The Truth Teller

"The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed. Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can. Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people." -Seth Godin

In 1899, Giovanni Agnelli founded Fiat, the legendary Italian car company. Initially, it was called a "horseless carriage project." Giovanni's grandson, Gianni, later scaled the company until it accounted for nearly five percent of Italy's GDP, and today, Fiat is one of the very few 100+ year old companies remaining in the world. Unlike the unicorn rocketships that dominate our innovation conversations today, these lasting companies have seen many ups and downs, and for every up to happen, a very respectable bit of innovation must occur.

in 2004, Fiat was in crisis. One of Gianni's predecessors had made deals with creditor which were now threatening the existence of the company. The new leader of the company, John Elkann, Gianni's grandson, knew Fiat had to innovate or die. One of the keys to his successful turnaround was the input and advisory of one of Fiat's managers, Sergio Marchionne. Unlike most of the other managers in the company at the time, Sergio was not afraid to tell the truth about the problems he saw in the company. He spoke up regardless of cultural norms, and he was rewarded by becoming Elkann's right-hand man in the effort to turn Fiat around.

In Elkann's words: "Sergio was a truth teller. And for the amount of problems we had, having someone who was a truth teller was a breath of fresh air. His aptitude in being very honest really led to the extraordinary turnaround from 2004-2008."

Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn also weighs in on the story: "Sergio almost embodies the archetype running through every great story of a company turnaround. But this figure isn’t required in turnarounds alone. In fact, any key executive who's grown a startup to massive scale must be, by nature, a truth teller."

Many organizational leaders give lip service to creating an innovative and entrepreneurial culture, but then perpetuate the status quo by leaving cultural norms in place which compel employees to stay silent and implement CYA procedures to shirk the liability of any idea out of the ordinary. The superfluous use of phrases like "be careful" indicates that an organization's culture may be a toxic ecosystem for creativity and true business innovation. As long as nobody takes the risky stance of boldly asking "why" and challenging the status quo, nothing will change, and innovation will be stifled.

The ironic side of this is that company leaders are yearning for bold truth-tellers in their organization.

Lisa Bodell, the CEO of FutureThink and author of Kill the Company, echoes the importance of being unafraid to speak up about weaknesses in your company. In fact, her research has shown that in the next 25 years, the value of traditional process-oriented, structured, left-brain intelligence will become much less-desired by corporate leaders, and creative, agile, right-brained intelligence will increase in value and demand by leaders. Furthermore, corporate leaders are beginning to place a higher value on boldness in employees than ever before. The reason? Because the shareholders in companies demand growth and relevance, and there is only so much that inside-the-box structured optimization will do for a company to stay relevant. Disruptive innovation in business models, value-added offerings, and new products and services are what will move the needle for shareholders, and bold, creative people who invest in themselves relentlessly are the one who will make that happen.

In his book, Linchpin, Seth Godin reinforces this notion, stating, "The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed. Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can. Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people."

In fact, your silence is actually slowly destroying both you and your company. HBR authors Leslie A. Perlow and Stephanie Williams emphasize this in the article "Is Silence Killing Your Company?": "Our research shows that silence is not only ubiquitous and expected in organizations but extremely costly to both the firm and the individual. Our interviews with senior executives and employees in organizations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 corporations to government bureaucracies reveal that silence can exact a high psychological price on individuals, generating feelings of humiliation, pernicious anger, resentment, and the like that, if unexpressed, contaminate every interaction, shut down creativity, and undermine productivity."

So, as a manager, your fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders warrants your renewed dedication to invite boldness and truth-telling for the good of the mission. As an employee, think of ways to tactfully and gracefully to be bold about your company's inefficiencies and new opportunities to innovate. Be sure to bring solutions! As long as you tell it as a representative of the shareholder, your truth-telling will be deeply appreciated in the long run.

Now, go innovate stuff!

-Matt