Beyond the cautionary tale

A few years ago, I attended a management-training program, which had as its required reading the book “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done” by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Burck. I was only able to read the book in small sections at a time because nearly every chapter ended with a cautionary tale. If you don't do x, something bad will happen. Like Asteroids or other video games that require the player to defend, rather than attack, it was an anxiety producer.

Much of the leadership in the telecom industry today appears driven by the cautionary tale. If you don't convert your networks to IP, you'll be left behind. Consolidate your OSS or die. In other words — do a great job, and you won't fail. To say it's not very inspiring would be a supreme understatement.

The opposite of cautionary tale leadership is something more aspirational. The oft-cited example of that kind of leadership is President Kennedy's plan to land a man on the moon. He set a goal that seemed a pipe dream to some, and yet the goal was achieved. Another example — consider how many young people joined Volunteers in Service to America when Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you …” I'm not suggesting JFK was an exemplary human being. But one has to admire his ability to set goals a person could get excited about.

Technology-driven industries would seem to be an excellent breeding ground for aspirational leaders. And when investment funds were more readily available — and a person who could talk a good game could more easily attract backers — we saw more of this style of management. Covad, Vonage and Level 3 were just a few of the companies founded on the innovative — and inspiring — use of technology.

One has to look a lot harder today to find inspiring telecom initiatives. Telco TV comes close — but it's shackled by the walled garden approach that the telcos are taking toward it. Imagine a brain storming session at a telco TV planning meeting. “We could create a browser to find cool videos on the Internet.” “No, we don't want to do that.” “We could help people create their own video content and share it with other users.” “No, we don't want to do that.” Indeed, telco TV initiatives are driven more by the cautionary tale — if we don't do this, the cable companies will eat our lunch.

Undoubtedly aspirational leadership is easier at a start-up company that's founded on a compelling initiative. But if JFK could find a way to do it on the scale of a nation, there should be a way to do it on a corporate scale.