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Over the last few days I took part in a unique business conference in Switzerland called, ?Spirit in Business.? And no, ?As If? was not the conference subtitle. Honestly, I was impressed that among the attendees included so many entrepreneurs and corporate leaders who who simply did not want to continue to work in ventures that lacked soul.
During the event, I led a panel on the theme of ?redefining hard power and soft power? in business. I took ?hard power? to refer to the propensity in the modern organization to operate by metrics. The mantra: If you can?t measure it, then it must not be important. Strange, even educational institutions and non-profits have taken to this wisdom.
?Soft power,? on the other hand, usually refers to intangibles like creativity and imagination, compassion and care, integrity and character.
I raised in the panel my concern that once we accept these categories, then we fool ourselves into thinking that ONLY hard power is vital, for it impacts the bottom line. Soft power, on the other hand, is peripheral to the core business operation. I reject that notion. How many companies have lost market value in the past decade because they failed to appreciate the key importance of these ?soft? qualities?
Metrics are useful, and necessary, but they are meant to be indicators of company performance. Somewhere along the highway, instead of being a guide post on the journey signs became the destination.
In its September issue, Forbes featured a 20-page advertising insert on ?sustainable business.? I can?t imagine that happening in Forbes magazine a decade ago. So has Forbes gone soft? I don?t think so; rather, it?s a sign that companies are reaching a limit with a single focus on the bottom line.
One of the panel members that I invited to participate, Max Burger-Calderon, is a senior partner at Apax, one of Europe?s largest private equity firms. He took a poetic approach to the theme, and doing so he got to the heart of the matter.
Hard power is the past
Soft power is the future
Soft = by example
Hard = by rules
Soft = you preach wine and drink water
Hard = you preach water and drink wine
Soft= employees get served first
Hard = leaders get served first
No organization can afford to ignore either soft power or hard power, but it must lead with soft.
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