Corporate COMMON SENSE

The Birdman, the Eagle & the Beach

It’s a beautiful day on the beach in sunny Sarasota, Florida.

It’s 7 a.m. and I am preparing for my daily vacation ritual of reading and listening to my iPod on the beach wall. The beach is bursting with activity. The beach sun-tent warriors are busy erecting their castles and the walkers are passionately walking the beaches in their never-ending search for something called “health.”

As I relax in my lounge chair, I notice that the Birdman has arrived and is about to begin his show. The Birdman is a staple on every beach and it just doesn’t feel like vacation until the Birdman performs. Once he finishes setting up his nesting ground for the day, he reaches over and pulls out a plastic bag from his Barney lunchbox. The plastic bag is full of breadcrumbs and I know what is going to happen next. The Birdman opens his bag of breadcrumbs and begins hurling the goodies on the beach. Within seconds, the birds who live in this vacation spot realize that the Birdman is back on duty. At first, only a few birds show up to accept the free breadcrumbs. But by the next morning, the Birdman’s audience grew rapidly. The more he threw his free breadcrumbs, the more the birds multiplied.

By the third day, the Birdman was clearly a hit. There were more birds attending the Birdman’s “Breadstock” than people who seem to watch Katie Couric read us the news at night. It was amazing. I sat in my lounge chair and watched this event and tried to make sense of this bizarre activity. On the fourth day, something strange happened. The Birdman failed to show up for his ritual, but the birds were still waiting for their free manna from heaven. The Birdman had left the stage and had returned to his daytime job. He closed his little play and left the birds waiting for the next act to start. It was very sad to watch the birds hang around waiting for their pied-piper to return. After a while, the birds realized that they must go back to learning how to hunt for their own food supply. As the little birds started to walk away, I could see their heads were hanging down, their shoulders were hunched over and they were all talking about a new book that was making its way around the bird community, “Who Moved My Bread.” The book sounds a lot like a bird version of Spencer Johnson’s popular book about rats titled, “Who Moved My Cheese.”

So what is the lesson behind this very touching story? The lesson is not about birds being able to read books. I can’t prove that. The lesson is about pursuing career and leadership independence. If you allow your career to become dependent on someone else’s generousity, your career will be unstable. The Birdman did not feed the birds because the birds were hungry. He fed the birds because he was hungry. He was hungry for power, control and significance. The ability to control the birds and have them line up to receive his compassion was his driving force. This made the Birdman feel significant.

The Birdman is really a Duck leader. A leader’s job is to help everyone they lead to “become a little bit better tomorrow than they were today.” The Birdman was not helping the birds improve their hunting and survival skills. He was actually deteriorating the bird’s skills by making them dependent on him for food. Sometimes in business, what appears to be noble behavior is not really noble behavior at all. Many leaders like being “all-knowing” and the “go-to-person,” but these leaders are not Eagle leaders. Eagle leaders teach, teach and teach. Their goal is to enhance their employee’s skills and career opportunities.

One of my favorite definitions of leadership is, “A great Eagle leader is not determined by the number of people who need them. A great Eagle leader is determined by the number of people who don’t need them.” Teaching employees to be self-reliant is a gift that Eagle leaders take great pride in. The Birdman clearly violated this definition of leadership as his need for power, control and significance drove his intentions. If the Birdman would have continued his act for several years, the birds would have never learned to hunt for themselves. Why learn to hunt for food when someone else is going to give it to you for free? I’m sure the birds failed to realize how fortunate they were that the Birdman left after only three days. I fear he may some day retire to the beach and destroy a whole generation of birds with his self-serving compassion. In the business world, Duck leaders can do the same thing. Many Duck leaders like to control knowledge so they can feel significant. You need to continually pursue knowledge and career survival skills.

COMMON SENSE Lesson

Eagles and Eagle leaders freely share their ideas and skills in the hope that everyone will be able to hunt for their own career food. Eagle leaders know that great companies can’t grow unless their employees are growing. Beware of the Birdmen and Birdwomen around you. Your career independence is not on their agenda.