I'll soon be releasing my book, “Leadership Challenged - A Middle Management Memoir.” In the book, I follow Hungarian playwright Lago Egri's definition of "premise." He defines it as a thematic truth. Seems like a strange approach to writing a book on leadership, right?
Not really. Egri believed premise was proved through thesis, antithesis and dialectic. I would whittle that down to one question. “Why?” In any situation, work, community or home, people are motivated to behave a certain way for some reason that requires us to ask, “why?” Something led to the end behavior or result. So, in my book premise is defined by “A leads to B,” and by understanding how “A” got to "B", we can answer the “why.”
Why was a company so successful? If we want to learn from their success, we're going to find the “A” that inspired the success. For example, Bill Schmid founded the Halo SleepSack for infants after his baby died of SIDS. The premise to his success story is, “Tragic infant death leads to successful company.” Of course, there's a lot to unpack to get there. Ergi would dig into the thesis that Schmid imagined in order to create his lifesaving baby blankets. The story would start with tragedy and grief and plot its way to an idea. There would be antithesis where tests would fail. We'd come to understand the timeline and the conversations that were had to get to the completion of the SleepSack. Now we have answered, “why.” Bill Schmidt didn't want another baby to die. Only a successful invention would satisfy him in his mission.
We are surrounded by premises, whether it's a personal premise or a company premise. It's there. In my book, I spend most of the chapters sharing my personal “A's and their ultimate premises. The end goal is to inspire leaders who are entrenched in the day to day of teamwork. There may be some curious CEOs that read it, but my audience is in the middle or maybe in the beginning of a life of leadership. In everyday situations, team leads through middle managers are the ones who work to answer ”why." If an employee becomes disruptive and negative, a manager wants to know why. Is it a personal issue? Is it work related? Has it been bothering the employee for awhile and just became noticeable? Is it worth finding the why?
Yes it is.
Companies do post mortems after big initiatives have completed. It's a “why” meeting. Why did we succeed? Why did we fail? They study those premises to improve processes and understand what works and what doesn't work. People managers work with HR to keep employees productive. In most cases, HR conversations start due to something negative. We're good at pointing out the bad in others. An HR business partner is likely going to ask “why” a manager thinks the behavior is bad. Simply pointing out someone's bad attitude isn't going to change it. Addressing the “A” is a much better approach.
The interesting thing about writing this book is that I didn't expect it to morph into what it ultimately became. I honestly didn't have a personal premise, but I soon discovered it as the book became more of an inspirational and motivational piece. The book took on a premise that goes something like this, “Personal struggle creates a servant leader.”
I'm a creative writer first. I never thought I'd write a piece of non-fiction, so I morphed short fiction, personal story telling and very little leadership advice into a book about challenging the traditional, corporate views of leadership. I hope you'll consider reading “Leadership Challenged - A Middle Manager Memoir” even if you're retired, or you're a student or simply curious. If you're in a position to lead or manage, this book won't feel like homework. It will get you in touch with your own humanity, as well as the team you lead. For me, my own book, and the experience of writing it, confirmed that my place in the world is not a corporate setting, but instead in the company of society's most vulnerable. It's a place where the storyteller in me can craft a message that inspires others to help those less fortunate. I can create rich and valuable character studies as a way to champion humanity in all castes. And when I'm not creating premises to inspire people to act, I hope to engage directly with those who need support.
People deserve better. And that's everyone from the homeless man struggling to get on his feet to the entry level employee overwhelmed by a new job to the middle class family trying to work magic on their household budget. Corporate executive deserve better, too. Most don't want to be labeled uncaring and greedy. They just need a hard shove in the direction of a simple reminder. “Never forget where you came from.”