Become a Sensor
Inspirational leaders rely heavily on their instincts to know when to reveal a weakness or a difference. We call them good situation sensors, and by that we mean that they can collect and interpret soft data. They can sniff out the signals in the environment and sense what’s going on without having anything spelled out for them
Franz Humer, the CEO of Roche, is a classic sensor. He is highly accomplished in detecting shifts in climate and ambience; he can read subtle cues and sense underline currents of opinion that elude less perceptive people. Humer says he developed this skill as a tour guide in his mid-twenties when he was responsible for groups of 100 or more. “There was no salary, only tips,” he explains. “Pretty soon, I knew how to hone in on particular groups. Eventually I could predict within 10% how much I could earn from any particular group.” Indeed, great sensors can easily gauge unexpressed feelings; they can very accurately judge whether relationships are working or not. The process is complex, and as anyone who has ever encountered it knows, the results are impressive.
Consider a human resources executive we worked with in a multinational entertainment company. One day he got news of a distribution problem in Italy that had the potential to affect the company’s worldwide operations. As he was thinking about how to hide the information temporarily from thee Paris-CEO while he worked on a solution, the phone rang. It was the CEO saying “Tell me, Roberto, What the hell’s going on Milan? The CEO was already aware that something was wrong. How? He had his networks, of Course. But in large part, he was gifted at detecting information that wasn’t aimed at him. He could read the silences and pick up on non verbal cues in the organization.
Not surprisingly, the most impressive business leaders we have worked with are all very refined sensors,