Let Your Guard Down

September 18, 2007

Sidney Harman (sharman@harman.com) is the executive chairman and founder of Harman International Industries in Washington,DC.

Eight years ago,we acquired Becker Radio (now Harman/Becker) to help us develop the dashboard navigation and media systems that are now the major part of our business. In a meeting at Becker, several of the engineers there argued that the only way for us to take the lead in the emerging field of “infotainment” was to abandon tried-and- true analog systems and design and build totally new digital systems – a very risky proposition for our company.

Back home, I sat down with our key executives to talk about this disruptive idea. I went into the meeting with only a rough notion of how we should proceed. There was clearly anxiety and skepticism in the group, concern that we would be betting the company if we went digital.

I realized that to provoke the creative thinking we needed, I would have to let my guard down and be willing to embarrass myself by floating unformed – and even uninformed – ideas. I assured the group that anything we said in the meeting stayed with us. Our discussion went on for six or seven hours. By opening up to my colleagues, and by encouraging them to think freely and improvise, I helped generate a novel perspective that no one of us had brought to the meeting: Commit all the company’s resources to this digital direction, facilitate the transformation by eliminating hierarchies and silos, and remove barriers between functions.

Today, our sales are approaching $3 billion, and our stock price is at an all-time high. We wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t taken the radical steps conceived in that meeting. And that plan would not have emerged had I failed to recognize and respond to the group’s apprehension and elicit its collective creative thinking. The leader who uses emotional intelligence to catalyze creative thinking subordinates himself to the team but elevates the company to achieve goals it otherwise couldn’t.

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