reading

I ’m not going out on much of a limb in guessing you chose e as your answer to the scenario. More than 85 percent of the leaders I show the scenario to pick e, and none of them were reading a book called Leadership in the Age of Personalization at the time. I will go one step further and say you and those leaders even believe that e is the right answer. You would want to be respected, treated like an individual, and listened to if you experienced a conflict like this. You aspire to treat others this way at work and in life.

I could go on listing reasons that most of us choose e and quicker than you can say I’ve heard all this before I’d have a book filled with platitudes—statements that you have heard so many times that they have lost their power to be interesting, meaningful, or motivational beyond a moment: “Think about others’ needs!” “Value people as individuals!” “Embrace the power of diversity of thought!”

The problem isn’t that these statements have become commonplace or that they aren’t the right things to do—they are! Just like e is the right answer. The problem is that many leaders have failed—and continue to fail—to execute that answer and drive it through their organizations. Because just believing and knowing that leadership in the age of personalization is the “right” answer is not enough to execute it.

Knowledge and Know-How Affirm What We Already Know

Consider this: Did you need to know more about the circumstances behind the change the organization faced or the specifics of the employees’ beliefs and displays in that scenario in order to choose answer e? I could have given you those things; I based the scenario on stories from leaders of organizations across multiple industries nationwide, from tech to financial services to health care to retail. The reasons for the changes ranged from mergers to consolidation to corporate restructuring, and the beliefs and points of view covered religion, race, ethnicity, sex, age, sexuality, politics, and more. Would including any of those things in the scenario have changed your answer? Probably not—even if one of the beliefs was toxic to you personally. Since this was not hate speech, nor costing the organization business, most leaders I speak to believe they could listen to another person’s differences, no matter how different. They say they could do the business version of what every politician says they want to do while trying to get elected: Reach across the aisle to work together. But that doesn’t mean they can actually do it once in office—or in this case, in an office.

You also didn’t need to know my definitions of personalization and leadership in the age of personalization to know e was the right choice. But here they are now:

■ Personalization means individuals define the business, as opposed to standardization in which the business defines individuals.

■ Leadership in the age of personalization builds inclusive systems that actively enable individuals to have the influence to define the business and ensure the organization is welcoming at every level to every individual (that is, “me”).

I could provide an avalanche of individual success stories, articles, videos, white papers, books, corporate case studies, and statistics on employee engagement to put these definitions and the power of leadership in the age of personalization in context and show how it leads to a respect for individuality and inclusiveness. Yet you picked e without any of that information.

You also picked it without knowing what leaders must do to execute those definitions of leadership in the age of personalization: Elevate and activate individual capacities and account for the realities, stories, and values of themselves, their customers, and their employees. This execution empowers people to be authentic and express their identities without suppressing or siloing the individuality of others. This extends outward from their teams to other teams, departments, divisions, and throughout the organization. Cross-functionality and interdependence are sought and expected across the enterprise. Progress toward individual impact and legacy matter and are measured.

But you didn’t need all that to know e was right. Nor did you need know-how. I filled my last book, The Innovation Mentality, with detailed how-to’s for leaders and their organizations to break free from the status quo and value inclusion and individuality. I have delivered hundreds of keynotes, led dozens of executive summits, and worked with thousands of leaders, teams, and organizations before and since that book came out, all of them eager to execute. I laid out clear actionable steps for that execution. “Powerful stuff,” they tell me, “we need to act on this!” Then this crisis happens…and then the quarterly numbers are off…and then the database goes offline…and then this client needs their stuff now…and then they had to fire him…and then she quit…and then how much time will this take?

Leader: Sorry, Glenn I need to reschedule our meeting. I have more important things to deal with right now. Just tell me what I need to do, and I’ll try and get it done.

Me: You want me to tell you what to do to lead in the age of personalization and then you’ll do what I tell you? Don’t you see how that’s problematic?

Leader: I’m not sure I understand.

[Uncomfortable silence.]

Conversations like these speak volumes about why so many leaders and organizations are completely unprepared and unable to execute leadership in the age of personalization, even when they have the knowledge and know-how, see their perspectives are myopic, and believe it’s the right thing to do: They’re exhausted.

A Recipe for the “Right” Answer Is Not Enough

Executing the “right” answer takes vision, time, effort, thought, perseverance, and relationships with your people. But where’s the motivation to do all that if no one measures or values you for it, and the culture and systems don’t support it? How will employees trust an organization to deliver on the “right” answer if its leaders and the organization can’t make it a priority?

When an organization’s leaders and their people are consumed by delivering immediate measurable results in the present, their only motivation is to do—to comply, check boxes, generate revenue and cut costs, put out fires. That kind of action isn’t connected to a lasting commitment. It’s not connected to who they are as individuals or what they solve for as leaders, using that information to create best practices for building something bigger, more valuable, and more inclusive and sustainable for the future. It’s connected to self-interest and self-preservation—doing what you’re told. It’s the illusion of progress that is really about reputation management. It’s transactional action that leads to transactional results and growth only in the present.

That suits many leaders, because most of them learned strategies and developed work habits based on the rules, hierarchies, and metrics of the age of standardization when the business defined the individual. They were told what to do inside the box they were given, had their success measured by results and progress toward the company mission alone, and their department(s) and functionality were fiercely protected and siloed. Given all that, do you really think the majority of today’s leaders are ready to engage those two employees in the scenario? Most leaders don’t know their employees as individuals or where to begin to execute the “right” answer, and that scares them. They are unprepared to lead in the age of personalization because they are not vulnerable enough to admit they don’t know what they don’t know. They are also afraid: Leading people through personal conflict is precarious because they fear offending someone, being sued, being out of compliance with HR. Does that sound like you?

Ask yourself honestly: Would you have the relationships and trust in place to bridge the gap between the two colleagues? Do you know your people beyond their job function, title, who they report to, and what you pay them? Do you know them as individuals: their passions, perspectives, personal beliefs, values, and experiences? If you did, nothing in that scenario would have surprised you when the team leaders came to you. In fact, the team leaders wouldn’t have come to you because they would know these things too and already would have anticipated the problem and seized it as an opportunity to be inclusive and grow together. But that rarely happens even when leaders know that a culture that supports leadership in the age of personalization will eliminate many of those boxes they’re checking. That it can stop fires from starting in the first place. That it can reinforce an organization’s commitment to all its people long before scenarios like the one that started this chapter ever occur. Because they can’t get out of their own way. Or, rather, out of the way of all of that transactional action that is creating the very chaos leadership in the age of personalization could help manage.

Change and fighting for what’s right are hard enough when someone tells you to do it, and they’re not what’s being measured now. This need for now is the main reason so many leaders and organizations that do commit to executing the “right” answer fail to sustain it for very long, even when the benefits are obvious. And they are obvious. In my experience, leaders want to know the answer to the one question that matters most to them: How am I going to grow and keep growing my business in the future?

As they learn how to lead in the age of personalization, they will find some answers. This kind of leadership attracts and retains the talent and customers you need to grow significantly and sustainably. When an organization drives leadership in the age of personalization up, down, and through its ranks, departments, and divisions, it

■ has a rewarding culture, inclusive of all people (individuals) you can learn from and who can learn from each other and from you and the organization.

■ has a more committed workforce, building impactful and sustainable results that take time to develop but grow more significant as they do.

■ has employees who find purpose in what they do and unleash value to the organization.

■ is prepared for Gen Z—a generation more diverse, personalized, and informed than the Millennials before them—just beginning to enter the workforce, and already with buying power exceeding $500 billion.

You would think leaders would want that for their employees, themselves, and their organizations just in the name of growth, especially employees like the two at odds in the scenario. Remember: The scenario made it clear at the outset the employees were top-performing, well liked, and could work anywhere they wanted. When talent is scarce, everyone would like to think their value would motivate leaders to go beyond self-interest to engage them and their differences. But with leaders unprepared and unable to do that, the pull in the direction of efficiencies, automation, compliance, and doing what you’re told becomes even more powerful. Compliance is easier than working toward inclusion. Mission has more value than commitment to individuals and their contributions, their beliefs, and their goals.

This has been my experience with the organizations and leaders most stuck in standardization: When presented with case studies of leaders who have transformed organizations and industries through leadership in the age of personalization and won admiration and imitation by competitors, they still balk at the commitment, because there is no template for how personalization works for their customers, organizations, communities, industries. They focus on the up-front commitment of time and costs, not on how they are offset in the long run with less turnover and more significant, sustainable growth. They stare at the roadmaps I give them while the cultures of their businesses remain the same as they always were, trapped in the failing templates of standardization.

The Future Versus Now

Truth is, I could give most leaders and organizations a GPS for finding their way to the “right” answer of how to lead in the age of personalization, and they would still struggle to execute long term. Because a GPS can’t make you want to drive any more than a recipe can make you want to cook. A recipe is information, not motivation. It identifies the ingredients and steps for cooking something, and tells you how long it will take, how it should look, and how it will taste. Throw in a video and a recipe can even show you how to do it. But if you’re not used to cooking, it can’t motivate and inspire you. You have no deeper emotional connection to the work it takes, and no one is measuring you for the effort. You still might do it once or twice, but eventually you’ll stop and fall back into familiar habits. It won’t matter in the long run that you know cooking your own food is healthier and more satisfying, and saves money, or that you’re cooking for people you care about. If no one values the work it takes to do what you know is right, it’s easier to order takeout, microwave a prepared meal, or go to a restaurant and get immediate results without the effort.

In too many organizations, those immediate results have more value than methods that lead to bigger opportunities, bigger results with deeper connections to their people, and bigger growth in the future. Instead, the organization just looks for efficiencies and automation—to get rid of people and to avoid scenarios like this. That’s called denial: trying to force standardization tactics into a personalized world. That’s what happens when leaders and organizations face the scenario, know the “right” answer, and then refuse to do what Jillian Searle had to do with her son as the waters of the tsunami rushed around her: let go. Let go of something even when everything you have been taught and told says hold on. Let go of standardization that ignores personalization.

It’s not that leaders and organizations fail to understand that personalization is right, or even why it is right. It’s that they don’t see and feel why standardization fails in the age of “me”—and how holding onto it is holding them back. As the waters of change rush around them, they fail to have the courage to let go of what is not working, despite fear of the consequences. They continue to hold onto the “wrong” answers.

And here’s the kicker: Most leaders are not just holding onto those “wrong” answers; they’re executing them in support of the wrong metrics.

In the age of personalization, tactics designed to make organizations “friendly” to large, impersonal categories of people only succeed in making those people feel unimportant and boxed in. It’s not just hot-button identifiers like race, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, religion, age, and politics that get stripped away, but anything that defines individual identity. Efforts to group people by the boxes they check similarly fail. Just because someone is, say, Hispanic doesn’t mean that person shares buying or working habits with other Hispanics, or anyone else who overlaps with how that person identifies. Every single one of your employees and customers is a mix of preferences and tendencies. Broad categories don’t cut it when it comes to individuality.

Given the massive variation of today’s workforce and customers, both domestically and globally, leadership in the age of personalization requires this variation to be understood through individual impact and influence. Individual identities and goals must align with shared beliefs in the company’s goals and mission. When you standardize these approaches to “me,” you let all individuals define the business: Being human is valued, and variation is expected and encouraged to serve individual and organizational goals.

But that’s only part of why leadership in the age of personalization is important today. It used to be that engagement mattered most. Knowledge and experience counted more than anything else, and we prized creativity and innovation. Today’s youngest generations in the workforce (Millennials and Gen Z), and increasingly Gen X and older, look beyond all those things and seek purpose, fulfillment, and identity. That is exactly what the “wrong” standardization answers don’t deliver for those two employees in the scenario.