New Zealand’s Prime Minister “Most Effective Leader on the Planet”?
The Atlantic just published a story about New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden that ponders whether she is “the most effective leader on the planet.” Well, if she is, a good deal of that effectiveness to can attributed to one thing: she works with the human condition.
When we wrote Disrupted: Strategy for Exponential Change back in 2015, we described the principles of our framework for agile strategy, SiA. SiA—Strategy in Action, that is—is a way of being, an ingrained culture, rather than a mere methodology. And the only way to truly practice it is to work with the human condition.
What do we mean by that? Let’s return to the example of Jacinda Arden, because she seems to get it.
Arden leads a country that is starting to move towards the big “re-opening” that we all anxiously await. COVID-19 numbers are indicating that New Zealand’s strict social distancing rules can safely soften. The country has managed the pandemic without overwhelming its health care system.
Of course, there are innumerable factors that make each country’s pandemic experience unique, and not all of them are related to political leadership. But in New Zealand’s case, its Prime Minister has played a positive role that’s difficult to discount.
As writer Uri Friedman puts it, “Her leadership style is one of empathy in a crisis that tempts people to fend for themselves. Her messages are clear, consistent, and somehow simultaneously sobering and soothing.”
When Arden communicates with people about government policy, she does so in a way that truly connects. On Facebook Live videos, she wears casual clothes and shares clear messages, backed up with coherent, everyday examples. She speaks in a caring but confident tone of voice. She is a supreme communicator.
There is hard evidence to back up the effectiveness of this approach. Of course, there’s New Zealand’s general success in curbing COVID-19. But there’s also Arden’s approval ratings, indicating a spirit of national unity that’s hard to find elsewhere in the world. One poll by Colmar Brunton shows that 88% of New Zealanders trust the government’s decisions around COVID-19. In this respect, New Zealand beat out every other developed country in the poll.
As a strategist, planner, and leader, working with the human condition means recognizing what’s actually going to work, because you have empathy for people. This is how we put it in 2015: “if you don’t understand humans and work with them through standing in their shoes, you’ll never be a great strategist.”
Arden knew she needed to deliver bad news and plenty of it. And she needed to deliver it in such a way that New Zealanders would rally behind the government’s planned response. She succeeded brilliantly in this, and that’s because she has such depth of empathy. She knew how to make it all make sense for fearful people.
What’s not working with the human condition? How about telling people to inject their lungs with bleach? Even if you are “joking”, the corresponding spike in Poison Control calls is your responsibility alone.
Think about the leaders right now who are seen as effective. What do they have in common? They work with the human condition. They are empathetic people who communicate well.
As you exercise leadership, in whatever sphere is your own, how effectively are you working with the human condition right now?
Larry and David
The Second Principle
Now that our journey through SiA is at an end, we are finally ready to share its second (and last) principle: work with the human condition. To put it another way: if you don’t understand humans, you’ll never be a great strategist.
Think about the last time you heard a discussion about sustainability. We find denial over the reality of the human condition readily flows in this context. For example, we can recall a dubious climate change solution proposed by a participant at a Resilient Futures forum: “All we need to do is get people to stop driving cars.”
Or, how about corporate “flights of fancy” over authentic team values? Those are usually fertile breeding grounds for misguided notions flowing from executive-sanctioned spin. I remember a senior official once declaring, “Our people are committed to this organization,” when the micro-conditions suggested nothing could be further from the truth.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the “right thing”, the “smartest move”, the “most logical way forward”, or the “obvious action”. If real human beings are not engaged, aligned and committed to implementing the strategy, it’s DOA. The human condition is the great defeater of all superior strategies. Culture does trump strategy. However, the strategist who works with the human condition is a supreme activator, marshalling authentic energies towards attainable outcomes.
SiA expert Peter Vawdrey once spent a little time in the Philippines, overseeing the product engineering development branch of a global aerospace company. There, in Baguio City, his strategist’s capabilities came in handy.
When he started out with the company, they were suffering from an acute case of brain drain. The company attracted the best and brightest, since its computer-controlled manufacturing machines could only be operated by highly skilled workers with four to five years of training under their belts. But that rich skill base had become an Achilles’ heel, making the organization a target for overseas companies looking to poach well-trained technicians.
The consequences were dire. In six months, they had lost 15% of their workforce. Operators with a little over three-months experience were using—and breaking—million-dollar machines that cost $50,0000 to repair. What SORs could turn the situation around?
Naturally, understanding the conditions was critical. “In the Philippines, if you leave the country to make it big overseas, you are considered a hero,” explains Vawdrey. That cultural condition—the human condition—made it relatively easy for overseas companies to squire those technicians off to new lives in novel climes.
That insight made the right Strategic Opportunity-Risk simple, even ingenious. The company simply had to update their recruiting target. Instead of seeking young males, they needed to hire mature females. Women with families and deep roots in their country. Women who were decidedly less attracted to the concept of playing the expatriate hero. It was a calibration of the human element that worked like a charm.
Understanding the human condition—being able to assess what people think, feel, and need—is an indispensable capability in the generation of SiA. Without it, good luck.
A Series of Insights from Disrupted, the Book
Written in 2015, Disrupted was, and still is, both a book ahead of its time, and a timely guide for those committed to understanding and addressing the complexity of disruptive change, preparing for disruption, and critically, leveraging disruption to generate sustainable value.
This series of articles are extracts — some with comment from the authors — from the book and are intended to highlight some of the key concepts captured in Disrupted.
A must read (if) you want to understand the world of today and tomorrow, and look forward to the future rather than fearing it.
- Phil Ruthven, Founder, IBISWorld
To find out more visit: www.resilientfutures.com/disrupted
