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Flashback from Allan Cox

New York Times Sunday Business

BUSINESS FORUM: FORGET CHARISMA; Focuson Teamwork, Vision and ValuesFebruary 26, 1989

By ALLAN COX; ALLAN COX IS A MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT. HIS FIFTH BOOK, ''THEACHIEVER'S PROFILE,'' HAS JUST BEEN PUBLISHED. (NYT) 1024 words

Charisma is our elixir. We swallow it as a cure-all for what ails us. Nowhere is this moreapparent than in our companies. It shows up even in the way we use language. We saywe want leaders for our corporations, not mere managers.

Charisma is our elixir. We swallow it as a cure-all for what ails us. Nowhere is this moreapparent than in our companies. It shows up even in the way we use language. We saywe want leaders for our corporations, not mere managers.

The word ''leaders,'' in this case, is spoken with lilting voice and bright eyes, conveyingthat these are especially winsome creatures with endowments not quite of this world.

This is all nonsense. A rich mixture of judgment and timing contributes more to effectiveleadership than a captivating, swashbuckling presence.

We have been through a decade of gross hucksterism in which executives have been

admonished to undergo assertiveness training, spruce up their images and even forgowearing brown suits to the office.

Just a few weeks ago, when beginning a teambuilding project for a chief executive andhis staff, I was taken aside by two staff members and told, ''He (the chief executive)needs to work on the charisma factor.''

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But when it comes to enhancing their leadership qualities, executives have better placesthan charisma to direct their attention and yearnings. I suggest three alternatives:

First, executives will be better leaders by giving their energies to the evaluation andmanagement of corporate values.

When executives behold the corporation as the social institution it is - an interpersonalnetwork committed to some mission in the service of customers, employees,shareholders and the public - it is not surprising that they think the management ofvalues may be the ultimate description of their jobs.

Some chief executives become spokespersons on this point, while others, not as vocal,have just as energetically put such conviction into play in their companies.

Perhaps the most important example of a chief executive who is concerned with valuesis James Burke, the genuine, but uncharismatic chief executive of Johnson & JohnsonInc. Mr. Burke, you will recall, has received much praise for managing Johnson &Johnson's response to the Tylenol poisonings. Yet, as deserving of high praise as theseactions were, they are not what is most remarkable about him.

Rather, it is simply his day-by-day, year-by-year, layer-by-layer involvement inrecognizing, evaluating, prioritizing and articulating Johnson & Johnson's ethical values.

A gimlet-eyed friend of mine who has worked with Mr. Burke said: ''What's typical todayis for the C.E.O. to send out a staff-drafted two-paragraph ethics statement to hismanagers. The managers are asked to read and sign it. They do this perfunctorily, andthat's it. A guy like Burke knows that's ridiculous, that it's not enough, that there's noreinforcement without the C.E.O.'s involvement. By spending the time that he does onvalues, Burke signals their importance to his people.''

This people-sensitive, customer-responsive, long-range thinking chief executive makesus forget about charisma while he gives ethics and values a good name. But this wouldnot be the case if Johnson & Johnson's financial performance were not also impressive -which it is. Mr. Burke says companies that follow ethical credos generate superiorfinancial performance.

An executive's second alternative to charisma is the exercise of vision. Ironically, there isa need to distinguish vision from charisma. This is because popular business thought, inerror, rolls up charisma and vision into a tight little ball.

A common notion is that vision is the province of a charismatic, almost clairvoyant

corporate leader. Vision is routinely taken to mean (1) gazing at a crystal ball rather than(2) understanding where a corporation finds itself at present and where it's headed.

In its simplicity, option No. 2 is the wiser course. Consider this little gem of Chinesewisdom: ''Unless we change our direction, we are likely to end up where we areheaded.'' Despite low scores on the ''excitement'' test, executives who are able to takethis earthy wisdom to heart - to develop a sense of their corporation's purpose andtrajectory - will be leaders of distinction.

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What all effective leaders do is labor with their associates to gain an understanding ofplace and direction. And that is a special way of seeing circumstances that we arecorrect to call vision. Leaders like Mr. Burke, who win lasting admiration and work toinsure their companies' futures, are the ones poised to blow the bugle in front of new andneeded initiatives - or blow the whistle to stop their companies dead in their tracks whenthey think the course is wrong. The truth for them is that a desirable tomorrow is

dependent on the decisions they make today.

A superior leader's third alternative to charisma is collaboration. He is committed tocollaboration because he knows first-hand that it produces management teameffectiveness and assures improved corporate performance. It does so by re-enliveningand tapping into the souls and minds of a company's executives who may have gonestale. And it makes them see themselves as valued contributors once more.Collaboration is the way to generate the best ideas and options for running a business.And these times demand it. Corporations that do not ''think'' teamwork, will not prosper.

The spirit of complex organizational life these days is increasingly collaborative. In ourfinest companies, much gets done daily without dazzle or hype by teams of people

pulling together. Words like ''we'' and ''our'' replace ''I'' and ''my.'' The team - not theleader - becomes the star, while the latter serves primarily as the articulator and sponsorof the vision that emerges out of the team's collaboration. Two or more heads are betterthan one. What better explanation than team involvement can account for theachievements of a Johnson & Johnson and the rock-solid, management style of Mr.Burke? But the management technology of real teamwork is not in the typical executive'srepertoire even though that technology is not complicated and can be learned withoutdifficulty.

There is no more appropriate quest for a manager than to build team involvement. That,after all, is the prize of effective leadership.

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