Page 175 - Harnessing the Strengths

158 ■ Servant-Leadership in the Intercultural Practice

he said. “We needed to get our people thinking in business
terms, without sacrifi cing their pride in their creativity and
their products.”

Taking Charge Versus Adaptation

A variant of the push-pull dilemma is that of taking charge
versus adaptation. Should leaders courageously plow through
the waves as the Titanic did, or spend their energy avoiding ice-
bergs and anticipating dangers? In other words, is your start-
ing point about taking charge (push) or adaptation (pull)?
The Japanese are masters of adapting. In fact, during
the late seventies and eighties, Japanese managers called
themselves the “white-water men,” a term that typifi es the
external orientation of the Japanese. At that time, the coun-
try was absorbed in competing with the capitalistic system—
a system that was invented somewhere else and completely
alien. Still, they were rapidly able to make the Western strat-
egy their own and quickly began to make money by using
effective production processes and by improving on West-
ern technologies. This is what convinced Japanese leaders
that they were “sailing in white waters.” They had launched
themselves into the economic tide and tried as best they
could to tack between the rocks.
At the other extreme is the Anglo-American tendency
to take charge completely. A pitfall for these cultures is the
idea that they can control everything. This position is simi-
lar to “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” (1,10 in
Figure 11.5). The ship went down though few passengers
could believe it was happening. In fact, several lifeboats
were launched only half full before people realized the ship
was really sinking. In modern business, it is possible to fail
because you are so effi cient that you cannot keep up with
everything else around you.