Compare these two management philosophies:
"Every few months, Carpenter and Evans choose a different rising star to coach. There are lunches, private meetings, occasional late-night phone calls. More important, they give the staffer feedback - direct, sustained, brutally honest: 'People don't grow if you're soft with them.'"
"John Mackey doesn't just delegate; in fact, he can seem almost diffident about his company. Asked how 140 cashiers can function as a single team... he looks like an anthropologist who has just had a student ask a great question. 'That does sound like a problem,' he says. 'A team that large could confound the basic operating principle. But I'll tell you, I don't have the faintest idea how they've solved that problem. That's not my job anymore. But call them up, ask. I guarantee they have found a solution. I'd be curious to know what it is.'"
Good? Bad? Yep. "Hard" or "soft" styles both seem very successful and fraught with flaws. There must be something deeper than style that creates harmony and ultimately better results. My theory: that winning combination of persistence and humility, devoted with focus to the common cause, whatever that cause might be.
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