# 3: Uncovering the “Hidden” — Who Are the Cassandras on Your Team?
The Story behind the Passage
Just a few minutes ago, I talked to my dear friend Eva on the phone. Eva is a former colleague of mine. She has a background in business studies and research and now holds a leading management position at a university. Whenever I have no idea how to implement all the ideas in my head, I try to talk to Eva. What is so wonderful about her is that she always listens and, even more unbelievably, she encourages me to pursue my vision. But she does even more than that: She brings structure, simplicity, and clarity to my thinking. All these are characteristics of good coaching but Eva is more than a coach to me. She is a true advisor and consultant on my mission to bridge the gap between the humanities and Business Studies.
I also told Eva that I started blogging this weekend because I just had to start getting all these thoughts and my passion for startup literature on paper and out to the world. She was worried that this might be too time-consuming. I told her: “No, this is not time-consuming because I write fairly quickly and this blog gives me an outlet to spell out all the words in my head. I have been looking for such an outlet for too long. If I do not finally start talking about all this, I get crazy.”
This sounded convincing to Eva but the very concern behind her question indicates a core difference between business-educated researchers and practitioners and humanities people like myself. To be even more precise: The topic of “why write a blog if you should invest your time into writing scientific papers which might help you get a professorship” is a mini case study for showing how the different worlds collide — the world of Business Studies and the humanities. In my case, it is even more complicated because I also have a fair amount of creative and artistic energy which is why writing itself for me is like breathing (that does not have to be the case for humanities scholars). However, what I am trying to say is that the mere approach of looking at writing based on a cost-benefits calculation is exactly what we need to understand if we want to help business managers and researchers benefit from the potential the humanities offer and to help the humanities find value in the approaches business studies offer.
Now, I am already on the path of losing focus here because all this seems to have very little to do with the passage above. The opposite is true, though. I was going to write about Creativity, Inc. anyway today, even before I had this phone conversation with Eva. But I originally had a different passage in mind (one about how creative leadership ambition can backfire, will write about this some other time). After I hang up the phone, I knew that I instead wanted to focus on the passage above and I was happy that I found it quite quickly. This passage in my opinion describes not only one of the most fundamental leadership lessons very well, it explains the path towards really deep personal development: The willingness and courage to see what you did not (want to) see before. That can be disturbing, painful, and frustrating but it will surely do one thing: Change your life and leadership.
My Learnings
“Is there a Cassandra out there we are failing to listen to?” Now you might go like “who the hell is that freaking Cassandra? Some new member in the “Shark Tank” (Höhle der Löwen) jury? A new management guru?” No! Cassandra is a figure from Greek mythology. As Ed Catmull explains on the previous page, Cassandra became the lover of Apollo, the God of poetry and prophecy. Cassandra had a special gift of seeing and predicting the future. But Apollo later takes revenge on her for betraying him and he takes away her persuasion power. This is also why she was not able to prevent the tragedy of the Troy destruction, according to the myth, even though she had seen it coming. As Catmull summarizes: “The story of Cassandra is traditionally taken as a parable about what happens when valid warnings are ignored.” In sum, this background to the story as well as Catmull’s use of it in his own book about Pixar serves as a powerful testimony of how stories of any kind, be it from mythology, literary classics or even science fiction, provide helpful tools for teaching leadership lessons. The ancient elements of rhetoric (ethos, pathos, and logos) in combination shape narratives and thus help reduce the complexity of the world to simple but striking life lessons.
“In the preface, I wondered why the leaders of so many Silicon Valley companies made bad decisions, decisions that — even at the time — seemed so obviously wrong-headed.” The keyword in this sentence is DECISION. I cannot emphasize this simple term often enough. This is what the American Heritage Dictionary says about the etymology of the word: “Middle English decisioun, from Old French decision, from Latin dēcīsiō, dēcīsiōn-, curtailment, settlement, from dēcīsus, past participle of dēcīdere, to cut off…” (https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=decision). No worries, I am not getting into linguistics here. In fact, I never took Latin in school. Dead languages to me remained dead and I did not see a point in disturbing them in the grave. Of course, I know that my colleagues from the language departments would go crazy now when reading this because Latin is kind of the mother language of our profession (which my example above also underlines). But since I am pretty sure they do not read this blog, I do not have to care about them! Anyway, what I am trying to get at by showing you the roots of the word is that making a decision means “settling” on something by “cutting off” other options. At least, this is how I interpret the etymological roots.
The reason why I am saying that decision making is the key point here is because my impression is that we tend to forget that — not only in business practice, also in education at large. After all, if you boil it down, your life — every single second of it — is about decision making. Do you buy the fruit yoghurt or vanilla? Do you take a run or stay on the couch? Do you become a professor or stay in business? … Of course, the entire field of business studies is based on teaching students (as future executives) how to make decisions under uncertainty conditions. At least, this is the theory. In practice, as soon as one is caught in the education machine, the mechanism of “small-picture thinking,” as I call it, kicks in. What I mean by that is that you quickly forget what all this stuff you are learning is actually good for. In addition, students quickly start worrying about how this will help them find a job. I am putting the article “a” in italics here because a university education was once meant to educate future decision makers in all kinds of social institutions for special (leadership) positions. Today, however, I am not so sure about this anymore….
So, Catmull as the co-founder, CEO and president of Pixar stresses decision-making in his reflection because leadership is all about making the decisions that bring you closer to your goals. And to me, there is a high sense of insecurity in this very line because, as he describes, even the most successful leaders in the Valley made stupid decisions, at least retrospectively. In other words: even genius, education, determination, hard work… all these things will not save you from making ‘bad’ decisions. This is what he is saying here. Isn’t that frustrating and even scary? No!
“If you don’t try to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill-prepared to lead.” This sentence reflects the gist of Catmull’s message, his own leadership learning journey, and it puts brackets around the Cassandra story as a metaphor of this insight. It also tells you why the finding that you will always make ‘bad’ decisions — compared to known alternatives — does not have to be scary. This is because you always — always in life and in business — have the option to invite Cassandras. You do not have to marry them, kiss them, or reward them with luxuries. It is enough if you talk to them or even hire them. Cassandras are what Eva is so to me — a sparring partner who helps me see what I miss and who helps me find the right words for explaining what I do.
This is also where my own passion for promoting the value of the humanities in business — and vice versa — becomes obvious. The Cassandras are NOT the people that are like you, think like you, talk like you (similarity attraction flaw is the keyword to google — in case you want to check on the science behind this!). The people that can help you see the world, including business challenges, from a new and entirely fresh and innovative perspective are those who are different — with a different study background, with a different methodological toolkit, even with a different language. Only they can help you uncover the “Hidden,” as Catmull calls it.
The entire book about creative leadership at Pixar is in fact nothing but a very practical introduction to how diversity management leads to creative thinking and in turn more innovation and business success. On the surface, it is about adding perspectives to the analysis of known but still unresolved problems. If you dig underneath the surface, and this is what the story of Cassandra also very well describes, you learn something that is even more illuminating: The diversity of perspectives contributed by “outsiders, outcasts, weirdos, laymen and –women…” does not only help you see new solutions to old problems, it helps you see the real problems hidden behind the walls of what seems so obvious. This is where innovation starts. And this is where most businesses steered by one-way thinkers with glorious MBAs and Ph.D.s fail — no matter how smart and hard-working they may be. Seeing is believing and only if you believe that the world offers more than you can see from your own perspective, life becomes more than a zero-sum game.
Reflection Questions
1) What was the last movie you watched? What did you learn from the story? Did you talk about it with your co-founders/employees?
2) What is your biggest fear when making an important business decision? How do you even define what is “important”? And how do you think your definition of importance differs from the one of your co-founders/team members?
3) Write down the names of three “Cassandras” that helped you in your own life to gain new insights (i.e., people from different fields or with different backgrounds). Do you think they know how helpful they were for your life? If you have not told them about this yet — today is the best day to show your appreciation. Start now, open up that WhatsApp or e-mail message to tell them.