THE MERLIN FACTOR: LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGIC INTENT

C Smith 1900

Most attempts to improve an organisation's performance by changing its internal culture fall short of the desired results. The principal impediments to producing effective new actions through culture change are people's current beliefs about the limits of what it is possible to undertake and achieve. These self-limiting beliefs are based on experiences from the organisation's past By contrast, executives who successfully instill a new strategic intent in their organisations’ cultures share a leadership quality the author calls The Merlin Factor'. The reference is to the legendary sage who, according to one account, “lived backward in time”. Merlin was born in the future and aged as he proceeded into the past, influencing events in King Arthur's court by drawing on his foreknowledge of their destined outcomes. Exceptional leaders cultivate the Merlin-like habit of acting in the present moment as ambassadors of a radically different future, in order to imbue their organisations with a breakthrough vision of what it is possible to achieve. The author quotes from interviews with successful visionary leaders whose commitment to future achievements that seem 'impossible’ by past standards are producing extraordinary results in the present. These first-hand accounts illustrate the three action phases of the Merlin Factor: Invention, Ignition and Implementation.