We all want to be good at what we do, our jobs, our hobbies, the sports we play. And if asked, each of us could put together a wish list of things we would love to master, improve or learn. But the gap between wishing and doing is the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip of achievement. It is why we do not all have stellar careers, speak multiple languages, play Beethoven and build miniature furniture in our spare time.
Why don’t we all excel at everything we fancy? Is it simply a function of giftedness, or is great achievement the child of such variables as motivation, passion, determination, commitment, and the willingness to pay the price? And are we born with these qualities or are they thrust upon us?
Motivation is a complex issue with a whole host of theories on the various intrinsic and extrinsic forces at play. While some of us seem to be born with a fire that burns brightly inside others need that fire to be lit, stoked and constantly attended if it is to burn brightly, if at all. This past week I heard several people speak of the importance of being ‘pushed’ to excel. First, I interviewed an individual who spent some time lamenting his lack of an undergraduate degree. After explaining how life had intervened with his academic pursuits, he noted, “to this day, I also wish my parents had pushed me harder to stay in school”. I also attended a meeting this past week in which an investor framed his need for a new CEO by growling, “This place has become a real country club. It needs someone who can give everyone a collective kick in the ass to start performing”. Finally, at one of my sons’ hockey games I overhead a parent rationalizing his boorish haranguing of his child and coaches by saying, “The boy needs to be pushed, and pushed hard. It is for his own good”.
Motivation always comes up when discussions turn to the very successful. What drives these people to such heights, who influenced and encouraged them? Is it the love of a nurturing father that Wayne Gretzky credits for guiding the development of his hockey career or is it the trauma and anger of a Ted Rogers when he speaks of losing his beloved entrepreneurial father as a young child and being sent off to boarding school by an alcoholic mother and uncaring stepfather? Is pushing more effective than pulling or does it always depend on the individual?
Before too many of you start wishing you were pushed harder, consider the story of accomplished Chinese pianist Lang Lang. In his recently released autobiography Journey of a Thousand Miles, Mr. Lang speaks at length of his role played by his own father who quit his job as a policeman to devote himself fully to developing his young son’s musical talents.
Mr. Lang’s father did not exactly nurture or pull his son along the path of excellence. Instead, he pushed his son to excellence with a ferocity that was at times frightening. One unforgettable scene describes Lang Lang’s father reacting to his son’s rejection by a coveted music teacher:
“You cannot go back to Shenyang in shame” he cried out. “Everyone will know you were not admitted to the conservatory! Everyone will know that this teacher has fired you! Dying is the only way out”. I started backing away from my father. His screaming only got louder, more hysterical. “I gave up my job for you! I gave up my life! Your mother works and starves for you, everyone depends on you, and you’re late, you’re fired by this teacher, you’re not practicing and you don’t do what I tell you to. There is no reason for you to live. Only death will solve this problem. Die now rather than live in shame. It will be better for both of us. First you die, then I die”.
For the first time in my life, I felt a deep hatred for my father. I began cursing him.
“Take these pills!” he said, handing me a bottle of pills I learned were strong antibiotics. “Swallow all thirty pills right now. Everything will be over and you will be dead”
I ran onto the balcony to get away from him
“If you won’t take the pills”, he screamed, “Then jump! Jump off right now! Jump off and die!”
Young Mr. Lang clearly did not jump. Instead, he went on to become one of the great pianists of his generation. And though his autobiography does not refer to ongoing nightmares, facial tics or other idiosyncratic scars of his adolescence, one can’t help but think of Michael Jackson and how his past eventually became entangled with his future.
Motivation comes in many individualistic flavors and is but one ingredient in the recipe of excellence and achievement. And before you start wishing you were pushed harder, or think you know what your child or staff needs, think carefully of the Lang Langs of the world, and then think again.
Looking for a dynamic HR role? Stay away from the entrepreneurial tech sector.
January 1, 2012
In a recent survey of HR graduate students, the technology sector rated among the most coveted destinations to ply their trade. It is viewed as a world of innovative people, technologies and approaches where progressive talent management, OB/OD and related HR work awaits.
The Cry to Replace RIM's CEOs – A Truly Dumb Idea
October 13, 2011
Leaving aside the recent service outages, the shellacking of RIM in the press is a tad surreal to behold.
For the few Luddites not familiar with the firm, Research in Motion is the successful Canadian smart phone pioneer with revenues of $20bb per year, no debt and cash in the bank. They manufacture products that remain popular around the world and continue to boast technological innovations unmatched by any competitor. Their most recently launched smart phone devices have been well reviewed and appear to be selling well. And though the company's first version of its new tablet, the Playbook, has room for improvement, it is a promising piece of technology.
Context: When Companies Confuse Start-up Experience for Start-up Experience
October 7, 2011
I had the occasion this week to chat with an entrepreneur still licking his wounds from a stalled startup venture. His tale is a reminder of how easily companies misunderstand organizational context when hiring. For startups, such a misunderstanding can be fatal.
The CEO Hiring Practices at HP
October 3, 2011
The press tells us that Hewlett Packard is the largest technology company in the world with revenues of $126bb. Impressive as those numbers may appear, they do not seem to impress HP's Board of Directors. You see they do not believe that any of the firm's 324,600 employees are capable of leading it. Not one person. Not this year or last year when CEO changes were made. In fact they were apparently not capable six years ago or even eleven years ago when CEO changes were also made. But before summarily indicting the firm's succession planning/leadership development programs, it is useful to consider the track record of the external candidates who were considered better choices than the firm's internal candidates. This analysis decidedly shifts the spotlight to the competence of Hewlett Packard's Board of Directors.
The Folly of Believing What You Read
September 19, 2011
Some time ago we posted a blog titled ‘So you REALLY want to be a CEO?' which looked at the human costs of climbing the upper rungs of the management ladder. The blog was based on a series of articles immediately following the ‘resignation' of Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler. All of these articles presented a cautionary tale of life in the fast lane, the long hours, the extensive global travel, and the shareholder pressures that accompany an uncooperative stock price. They also spoke poignantly of the physical and emotional toll that such unrelenting pressure took on the Pfizer CEO who eventually resigned in order to attend to his family and health. As it turns out however, much of this narrative may not have been true
Before sending us your resume (and then getting frustrated with us) ask who we work for
July 25, 2011
A friend of mine is a trustee in bankruptcy. As his title suggests, he and his firm serves those contemplating the ‘cleansing' process of personal bankruptcy. Potential customers compare service providers, select one, and then pay the chosen firm a fee to initiate and manage the ensuing process on their behalf. However, as soon as the relief-seeking customer signs on the dotted line, the trustee's allegiance shifts to the creditors for whom they then seek to maximize debt recovery. This shift in who works for whom must be a tad unsettling for people who already have a heap of problems and stress on their hands.
What Dating Services Can Teach Companies About Hiring
June 1, 2011
Executive-level hiring is a decidedly aspirational endeavor. Organizations idealize their workplace cultures, select for attributes that will fit into those romanticized environments, and then immerse unsuspecting hires into their ice-cold reality of their works-in-progress.
How to Survive a Startup - by Jill Ram
April 20, 2011
If you're an executive and you're thinking of joining a start-up, know what stage of a start-up to join. If the company is in its first year or so, don't expect to make significant changes. If you join after the company is somewhat established and mistakes have been made and learned from, you'll likely be more successful from the outset. If the founder has stepped aside, well, by then, the company is likely not considered a start-up anymore. It won't be functioning like a big company yet, and it won't have all the structure in place that it needs, but it will be run with more practicality and with less emotion. Timing is everything so choose it well.
Good News for the Old, Overqualified and Overlooked
March 18, 2011
It is expected that a significant percentage of the baby boomer generation will drive right past the Freedom 55 highway exit. For many the goal of early retirement will have proven to be unattainable hype, while for others the ups and downs of working will appear more attractive than the prospects of working up and down the local lawn bowling leadership board.
Pressed for time? Blame those Benedictine Monks.
February 24, 2011
It is among the principal reasons candidates tell us they are open to consider a change in employers. They are tethered to it, yet somehow it still flees. It is time, the most precious of resources, and for many harried executives they want some of it back.
Though their relationship with time may be strained, it is worth pointing out that it was not always this way. In his fascinating book Time Wars, Jeremy Rifkin chronicles the evolution of our modern relationship with time. He points out that in traditional agrarian and pastoral cultures, time was a very naturalistic notion maintained in cyclical, repetitive, biological and even sacred terms. The ‘passing of time' was cued via the changing seasons, biological lifecycles and lunar patterns and thus, the cadence and tempo of those societies were finely tuned to the cyclical rhythms of their physical environments. As he states, "Our early ancestors coveted the circle, perceiving time as eternal return, a ceaseless repetition of an endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth". Since these cyclical rhythms could neither be accelerated, nor altered, the cadence of these societies' was natural and harmonious.
So you wish you were pushed a little harder … Are you sure?
October 2, 2008