Hail Of A Day

Today, I’m in Boston at a conference for Strategic Decision making. Our professor is an amazing man who has been a senior adviser to 4 Presidents, starting back with Gerald Ford. When he was a young “White House Fellow” he told us an interesting anecdote which I will paraphrase…

“Before Ford gave his first State Of The Union Address he called his chief advisers out to Vail where he was spending his Christmas Vacation. We had an 8 hour meeting that was extremely heated as we plunged through issue after issue. All Ford did was ask questions. He never gave an opinion or told us what he would decide. That night at dinner, I had the good fortune of getting to sit by him. As a young man in my twenties, I was equally terrified and eager at the chance to talk to him. After some small talk, I said, “Sir, have you decided what you’ll do on the issues discussed today?” He said, “No, not yet, but whatever I decide, they’ll all go along with it, because everyone will know that I gave them their best shot at convincing me of their opinion.”

What an amazing leadership principle! Letting others voice their opinion and simply listening to them doesn’t mean that you give up the final say, it simply assures that everyone feels like they had their best chance to lay out a compelling argument. Hitting one out of the park isn’t as important as simply getting a chance to bat in the first place.