FROM THE EDITOR
Leadership in Hard Times
L
EADERSHIP IS never easy, but it’s
incredibly tough right now: The
global financial system is basically
paralyzed, the recession is the
worst we’ve seen in the better part of
a century, and trust in institutions and
the people who lead them is at an all-
time low.
Who better to put the subject of cri-
sis leadership in perspective than Doris
Kearns Goodwin, the presidential histo-
rian? Goodwin has written extensively
about Abraham Lincoln and Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, the two presidents
who led the United States during its big-
gest crises: the Civil War and the Great
Depression. She combines a shrewd understanding of how
these leaders shaped their times and a profoundly empa-
thetic sense of their emotional makeup. Her Different Voice
conversation with senior editor Diane Coutu is about political
leadership, obviously, but the lessons Goodwin synthesizes
work as well for business leaders as they do for politicians.
Her advice? Hire the best possible people to work for you,
even if they fought you for your job. Surround yourself with a
team of people who can challenge your thinking and whose
strengths make up for your deficits. Share credit with your
closest colleagues, so that they’re fully committed to your
mission. Be sure to communicate, often and authentically,
with your larger public. And don’t forget to relax. (FDR hosted
a cocktail hour every evening, during which it was forbidden
to discuss either politics or the war.)
If you’re leading an organization through this downturn,
you’re undoubtedly introducing major changes – and inevi-
tably encountering resistance to them. According to Jeffrey
Ford and Laurie Ford in “Decoding Resistance to Change,”
it’s wise to engage with the resisters, learn from them, and
alter your course if they suggest smart adjustments to your
initiatives. Your biggest critics can be turned into your best
advocates if you have the courage to listen carefully. This
advice feels all the more important right now, given that an
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organization’s very survival may depend
on making the right changes.
Two articles in this issue focus on how
to hold on to – and better serve – cus-
tomers during the recession. “How to
Market in a Downturn,” by John Quelch
and Katherine Jocz, advises managers
to resegment their customers on the
basis of their recession psychology:
Some consumers slam the brakes on
their spending, but others don’t change
their behavior much at all unless they
lose their jobs. It’s essential to know
which are which – and that’s not always
easy to predict. In “Five Rules for Retail-
ing in a Recession,” Ken Favaro, Tim
Romberger, and David Meer note that retailers have been hit
especially hard by this downturn. They suggest, counterin-
tuitively, that retailers have the most to gain from catering to
less-loyal customers rather than to new or loyal customers.
“What’s Your Google Strategy?,” by Andrei Hagiu and David
Yoffie, will help strategists think through how to work with
powerful intermediaries like Google, Amazon, and Blu-ray.
They can help your business grow – and they can also cause
its demise. Tread carefully. In “When Internal Collaboration
Is Bad for Your Company,” Morten Hansen notes that cor-
porate leaders are so taken with the idea of “breaking down
silos” that they rarely do a cost/benefit analysis of boundary-
spanning collaboration. Turns out that plenty of collaborations
should never get the go-ahead. Rounding out the issue, “Pre-
dicting Your Competitor’s Reaction” outlines a surprisingly
simple method that Kevin Coyne and John Horn developed
for anticipating how other companies will react to your next
strategic move.
During this tumultuous phase of history, the economic
landscape changes daily. For timely commentary on the lat-
est developments, please visit our recently relaunched web-
site (hbr.org), and let us know what you think of it.
Robert Meganck
–The Editors
3/4/09 4:49:30 PM