Corona update #2 When the top executive fails on purpose

Several times the past week Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has addressed the nation on the emerging COVID-19 crisis. At one of the live press briefings I noticed one particularly interesting point. The PM essentially said, “We cannot wait for evidence. We cannot wait until we are entirely sure what will work. We are going to make mistakes. I am going to make mistakes.”

This is very, very unusual coming from a top executive. An in particular from a political leader.

For too long, too many leaders have focused almost exclusively on control and avoiding error. Openness about uncertainty and failure has been toxic for any substantial management careers. That goes for business, and it goes for government.

But in the situation we find ourselves in right now, the honesty and transparency Ms Frederiksen demonstrates is almost acceptable – perhaps even a positive expression of powerful leadership.

It reminds me of a parallel historical example from the American 1932 election campaign, which took place during the Great Depression. The Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was a candidate and during the primaries he gave a keynote to a small university in the state of Georgia. He addressed the crisis and the missing answers in an uncertain time.

He said, and now I am quoting, that the challenge called for “Bold, persistent experimentation.” More down to Earth, he said that the best approach would be to try something, and if that fails, admit it and try something else. An unheard of approach, where a presidential candidate basically said he did not have a plan.

The critical reactions came hard and fast. The next day the New York Times wrote condescendingly that his policy was “just try something”. Roosevelt's own political advisor, who had not seen the speech and only heard about it through the media, called the proposal “An appalling piece of stupidity.”

But the American population loved it. Roosevelt not only won the campaign that year. He became America’s longest sitting president.

Under conditions of high uncertainty, full knowledge is an impossibility. Pretending otherwise is at best naive, at worst dangerous. In the design field we are used to building rough prototypes, learning from feedback, and adjusting our approach. For managers in government, as well as in business, this "design attitude" is essential if they are to move forward and make decisions in spite of the current turbulence. This calls for humility as well as the will to execute -- and a bit of courage. Leaders can learn from that.

I am in no doubt that in this time of extreme turbulence we must listen to those leaders who ask us to follow them even though they admit they do not fully know the path ahead. Especially because they admit they do not know it.