56:07 +0000

A good (and short) book on the “soul of the corporation” guys is Leadership Is An Art by Max Depree.

http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Art-Max-Depree/dp/0440503248

By: Adam Richardson

Adam Richardson — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:03:34 +0000

I would put Carly Fiorina into this category of sacrificial change agent too. Saw that change had to happen, pissed a lot of people off, got fired. I think if you talk with people at HP they for the most part will recognize that change needed to happen at the company, but many of them didn’t like the style in which it was carried out under Fiorina. Hurd is ushering in change in his own way, it remains to be seen whether he will get the same antibody treatment as Fiorina. And like the CMO of Coke, he has a honeymoon period just for not being Fiorina.

By: Steve Portigal

Steve Portigal — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:11:17 +0000

I liked this post better when it said Underworld.

By: jens

jens — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 07:10:07 +0000

very sympathetic to your confession, steve.
but the ‘sacrificial change agent’ is only ‘sacrificial’ when he follows his very own cause – when he is a preacher of a very personal song… in other words: when he is not fundamentally backed up by the big boss. – something like this happened to me when i accepted a job as cmo of a considerably big company in germany which had been stuck in quite a tricky position for some time. the intellectual and strategic challenge was a piece of cake really… – turned out that the rest was not. – especially not when you have nobody on your side – and also your boss can’t quite remember why he hired you in the first place.

it was a crisp and sunny january day when the ceo told me that i was fired (he said it slightly differently). walking down the hallways i felt like robin williams in “dead poets society” when people were wishing me farewell and telling me that “nobody before had touched the corporation as deep and as profoundly in such a short time. – a short time indeed it was: one week short of three month in fact.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 23:12:09 +0000

Grant: your referencing the “sacrificial change agent” who, by definition, can’t stay long (sacrifices apparently wait for no man), strikes a chord with me, having been painfully close to this role a bit too often in my career.

If I can go back to Robert Ardrey, we might wonder if the modern corporation is a snap shot microcosm of territory defence — in this case, the protection of one’s individual political turf taking precedence over doing what may be best for the troup but sub-optimal for the “alpha manager”.

“Souls of the Corporation” threaten no one. They’re friendly, helpful, and inert. “Change Agents”, by definition, threaten everyone — even though they often point out the way by their self-destruction.

Does this sound right to you?

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:23:21 +0000

He’s Scott Underwood…not UnderWORLD.

I worked at IDEO with Scott when he was the head of Tech Support in Palo Alto and I was the tech support guy here in Boston.

Even though Scott is not an engineer or a designer, he personifies the IDEO identity so thoroughly that it is easy to understand why he is so popular within the company. He’s creative, intelligent, autodidactic, and multi-talented, but his role within the company has always been as part of the support structure, not as one of the design geniuses.

Not to speak ill of IDEO, since I enjoyed my time there, but IDEO likes to promote a somewhat fantastical version of themselves as a company full of Scott Underwoods at every level and in every role. In reality, Scott is a very unique person (whom I personally admire), and while there are many unique talents within the company, the truth falls far short of this image.