Page 176 - The Bible On Leadership

162 THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP

Bob Knowling, a general manager from Indiana Bell, was a towering
(6 3 ) former football player who buttonholed many of the other man-
agers to tell them he thought that this aspect of the plan was counter-
productive and that he wasn’t going to cooperate. Soon, he had ignited
a groundswell of opposition. ‘‘I can remember one night in a bar,’’ says
Dick Notebaert, who was soon to become CEO of Ameritech, ‘‘We
were going to do appraisals, and this huge guy ...isinmy face saying
he’s not going to do this appraisal stuff the next day.’’
Notebaert could easily have ‘‘set his face like jello.’’ The appraisals
were just one part of the program, and a successful revolt against them
could have jettisoned the entire effort. He could have backed down and
eliminated the appraisals. But Notebaert took the courageous route. He
told Knowling, ‘‘Look, I’m not sure this will be good either. I, like you,
have never done it before. But the difference between me and you is
that I’m going to try it. If I don’t like it, I won’t do it again, but I am
going to try.’’
Faced with this courage and resolve, Knowling agreed to participate
in the sessions. After they were over, he made a statement that rivaled
Notebaert’s in courage. ‘‘I was wrong,’’ he said in front of the entire
‘‘Group of 120.’’ He admitted that much of his resistance to the evalua-
tions was symptomatic of his resistance to the whole change effort. He
reaffirmed his commitment to the company and to the new direction it
was taking, and he asked any others in the room who might be ambiva-
lent to make the same commitment. 10
Sometimes, when swords clash in honest and courageous disagree-
ment, the light engendered is greater than the heat.
Fred Smith of FedEx is another leader who has constantly stood firm
with the courage of his convictions. If he hadn’t, the company would
literally never have gotten off the ground: Smith hatched the idea of
Federal Express as a business school case study. His now-famous ‘‘hub
and spoke’’ delivery method (in which all packages are funneled into a
central airport and then dispatched to their destinations) was dismissed
as unworkable by the professor to whom it was submitted. Smith be-
lieved in his idea so much that he sunk his entire life’s savings into his
new company.