Category: Non-Fiction

In this rather crowded market of management books on leadership, two things I find intriguing about Robert Thomas’s new title “Crucibles of Leadership”.  First, the concept of an experience-based leader development.  Second, using the medieval alchemists’ vessel – crucible – as an analogy to the defining moments that are capable to transform us.  Can this book deliver what it promises: How to learn from experience to become a great leader?  That depends on how much you can get out from this book that comes in three distinct parts; each part may have a better appeal to a certain group of readers with different learning styles and backgrounds than others.

Part One – Experience Matters

I in particularly enjoy reading the first part of the book, “Experience Matters – But Then What?”.  Having played music as a hobby, I can certainly relate to the author’s analogy to how the artists practice while perform, and perform as though it is part of their practice routine.  And this idea of constantly learning and reflecting upon what we’ve experienced appears to be one of the focal points of the book.

I am also intrigued by how the author identifies different types of crucibles – defining moments that transform our lives in either a positive or negative way – and how different types of crucibles may emerge more frequently in a particular course of our career than the others.  For instance, we are likely to learn from the new unknowns at our younger years than say, setbacks that happen more often during our mid career.  The gems, to me, are the tabulated information throughout this part one of the book on how to benefit from different types of crucibles.  They add much clarity to the case studies illustrated.

According to research, in many fields, it takes ten years of deliberate, intentional practice to take us beyond novice and adept and to achieve the status of expert.  And to be an expert is to be able to adapt, innovate, and to move between genres or to inject originality.  To apply this to leadership development is something I have not previously thought of.  But how?  That is the next part.

Part Two – Personal Learning Strategy (PLS)

Some people may better appreciate this part of the book than others as it is more instructional.  You are asked to self-assess your capabilities in three dimensions: adaptive capacity, engaging others, and integrity and to craft your own PLS using the template provided.  Based on how you see yourself at peak performance within a certain time frame, where you are today, and what motivates you, the PLS prompts you to think of a set of action points to push yourself forward.  This part of the book even contains a timetable to guide you in assessing your progress and to review and amend your PLS periodically.

It seems like hard work, doesn’t it?  Going back to part one of the book, to be an expert require years of deliberate and intentional practice.  Hence, there is no exception to leadership development I believe.  And before we move onto the the last part of the book, how many of you have asked yourself the question: Why lead?  I personally think that author has hit the nail on the head.  Once we know why we want to lead, we know where our motivation lies.

Part Three – The Big Picture

For those who are working in the line of organizational effectiveness as well as at the senior management rank, you may benefit a great deal from this part of the book.  There are interesting case studies on how organizations can benefit from the preparing, deploying, and renewing existing and prospective leaders by means of a more active and creative use of experience.

Since the author Robert J. Thomas is executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business, I am curious about how PLS is implemented in Accenture, the global consulting company, today.  So I contacted my old friend from Accenture, where I spent a good number of years working as a consultant.  According to my friend, the terminology used internally may be different, but the concept used in his career planning and review is similar.

My personal thought is that though you may not in the position to influence and change how your organization develops leaders, by being aware that there are organizations out there that adopt a more experience-based approach, this may help you to move towards an environment that better suit you, especially when you start to build your own PLS and wish to see it links to an organization’s reward and recognition program.

In Summary

“Crucibles of Leadership” is certainly a book for those who appreciate a structured and disciplined approach to learn from experience.  Even if your current organization may not fully buy into this approach (if it does, all the better), it doesn’t stop you from having your own Personal Learning Strategy and in time to come, you may find yourself a more suitable environment to excel.  And for those who are in the position to enhance the organizational model, this book can be a good reference point.

What does ethics mean to you?  I asked this question to the people around me and the responses commonly point to a state of vagueness, and of confusion.  Some are able to observe ethics when lapses occur.  Most think that there are different types of ethics.  Not many are able to articulate and relate to the benefits of being ethical at the personal level.  Is there such a thing as ethically right or wrong?  Some may ask.

Yet, we face ethical decisions in our day-to-day life, at work and out of work.  Maybe we lie to avoid embarrassment.  Maybe we think that white lies are acceptable, especially if lying will lead to a ‘greater good’.  How about making promises that we can’t keep?  Is it wrong to download or copy intellectual properties?  Shall we work for or invest in organizations whose products harm innocent people?  Note that none of these questions that cover the areas of deception, stealing, and harming has a demarcation between work and life.  It is the same person who makes these decisions based on the same ethical code.

Having taught ethics for decades – both in the academic and profession arenas – the authors Ron Howard and Clint Korver have put together a book that clearly defines what ethics is.  In crisp black and white, the authors leave no room for ambiguity.  And because of their extensive training experience, “Ethics for the Real World” is one of the rare books I read that focuses on imparting knowledge via a simple structure, filled with lively easy to relate real life case studies, thought experiments, real life ethical codes that their students have drafted, and a book summary with key learning points, examples, supplemented with the page numbers as a quick reference guide.

I picked this book because I confess that in my life and in my line of work, at times I do find myself trapped in many so-called gray areas where I am tempted to transgress ethics.  And I did in some situations.  “Ethics for the Real World” opens my eyes to perspectives that I have not previously thought of.  I am not a skeptic but I was initially skeptical when I was asked to draft my own ethics code (one generic code for all types of situations).  How is it even possible when the scope is so huge?  Upon reading some of the examples written by the students, I am convinced that it can be done.  In fact, I may draft one and share with you all here in my website.  After I have finished reading the book, I am also convinced that it is possible when faced with situations – personal and professional – I shall be able to create alternatives and look for a quality solution that may even be transformational.  We may regret decisions made that are unrelated to ethics.  But to transgress ethics leads us to remorse.  In as much as possible, I would like to live a life with no remorse.

Related Website: ethics {for the real world}

Book Summary

Kindly note that this book summary is written for my own future reference.  It may read dry without the case studies and illustrations from within the book.

Ethical refers to behavior considered right or wrong according to our own beliefs no matter the culture or society.  We develop our own code for self-improvement, and not to criticize others.  Having good ethics enable us to lower the barrier between others and to enhance relationships.

Ethics is about actions, not thoughts.  It is important to note that there are three dimensions of action: prudential, legal, and ethical.  Prudential dimension pertains to our self-interest and legal dimension pertains to the law in our social system.  These dimensions overlap with one another.  Rarely we encounter ethical dilemmas.  The key is to clearly define our possible actions and to go through a consistent approach in arriving at a quality decision.

There are negative ethics (things that we shall not do) and there are positive ones (things that we shall do).  Confusing the two often leads to fuzziness when making decisions because positive ethics are like aspirations, they are lacking in bright lines of what we shall not do.  We also need to distinguish between action- and consequence-based ethics.  “Thou shall not kill” is a good example of action-based ethics.  But will we kill if killing is for a ‘greater good’?  Misusing consequence-based ethics may lead us to justify our wrongs.  In fact, rationalization often comes in ethical-sounding clothing.

We form our touchstones by consulting our religious legacy, secular legacy, as well as the codes written by our organization and professional bodies.  With our touchstones, we can draft our own ethical code, test them out, and live by it.

Transgressing ethics in any circumstances often result in a lost of opportunities for our own growth.  More often than not, we can create alternatives.  And some of these alternatives can transform our life and work.  When in doubt, put ourselves in other’s shoes.  Start with the ones we love.

Living by our ethical codes is a skill that we need to turn into a habit, into a way of life.  And we shall continue to expand our ethical space as we grow.

I beat the book by arriving at the conclusion that “Marketing Metaphoria” has a much wider application way before I’ve reached the final chapter.  Marketers who wish to reveal the minds of the consumers will certainly find this book useful (Which marketer doesn’t wish that?).  Even if you don’t work directly in the line of marketing, you may benefit from being aware of the key deep metaphors that exist in almost every aspect of our lives.  The book quotes a few case studies in the final chapter to illustrate just that.  I will add one potential application out of my own experience later in this review.

In your line of work, you may at some point in time need to solicit opinions like some of my previous projects – be it as a survey that your team has developed for a market research project or a set of probing questions prepared for a focus group discussion.  The question remains: How do you know if the responses to these questions reveal what the sample audience really think and not what you deem important?  To add an extra level of challenge, your sample audience may not really mean what they say.  How can then you go beyond the metaphors appear at the surface (from what they say) and reveal something deep from within (of what they think)?

This book “Marketing Metaphoria” is a crystallization of hundreds of market research projects across more than thirty countries and it has a simple structure.  The first two chapters build a business case on why recognizing deep metaphors is important.  The subsequent seven chapters are dedicated to the seven key deep metaphors that are common to us.  And the final chapter puts all these metaphors at work through real life examples that go beyond marketing.  Due to the difference in the authors’ background, each chapter has a good mix of academic theories as well as real life case studies.  In a sense, the theories do not appear dry and they do reinforce and substantiate the examples quoted.

Before I get into the how, let’s take a quick look at what deep metaphors are.

Deep metaphors, simply put, are unconscious viewing lenses that structure what we think, hear, say, and do.  And the authors Gerald and Linsay Zaltman created the term Metaphoria that refers to ‘a place where our basic views of the world are formed’.  It is because metaphors transcend our nationality, ethnicity, language, and other differences we may have, understanding how to reveal individual deep metaphors can be a powerful tool.  Applying this skill to marketing, for instance, can help the managers in the areas of market segmentation, advertising, product design, new product ideas, and product positioning.

In the book, the authors present seven deep metaphors that account for about 70% of the cases they have encountered.  These metaphors are: balance, transformation, journey, container, connection, resource, and control.  I won’t describe these metaphors in details.  Instead, I have placed a link at the end of this review for further reading.  What I’ll do here is to give you an illustration on, say, the container deep metaphor.

When we think of containers, we may think of two functions: keeping things in and keeping things out, and they are pervasive.  Believe it or not, this metaphor is deeply rooted in us.  Think ‘from womb to tomb’, we travel from one container to another.  I wonder if anyone can remember one of the old advertisements from Coke (here is the YouTube video).  The theme was “have a Coke and a smile”.  Back then, Coke was described as ‘a container of positive emotions that flow into yet another container’.

How about freedom from a repressive container?  If you take a look at the image on the right taken from the Harley-Davidson website, a lone motorcyclist on an open road invokes the unique American symbol for freedom.  The motorcycle dissolves restrictive containers in life granting its rider the ability to express freely.

“Marketing Metaphoria” addresses each key deep metaphor in a similar fashion: highlighting the various facets on both the application of the positive and the negative sides of the deep metaphor supported by theories, illustrated by examples.

I must admit that this book does not elaborate too much on how to reveal the deep metaphors from the sample audience.  It does mention one technique of asking the participants of the market research to bring along eight images that they think are relevant to the topic.  The interviewer will on the spot scan in the images and create a single picture using an image editing software as the participants talk through it.  Deep metaphors are identified this way.  Perhaps it is the same technique that they have been doing for these hundreds of market research projects.  “Marketing Metaphoria” does not necessarily replace the existing methodology you have already been practicing, in my opinion; it does equipe you with the essential tools to formulate the questions and interpret the responses from the sample audience.

This book, though is an easy read on its own, may require much effort to internalize and apply to your line of work.  Those who are already in the fields of marketing or cognitive science may find it a breeze to read.  In a mere 256 pages (hardcover), it is packed with lots of valuable ideas covering a wide spectrum of industries.  These ideas, I can imagine, are good for those who have a passion to understand what the consumers or sample audience want in a deeper level rather than asking the questions that they deem important.

The last bit of this review is really what I can personally apply based on the new ideas I have acquired from this book.  From my more than a decade of experience in both external and internal consulting work, I often am involved in projects that bring forth change to the organization.  The context is not important here – be it as technology, process, strategy, or others – what is important is: I am here to change the way you work whether you like it or not.

The reality is, seldom people like change.  So project usually puts in a change management piece of work that includes a communication plan amongst others to help transitioning the affected parties into the new way of working.  The number one question from the potentially unhappy crowd would be: How does this going to benefit me?

That’s where internal (or external if you are the hired consultant) project branding and marketing comes into the picture.  Some organizations create project logos, posters, and so on to communicate the change.  The challenge is usually what kind of common message would resonance with the people on the ground who will be affected.

The best time to answer this question is in fact going back to the beginning of the project when the people on the ground are interviewed during the requirement or information gathering activity.  Reveal their pain points using deep metaphors and when the time comes (usually at the middle or towards the end of the project depending on the scale of the project), create a common message that the people on the ground can relate.  In fact, by understanding what their pain points are in the forms of deep metaphors at the early stage of the project may even steer the project in a positive way.

In the closing chapter of “Market Metaphoria”, the authors highlight other applications such as resolving political and personal conflicts amongst others using deep metaphors.  Marketers would treasure this book.  I believe the rest would too and be able to relate.  After all, who is not a consumer in our modern world?

Gerald Zaltman is an emeritus professor at the Harvard Business School, and has served on the Advisory Board of Harvard’s “Mind, Brain and Behavior Initiative.” Lindsay Zaltman is managing director at Olson Zaltman Associates. They are the authors of Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers (Harvard Business Press; May 2008).

ISBN: 978-1-4221-2115-3

Related Link: Seven Giants – Deep Metaphors