The Hero Syndrome

Posted by Marc Hodak on August 17, 2008 under Revealed preference | Be the First to Comment

Americans love a hero. The guy who can grab victory from the jaws of defeat. The person who can come from behind to win the title. Wow.

But the hero fetish can be a bit perverted. I was reminded of this by an article today about Michael Phelps where ESPN ranked his eight gold medals in order of “most impressive” based on a poll of readers. Setting aside the inherent silliness of such a ranking, the poll results said something interesting about people.

The victory voted “most impressive” by 60 percent of the readers was Phelps’ win in the 100m butterfly. This was the race he almost lost; the only one where he didn’t break a world record. Getting almost a quarter of the vote was the other come-from-behind victory in the 400m freestyle relay anchored by Jason Lezak. None of the other races where he or his team won convincingly by shattering world records got as much as four percent of the votes. Maybe it’s just me, but I would consider the races he dominated as pretty impressive. In sports, though, excitement often means the last second save.

The infatuation of the press and public with the “last second save” is understandable in sports, but it doesn’t translate well to business. For my money, too many American companies are built upon what I would call the “heroic management” model. They would never invest in better management systems when things are going well; they see their success as evidence that they don’t need them. When things turn south, they can’t afford advice about systems; they need (and prefer) to invest in heroic measures. If they pull out of the dive, their faith in heroics is reinforced; a company of heroes doesn’t need better systems. That’s how they think.

My attitude is that any system that depends upon heroics to succeed is a system that is designed to fail. In fact, most of the companies I work with regard “heroic management” as a retarded model. They see the need for heroics as a failure in some management process.

My first experience with this alternative model was at Toyota, when I went through their manufacturing training program at their plants in Fremont and Lexington. Toyota as a company, just like their auto manufacturing, is designed for continuous improvement. I have since seen and implemented similar systems at other firms that, from the outside, don’t look much different from their peers, until you see the results over many years at a time.

Still, I can see why the “heroic management” model remains so popular. Steady performance and continuous improvement are BORING. It doesn’t get you on the cover of Business Week. Bold strategies get you there, win or lose–with the shareholders often being the losers.