A Recipe for Leading in the Fog
The Problem With Recipes
As Guest Editor for the Business Agility Institute's Emergence February 2023 "Leading Through the Fog" edition, Pete writes a provocative essay challenging how leaders approach uncertainty. The piece, titled "Food for Thought: A Recipe for Leading in the Fog," examines why business leaders cling to outdated recipes for success—and why those recipes keep failing.
From In Search of Excellence to The Halo Effect
Pete traces the history of business recipe books—from Tom Peters and Robert Waterman's In Search of Excellence (1982) to Jim Collins' Built to Last (1994)—and reveals their fatal flaw. When McKinsey analyzed these "excellent" companies a decade later, 20% no longer existed, 46% were struggling, and only 33% remained high performers.
The problem? Researchers built recipes by analyzing companies at their peak, suffering from what Phil Rosenzweigh calls "The Halo Effect"—connecting winning dots while ignoring losing ones, confusing correlation with causality, and creating selective data at best.
A New Recipe for Today
So what's the recipe for leading through today's fog? Pete synthesizes insights from Bill Joiner (Leadership Agility), Adam Grant (Think Again), and Brené Brown (Dare to Lead) to arrive at a simple conclusion: inspect and adapt.
The new recipe includes five steps: Lead yourself first, set and track goals, focus on doing a few things well, inspect and adapt through curiosity and experimentation, and celebrate progress with the people who helped you get there.
Ingredients: Education, experimentation, data, and coaching.
Serves: One, but best shared with others.
As Pete notes: "I wish I had a clear, easy-to-follow recipe for you. Instead, the recipe I have in mind will be hard to follow, and it may lead to some failure. In fact, I am sure it will lead you to failure. But that's the point. We learn best through failure."
Originally published in Emergence: The Journal of Business Agility, February 2023. Pete Behrens served as Guest Editor for the "Leading Through the Fog" edition.
Want to read more of the articles Pete curated for the "Leading through the Fog" edition of Emergence?
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