Hill: Tere are two things we know for sure. Managers mostly learn by doing and with the assistance of others; we are all social learners. No matter what your position, usually some management and some leadership is
required. You may
be better at one than the other, but you don’t have to do it all yourself. One of the things that we [at HBS] try to do, that I presume is consistent with the military, is to help individuals in a position of for- mal authority understand that you need to build a team. You want to have people around you who complement your par- ticular strengths or weaknesses. You have to work with those who come at their work differently than you do.
We all need to be prepared to refresh, update and sometimes even transform ourselves. We talk about the impor- tance of
lifelong learning, particularly
given how dynamic the world is. You can’t assume that you know all that you need to know and stop. You have got to
be prepared to learn from others. For instance, we all have to learn to take advantage of the opportunities and chal- lenges new technology brings. We have to continually update our functional expertise. We are all really struggling to keep up.
Army AL&T: What is making it harder to lead now? Is it the technology? Te pace of technological change?
Hill: Tere are a number of things. It is harder to sustain success in an organi- zation these days. Te world, the global economy,
is more competitive than it
used to be, right? And it is a fairly unfor- giving economy. Organizations need for their leaders to be better at what they are doing. Tis is an obvious example, but if you were a retailer [20 years ago], you didn’t have to worry about disrup- tors like Amazon or Alibaba [a Chinese e- commerce company] coming in and taking away your market share.
What we also see— and the military really does have an advantage here—is that there has to be a common sense of purpose that matters, if the group is going to be willing and able to innovate together.
Demographics, technology, growing expectations of diverse constituencies, the global economy: Any number of things make it harder. We did a study in which we asked C-suite executives around the world, what does it take to be a high-potential [employee] in your organization, and what did it take 10 years ago? What
they told us was, it
is harder to be a high-potential today. Tey said that 10 years ago, if you were a value creator, you could be considered a high-potential. But now if you want to be considered a high-potential, it is not enough to be a value creator; you also must be a game changer.
A value creator is someone who knows how to identify and close what are referred to as performance gaps, whereas a game changer is someone who knows how to identify and close what are
A GROWING, ACTIVE FAMILY
Medical Service Corps officer Lt. Col. Clifford Hill Sr. and his wife, Lillian, raised their daughter Linda and her three younger siblings around the world, as Hill’s Army career took the family to multiple continents. In addition to the perks of travel, being raised in the Army showed Linda Hill some key leadership challenges up close, including the importance of contextual intelligence and emotional intelligence as her father adjusted to each new assignment. (Photo courtesy of Linda A. Hill)
referred to as opportunity gaps. A per- formance gap is a gap between where you are now and where you should be, whereas an opportunity gap is a gap between where you are now and where you could be.
If organizations don’t have enough peo- ple who know how to be game changers, they may be able to execute their current strategy, but they will not be agile, able to adapt. And if you want to grow as an organization and thrive, you need to be able to change and innovate.
ASC.ARMY.MIL 79
CRITICAL THINKING
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