Work their brains, too

As Apple’s stock price slid last year, I wondered if it was caused by the eventual retreat from “the one big brain” — in the form of Steve Jobs — to the next phase, led by mere mortals.

Centralizing brilliance is rarely a good business model.  The brilliance of Apple was an anomaly, though a darn good one for quite a few years.

A couple examples in recent business history highlight the challenge of trying to centralize brilliance or the brilliance of decentralizing brilliance.

Oops! Misplaced $1.6 billion … If anyone had a good argument for relying on his own brilliance, it was Jon Corzine from MF Global. Having previously “run” Goldman Sachs and then been elected as both governor and senator from New Jersey by spending $100 million, you’d expect him to have a healthy ego. Mr. Corzine went “all in,” betting $6 billion on European sovereign debt, apparently ignoring his subordinates’ counsel. When you know you’re the smartest guy in the room or perhaps the state of New Jersey, excepting Tony Soprano, that seems logical. …

3, 2, 1, Go! CrossFit is an exercise program taking the world by storm. Although one could certainly describe the founder, Greg Glassman, as a headstrong, tyrannical character, he realized he needed to make sure the folks on main street running the gyms, called “boxes” in the CrossFit world, needed to win rather than “corporate.” He fostered a cultlike atmosphere, where hard-core ex-military special-forces types and stay-at-home moms work out together and get their butts kicked.

Not a typical franchise, Glassman licensed the brand to the box owners and let the folks in the field innovate — equipment, exercises and business practices. We’ll see how it plays out given the rapid growth rate and the fact that Reebok recently invested. However, dispersing the brainpower has worked pretty well so far. There were 49 boxes in 2001. At the end of 2012, there were more than 5,000.

Not just meatballs! Sweden, long admired for its blonds and meatballs, is now succeeding in banking. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal highlighted Svenska Handelsbanken for its United Kingdom success. A top official from the United Kingdom’s central bank finds its business model “fascinating.” The trick? The company lets local managers make most of the business decisions. Radical, dude! Even more radical, it seems the managers are “… held to account if the loans they make go bad.” Holy lutefisk, Batman! What a concept!

Another friend used to say, “When you hire a pair of hands, you also get a brain.” My experience is that the organizations that most effectively engage the minds of their people—along with their hands—go the furthest. If you really know everything, you’ll only need their hands; but trust me, they won’t stay long.