My twelfth Key to an “A” is attentiveness. As described in Why It Matters, while awaiting my time to give an address to a large group of IBM employees in Munich, Germany, a film was shown. I didn’t understand the German dialogue and there were no subtitles, but I quickly “got the message.” The film began by showing a man’s arm; the camera backed up and showed the man and a woman lying on a blanket; the camera moved back again and showed they were in a lakeside park in Chicago; the camera moved back and showed the U.S.; the camera moved back and showed the planet; the camera continued to move back 10 thousand light years until earth was an invisible spot in the universe. Then, the camera zoomed in quickly, showing pictures inside the man’s arm, down to a distance of 0.1 fermi or 10-16 meters, to the smallest microscopic elements within a cell. The film, titled Powers of 10, was developed by the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. “A book about the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding another zero” is available.[i]
Leaders must be attentive to details without losing sight of the big picture. Sam Walton mastered Powers of 10. He never lost sight of the big picture—his vision for Walmart,—but he also paid attention to details. He visited a competitor’s store and took note of little things the competitor did that he wasn’t doing. He did the same thing when he visited his stores, checked on details to make sure nothing was being overlooked.
John Wooden, emphasized to his players at UCLA the importance of doing small things right. He paid attention to details, acknowledging his teams never achieved perfection, but they never stopped striving to achieve it. He wanted his players to make each pass and each shot perfectly, to perform each play perfectly, and to play each game perfectly.
As Goodwin notes about Lincoln, being attentive means paying attention to individuals, not just groups: “An ongoing attentiveness to the multiple needs of the complex individuals in his cabinet shaped Lincoln’s team leadership.”[ii]
While serving as Georgia Tech’s engineering dean, I repeatedly stated, “I measure success one student at a time.” We graduated more engineering students than any other U.S. university, but I didn’t want faculty members to lose sight of the fact that every student matters.
Being attentive means not only seeing things as they are, but also seeing how they can be. Leaders must listen using their eyes and their ears. Listening to the words and the words behind and between the words is essential. Don’t forget to listen for the unspoken words. Reading body language while listening can communicate a very different message than simply listening.
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My thirteenth Key to an “A,” alertness, is a not-so-distant cousin of awareness and attentiveness. Awareness requires a leader to have a high-altitude view of the organization; attentiveness requires a low-altitude view; alertness, on the other hand, requires a leader to think quickly. Legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, places alertness in the second tier of his leadership pyramid. He notes, “What all our teams had in common was not height, but quickness—physical quickness, of course, but also something of equal value: mental quickness, that is, Alertness.
“Alertness, the ability to be constantly observing, absorbing, and learning from what’s going on around you, is a critical component for the individual in charge, the leader who strives for continuous improvement.”[iii]
To be alert, leaders need to know as much as possible about themselves and their competitors. They must assess accurately their own strengths and weaknesses and those of their competitors. They must be alert to changes in the arena within which they operate and look for opportunities to adapt and apply innovations occurring in other arenas.
Leaders must pay attention to what is happening within, as well as outside, their organization. Of the two, perhaps the latter is more important than the former. Based on the number of businesses declaring bankruptcy, many leaders failed to either see an impending change or refused to believe the change would impact them.
Wooden claims leaders who possess the value of alertness “constantly monitor the competitive landscape and are quick to identify trends, changes, opportunities, and potential threats.” He notes they see what competitors miss because they’re constantly alert, on guard, looking for signals of a need to adjust, to make changes in real time. He states, “They are quick to see weaknesses in their organization and correct them and quick to see a weakness in the competition and take advantage of it.”[iv]
Next: Keys to “A”s in Leadership–Part X (Assertiveness and Ambiguity)
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[i] Philip Morrison, Phylis Morrison and the Office of Charles and Ray Eames, Powers of Ten: About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe, Scientific American Library, New York, NY, 1982.
[ii] Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership in Turbulent Times, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 2018, p. 223.
[iii] John Wooden and Steve Jamison, Wooden on Leadership, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 2005, p. 34.
[iv] Ibid, p. 35.
