On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize was, for the first time, awarded for words, intentions, and actions that haven’t even begun to deliver results. On the one hand, nobody would question President Obama’s desire for peace and diplomatic intentions toward that end.
But in the real world - diplomatic and business alike - elegant speeches and grand gestures simply do not correlate to desired results. By rewarding intentions instead of waiting for results, the Nobel Committee set an appalling example that takes leadership back to the stone ages.
How many times have leaders and managers captured the imagination of nations and companies but failed to deliver results or, worse still, their good intentions backfired? Carly Fiorina at HP, Jonathan Schwartz at Sun, and Jerry Yang at Yahoo are just a few CEOs who were hired with great fanfare but failed spectacularly to deliver results.
I’m not a political historian, but I’m relatively certain that Fidel Castro’s overthrow of Batista in Cuba was initially applauded both domestically and in the U.S. Likewise, former UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of nazi Germany wasn’t viewed in real-time the way it is through the prism of history.
Already, management guru’s are heralding the Nobel Committee’s move as representative of a new wave in management, per BNET’s Sean Silverthorne’s Managers Take Note: Obama’s Nobel Prize Rewards Attitude, not Results:
Says Michael Watkins, writing on Harvard Business Publishing:
“Managers should reward people who exhibit the right attitudes … whenever (1) it’s difficult to make a direct connection between actions and measurable accomplishments … and (2) it’s important to encourage people to continue thinking and acting in the right ways, to motivate them to pursue desired goals …”
And that’s a great takeaway. Too often we get hung up as managers rewarding great results rather than great effort. Doing more of the latter should ultimately result in more of the former.
Personally, I was appalled but not at all surprised to hear that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. Appalled because of the message it sends to leaders everywhere. I mean, they do award these things every year, don’t they? Would it have hurt to wait and see how things turn out?
Even Al Gore actually did something, making a movie and getting everyone all riled up over global warming. Of course, I thought he was a wacko at the time, but $140 million in personal wealth later, the man with one of the largest carbon footprints on earth doesn’t seem so nuts anymore.
But I wasn’t at all surprised because, as I wrote just a day before the award in Great Leaders Drive Accountability, not Entitlement, “… this behavior [entitlement and unwillingness to hold people accountable] has been an ongoing trend for decades and multiple generations.”
It’s common for progress of any kind to take an occasional step backward. But it’s our job as leaders and managers to ensure that this retro-trend doesn’t become permanent. But that’s just me. What do you think? Is Obama’s Nobel prize no big deal - even deserved - or a sign of big changes in leadership?
