"Convince Me"

“Convince Me” – the stentorian voice rang out through the class. Everyone, by now knows the originator of the voice.

James Rdderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom in their wonderful book, “Funky Business” writes

“To be successful in a world of improvisational theater, you have to ask yourself questions. You have to know yourself and your objectives. It is Management By Objectives for individuals. Defining yourself is the only means of creating a good life. This gives Leaders, anywhere in organizations, a new job. They must produce uncertainty. Real leaders challenge people. They do not control them. True leaders set people free”

When Casey says “Convince Me”, some respond by rolling eyes, some by smirking, some laugh off the challenge and a few indeed make an effort to convince. The ones who make an effort to convince come away knowing that they were right or they learn something better.

A river flows down the path of least resistance. It makes a decisive turn only when it is challenged. It is the same with people. Left to ourselves, we tend to seek our comfort zone. We find refuge in mediocrity and continue to wallow in what we are most comfortable in. We do not stretch the envelope.

In today’s world, if we do not stretch the limits and discover new skills and knowledge, we will be challenged by the future – the upstarts. We did this to the people before us. We had no time for them. We are now either ready for the new upstarts or be willing to fall by the way side. Our success will be decided by how we will respond to the challenge.

While we learn how to respond to a challenge, we also need know what the likely challenges are. It will be too late to wait for the challenge to be posed to you. It rather needs to originate from within- from within the person. Is what I am saying logical? Is it right? Can it be better? What are the downsides? At the core of these questions is the need to be coherent. A person expecting to lead an organization tomorrow needs to develop these skills to question onself.

Casey is a Canadian born in New Zealand. He has decided to take the middle path and has settled in Germany. He says that he has some Russian roots, but I do not want to go there. He is yet another member of Group Florence. He is just a few months older than I am, has more white hair than my father at 65 and talks more measured than my grandfather at 85. Having worked in Japan for over 10 years, I think it is understandable that he has aged. I got most of my white hair during the 2 years when I was managing Nissan Japan account sitting in India. This “85 year old” man, is a loving father of two kids, with the second being born just a few weeks back. He has a gift of drawing a story board for any presentation – knows what sells and what does not and most importantly, he will question you if you bullshit.

He transformed his “no smile, all work” persona by playing along with the “election” for the class manager. His “Casey on Fabian” video that brought his family into our class, was simply superb.

It was a wonderful 1.5 months being in the same team as Casey. He has set himself personal goals and has achieved some of that in our group but he still has 29 more to work on. Tomorrow, we split and move into different groups – I move from Group Florence to Group Eindhoven. Group Florence was excellent – Flavius, I had written about him earlier, Stefanie and Ambar besides Casey. We had some real fun, especially the last minute ILE presentation and the Marketing Plan (“Trust Me, I have it covered!!!”). These are fabulous MBA experiences.