FOBO Fear of Becoming Obsolete. Scared of the big bad wolf called AI? Concerned you don’t have EQ skills to be a caring servant leader? Sounds like you may be aware of a gap in your skills. At the heart of a system with AI is a human being. Servant Leaders serve andguide humans. Are you ready to lead in a fake world of power and profit over people? If you are not a lifelong learner you will beleft behind. Do something about it! Figure it out. Ideal doesn’t happen.
John Maxwell’s law ofthe Lid suggests leadership ability determines a person’s level of
effectiveness. Your team will rise to a ceiling set by your leadership lid.
Experts say organizations can help with the soft-skill worries as well. Some firms have paired Gen-Z employees with senior leaders. The senior leader learns about AI tools or social trends, while the Gen-Z employee observes the leader’s “soft power,” including how they handle a room,
read body language, and manage tense meetings. “Gen Z is restless for development,” says Roger Philby, global leader of Korn Ferry’s People Strategy and Performance practice.
John Maxwell tells this story when he describes the Law ofthe Lid:
Let me tell you a story that illustrates the Law of the Lid.In 1937, two young brothers named Dick and Maurice opened a small drive-in restaurant in Pasadena, California, located just east of Glendale. Their tiny drive-in restaurant was a great success, and in 1940, they decided to move the
operation to San Bernardino, a working-class boomtown fifty miles east of Los
Angeles. Their business exploded. Annual sales reached $200,000.
In 1948, their intuition told them that times were changing, and they made modifications to their restaurant business. They streamlined everything. They reduced their menu and focused on selling hamburgers. They created what they called the Speedy Service System, in which their kitchen
became like an assembly line, where each employee focused on service with
speed. The brothers’ goal was to fill each customer’s order in thirty seconds
or less. And they succeeded. By the mid-1950s, annual revenue hit $350,000, and
by then, Dick and Maurice split net profits of about $100,000 each year.
Who were these brothers? Back in those days, you could havefound out by driving to their small restaurant on the corner of Fourteenth and E Streets in San Bernardino, to see a neon sign that said simply MCDONALD’S HAMBURGERS. Dick and Maurice McDonald had hit the great American jackpot, but they never went any farther because their weak leadership put a lid on their
ability to succeed.
The McDonald brothers’ genius was in customer service andkitchen organization. That talent led to the creation of a new system of food and beverage service. But in 1952, when they tried marketing the McDonald’s concept, their effort was a dismal failure. The reason was simple. They lacked
the leadership necessary to make a larger enterprise effective. Dick and Maurice were good single-restaurant owners. They understood how to run a business, make their systems efficient, cut costs, and increase profits. They were efficient managers. But they were not leaders. Their thinking patterns
clamped a lid down on what they could do and become. At the height of their success, Dick and Maurice found themselves smack-dab against the Law of the Lid.
In 1954, the brothers hooked up with a man named Ray Kroc.As soon as he visited the store, he had a vision for its potential. In his mind he could see the restaurant going nationwide in hundreds of markets. He soon struck a deal with Dick and Maurice, and in 1955, he formed McDonald’s Systems,
Inc. (later called the McDonald’s Corporation).
And the leadership lid in Ray Kroc’s life was sky high.Between 1955 and 1959, Kroc succeeded in opening 100 restaurants. Four years after that, there were 500 McDonald’s. In 1961 for the sum of $2.7 million, Kroc bought the exclusive rights to McDonald’s from the brothers, and he
proceeded to turn it into an American institution and global entity.