Inspiration

Don’t add to it or take from it, Moses insists. The strategy is self-sustaining if you will believe and behave consistently with the system. The systems approach to strategy that Moses chose – creating a chain of linked activities – is resilient and largely self-healing. It is a web of links. Imagine a chain that has become knotted and tangled. It is usually possible to cut off several individual links, but the strength of the tangled chain is not weakened.

This kind of strength is possible when a strategy goes beyond operational efficiency and specific core competencies. Rather than engage the market with a few comparative strengths, the enterprise self-consciously links its various activities into a consistent culture of belief and behavior.

As consumers we experience the power of such a culture when we encounter extraordinary service that seems to anticipate our needs and exceed our expectations. To untangle the culture and identify a few key components that differentiate the culture is usually impossible. The power is in how the whole range of activities reinforces one another.

A great restaurant is not just about great food; it is about setting, presentation, personal service, the wine, the temperature, how reservations are handled, how the bill is paid and much more. How each and every one of these activities is linked creates a particular kind of experience. When the linkage is consistent the restaurant achieves its own persona. Billy at the bar, Julie in the kitchen, Andre at the front desk become individual expressions of a shared identity that transcends each of them.

This is a common aspect of those few great restaurants that survive for a generation or more. This persona – consistently and tightly linked activities – attracts appreciation and loyalty in a way no single strength can. Many great chefs have failed because, while fantastic in the kitchen, they were unable to create the right atmosphere in the dining room.

Crafting these linkages and ensuring their consistency is not easy in a family or a small restaurant and is profoundly difficult in larger enterprises. Two approaches to crafting consistency are common: one focuses on regulating individual behavior, the other focuses on inspiring shared belief. Even in the smallest enterprise both are usually present. As the enterprise expands there is a general tendency to emphasize regulation rather than inspiration. But without inspiration, regulations are as likely to spawn inconsistency as consistency.

The linked chain forged in the wilderness survived many disasters. But it was nearly destroyed by a failure of inspiration. Five centuries after the death of Moses many links in the chain had been cut off; whole lengths of the chain that had differentiated the chosen people had been lost. But the differentiation persisted and the community survived – barely.

A long list of leaders over more than 200 years failed to reinforce the linkages. Some of the leaders were, in fact, the principal cause for many of the links being cut. Again and again the leaders found it in their near-term personal interest to focus on specific strengths rather than the strategic system. They tended to emphasize parts rather than the whole. In some cases they attempted to actively divide the community to more easily use the parts for their own purposes.

From time to time there would be revivals. Good leaders would attempt to restore linkages. The rituals and festivals would be renewed. At one point a lost book of Moses (probably Deuteronomy) was found and motivated the restoration of many of the regulations that had been lost. But while the rules and rituals could be reclaimed fairly quickly, the underlying inspiration, including an understanding of the purpose for the rules and regulations, was much more difficult to preserve without consistent reinforcement.

Moses had implemented a strategic system that expected non-compliance. By building into the system the likelihood of failure, the chance for system recovery was enhanced. One of several self-correcting mechanisms was the role of prophecy.

Moses had explained the inspiration behind the rules as “You must not distort justice… Righteousness only righteousness you shall pursue.” Five centuries after the death of Moses a cattle breeder from outside Jerusalem was inspired by these words. Where Moses had linked activities to specifically differentiate his community Amos perceived the linkages were broken or at least very loose.

People were still going to temple, still offering prayers, and were outwardly devout. But outside the temple their behavior seemed to be unconnected with what they said and did inside the temple.

Speaking as a prophet, assuming the identity of God, Amos proclaimed:

I hate, I despise your festivals,
And I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5: 21-24)

It was all signaling and no substance. It was like a restaurant where the room looks wonderful, the food smells wonderful, and a harp is playing soothing music, but you feel as if you are being preyed upon by a condescending staff. The difference between the great restaurants that survive and pretentious restaurants that fail is often very subtle. It is often a matter of inspiration.

Great enterprises are communities where each individual is inspired to contribute to achieving the fundamental mission. The rules, the processes, the procedures, and our other rituals exist – and can be overturned – in order to link all of our activities into a coherent, consistent, and authentic wholeness of belief and behavior. Great enterprises do not pretend. They seek, and become, their true selves.