Stacking the Deck by David S. Pottruck

This is another one of those books that came with a speaker I heard at a professional conference -- this one at an event I attended in January 2015. I know that because when this book finally came up on my reading list and I opened it, out fell a dated letter from the colleague of mine that had sponsored the appearance of David Pottruck at the conference I attended. That was somewhat bittersweet, as that colleague has since passed away and, although I still go to the conferences of the organization in question, I haven’t seen this colleague there in a few years.

The subtitle of Stacking the Deck is “How to Lead Breakthrough Change Against Any Odds,” and that’s what David Pottruck, a past president of Charles Schwab, seems to specialize in. Here’s part of the blurb on the front jacket flap:

Change is a constant, and leaders must do more than keep up -- they must innovate and accelerate to succeed. Yet people are often unnerved by change. As a leader during a time of transformation, you may stand up before teams that are indifferent, or even hostile, and need to convince them that change is necessary and urgent. More than money, time, or resources, the ability to lead these people determines your ultimate success or failure. What does it take to be an effective change leader and increase the odds of success?

Stacking the Deck offers a proven, practical approach for inspiring meaningful, lasting change across an organization. Stacking the Deck presents a nine-step course of action leaders can follow from the first realization that change is needed through all the steps of implementation, including assembling the right team of close advisors and getting the word out to the wider group.

That is very much the book I read and, if I have any criticism of it at all, it is largely focused on who it seems to be written for. It certainly is not written for me -- the executive of a 12-person non-profit trade association. It is much more clearly written for someone like David Pottruck -- the leader at or near the top of a large, profitable business.

It’s not that the essential concepts of his nine-step “Stacking the Deck Process” aren’t helpful in thinking through how to lead change initiatives in my organization, it’s more that all of his tactical examples and suggestions for how to carry out those concepts assume a size and base of resources that smaller organizations like mine simply do not have. 

Here’s a good example, from Step Four: Planning Ahead for Known and Unknown Barriers.

Steve Ellis, CEO of Asurion, a technology protection service company, shared with me his theory about resistance to change and about people problems: “You’ll deal with three different groups of people and they are not evenly distributed. Often, we have 5 percent who are going to embrace the change and 15 percent who never will. Then we’ve got 80 percent who are in the middle, who can make the change, but need some help to do so.

“The people who are going to embrace change are the ones you’ve got to put in the leadership roles to drive the process.” As Steve said, the best breakthrough change processes he has seen “have very quickly gotten that group of the 5 percent focused on creating the Proof of Concept pilot. In time, the way is led by -- and infused with -- that 5 percent’s energy, vision, and passion.”

As for those “who are going to resist change no matter what, you have to identify them quickly.” Steve acknowledges how challenging this can be: “All too often, companies take way too long to face this reality because those in leadership positions want to make room for long-tenured staff in the future of the company. Often, the more tenured people just can’t make the changes you need them to make and will have to be replaced. This is the difficult job the organization is counting on you to do.”

But there is a payoff to this hard work: “If you ignite and empower the 5 percent while eliminating the drag of the 15 percent, you can move the 80 percent with astonishing speed.”

Now, it’s not entirely clear to me if by citing these 5/15/80% figures, they’re referring to the entire company or just those directly involved in the change effort. But either way, the maximum number for me is going to be 12, or really 11 since I am one of the 12 and probably don’t count in this kind of calculation.

That means I have just over half a person who will champion the change effort (let’s round up to one), one and a half who will resist it at all costs (let’s round up to two), and eight and a half who can adapt if led correctly (let’s round down to eight).

So now I’ve got one person “in the leadership roles to drive the process” and two people who “have to be replaced,” which I assume means have been fired. That means the already-limited bandwidth of my attention has been diverted almost entirely to finding their replacements and juggling all the work they used to do across the other ten positions in the company.

Ummm. No. That’s not going to work.

Far more useful for an organization of my size is the advice he gives related to developing and communicating a clear and compelling vision of the future. This excerpt seems to offer a much more crucial understanding of the role the people in your organization play in executing a vision.

People go hand in hand with more physical resources. Often the only way to combat a shortage of funds or labor is with an excess of passion.

If ever there were two sentences written with non-profits in mind, these are them.

This goes back to finding your pioneers and getting them on board quickly. You need people who are committed, excited, and willing to put in the extra time and effort. You need to get  twelve-hour days for the price of eight, seven-day weeks for the price of five. You need people who appreciate this project for its intrinsic value rather than solely for monetary compensation. Because the unfortunate fact is, success in breakthrough change initiatives doesn’t usually produce economic windfalls for the employees involved. It can, however, produce great amounts of psychic income that will keep the team engaged.

The mission and people’s connection to it can be enormous assets, whatever the financial budget -- of the company or of its people. Along those lines, Renee James is fully aware that many people in her organization have achieved financial success and are far from being driven by a monthly paycheck. Instead what keeps them coming to work is the understanding that their company “can change the world -- and that they have the possibility of changing the world every single day.” The impetus that this mission provides is powerful and compelling. The depth of the mission is also important, for as Terry Pearce frequently reminded me, “People will give effort for money but they will give their lives for meaning.”

True that. But it sounds a little hollow coming out of Pottruck’s mouth, since so much of the rest of his book is framed in the corporate doublespeak that keeps so many leaders from embracing the authenticity that is needed for such powerful concepts as mission, vision and meaning are to be embraced. People will give their lives for the opportunity to change the world, but there are few organizations on the planet that can actually live up to that promise. The best most of us can do is improve the lives of the people in our orbit. Aiming your rhetoric higher than that is a risky proposition.

And, as a quick aside, how is a leader supposed to be taken seriously when their day-to-day encounters are mediated with vocabulary such as this?

The first two assessments lead logically to the third: “how do we get there?” (HDWGT). That is, how do we get from where we are (WWA) to where we want to be (WWWTB)? The second assessment, WWWTB, is the vision question that we first discussed in Step Three.

When I first encountered these acronyms in Pottruck’s text, I had to Google them to see if they were part of some business school curriculum, or of his own creation. Either way, I tried to imagine someone actually using them in their day-to-day conversations around the office.

Tony, really, HDWGT? I mean, how do we move from WWA to WWWTB? Have you even considered that?

I would, David, but I’m too focused on HDWKGWWDTWC?

HDWKGWWDTWC?

Yeah, you know. How Do We Keep Growing When We Don’t Think We Can?

I joke. But, honestly, authentic communication is an idea that Pottruck comes to very late in the text. To his credit, he admits his own shortcoming in this regard. Here’s the anecdote that reveals how difficult it was for Pottruck to learn this lesson. When suddenly thrust into the President/CEO role at Schwab, he turned to what he thought was a speechwriter to help him sharpen his communication within the company.

When a colleague introduced me to Terry Pearce, a communication consultant and the founder and president of Leadership Communication, I thought I was getting a speechwriter. I had no idea what was really ahead.

For our first project together, I wanted some help with a speech I needed to give to the 200 top executives within our then 3,500-person company. I’d never worked intensively with a speechwriter and wasn’t sure what to expect. Whatever vague notions I did have were soon blown out of the water.

As I finished telling Terry what I wanted him to do, he interrupted me. “I can do that, Dave, but I don’t think what you have in mind is really what you want to say.” Truthfully, I was taken aback. He went on. “If we really want to inspire these people, I need you to spend some time talking to me about who you are and what experiences have shaped your life. I need to know what moves you, what your values are, what motivates you when you have won and when you have lost. I need to know who you are and why you care about all of this as passionately as you do. Then we can work on this speech you have coming up.”

I was flabbergasted. I wasn’t looking for someone to help me write an autobiography. I wanted a damn speech! My response was immediate. “Terry, I’m a really busy guy. This seems like a lot of busywork for a speech. Can’t we just discuss the message I want to deliver and then you find a really clear and compelling way for me to say it?” Frustration was entering my tone of voice.

“Sorry, Dave, that’s not really what I do,” was his reply. “There are lots of people who are good with words, and sometimes that works for articles, but that’s not what we need right now. Everyone knows the topic because you have been working on this change for a while. It’s less about what you say and more about how you say it and whether or not it is authentic. You need to deliver a message that will be compelling because everyone understands and believes your personal commitment to what you want them to do, and that you believe it is not only in your best interest, but in their best interest as well. Once they sign up for the values embedded in what you are suggesting, their actions will follow. Certainly the facts are important, but to inspire, you must be authentic and speak from the heart. After all, they are following you, not just the idea. Both are important -- and this is what leadership communication is all about.”

Pottruck learned an important lesson that day -- one that every leader should learn and position as a kind of north star for their communications. To inspire, you must be authentic and speak from the heart. After all, they are following you, not just the idea.

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.