I wrote yesterday that magnetism should be incorporated to the category of Prize Winner in corporate cultures: ‘I want to be there, part of it, work here’. It probably does not get better than this as a value selling proposition. It is for sure a feature of the Remarkable Organization [1].
My clients and people following me, or attending my speaking engagements, know that I am a bit of a parrot when it gets to social imitation. In particular, how much we underestimate the power of social copying inside the organization, once bypassed the trivial levels of ‘understanding peer pressure’ often seen as an anecdote. We pull people to us, or we push them away. That’s it. End of Corporate Physics lesson.
The Raul Castro reaction did not surprise me a bit.
Raul Castro, President of Cuba and First Secretary of its Communist Party (‘the Party’) visited Pope Francis in the Vatican in the context of Francis personal facilitation of a new healthier relationship between Cuba and the USA. The visit took place early May and from the many headlines – cum-photo of the historical visit, one made the highest rankings. More or less it read like this: ‘Cuba’s Raul Castro meets Pope Francis, says he might return to the Church’. Another said, he might start praying as well.
Commentators were ready to scrutinize the statement and some even tried to assess the possibilities and the seriousness. That was missing the point. The point was that, the fact that Raul Castro, President of a one-party-system were, to say the least, Religion is not ‘a feature’, could even articulate this as a more or less casual comment, meant that he had found in front of him a level of authenticity and attractiveness, strong enough to provoke it.
For some of us following from the distance the developments and the journey of Francis Disruptive Leadership, the reaction was not a surprise. But I must confess that I had a big, big smile.
Imagine for a second that somebody visits you. That this somebody is not necessarily you best friend. Imagine that, as a result of the visit, he says: ‘I am thinking of joining you’. Whatever happened in that human interface, perhaps a short one, is priceless. It is a sign of that magnetism that cannot be priced and that perhaps is not even encapsulated in any hard core, asset corporate parameters. Magnet? What kind of KPI is that?
If Castro could even contemplate (the articulation of) going back to the Catholic Church, good leaders attracting people to their good companies, is a piece of cake.
So, there is a leadership test here… Isn’t it?