BS: Has Bhushan Sethi Called Out The Leaders In Your Organization -- Or You?

Ah, Bhushan is back out on the speaking circuit. (Does the man have a day job?)

His latest Substack post focuses on BS, which, just to set it straight now, he admits are his initials. Not that Bhushan Sethi doesn't focus on Bhushan Sethi. His target in the post is organizational BS. And that does not refer to buffalo sunning.

The nub of Bhushan's post is about remarks on the future of work by Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Bank, made at the Davos meeting this year (video here). His topics ranged from the impact of AI on organizations as well as no-nonsense leadership.

Apparently these remarks affected Bhushan more than he initially thought they might, as they resounded in his February presentation that I attended as well as this post in March. 

Here are Dimon's themes as Bhushan has processed them:

*Operationalizing "the cost of honesty" (Bhushan's term) as what you're going to pay as a leader to get honesty in the AI age. Bhushan summarized the Dimon talk as follows: "Leadership in the AI era isn't about how fast you can automate; it’s about how many people you can bring with you and deliver on your stated business outcomes." 

This is a cybersecurity leadership talent theme: people who seek to become cybersecurity executives must build the vision and are responsible for its execution through subordinate managers. Next in this roster are the costs you will pay for execution.

*Sounds great, who has the courage to go first? "Every leader nods when they hear Jamie Dimon’s call for a “no bullshit” culture. They pass around books on “radical candor” and quote Ray Dalio’s principles of truth and meritocracy...So how many organizations truly have processes in place to call “bullshit”? How many are actually doing anything about the feedback they get? Not enough."

Here is Bhushan's diagnosis and this sounds right -- with one problem we'll address later:

Workforces today are navigating a perfect storm. This isn’t just a temporary squall; it’s a new climate. As the traditional career ladder gives way to the fluid dynamics of the ‘portfolio life,’ employees are no longer just asking for better management. They are desperate for clarity.

The disconnect starts internally with the “Internal Fog.” This is the gap between stated process and daily reality. It is the fog of opinion, where decisions are driven by hierarchy, not data. It is the fog of fear, where truth-tellers are punished, teaching everyone else that “silence is a survival skill”. This is the toxic breeding ground for “Productivity Theater” and the quiet anxiety that erodes a company from within.

What is the problem here? Executive leadership is hard. It's not the reward for tenure or technical merit, though those are part of the package. We referred to it in our post on becoming an executive. "Daily reality" changes, well, daily. The vanity trap that "truth-tellers," and at some point all of us have fallen into this trap, run afoul of is that data are not clarifying. Data are the products of analytics based on metrics. Someone owns those metrics. That person determines what's "reality" because that was what was measured.

So, when you as an executive want to be a "truth-teller" they need metrics that, possibly, were not previously captured, or they need to understand the metrics in ways that are more expansive than was understood previously.

Maybe those are your metrics. Maybe you need to look at them differently. And then, you need to act differently.

*Bhushan recommends for executives that "Your job is to be the clarifier" versus the "Internal Fog" and he also posits roles for people-managers -- essentially, you are the implementers -- and individual contributors -- to continue to demand clarity.

He concludes: 

A “no BS” culture is simply a culture of relentless clarity.

It is the daily, uncomfortable, and necessary work of replacing fog with facts. It’s the job of answering the tough questions your people are already asking.

And that takes talent. Does your leadership cadre have the talent needed to do this or are they fog-rollers?

Ask us how you can create effective work styles, no bulls or buffalo needed.