This is an old joke that has made its rounds for years. It’s a cautionary tale about arrogance.
I have always believed that what you do know is what you build on.
And what you don’t know is what you look out for.
Failure comes from thinking that you know more than you don’t [know].
And only Santa knows if you’ve really been naughty or nice.
… and they seem to be loving her.
Katherine and Alison have been doing an incredible job developing Bogavia and Lab to Beauty.
Leadership vs Management
“Management has to be accountable for performance. Management exists for the sake of the institution’s results. It has to start with the intended results and has to organize the resources of the institution to attain these results” – Peter F. Druker
Leadership refers to an individual’s ability to influence, persuade, and enable others to contribute toward a goal, while it falls to management to effectively and profitably engage an enterprise’s resources to accomplish the desired result. Influence and inspiration separate leaders from managers [who rely on a more tangible tool kit]. At the Advantage Co, I believe success is built on effective management. It is management that shoulders the weight of results.
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Over the past 50+ years, I have read scores of books and countless articles from history’s leading experts expounding on their particular recipe for successful leadership. From Sun Tzu to Aristotle to Caesar to Machiavelli to Peter Drucker to Doonesbury to Tony Robbins – I’ve inhaled it all thoughtfully, but they typically failed to resolve the undeniable fact that the truly informed, alert, and courageous refuse to be led.
Coercion [death, jail, the draft, etc.] and bribery [everyone has their price] work in the most primal of situations, but as the gravity of the situation subsides, these tried and true leadership tools give way to an insidious appeal to the cravings of vanity, power, fear, wealth, hunger, jealousy, hate, desire, prejudice, or social status of the most susceptible. It never fails to humor me when I see what some fools will do to get a reservation at Momofuku Ko or into the right club/school/party/group/company/etc., but it unquestionably worries me when fear invites jealousy, hate, and prejudice to the leadership weaponry. Unfortunately, ‘leaders’ today often resort to these sinister motivations … but history shows this is certainly nothing new.
Leadership is the ability to create an environment where people are motivated to give a 100% effort toward the desired result, while power is the ability to turn that intention into reality. In that context, I’ve found that after 40 years in various successful [yet often contentious] leadership roles that it is more enjoyable and rewarding to build with partners who have their own courageous vision and sincerely want me to help them bring it to fruition. For me, building is the challenge and the reward. So, my advice to those that must lead is to simply find those that will truly find joy in helping you build and be generous in your appreciation … and leave the endless array of perfidious leadership tactics to the narcissists … but if you want to be successful – learn to manage effectively.
I am often asked how it all got started. The usual answer has been June 6, 1978, when I rented the original 450 sq’ Stereo Advantage space in the Village of Williamsville, NY. It is a convenient response, but it doesn’t do justice to how so many opportunities actually took root well after that moment in time.
When asked about the start of the Capax experience, the easy answer has always been 1993, when Joe Kreuz and I launched Advantage Professionals. From there the narrative quickly moves on to Tom Thomson and the launch of Advantage Systems Professionals [now c1secure]. That is the inflection point. That is when we entered the IT market. From there the story builds on AP Metro – and it is a great story.
But the genesis of Capax Global truly starts from that auspicious moment when Jerry Hawk and John Baiocco decided that the AP Metro staffing model was dated and that there was a new IT services business to be built [and that business turned out to be Capax Global].
Over the past dozen years, I can say without a doubt that nothing has been more successful in the annals of the Advantage Co than Capax Global and its progeny. Although the Capax Global plot was worthy of a masterful mystery, it never failed to deliver success.
For the Advantage Co, the Capax partnership, and me – nothing has been more rewarding. And although Capax Global has been sold to [and internationally launched by] Hitachi, I am confident that there will be many more chapters to write with Jerry and Jessica down the road.
The Capax experience, however, lives on in our Unified Global Archiving. UGA is now made up of 5 great companies – each with their own future to build:
The story keeps getting better, but as I told a group of the young guns at UGA yesterday, the story begins with Jerry and John. We owe our ongoing success to their vision and their ability to bring it to life.
