Adam Bryant, Corner Office New York Times; Interview with Stephen I. Sadove, chairman and chief executive of Saks Inc., For the Chief of Saks, It’s Culture That Drives Results:
"Q. What were your biggest leadership lessons?
A. I used opportunities to get involved and develop relationships with a diverse set of people, as opposed to the narrow group of people I was dealing with day-to-day, and that made a huge difference. It shaped my philosophy in terms of the importance of relationship-building. It really underlies my entire philosophy of how to run a business.
Q. How did you learn that?
A. In many instances, I was taken under the wing of people who gave me an opportunity, and also showed some attention and interest where they didn’t necessarily have to. Back at Harvard Business School, I remember a couple of professors there who paid some attention, and in some cases it really led to my love of marketing.
I was also a reasonably good tennis player back in my college and graduate school days. And when I started work at a company called General Foods, people were always looking for tennis partners. If you were a good tennis player, you were heavily in demand. I found that things like that allowed me to meet people that I otherwise may never have met.
I’ve been amazed over the years how relationships that come out of one thing go toward something else. So somebody I might have met through a charity then becomes somebody who knows somebody and it leads to a relationship.
If you give positive vibes, if you show an interest, by and large a lot of people will react. Not everybody, but people tend to react. When people show an interest in reaching out, I tend to react to them.
Q. Were you always comfortable in leadership roles?
A. I was the kind of person growing up who was able to play in different circles of people. I was never a great athlete. I was a good tennis player, but I also was on the math team. I was able to move from one circle of friends to another. So you could be with the top-of-the-class people, but you could also be just as comfortable with the athletes who maybe didn’t care as much about the academics.
I always felt the natural impulse of wanting people to work well together, to get whatever the end result was — winning the game, getting the team to work together, working on the newspaper, whatever it might be.
When I got to a business environment, it was a natural feeling that hey, we’ve got to win. But there was also a belief that I had, even early on, that there were a lot of others who performed as well as I did. What started differentiating me was that I would do what was needed to get a job done, but also make time to come up with new ideas.
I also grew up in a very diverse environment. My dad was with the World Bank in Washington. All of our friends were of international background. You had people from African countries, India, Indonesia.
So I grew up in a world of lots of interesting people, and you really valued learning from them and talking to them. I grew up valuing lots of different kinds of opinions and people of different backgrounds. I was relatively comfortable with adults because we always were entertaining. So you never worried about being uncomfortable in a setting like that, or shy.
Q. What about other mentors?
A. I learned a lot from some of the senior executives at General Foods. There were so many smart people there and you watched how sharp people thought about business issues. But I think that what I really learned there was the value of collaboration, the value of one and one equals three, and not having all the answers yourself. I don’t think it was someone telling me, as much as seeing how much value you could get if people work together.
I also found so many examples where people were working in silos. To me it was just obvious that if people worked together you would get a better result than if you were working independently. The first 10 years of my career I found that getting people to think differently, and moving from what I call a vertical organization to a horizontal organization, was transformational.
Q. How would you say your leadership and management style has evolved?
A. I spend more time with people and people issues. I obviously work with business issues, but I try to go out of my way in mentoring, coaching and developing young people. I tend to care a lot about the people and the relationships that they have, how the team is operating, the culture.
Q. Give me an example of how you spend time with these people.
A. I’ll take 30 or so high-potential employees and spend a day with them. And I’ll talk to them about culture, I’ll talk to them about helping. We’ll call it a C.E.O. forum and work directly with them about issues like leadership, philosophy of leadership, and real business issues that we’re facing.
Q. What’s your philosophy of leadership?
A. I have a very simple model to run a company. It starts with leadership at the top, which drives a culture. Culture drives innovation and whatever else you’re trying to drive within a company — innovation, execution, whatever it’s going to be. And that then drives results.
When I talk to Wall Street, people really want to know your results, what are your strategies, what are the issues, what it is that you’re doing to drive your business. They’re focused on the bottom line. Never do you get people asking about the culture, about leadership, about the people in the organization. Yet, it’s the reverse, because it’s the people, the leadership, the culture and the ideas that are ultimately driving the numbers and the results. So it’s a flip.
What I try to teach people is, don’t ask the first question in terms of numbers. Let’s talk about the people, let’s talk about the culture, let’s talk about the ideas and the innovation.
I learn so much from the people in the organization all the time, and I also learn from students. Once or twice a year I’ll go teach at an M.B.A. class up at Columbia, and I love talking to the students because they’ll challenge you and make you think differently.
I think some of the best ideas come from people who aren’t stuck in their ways. I always tell people new to my organization when they come in, I want you, in your first three or four weeks, to jot down every time you have an idea or a question about how things are done, and then stick it in your drawer. Just whatever it is, why are they doing it this way?
I don’t care whether it’s good or bad; I don’t want you to even talk to anyone about it. Just write it down and stick it in the drawer. And at the end of three or four weeks I want you to look at the sheet. Maybe you’ll say: “Now, I understand that. Now it makes a little bit of sense to me.” Or you may look at it and say, “That still doesn’t make any sense to me.” Then I want you to sit with me and we’re going to talk about them.
Invariably, I find some really good ideas that make you say: “Why are we doing it this way? It makes no sense at all.” I’ve seen little things, big things, waste in the system and a lot of duplication of work. Things like that come out of it.
Q. What’s your best career advice?
A. Early in your career, find the time to do the out-of-the-norm. Do whatever’s required to do the job — run the budgets, execute the promotions. But you’re never going to differentiate yourself just doing what everybody else can do. Find the time to build relationships outside of your own chain of command.
Q. How do you give feedback?
A. I like giving feedback every day, on the spot. It’s important that people know how they’re doing. I’m not really big on year-end feedback. If there are problems, we’ll make sure that they understand the issues that they have to deal with. But I really much prefer it being on-the-spot feedback, as opposed to just waiting for everything to build up and then you have the big blow-out. I don’t see a lot of value in that.
The reality is that people don’t like giving feedback. By the way, there’s a flip side to it, which is that people don’t like to necessarily hear feedback, and even when they’re given feedback they oftentimes don’t hear it. Sometimes you’ll hit people between the eyes and then you’ll see that they didn’t think they got any feedback.
Q. How do you decide when it’s time to let somebody go?
A. I tend to be very half-full versus half-empty, and so you want to give the person another opportunity. You want to see if they can shift their behavior 20 degrees. I’ll probably be more inclined to give them another shot. And more often than not, it doesn’t work out, and I’ll say, “Boy, I should have let them go earlier.” You learn from it, and I’m much tougher today on that than I was.
But I’ve seen some wonderful successes, too. So maybe four out of five don’t work out. But that one that’s a homerun — giving them a little bit more time than they otherwise might have had — may make it worth the other four.
Q. How do you hire?
A. Well, clearly you want somebody who has the intellectual capacity, strategic thinking and the skill sets. But I’m looking for a cultural fit with me. How collaborative are they? How inclusive are they? How willing are they to listen to lots of different points of view? Do they have diverse interests?
Q. So what questions do you ask?
A. What do you like to do for fun? If you had a free evening what do you like to do? Where do you like to travel? What kind of people do you like to spend time with? Who are the people you admire? What have you been reading? When you get a sense of what people are involved with outside of work, you can really start to understand a person.
Q. Anything unusual about the way you manage your time?
A. I make time to wander around a lot because you find out what’s really going on when you pop into people’s offices. But I always have a purpose. It might be, what are the new ideas you’re thinking about for driving creativity or innovation? If I always ask about new ideas, then people will figure I must be interested about innovation. In the last year, I was asking about new cost-saving ideas. But I love wandering around the floors. One of the biggest risks of a C.E.O. is being isolated."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/business/30corner.html?scp=2&sq=corner%20office&st=cse
Sunday, May 30, 2010
When Mentoring Goes Bad; Wall St. Journal, 5/24/10
Dawn Chandler, Lillian Eby, Stacy McManus, Wall St. Journal; When Mentoring Goes Bad: A good relationship can help both mentor and protégé. Here's how to make sure that happens:
"Most young managers view having a mentor as their ticket to the big leagues—to greater visibility, exciting assignments and big promotions. Benefits flow to mentors as well, as they enjoy broader influence when their young protégés rise to stardom.
And it's all true. Except when it isn't. Except when mentoring goes bad.
And it does go bad—in all sorts of ways and sometimes spectacularly. At one end of the spectrum are relationships that fizzle out for benign reasons, such as the pressures of daily work and personal lives, conflicting goals or a lack of shared values. But relationships also fail for not-so-benign reasons: manipulation, deceit and harassment, to name a few. Either party can be the cause—and the career trajectories of both may never be the same afterwards.
To be clear, mentoring can be invaluable, not only to protégés and mentors, but also to organizations. It is important, however, to manage the relationships appropriately and be aware of early signs of potential problems.
Here is a look at some of the ways mentoring relationships go awry, followed by advice on how mentors, protégés and companies can spot warning signs sooner and create more positive experiences...
Questions to Ask Yourself
1. If you are mentoring someone, are you giving them enough of your time and interesting work?
2. Are the personality and work habits of your protégé similar to yours, and if not, are you able to make sure that doesn't get in the way of working together?
3. Have you and your protégé clearly outlined his or her professional-development goals?
4. If you are being mentored, is the work interesting, and does your mentor give you credit for any projects you complete for him or her?
5. Do you feel like part of a team, and are you treated in an open, respectful manner?
If you answered no to any of these questions, your mentoring partnership may be heading for, or already in, rough waters. Discuss potential conflicts with each other, and get help from human resources to arbitrate any disagreements...
THE BOTTOM LINE: Before the mentoring begins, both parties need to understand what will be required to make the collaboration worthwhile. Then they should either commit wholeheartedly or opt out.
GIVE FEEDBACK: Mentors can share appraisals with the protégés' supervisors, who have a vested interest in the protégés' development. If problems arise, someone from HR or another supervisor should be in the loop to give objective advice or mediate.
PREPARE FOR THE END: Everyone should be clear on the fact that mentoring eventually ends, when the protégé has learned all that he or she can, or when the mentor no longer provides guidance or satisfaction. Talking about this in advance helps to avoid misunderstandings or hurt feelings when the time comes. "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575016920463719744.html?mod=WSJ_Careers_CareerJournal_4
"Most young managers view having a mentor as their ticket to the big leagues—to greater visibility, exciting assignments and big promotions. Benefits flow to mentors as well, as they enjoy broader influence when their young protégés rise to stardom.
And it's all true. Except when it isn't. Except when mentoring goes bad.
And it does go bad—in all sorts of ways and sometimes spectacularly. At one end of the spectrum are relationships that fizzle out for benign reasons, such as the pressures of daily work and personal lives, conflicting goals or a lack of shared values. But relationships also fail for not-so-benign reasons: manipulation, deceit and harassment, to name a few. Either party can be the cause—and the career trajectories of both may never be the same afterwards.
To be clear, mentoring can be invaluable, not only to protégés and mentors, but also to organizations. It is important, however, to manage the relationships appropriately and be aware of early signs of potential problems.
Here is a look at some of the ways mentoring relationships go awry, followed by advice on how mentors, protégés and companies can spot warning signs sooner and create more positive experiences...
Questions to Ask Yourself
1. If you are mentoring someone, are you giving them enough of your time and interesting work?
2. Are the personality and work habits of your protégé similar to yours, and if not, are you able to make sure that doesn't get in the way of working together?
3. Have you and your protégé clearly outlined his or her professional-development goals?
4. If you are being mentored, is the work interesting, and does your mentor give you credit for any projects you complete for him or her?
5. Do you feel like part of a team, and are you treated in an open, respectful manner?
If you answered no to any of these questions, your mentoring partnership may be heading for, or already in, rough waters. Discuss potential conflicts with each other, and get help from human resources to arbitrate any disagreements...
THE BOTTOM LINE: Before the mentoring begins, both parties need to understand what will be required to make the collaboration worthwhile. Then they should either commit wholeheartedly or opt out.
GIVE FEEDBACK: Mentors can share appraisals with the protégés' supervisors, who have a vested interest in the protégés' development. If problems arise, someone from HR or another supervisor should be in the loop to give objective advice or mediate.
PREPARE FOR THE END: Everyone should be clear on the fact that mentoring eventually ends, when the protégé has learned all that he or she can, or when the mentor no longer provides guidance or satisfaction. Talking about this in advance helps to avoid misunderstandings or hurt feelings when the time comes. "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575016920463719744.html?mod=WSJ_Careers_CareerJournal_4
Corner Office, Interview with Barbara J. Krumsiek, chief executive and chairwoman of the Calvert Group Ltd.; New York Times, 5/23/10
Adam Bryant, New York Times; Corner Office, Interview with Barbara J. Krumsiek, chief executive and chairwoman of the Calvert Group Ltd., an investment firm:
"Q. Tell me about your first management experience.
A. I’m not a trained business or organization development person. I’m a mathematician. I was an analyst and had no one working for me for the first seven years of my career. I developed the business strategy for entering a new market, working with all the other departments. Booz Allen, the outside consultant who’d been helping the team launch this product, recommended that I run this business. All of a sudden I went from no one working for me to having 200 people working for me.
Q. And how old were you?
A. Thirty.
Q. Talk about that.
A. I really admired and liked the team of people I was working with. Being able to work with my peers is probably the single most important attribute that helped me along my path or, as I like to call it, my career obstacle course. In those days, I don’t think it was really appreciated. That was my strength.
The biggest success was convincing or cajoling one of my colleagues on that team who was probably 20 years older than me to work for me and head systems operations. I still keep a note from him. He probably worked for me for seven or eight years until I moved on, and the note was thanking me.
He was promoted to vice president while he was working for me. He said no one worked harder for him in his career than I had worked to support him and move him forward. I keep that note because it was very special.
Q. So where did you learn those skills?
A. I have to credit two early experiences. One is Girl Scouts. It was a huge part of my life growing up in Queens. It was an opportunity to learn selling through Girl Scout cookies. I always vied for the top selling awards. I remember having a troop leader have confidence in me that I could go off and lead a group of girls to start the campfire or whatever.
The other was my education in girls’ schools. I went to Hunter College High School, which was all girls when I went. It’s now coed. I think it really drove home that girls could do anything.
I remember as a young teenager, my parents lived in a neighborhood in Queens. At Christmas, we would always go next door to the couple who were Russian immigrants to say “Merry Christmas.” I remember the husband asking each of us what we wanted to do — what our favorite subjects were, and what we were studying. I said I loved math. He said, “Oh, girls, women don’t do math.” I remember being — whatever I was — 13 or something, thinking very calmly to myself, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Q. Going back to that story of suddenly managing those 200 people. Can you analyze a bit more how you were able to do that?
A. I’d rather put it in today’s context because I’m still managing the same way. I think the key is that people who work for me honestly believe that there is going to be a win-win here. I’ll bring it back to my obstacle-course analogy. I believe that the whole career ladder concept is a very disruptive concept because what does it suggest? You can’t get past the person ahead of you unless you push them off the ladder. It promotes aggressive behavior.
When you think of an obstacle course, there are a lot of people on the obstacle course at the same time, and my success doesn’t impede your success. And I may be able to take a minute and help you over that next obstacle and still get where I want to get to.
I also think you have to be a little humble. You have to be maybe a little bit overly confident to break into new things, but a little bit overly humble about what you don’t know, and admiring of the talents different people bring to the table.
Q. What’s it like to work for you?
A. I’m the kind of person who delegates everything. Theoretically, there’s not one piece of paper at my desk. So everything that happens at Calvert happens in the management team, with a few exceptions, like strategy, brand image, and our relationships with our boards and owners."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/business/23corner.html
"Q. Tell me about your first management experience.
A. I’m not a trained business or organization development person. I’m a mathematician. I was an analyst and had no one working for me for the first seven years of my career. I developed the business strategy for entering a new market, working with all the other departments. Booz Allen, the outside consultant who’d been helping the team launch this product, recommended that I run this business. All of a sudden I went from no one working for me to having 200 people working for me.
Q. And how old were you?
A. Thirty.
Q. Talk about that.
A. I really admired and liked the team of people I was working with. Being able to work with my peers is probably the single most important attribute that helped me along my path or, as I like to call it, my career obstacle course. In those days, I don’t think it was really appreciated. That was my strength.
The biggest success was convincing or cajoling one of my colleagues on that team who was probably 20 years older than me to work for me and head systems operations. I still keep a note from him. He probably worked for me for seven or eight years until I moved on, and the note was thanking me.
He was promoted to vice president while he was working for me. He said no one worked harder for him in his career than I had worked to support him and move him forward. I keep that note because it was very special.
Q. So where did you learn those skills?
A. I have to credit two early experiences. One is Girl Scouts. It was a huge part of my life growing up in Queens. It was an opportunity to learn selling through Girl Scout cookies. I always vied for the top selling awards. I remember having a troop leader have confidence in me that I could go off and lead a group of girls to start the campfire or whatever.
The other was my education in girls’ schools. I went to Hunter College High School, which was all girls when I went. It’s now coed. I think it really drove home that girls could do anything.
I remember as a young teenager, my parents lived in a neighborhood in Queens. At Christmas, we would always go next door to the couple who were Russian immigrants to say “Merry Christmas.” I remember the husband asking each of us what we wanted to do — what our favorite subjects were, and what we were studying. I said I loved math. He said, “Oh, girls, women don’t do math.” I remember being — whatever I was — 13 or something, thinking very calmly to myself, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Q. Going back to that story of suddenly managing those 200 people. Can you analyze a bit more how you were able to do that?
A. I’d rather put it in today’s context because I’m still managing the same way. I think the key is that people who work for me honestly believe that there is going to be a win-win here. I’ll bring it back to my obstacle-course analogy. I believe that the whole career ladder concept is a very disruptive concept because what does it suggest? You can’t get past the person ahead of you unless you push them off the ladder. It promotes aggressive behavior.
When you think of an obstacle course, there are a lot of people on the obstacle course at the same time, and my success doesn’t impede your success. And I may be able to take a minute and help you over that next obstacle and still get where I want to get to.
I also think you have to be a little humble. You have to be maybe a little bit overly confident to break into new things, but a little bit overly humble about what you don’t know, and admiring of the talents different people bring to the table.
Q. What’s it like to work for you?
A. I’m the kind of person who delegates everything. Theoretically, there’s not one piece of paper at my desk. So everything that happens at Calvert happens in the management team, with a few exceptions, like strategy, brand image, and our relationships with our boards and owners."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/business/23corner.html
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Corner Office, Interview with Steve Hannah, chief executive of The Onion; New York Times, 5/16/10
Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Steve Hannah, chief executive of The Onion, If Plan B Fails, Go Through the Alphabet:
"Q. How do you interview job candidates?
A. I have two basic questions in mind: “Can you do the job, and would I enjoy spending time with you?” I want to know where you came from. I want to know how many children are in your family. I want to know where you fit in and what your role was. I want to know what your mother and your dad did, what influence they had on you. I find that, without overstepping my boundaries, most people like to talk about themselves.
Q. What is it you want to know?
A. I want to know whether you were a kid who was entitled, whether you worked hard, whether you excelled at school, whether you held summer jobs, how hard you had to work, whether you got the jobs yourself, whether you got promoted. I want to know if you’ll work hard. I’m hopelessly old-fashioned. I want people who really want to work hard. And I absolutely loathe a sense of entitlement.
Q. What else turns you off?
A. I hate it when someone comes in and they trash their former employer. They talk about how they were held back. They talk about how they worked for a terrible boss, and the boss did this or the boss did that.
I have no idea what makes people think this, but this happens often. People think that by telling their prospective employer that their previous employer was a complete slug, that somehow this is going to make me feel, what, sorry for them? I generally figure: Well, you didn’t work hard enough, and apparently you weren’t smart enough to figure out the system. That’s probably why you didn’t advance at your last job.
Q. What were the biggest influences on your leadership style?
A. My dad was a World War II and D-Day veteran. He was just a tough guy, and everything I ever learned about leadership from my dad was, you know, manage tough, manage angry. Life is tough, an endless struggle. You’re entitled to nothing. My parents used to say to me, “When you’re 18 you’re on your own.” And they meant it — I was on my own. He thought: “We’ve done our best with you. Now, we’ll find out what kind of character you have.”
At the same time, my mother said, “The sun, the moon, the stars and the tides were in alignment when you were born.” You know: “You can do anything you want. You’re terrific.” And if your mother tells you this often enough, you start to believe it. I think that if you’re going to run something, you have to have self-confidence. She gave it to me.
It doesn’t mean you think you’re going to get everything right. It doesn’t mean that you’re smarter than everybody else. It means that essentially you believe that you can get the job done. So my mother kind of told me, “You can get the job done.”
Meanwhile, I got my father’s view of the world that life is tough and you have to work hard to get what you want, to take care of your family, make sure your kids are provided for and be good to your friends. It’s not that complicated...
Q. What are the top three or five lessons?
A. In no particular order? He taught me that you never, ever do anything to deprive a human being of their dignity in work, in life. Always praise in public and criticize in private. You might be tempted, for example, when you’re letting someone go, to say something that would diminish the value of their work. Don’t ever do that.
And he taught me that when you’re faced with something that’s really difficult and you think you’re at the end of your tether, there’s always one more thing you can do to influence the outcome of this situation. And then after that there’s one more thing. The number or possible options is only limited by your imagination. Hal often said, “Imagination is enormously important, enormously important.”
Q. What else?
A. When I was young and managing, I didn’t listen nearly enough. Hal would always say to me: “Listen to the people below you because they are on the front lines. Do you realize that any given moment any one of those people from the highest to the lowest can be the most important person that day in your operation?” I’ve seen that happen in our business.
There was another thing that Hal and I used to talk about: decisiveness. In the beginning of my career, when people walked up to me and said, “Here’s the problem,” I’d say, “Here’s the answer” immediately. I did it in a nanosecond. It took me a while to learn that with some issues, I’d probably have a better answer tomorrow.
So I always say: “What’s the sunset provision on this decision? How much time do I have?” If somebody says to me, “You have 24 hours,” then I’ll take 23 hours and 59 minutes. Not always, but I usually take as much time as I possibly can. I don’t feel the need to appear so swift and decisive that I’m going to make a knee-jerk decision. I think that’s a young person’s game. I’ll take the time allotted to me.
Q. What are some other approaches you have to work?
A. I try to get out of my comfort zone every day. I say yes to things that I really don’t want to do, or I get involved in things that are difficult for me to be involved in, for whatever reason.
Q. What is your career advice to somebody just graduating from college?
A. Find what you really love to do and then go after it — relentlessly. And don’t fret about the money. Because what you love to do is quite likely what you’re good at. And what you’re good at will likely bring you financial reward eventually.
I’ve seen too many people who have plotted a career, and often what’s at the heart of all that plotting is nothing other than a stack of dollar bills. You need to be happy in order to be good, and you need to be good in order to succeed. And when you succeed, there’s a good chance you’ll get paid.
And while you’re at it, read. A lot. Start with Plato. He was a very practical man."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/business/16corner.html?pagewanted=2
"Q. How do you interview job candidates?
A. I have two basic questions in mind: “Can you do the job, and would I enjoy spending time with you?” I want to know where you came from. I want to know how many children are in your family. I want to know where you fit in and what your role was. I want to know what your mother and your dad did, what influence they had on you. I find that, without overstepping my boundaries, most people like to talk about themselves.
Q. What is it you want to know?
A. I want to know whether you were a kid who was entitled, whether you worked hard, whether you excelled at school, whether you held summer jobs, how hard you had to work, whether you got the jobs yourself, whether you got promoted. I want to know if you’ll work hard. I’m hopelessly old-fashioned. I want people who really want to work hard. And I absolutely loathe a sense of entitlement.
Q. What else turns you off?
A. I hate it when someone comes in and they trash their former employer. They talk about how they were held back. They talk about how they worked for a terrible boss, and the boss did this or the boss did that.
I have no idea what makes people think this, but this happens often. People think that by telling their prospective employer that their previous employer was a complete slug, that somehow this is going to make me feel, what, sorry for them? I generally figure: Well, you didn’t work hard enough, and apparently you weren’t smart enough to figure out the system. That’s probably why you didn’t advance at your last job.
Q. What were the biggest influences on your leadership style?
A. My dad was a World War II and D-Day veteran. He was just a tough guy, and everything I ever learned about leadership from my dad was, you know, manage tough, manage angry. Life is tough, an endless struggle. You’re entitled to nothing. My parents used to say to me, “When you’re 18 you’re on your own.” And they meant it — I was on my own. He thought: “We’ve done our best with you. Now, we’ll find out what kind of character you have.”
At the same time, my mother said, “The sun, the moon, the stars and the tides were in alignment when you were born.” You know: “You can do anything you want. You’re terrific.” And if your mother tells you this often enough, you start to believe it. I think that if you’re going to run something, you have to have self-confidence. She gave it to me.
It doesn’t mean you think you’re going to get everything right. It doesn’t mean that you’re smarter than everybody else. It means that essentially you believe that you can get the job done. So my mother kind of told me, “You can get the job done.”
Meanwhile, I got my father’s view of the world that life is tough and you have to work hard to get what you want, to take care of your family, make sure your kids are provided for and be good to your friends. It’s not that complicated...
Q. What are the top three or five lessons?
A. In no particular order? He taught me that you never, ever do anything to deprive a human being of their dignity in work, in life. Always praise in public and criticize in private. You might be tempted, for example, when you’re letting someone go, to say something that would diminish the value of their work. Don’t ever do that.
And he taught me that when you’re faced with something that’s really difficult and you think you’re at the end of your tether, there’s always one more thing you can do to influence the outcome of this situation. And then after that there’s one more thing. The number or possible options is only limited by your imagination. Hal often said, “Imagination is enormously important, enormously important.”
Q. What else?
A. When I was young and managing, I didn’t listen nearly enough. Hal would always say to me: “Listen to the people below you because they are on the front lines. Do you realize that any given moment any one of those people from the highest to the lowest can be the most important person that day in your operation?” I’ve seen that happen in our business.
There was another thing that Hal and I used to talk about: decisiveness. In the beginning of my career, when people walked up to me and said, “Here’s the problem,” I’d say, “Here’s the answer” immediately. I did it in a nanosecond. It took me a while to learn that with some issues, I’d probably have a better answer tomorrow.
So I always say: “What’s the sunset provision on this decision? How much time do I have?” If somebody says to me, “You have 24 hours,” then I’ll take 23 hours and 59 minutes. Not always, but I usually take as much time as I possibly can. I don’t feel the need to appear so swift and decisive that I’m going to make a knee-jerk decision. I think that’s a young person’s game. I’ll take the time allotted to me.
Q. What are some other approaches you have to work?
A. I try to get out of my comfort zone every day. I say yes to things that I really don’t want to do, or I get involved in things that are difficult for me to be involved in, for whatever reason.
Q. What is your career advice to somebody just graduating from college?
A. Find what you really love to do and then go after it — relentlessly. And don’t fret about the money. Because what you love to do is quite likely what you’re good at. And what you’re good at will likely bring you financial reward eventually.
I’ve seen too many people who have plotted a career, and often what’s at the heart of all that plotting is nothing other than a stack of dollar bills. You need to be happy in order to be good, and you need to be good in order to succeed. And when you succeed, there’s a good chance you’ll get paid.
And while you’re at it, read. A lot. Start with Plato. He was a very practical man."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/business/16corner.html?pagewanted=2
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