Visty Banaji
Guns for (Corporate) Hire There is a growing pool of leadership talent that doesn’t owe loyalty to the employing corporate. These 'Hired Guns' seem a convenient and effective way of dealing with challenges, but their long-term impact on organisations is ultimately deleterious. What can be done to counter it?
The road less travelled
I
64
am sure every boy (at least in my youth) dreamed of being the fastest gun in the Wild West. Who didn’t want to be William Munny?1 A gunslinger hiring himself out on a vengeance mission so that his children would have a future, seemed both valiant and noble. The true characters of the gunmen available for hire in those times were, of course, neither. Nor were they even remotely the first to make their skills in fighting available for rent. Xeno-
| may 2022
phon’s 10,000 mercenaries, who failed to put Cyrus the Younger on the throne of Persia and then fought their way home 2,500 years ago, enacted their drama on a far larger and more memorable stage than Will’s exploit.2 Not everyone, even in classical times, approved the fighting-for-money transaction that was (and is) at the root of all mercenary engagement – however noble the cause that pays for the service. Thus, we have Aristotle contrasting soldiers who bear arms
for cash versus those who fight out of commitment to their country; "[Mercenary] soldiers turn cowards, however, when the danger puts too great a strain on them and they are inferior … for they are the first to fly, while citizen-forces die at their posts …"3 Isocrates focuses directly on another of the key problems with the hired 'sword' when he reprimands his fellow Athenians in these words: "… [A] though we seek to rule over
For organisations that have been used to homegrown dyed-inthe-culture talent, critical changes in oversight styles and mechanisms are vital if the engagement is not to be disappointing or even disastrous
