The Story: Not Your Typical Industrialist
Many executives do not engage in perspective taking; their role is to hew to the company line carefully in order to keep their stock price flying high. Some industries require greater focus on the company line and avoidance of thinking uncomfortable thoughts than others. Tobacco companies are one example, and the auto industry is another. Auto executives live in an insular world and are quick and eager to denounce environmental and safety regulations as unnecessary and unproductive. Their companies build machines that kill tens of thousands of people annually and that pollute the air and water; their employees toil in behemoth factories like Ford’s Rouge River plant. To this mix, we add economic and competitive uncertainties and, in the case of Ford, a company bleeding cash.
Enter William Clay (Bill) Ford III, the great-grandson of the company’s founder. Ford was not your typical big, bad industrialist. Known for his pro-environmental stance, Ford rocked the industry when he admitted that gas-guzzling SUVs are not earth-friendly. He has talked at great length about his concern for Ford employees as well, and he has demonstrated this concern over the years.
When he was made CEO and chairman of Ford Motor Company, he literally and figuratively inherited a host of seemingly insurmountable problems. He then backtracked on some of his environmental proclamations and, in the eyes of some, turned out to be all talk and no action around earth-friendly issues, among others. According to this view, Ford sold his soul to the corporation.
The Emotionally Intelligent Manager Analysis
Or did he? Ford demonstrates many of the skills of an emotionally intelligent manager. He is able to identify how others feel and to feel what others do. Ford has emotional empathy, and he connects and establishes rapport with a wide range of individuals. One of his early talks to auto workers was described as a “chills-down-yourspine speech.” Ford also demonstrated his compassion when he raced to the scene of an explosion at the mammoth Rouge River plant that killed several employees.
He understands the complex “people” issues of the company and has accurately diagnosed the problems previous managers created that alienated suppliers, customers, and dealers. “We need to rebuild relationships,” Ford said. “I’ll be spending a lot of time with Wall Street, dealers, employees, suppliers. A lot of those relationships are broken or not healthy.”
As an avid environmentalist running one of the world’s largest industrial companies, Ford stays open to, and integrates, conflicting and complex emotions. The uncomfortable feeling that we all get when one of our ideas is knocked can lead us to close down and reject the criticism as inherently faulty. But it has been said that Ford is a great listener and is open to feedback and input, especially feedback that is not supportive of his position.
Emotions can fuel perspective taking, as well as the generation of a vision for an organization or for an individual. Ford has described his vision for his company in terms that are quite unexpected and unusual for a chief executive: “I don’t know if a company can have a soul, but I like to think it can,” he says. “And if it can, then I’d like our soul to be an old soul—and everything that implies. I like to talk about things like values and soul. These things aren’t transient. These are things you build forever.”
The ability to deal with complexity, to understand that the world is not so simple that it can be partitioned into black or white, is an ability that may be based on one’s level of emotional intelligence. Perspective taking assumes that you can see the world through the eyes of another, and it can lead to some pretty interesting, yet uncomfortable, realizations.
A Plan for the Emotionally Intelligent Manager
Perspective taking can be viewed as consisting of emotional awareness (identifying emotions) and emotional empathy (using emotions) and can be richly described with emotional language (understanding emotions). But what about the fourth emotionally intelligent ability—managing emotions? Ford’s effectiveness as chief executive, and perhaps his feelings of satisfaction and commitment, might be based on this ability of emotion management. Certainly, we are not implying that the success or failure of Ford Motor Company is tied to the four abilities we’ve described, but our model can help Ford—indeed every manager—better define his role and succeed in it.
Ford will need to identify the problems, screening out the background noise of daily problems from long-term and serious issues requiring his time and attention. He can leverage his emotional empathy—his ability to use emotions—to take on the perspective of key stakeholders and to create and communicate a vision for Ford Motor. By running emotional what-if analyses, Ford will be better equipped to plan and strategize for key meetings and decisions. Last, he must be able to stay open to increasingly tough news, to stay open to positions in direct conflict with some of his personal values. Ford has to be able to take action based on doing the right thing, whether analysts, family members, or the Sierra Club agree or disagree with him. He has to make decisions that address and resolve the real problems of the organization so it can be a growing and healthy company.
The Outcome and Lessons Learned
Ford has an unenviable job—a job he is making more complex when he declares, “I believe that business goals can best be achieved by also addressing social and environmental needs.” An emotionally intelligent manager might be better equipped to handle such strife and conflict.
Bill Ford’s story and that of Ford Motor Company is being written, and will continue to be written, for decades to come. His performance to date can teach us a number of things about the role and qualities that many leaders need in order to manage effectively. Let’s look at another case.