First, let me start with a perhaps contrarian observation. You have now finished a five-part series exploring modalities and trajectories of failure, complete with heroes and villains, visionaries and blind men, utterly unnecessary self-inflicted wounds and impossible recoveries against seemingly insurmountable odds. We all know who to root for in these stories, don’t we?
Not so fast. Not every firm deserves to survive. Sometimes the economy and, yes, society, benefits from shedding organizations that no longer serve their function or are simply ongoing pools of frustration, misery, and aborted careers. Firms have no entitlement to immortality, and it’s mawkish to assume otherwise.
Of course, we’re all emotionally tied to our firms: So stipulated. Is there, then, any more objective way of assessing when a leader ought to pull out all the stops to survive (Mulcahy) vs. when it’s time just to call in the Chapter 11 team (Zenith)?
Collins suggests there is, and if I disagreed with him I’d let you know, in words of one syllable. But I do agree with him, and the perspective he expresses here (I borrow liberally) is one we’re increasingly incorporating into our work with law firms far and wide:
If you cannot marshal a compelling answer to the question, “What would be lost, and how would the world be worse off, if we ceased to exist?” then perhaps capitulation is the wise path. But if you have a clear and inspired purpose built upon solid core values, then the noble course may be to fight on…
The point of the struggle is not just to survive, but to build an enterprise that makes such a distinctive impact on the world it touches, and does so with such superior performance, that it would leave a gaping hole—one that could not be easily filled by any other institution—if it ceased to exist…
This requires leaders who retain faith that they can find a way to prevail in pursuit of a cause larger than survival and larger than themselves while also maintaining the stoic will needed to take whatever actions must be taken, however excruciating, for the sake of that cause.
Do you note what I do about Collins’s use of language here? He uses words with incorporeal overtones: “a cause larger than survival,” “stoic,” “noble,” “retain faith,” “for the sake of that cause.”
This the language of stewardship, at the very least, and spiritual meaning if pressed to its farthest extrapolation. I told you I think Collins is right.
Do you?
Bruce,
A couple of years ago (Aug 2014) you wrote about a study of military officers, all trained at West Point, and the nature and outcomes of their careers. Central to this study, imo, is the notion of stewardship. Stewardship is not exactly a motivation, but perhaps something more along the lines of Eliot’s “objective correlative”, a suite of ideas/images/situations that provide the narrative focus and force for our actions. Said somewhat differently, but also in our cultural tradition, we have Proverbs:
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” [29: 18]
And needless to say, in this sense “vision” does not mean some vaporous “vision statement.”