What every big boss should understand (but many don't)

These days my LinkedIn feed is full of images and videos of cute dogs or hilarious cats or amazing exotic animals and kind souls helping them cross a busy road in Australia or India. I can’t blame anyone who clicks on those (I do!) since other posts are kind of bleak news: Everyone realizes the world is not going in the right direction (whichever direction you disfavor.) Then there are those objecting to the above inevitably political posts (any time you take sides you are being political) because, in their minds, politics doesn’t belong on LinkedIn and it is too difficult for them to scroll down.?

The only neutral alternatives to cute animal videos and busilitics posts (business+politics) are software companies hyping Cloud. Kind of boring after a while reading cloud, blah, blah, cloud, blah, blah, cloud while the rest of the text might as well be in Cyrillic as far as I am concerned.

So then I ask myself: Why is everyone so thrilled by neutrality?

Neutrality is often misunderstood. I read a recent intriguing post (thanks, Udo) about Taiwan's “problem” disappearing over time because the Taiwanese apparently do not have enough kids or enough sex, or both. The perspective was a fresh angle on the raging debate about US-China inevitable confrontation over Taiwan (at least inevitable in the minds of those believing the US will come to the aid of Taiwan which makes me laugh out loud). But then the author of the piece suggested the solution for Taiwan is to become neutral like “Switzerland or Finland or Israel”.

That’s a classic use of superficial analogies which are the basis of many executives’ strategic ideas but as Giovanni Gavetti and Jan Rivkin pointed out in their seminal 2005 HBR article leads to disasters. You can’t be “neutral” if the opponent regards you as an insult to their “rights.” Israel’s enemies do not want non-Muslims in the land they consider holy, even though for Muslims Israel is number 3 on the holy places' best-selling list and for Jews/Christians it’s number one right after Brooklyn. China regards Taiwan as a threat to its 1984 nightmarish regime by its mere existence. And Finland? Who the hell cares about Finland? The Russians just want it kept frozen. Switzerland, the best place in the entire continent of Europe, has no enemies except for the IRS.

Easy to be neutral when you have no nemeses.

Neutrality is a sign of weak minds

In business, neutrality means having nothing controversial to say. It used to be the guiding light of companies but no more. Nowadays companies are actually taking a stand on social issues in an unprecedented way. That may be good or bad for business, a reflection of woke hypocrites or enlightened humanists, but it is a stand. I respect companies that take a stand even if I vehemently disagree with it and therefore don’t buy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream or any other Unilever’s brands any longer. Taking a stand shows principles. However, I especially respect executives who take a stand against the mob rather than for something. An example is taking a stand against absurd woke demands. Caving-in to a loud but tiny group of your customers and/or employees is at times so outrageous that a CEO with a spine just has to take a stand as shown by Reed Hastings at Netflix and the absurd demands for the canceling of Dave Chappelle’s comedy, or Amazon and the BDS mob asking it to cancel collaboration with advanced Israeli technology. Then there is the baseball team Braves in Atlanta MLB that the woke mob tries to cancel because it uses a tomahawk as its logo and its fans use it in a “war cry” during games. The local Native American tribes don’t mind, but others are offended for them. And another Oscar goes to J.K. Rowling’s Publisher Hachette that stands by the author who has the gall to express her perspective that there are only two sexes in muggle-land.

As much as I respect woke CEOs taking a stand for woke what is missed in this obsession to be seen as “responsive to all employees’ – or every customer- “concerns” is that executives actively choose who they want to piss off while at the same time facing Asian competitors that don’t give a hoot about social sensitivities but do keep prices low and kick their ass. Maybe the solution is to be Nike, who is leading the way on woke nonsense while gallantly ignoring Chinese human rights violations. Those favoring Kaplan’s Balance Score Card may consider adding Hypocrisy index to it. Nike will be the base at 100. Harvard, MIT, et al., 210.

Woke executives actively choose who they want to piss off while at the same time facing Asian competitors that don’t give a hoot about social sensitivities but do keep prices low and kick their ass

Neutral CI? ?

So is neutrality good only for Switzerland? Yes. Are you Switzerland? No. Competition analysts that hide behind “facts” and refuse to voice an opinion are useless. They should be replaced with an RSS feed. In every executive meeting I attended, the top executive always asked: What do you think? In my workshops, I always ask: What do you think?

In my workshops, I always ask: What do you think?

There is no right or wrong in thinking. One may reject the opinion, but that’s not a rejection of the opinion maker and shouldn’t be taken as such. Do not stay neutral. It’s good for Finland – maybe- but it’s bad for you. In competitive intelligence, it implies the death of fresh perspectives and the continuation of a barrage of “reporting up” neutral data.

?Alternative perspective: Taking a stand, as in “we believe this is important because—” ?is a sign of intelligence (pun intended). Good executives know how to dismiss a perspective in such a way that it doesn’t make the analyst feel stupid. They explain the broader considerations. They voice their concerns but never dismiss the other perspective off hand. That’s one test for leadership I accept. It’s not kindness, or caring, or “serving with humility” popular manure, it’s pure self-interest. Once an opinion is rudely dismissed, the executive is hardly likely to get another one.