Let’s clear some things up right now, because I’m tired of hearing the term.  We are not better together.  More minds do not make something better.  These are dumb, communist ideas by outside influencers who have tried over time to slide dumb ideas about how society should be structured under the door and have left us with a lot of garbage like that term to muddle through.  I receive numerous emails from people, and someone sent me one of those LinkedIn links to a statement from a consultant group about leadership, as if to refute my position on the matter. I had to give that person a healthy dose of reality.   More is not always better.  More administrative minds do not improve processes. Instead, you often get the opposite; usually, you end up with more of a mess than any improvement.  If you want to improve something, identify your leader and then listen to them.  But don’t think that a bunch of useless people meandering through life can come together and improve something.  It never works.  The concept of teamwork has been grossly misused to incorporate elements of Marxism over the years through our public education system, and it was always a flawed idea. I think the reason for this was best captured in books like Robert Persig’s ideas on the Metaphysics of Quality.  His metaphor of people who sit in the back of a moving train is a particularly apt one that accurately reflects the truth in this matter.  Good leaders are at the front of the train where things can be seen as they are happening.  But most of the world sits in the back, where it’s safe, and analyzes data that has already passed.  It can be helpful information, but that’s not leadership.  And the communist societies of the world have tried to sell cowardice that way to make the timid feel like they were equal to good leaders.  And they are not. 

That is where most consultants get things wrong, and LinkedIn is full of those types of people who attend all the business seminars and listen to all that “team building” nonsense, such as the idea that no one person has all the answers and that more minds are better than just one.  What causes trouble in cultures that need leadership is the presence of committees, where administrative types try to lead an organization from the back of the train, rather than from the front, where they belong.  And often up front, where things are scary and coming fast, most people don’t have the guts to live there.  They always pick where it’s safe and build their 9-to-5 lives around the value of analysis, often from the caboose of a train, complete with lots of spreadsheets and graphs, but without the voice of leadership to guide the timid toward greatness.  Good leaders are listened to, not debated with.  So, any culture that wants to succeed needs to hear more than hold hands in the back of the train while the world outside moves quickly.  Leadership is not safe; it’s usually hazardous, and it requires a lot of toughness that most people never develop in their lives.  That doesn’t make those people useless.  However, they are unable to lead because they never developed the stomach for the rigors of the leadership task.  They have come up with all kinds of excuses why failure is best elevated in group consensus rather than the responsibility of leadership at the front of the train, where things are much more dangerous.

I’ve heard every excuse in the book as to why most people prefer the back of the train as opposed to where leadership lives, at the front.  They say, people, say dumb things like, “I don’t want the stress and want to avoid a heart attack.”  Or they will point to the need for time to decompress after work.  All they are doing is telling the world that they aren’t tough enough to be a leader of an organization and that they prefer the back of the train, where things are safe, and where they can share the experience with others holding hands for safety and security.  And it’s those types of people who want to believe that more is better and that no one mind is better than a collective whole.  This is the kind of flawed thinking that assumes the United Nations is better as a one-world government than the individual results of leadership that come from the United States, for instance.  You don’t see that the United Nations has accomplished much over the years to bring the kind of peace it has always intended.  It takes a strong individual country like the United States to provide that leadership.  And that same mentality could be applied to every organization; if a strong leader isn’t leading it, it is, to some degree, inefficient and destructive.  The only real way to pull off the illusion that more is better is to stop the train, which is impossible in day-to-day life.  But for the fantasy to work, the trains of life can’t be moving so that all those in the back can analyze data and make decisions in time to do something about it, which is unrealistic.  Trains are constantly moving, and they require sharp, focused minds to be at the front of the train, leading everyone at the cutting edge. 

I’m usually nice to people who send me stupid ideas like this one, the LinkedIn warriors who buy into all the corporate placations created by consultants who are leeching off the profitability of the few.  Consultants like teachers do what they do not because they are good or the best in their field.  Occasionally, you find an exception, but not very often, certainly not often enough to alter the statistical analysis.  What you get are people who lack the courage to lead an organization and try to sell companies on a scam that more analysis from the back of the train will help a struggling company.  However, as soon as the consultant leaves with their misguided ideas of ‘better together,’ the organization falls back into its previous state because it failed to identify its leaders and place them in the correct positions to succeed.  And success is usually found by shutting up and listening to a leader, not in building consensus with a bunch of people in the back of the fast-moving train who are too timid to do what it takes to lead people.  To conceal their timidity from the world, they have adopted these misguided notions about leadership, none of which are accurate.  And they have made a mess out of the world at every level.  So, if you really want to fix anything, figure out who you are: either a back-of-the-train analysis cruncher who likes things safe and secure, or a daring, cutting-edge type who will go it alone and make decisions where they matter, and tell people behind them what to do and when to do it.  If you find a good leader, you’ll find a successful organization.  However, once that leader is gone, the people are left without direction and powerless to improve their lives, and this is the case in almost every circumstance.  We are not better together.  We are better when those people shut up, and listen to the leader among them.  And then, and only then, does everything get better for everyone.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707