Executive Decision

LOUIS D. PETERSON

What book should every businessperson be reading right now?

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Random House, $26.95). ?A Black Swan is an unexpected event ? such as the 1987 stock market crash, the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the rise of Google ? that carries an extreme impact, explainable only by a contrived rationalization after the fact. In Taleb?s world, history, economics and creative developments are dominated by these improbable events. Businesses and individuals often owe their successes to an ability to recognize unexpected opportunities when they arise. Taleb engages in an entertaining debunking of the bell curve as an analytical tool, decries the Nobel Prize committee for rewarding wrongheaded economic theories, and delights in the foolhardiness of predictions in the financial pages. This volume forces you to rethink conventional wisdom.? Louis D. Peterson, managing principal, Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson, Seattle

Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders

By Barbara Kellerman (Harvard Business Press, $29.95)

Decades ago, employees seemed to ?know their place.? They fell in line behind leaders who they were convinced were better able ? because of experience, temperament or knowledge ? to take the commanding positions in both business and politics. But times have changed, argues Kellerman, a professor at Harvard University?s Kennedy School of Government. Today, with employees being more vocal and bolder about asserting their influence in the workplace, leaders need to comprehend the cumulative power of subordinates. Kellerman identifies five brands of followers and explores not only how they each relate to their leaders, but how their differences are important in creating teamwork. However, the burden of this relationship doesn?t fall solely on leaders; it is incumbent upon employees, Kellerman says, to understand what it takes to be a good follower. Her advice:

• Be aware of being a follower.
• Be open to allies and to forming coalitions.
• Be prepared to be different.
• Be prepared to take a stand.
• Be loyal to the group, not to any single individual.
• Know the importance of timing.
• Recognize bad leaders who over time become more deeply embedded and more difficult to uproot.
• Know tactics and strategies such as cooperating, collaborating, coopting, and overtly or covertly resisting.

Employees and leaders would benefit by understanding the usefulness of engaged followers, and by not underestimating their power.

"Up to now the problems associated with the word follower have deterred us from our work. These problems include the conventional wisdom that followers are less important, much less important, than leaders; the confusion between rank and behavior; and the fear of being called a follower: a mindless member of a mindless herd, a sheep. Now, though, it?s time, it?s past time, to face facts. ... People without obvious sources of power, authority and influence are far more consequential than we generally assume, and they are ubiquitous. To give them short shrift is to shortchange our understanding of both leaders and followers, however easy the appeal of the former and however elusive the attractions of the latter. In fact, as the result of changes now converging, followers are more important than ever before. And leaders nearly everywhere are more vulnerable to forces beyond their control, including those from the bottom up."

The Powers to Lead: Soft, Hard, and Smart

By Joseph S. Nye (Oxford University Press, $21.95)

Nye takes a slightly different but still cooperative approach to the exercise of authority. A former official in the U.S. State Department under Presidents Carter and Clinton, he contends that to be effective, a leader must combine ?soft power? (inspiring and persuading, rather than merely dictating) with ?hard power? (fear-based and authoritarian) in what he calls ?smart power,? the proper exercise of which depends on the circumstances involved. Drawing on examples from both business and politics, Nye says that true leaders know how to be inclusive (?Leaders are not mere deciders; they help a group decide how to decide?), but can also distinguish autocratic situations from democratic ones, and switch gears to manage in either arena. It would not be inappropriate to send this book to the next U.S. president.