Guten Abend Relying on the art of story telling Stephen Covey once highlighted the difference between a leader

and an executive by reciting this story: A group of "Holzfller" or lumberjacks where sent on a mission to clear part of a forest. Once they arrived they jumped from their trucks, armed with "Kettensgen" or chainsaws; they embarked on their mission with ultimate dedication. Their leader went and climbed the highest tree to get a better view of the situation. When he reached the top of the tree, he scanned the horizon and, over the rising sound of hyperactive chainsaws he shouted: "falscher Wald - Wrong Forest", the "executives" going about their job with absolute efficiency shouted back: "Shut up..we are making progress" I like this story. It does highlight the difference between the role of the leader and the role of the executive branch. It is the job of the executives to execute efficiently, but it is the duty of the leader to identify what needs to be executed. It also shows the dilemma that visionary leaders face when trying to communicate their vision to their troops. By virtue of their position and access to highly refined information and analytical skills leaders see a different view from what day-to-day operational executives see. They can discern the forests from the trees. Scanning the forest from the highest tree gives the leader a better view but creates a bit of a communication problem between him or her and the executives down below. So leaders, need not climb any higher than the highest tree in order not lose comprehensible contact with their executing troops back on the ground. But what if the environment is turbulent, and visibility is low and the leader needs a wider clearer view? He or she can then hire a consulting firm with the necessary tools to access this higher view. In a previous life, when I was pretending to be a strategy consultant, I used to ask top executives during the briefing session would you like us to bring back the helicopter view or are you interested in details. Invariably they would say, of course we want the helicopter view and invariably when we come back with the helicopter view we face great difficulty trying to communicate it to project sponsors. Except for those rare occasions when a leader's eyes brighten and he goes like this, oh.. ah, now I get it. Mission accomplished.. Larger organizations, like societies, governments or cultures need even wider views to be able to navigate through rapidly evolving environments. So they send out space cadets to get what we sometime call "the satellite view". The problem with sending out a space cadet is that he does not come back immediately with the view. He goes into orbit and freely falls for a while. By the time he manages to land back on earth, the project sponsors are no longer there, the administration that commissioned his mission does not exist and since the project was classified there are no records to show that this mission was even commissioned.

Trying to fulfill his purpose, the space cadet struggles to identify the "real" new leader, approaches him carefully and whispers in his ears: "it is a sphere..." What the hell are you talking about, comes the answer back "The earth, it is not flat, it is a sphere" Sphere, are you crazy, everyone knows that it is flat, who the hell are you any way. I am the guy that just landed and I possess the view. The earth is a sphere. Do I hear you right, did you say that you have just landed, you are an alien? Guards Guards, get that lunatic alien out of here, jail him, put him in an asylum. Better still, Crucify him Now not all space cadets travel to outer space, societies also produce inner space cadets and the views they come back with are sometimes called World Views Ancient Egyptian inner space cadets recognized that the earth was somehow spherical and they managed to map its position to the sun. 5000 years later, Renaissance era inner space cadets in Europe came to the same conclusion. They too, had problems communicating their preciously conceived world view to the Executives in Power. We all know how Galileo had to publicly renounce his heliocentric world view just to save his own skin. Now the European Union is naming a whole satellite belt in his honor. I would like to take you back to Stephen Covey's story to let you in on a little secret. While the leader was hanging high up in the tree, one of the lumberjacks, mistakenly chopped the tree off and the leader fell on his head and sadly passed away. That is why, wherever you go on this planet, you will only see executives running the show.