We’ve decided that successful leaders are savior, daring types who formulate immaculate master plans for everyone else to follow. Without them, the thinking goes, organizations are rudderless.
Most B-schools don’t teach Horatio Nelson’s tactical plan at the Battle of Trafalgar. They teach principles heavily influenced by Frederick Taylor’s scientific management. More than a century old, it has shaped generations of managers and leaders to believe that top-down, command-and-control is the best way to achieve efficiency and scale. It positions the leader as the chess master — planning and plotting every move, and the moves ahead of the move, to achieve victory by checkmating the opponent. Aka the competition.
All great master plans break down when they meet reality — the chaos of a complex environment. From the top, everything looks doable, simple, and modular. The step-by-step action plans make sense. The backup plans are robust. There are set resolutions to dependencies. And yet most of these elaborate plans come to a halt — or fail epically — at the first sign of resistance or a change in the environment that may or may not be beyond our control.
I’ve seen this with teams more times than I can count — a deer in the headlights moment when something happens that wasn’t part of the plan. The results range from delays to outright mayhem.
One question that’s been nagging at me for some time is this — if most elaborate and comprehensive master plans break down the moment reality hits, what actually has to be in place before teams can even get going with the mission?