Keeping his dream going was the hardest thing Ed Penhoet had ever tried to do in this life. He had been comfortable as a biochemist and a professor, then reinvented himself as an entrepreneur and found himself barely keeping a fledgling firm afloat. Things would get worse before they got better, and he seriously considered merging with another equally desperate competitor or giving up entirely.
"Famous executives out there fundamentally gild the lily. They don't tell you the awful truth about the pain you will face. They want you to think they're brilliant and that they had it all figured out at the beginning. That's revisionist history. They might have had a clue, but that's barely all they had." Penhoet was teetering on the edge of a humiliating collapse of everything he had worked 24/7 to achieve. He could lose it all. Success as traditionally defined was not even a concept at this point. What Ed faced was the opposite of success--had he looked up the word success in the dictionary, he would have scored zero.
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They don't tell you the awful truth about the pain you will face. |
But he persisted. Why? It was not just because he was stubborn. There was something bigger than success at stake. When his favorite uncle died from cancer, Penhoet had long ago launched a career in biochemistry, determined to find new ways to bring basic research to the marketplace. That was a lifelong cause that had meaning uniquely to him. It was how Penhoet had set about creating a life that matters, and his business was the latest and most crucial step in that process.Creating a life that matters is what most everybody wants. It's exactly what we heard from enduringly successful people all over the world--people we interviewed for our book, Success Built to Last. (For an overview of the three essential elements of success built to last, see the box on p. 28.) Builders--as we call them--do things because they want to build a meaningful life. They want to create a life that matters--and one of the greatest tests of that conviction comes in those dark moments like those that Ed Penhoet suffered in the early days of his start-up. These are the times when builders don't feel successful--at least not in the traditionally defined terms of popularity, wealth, or influence. Yet they nevertheless choose to remain committed to what they care about despite success, not because of it. When faced with what they discover is so important to them, they summon the courage (or foolishness) to persist because it matters to them.
The concept of the charismatic leader has been getting bad press lately. The critics may be missing the point. Whether you're shy and humble or outgoing and assertive is not really the issue. Your personality is not what determines enduring success; it's what you do with your personality that counts. The essential difference with builders is that they've found something to do that matters to them and therefore are so passionately engaged that they rise above the personality baggage that would otherwise hold them down. Whatever they are doing has so much meaning to them that the cause itself provides charisma and they plug into it as if it was an electrical current.
Enduringly successful people--whether they're shrinking violets or swashbuckling trepreneurs--serve the cause, and it also serves them. It recruits them, and they are lifted up by its power. When that happens to you, a bigger, more engaging version of "you" shows up.
Taiwanese-born engineer Jen-sen Huang, founder and CEO of multibillion-dollar videochip maker Nvidia, has always been ambitious. But he is a self-described introvert--until he steps up in front of the computer screen to show you what his team is working on. When he does that, it's as if he were kneeling before an altar--a shrine to his life's work. The deep reverence he has for the beauty and grace of what his company builds is visceral, if not a little odd, to non-techies. His excitement for the mission makes him seem--well--charismatic.
Although soft-spoken Huang maintains he would rather "be home playing with the kids, or sitting quietly drinking a glass of wine with my wife," he no longer shows as strong an urge to run and hide, because he's talking about his favorite topic. When you put together deep knowledge about a subject that intensely matters to you, charisma happens. You gain courage to share your passion, and when you do that, folks follow. According to Peter Drucker, this makes you a leader
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When you feel pressure to pursue the elusive outcomes of traditional success, that pressure is often driven by the burden of making a living, pleasing others, or achieving status. Ironically, it appears that success often will fade, vanish, or become the dungeon of your soul unless it is not your primary objective. Builders like Penhoet tell us that when success just means wealth, fame, and power, it doesn't last and it isn't satisfying. Had he let a culturally promoted definition of success be his guide, Penhoet says, he doesn't think he would ever have achieved the success that matters to him.
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Enduringly successful people serve the cause--
and they are lifted up by its power. |
Instead, people who seek to build long-term success by their own definition--builders--insist that success may never come without a compelling personal commitment to something you care about and would be willing to do with or without counting on wealth, fame, power, or public acceptance as an outcome.
In reality, most builders are hailed as leaders in their field usually long after they committed to their calling, or to a particular way of living in the world that held special meaning to them. The mainstream media stories about successful people--along with wishful thinking about instant gratification or a magic pill for success--may make it seem as if their success blossomed overnight, but it rarely happens that way.
Builders mostly toil with every ounce of their energy and persistence, with heart and soul, for their whole lives. They become lovers of an idea they are passionate about--for years and years, creating something that continually seduces them into obsessing over every detail, losing track of the passage of time. In a real sense, it's something that they'd be willing to do for free, for its own sake. Quincy Jones wouldn't give up music if it wasn't popular, nor would Nelson Mandela rest until apartheid was crushed. It's hard to retire from an obsession. Jack Welch is no more likely to stop teaching his brand of business than Maya Angelou is likely to stop writing poetry or teaching. They do it because it matters to them.
Due to hardship, genes, or both, many of the builders we interviewed lacked the kind of confidence you might expect in a leader. Many were tentative, even nervous, introverts. But when they talk about what really matters to them, it's like watching shy, mild-mannered Clark Kent step into a phone booth--and a moment later out leaps a superhero.
One of the best ways to unleash the charisma that builders feel for a cause, calling, career, or other major objective is to see whether you're really willing to immerse yourself in it. Opportunity comes from expertise, not just luck, talent, and passion. If you find it impossibly tedious to become an expert about what you think matters to you, then you're not chasing a dream, you're just daydreaming.
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Opportunity takes expertise, not just luck, talent, and passion. |
That is not to say that it's easy, or that you won't suffer frequently. But if you find you can't or won't persist in learning more and more about your topic, then it's going to be very tough to hang on when inevitable obstacles get thrown in your way. This isn't earth-shattering news. We heard this from everyone--being your best at what you do is essential to success built to last.
Former biotechnology entrepreneur Ed Penhoet, now head of one of the world's largest foundations, thinks that your willingness to become good at what you do--for its own sake--is a key to success. After all, if you find it's impossible to go deep, then you've found out something valuable, too--you shouldn't be doing it, he says.
"I'm a big believer in fortune cookies," Penhoet says with a grin. "I once got one that said, 'Whatever you are, be a good one.' And to me that's the only business advice I can give anybody. When you are good at one thing, doors open up in front of you. People want to work with you, so people provide opportunities to you. You don't have to go looking for them. Usually they come to find you.
"Success is always built on doing the job well that's in front of you today, not being resentful that you don't have a CEO job yet," Penhoet adds. "In my own life, I found that people who are always worried about the next move in the chess game of their life never quite get at that move. Don't think that way--because, if you're always worrying about the next step, it will compromise your ability to do your current job well."
People get to know you by the kind of job you do, Penhoet says. You won't "be remembered as having done that job badly--you'll be remembered as a person who does a bad job!"
When builders found that excellence was unreachable, or that striving for it was joyless or the kind of misery you find in a Stephen King horror movie, then they saw it as a message to move on to something else. For the cause to have charisma, it must reach into your heart in a personal way to unlock all you have to give.
It Starts with You, But Ultimately It's Not About You
In fact, once you're focused on what you believe needs to be done, you will have the energy to persist despite inevitable resistance from other people. Schoolteacher Marva Collins runs into a wall almost every time she introduces her new program to educators. "I still have a great challenge today when I go into schools to put in my methodology or to work with a school; many of the teachers will not speak to me, or have a very negative attitude. But the attitude isn't about me; it's that they do not believe in their excellence as much as I see that they're excellent," she says. The problem is that their cause doesn't have charisma for them.
"So I have learned to look at that in a different perspective--because I think if you somehow concentrate on the wrongs that have been done to you (the criticism), you will never evolve."
Collins laments her early days as a teacher. "I was ridiculed by the other teachers. Even the principal said to me, ?Your problem is you cannot forget that these are not your children. They come from fettered homes, antecedent homes; you cannot have the same expectations for them.'"
Collins grew up in poverty in Alabama with the hope that she would get an education. She ended up changing public education in Chicago. Collins has been so admired for the results she achieved with "hopeless" students that President Reagan and President Bush (Sr.) asked her to serve as Secretary of Education (but she chose instead to stick with her passion in the classroom). Today her methods are a model in dozens of communities across America.
When you can come to the point where you accept yourself for who you are--"warts and all"--and you can embrace what you love, for better or for worse, you have a better chance of finding lasting success, Collins says. "The first question I ask teachers that I train is, 'What's wrong with the children?' I get a litany of answers," she notes. "My next question is, 'What's wrong with the parents?' The answers are infinite. The third question is, 'What's wrong with you as a teacher?' And, of course, I get complete silence. We have to begin with what's wrong with us that [puts us in a position where we feel] we can't help this child. If you begin with these children, those parents, that principal; they don't know this, they don't know that. If we begin with all those negatives, we will never get to where children can go." Collins believes that you must ask, "not just what your cause can do for you," but what you can do for your cause. When you can "feed the cause and it also feeds you," then you will make a difference and develop your confidence.
May be you thought you would wait to tackle your persistent passion when you had more self-confidence. Well, do the work and accomplish something and, voil?, you'll gain that confidence. Self-esteem is highly overrated. There are criminals who rate highly on confidence tests and saints who score low. Marva Collins wants parents, kids, and teachers to know that they are capable of excellence. She does not advise them to wait for self-confidence, nor does she want them to believe success is an entitlement. It's not about whether you have high or low self-esteem; it's about the quality of your effort.
You've got to fail on the path to success, Collins says. This can be a tired clich?, of course, but it is also a fact. Builders believe adversity provides the opportunity to get better at what you do--to go from average to extraordinary--and to test what you really care about. "You're going to make mistakes" if you try anything that is worth doing, Collins says.
Don't wait for a day when you feel good about yourself to get started. Builders insist that self-esteem comes from trying and failing, trying and failing, then succeeding with small wins and doing the work a little better each time. That tenacity comes when a cause has the charisma to pull you through hard times and unleash your passion for going deep in ways that drive you to do more than you might have ever imagined you could do.
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Three Essential Elements of Success Built to Last |
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In hundreds of interviews, we learned that builders find lasting success when at least three essential elements come into alignment in their lives and work.
The first essential element is Meaning. What you do must matter deeply to you in a way that you as an individual define meaning. It's something that you're so passionate about that you lose all track of time when you do it. It's something that you are willing to recruit other people to, but will do despite criticism and perhaps even secretly do for free. In fact, you could not be paid to not do it.
The second essential element is a highly developed sense of accountability, audacity, passion, and responsible optimism. We call it ThoughtStyle. Steve Jobs told us in an interview back before his famous ad campaign: Enduringly successful people "Think Different." They have a talent, yes, and perhaps some even have a genius. But they also have a ThoughtStyle that supports their special accomplishments.
Gerard Kleisterlee, chairman, president, and CEO of Royal Philips Electronics in the Netherlands, says, "When you can organize your thinking around creating real value, and your thoughts remain focused on what is important to creating that value despite all the incoming distractions, crisis, and complexity crashing down all around you ... then you're really lucky because you have a sustainable model" for your work and your life.
The third element is ActionStyle: enduringly successful people find effective ways to take action. This is hardly mind-blowing news, but there is more to ActionStyle than first meets the eye. Many builders told us about times in their lives when they had a clear sense of meaning but found it almost impossible to get down to making things happen--to turn meaning and thought into action. Be thoughtful about meaning, but don't let that paralyze you.
Anyone who has a perfect mental picture of "what must be done and what matters" also knows that the results of acting on that idea might "never be as perfect as that image in their mind," Alice Waters (restaurateur and pioneer in organic cooking) told us. The reason this happens is because moving from thought to action puts idealism and beauty at risk: "Your dream might lose something in the translation!"
Ultimately, it's about the pleasure of the work itself. "Do it because it's worth doing even if you can't quite make it as perfect as your original fantasy," says Jack Jia, who grew up "with nothing but a head full of dreams" in Chengdu in China's Sichuan Province. Today he's a serial entrepreneur, president of the Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association, and founder and CEO of Baynote. "If you refuse to do something you believe in, your mind will never leave you alone. It just will torment you."
That's the way it is, builders told us countless times. "So get moving and get on with what you really care about doing." Taking action without stopping first to determine what you hold meaningful is a big reason things don't last. Builders use a special goal-setting process and even encourage contention to help them achieve those aspirations.
Properly aligned, these three elements--Meaning, a creative ThoughtStyle, and an effective ActionStyle--form the foundation on which you build and sustain the experience of success. It seems that you might not need all three aligned to achieve short-term ambitions or success as traditionally defined, but the more that you pull them together, the more likely it is that your success (which must be defined for you by you) will keep going decade after decade. | |
Copyright © 2006 by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson. Reprinted with permission from Leader to Leader, a publication of the Leader to Leader Institute and Jossey-Bass.
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Porras, Jerry, and Emery, Stewart, and Thompson, Mark "The Cause Has Charisma" Leader to Leader. 43 (Winter 2007): 26-31.
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