The Way to the Top Read online

  The small back door also relates to having key managers who are capable of performing multiple tasks. Have a small number of talented people. Develop them. Take care of them. Allow them to produce and grow. Then hold on to them and don’t let them leave. If you do retain large numbers of employees, it is important to do so in the areas that involve creating revenue.

  3. Sometime the greatest runs in football are the ones that just get you back to the line of scrimmage. Many times an individual is very successful if he or she is consistently capable of being able to stay in the game. In terms of taking entrepreneurial risks, I know of very few really successful people who made the correct decision much more than 50 percent of the time. They became successful, however, by cutting their losses and getting back into the fight.

  Father knows best

  Thomas M. JOYCE

  President and CEO of Knight Trading Group

  During my years at Merrill Lynch, I worked for some of the finest people I have ever met. Two in particular set the tone for the organization back then, Dan Tully, the CEO, and Steve Hammerman, the General Counsel. One of the main focuses they imparted to the organization was “ROI,” Return on Integrity.

  Having spent more than twenty-five years in the investment industry, it has never been more clear than it is today that “integrity” is the foundation upon which one builds a career. We all make tactical mistakes in business and we all have the occasional error in judgment, but we learn from them and ultimately become better business people for the experience. But once one’s integrity gets called into question, opportunities seize up, clients begin questioning relationships, and one’s leadership authority wanes. A perceived lack of integrity is the death sentence in business. My experience is that ROI is the most important “metric” of all.

  A true leader uses this integrity in combination with optimism. Optimism comes naturally to many leaders, but a quote attributed to Dwight Eisenhower in his biography authored by Kenneth Davis sums it up best. General Eisenhower said, “Optimism and pessimism are infectious and they spread more rapidly from the head downward than in any other direction. Optimism has a most extraordinary effect upon all with whom the commander comes in contact. With this clear realization I firmly determined that my mannerisms and speech in public would always reflect the cheerful certainty of victory—that any pessimism and discouragement I might ever feel would be reserved for my pillow.” In my experience, the finest, most successful people I have met are resolutely positive and optimistic, always believing they will achieve their goals. There is nothing more inspiring and stimulating than being in the company of optimists. It is at the core of true leadership.

  Return on integrity is the main metric

  Parker S. KENNEDY

  President of The First American Corporation

  Early in my career, a leader in our company told me that “sales is a profession” and “sales is as hard as any job in the company.” He added that there must be a sale in order for the production employees to have anything to do.

  Everyone in the company should have the skills of a salesperson.

  Nothing happens until a sale is made

  Richard L. KINZEL

  Chairman, President, and CEO of Cedar Fair, L.P.

  Having no formal college education and starting at Cedar Fair as a food service supervisor in 1972, I had to learn from experience, mentors, and business associates.

  Shortly after being named President and CEO in 1986, I heard a comment I have tried to live by and have preached to my general managers: “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.” That is, businesses, empires, and families can be destroyed by greed. In business, greed can manifest itself in pricing, investing, and capital expenditures. In one’s personal life, greed can cause a lack of balance between professional responsibilities and family obligations. Greed must be ultimately controlled by good common sense.

  Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered

  Michael B. KITCHEN

  President and CEO of CUNA Mutual Group

  No matter what your organization, the ability to get employees fully engaged in leading and running the business is absolutely critical. I learned this when I started working after college, and it’s been reinforced throughout my career—especially now as CEO of a Fortune 750 financial services organization.

  When companies engage their employees, they are rewarded with innovation, greater loyalty, increased productivity, less tolerance for poor performance, and an overall increase in morale. It doesn’t have to be difficult. Simply ask employees for their help. What ideas do they have to improve the company? What’s working well? What isn’t working well? Where can we save money? How can we grow the business?

  You have to be prepared to respond to employees. Acknowledge their ideas. Pursue their ideas. Take the best forward. Will all ideas submitted be worth pursuing? Of course not. But there will be a good number of good ideas and, on occasion, some absolute gems that make a big difference for your organization. More importantly, employees will feel more connected—because they really are. That stronger connection means a happier workforce, a more productive workforce, and, at the end of the day, a stronger company.

  When corporate leaders engage employees in leading and running the company, the level of trust in the organization also grows. The entire organization feels a commitment to the success of the company. Today, we’re seeing too many examples of corporate greed. When tough economic times hit, these organizations have a hard time rallying support among employees if changes need to be made to wages and benefits in order to keep the company financially strong or just to keep the company financially solvent.

  When our company recently faced unprecedented economic challenges, we had to take action to reduce expenses. Were we in danger of going out of business? No—we had no burning platform. We simply didn’t want anything to happen to our financial strength. How did our company generate the expense savings we needed? We shared our story with employees. We asked for their ideas. We showed what had been happening in the industry, how jobs had been lost. We demonstrated that we wanted to be different—we didn’t want to take the simple route of job cuts to come up with savings.

  Our employees responded with hundreds of cost-savings ideas. They agreed—by a large margin—to a wage freeze and other benefits changes. They increased their commitment to spending company resources wisely. The result: many millions in savings—pretty significant for a company that produces $3 billion in annual revenues. More importantly, employees were partners in solving the problem and, I believe, have a renewed commitment to helping the company be successful.

  Was it easy? No. Success is rarely easy. But, by continually engaging our employees in leading and running the company, we are a stronger company today and are positioned to remain the clear leader in our marketplace.

  Engage your employees

  Michele KLEIER

  Chairman and CEO of Gumley Haft Kleier

  Have someone in a high position become your mentor. That person will become your protector, confidante, and biggest supporter and defender. In return you will become the senior person’s eyes and ears for the rest of the company.

  Find a mentor

  Robert B. KNUTSON

  Chairman of Education Management Corporation

  A former associate in the banking business, who had started what is now a brand-name executive recruiting company, gave me some very valuable advice about growth.

  After I recited how well I was doing with the small private company I had joined as President, how we’d increased revenues from $2 million to more than $20 million in just a few years, and how I was taking on some outside directorships in other private companies, he asked me, “Are you really focusing on all the opportunities to grow your own business? Isn’t that a better use of your time?”

  He was right. I pared back my focus to my own company, and it was well worth my time. Growth didn’t happen overnight, but, thirty years later, we’ve been one of Forbes’s 2
00 Best Small Companies four years in a row, our current revenues will be well north of $800 million, and the extent of our education business goes far beyond what I might have conceived in those early days.

  Focus on your business

  Robert J. LAIKIN

  Chairman and CEO of Brightpoint, Inc.

  1. Friends are far more valuable than money.

  2. It takes years to build trust and only seconds to destroy it.

  3. Buy low and sell high.

  4. Learn to separate thought from action.

  5. A person who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person.

  6. Being rich has nothing to do with money.

  7. You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you’d better know something.

  8. Focus on what you have, not what you have lost.

  9. If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

  10. By the time a man realizes his father was right, he has a son who thinks he’s wrong.

  Follow the ten business commandments

  Daniel P. LANDGUTH

  Chairman and CEO of Black Hills Corporation

  There is nothing more stubborn than the facts.

  Truth will tell

  Karen Gilles LARSON

  President and CEO of Synovis Life Technologies

  You’re only as good as the people who work for you.

  Choose employees wisely

  Jean G. LEON, RN

  Executive Director of Kings County Hospital and Senior Vice President of the Central Brooklyn Family Health Network of New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation

  Those considering a career in business should develop a set of realistic goals. It is additionally beneficial if the goals can be ranked in order of importance—this may include aspects such as desired annual income, location, or personal fulfillment. (Choosing an industry that you enjoy and are knowledgeable about can make the difference between enjoying two days out of the week as opposed to seven.) After you have laid out your goals in front of you, a useful next step is to develop some clear strategies that will lead you to them. Your ability to stay focused on your goals will many times inform you whether you’ve chosen realistic ones.

  Set realistic goals

  Timothy H. LING

  President and COO of Union Oil of California*

  *Editor’s Note: Timothy Ling passed away January 28, 2004.

  When I was attending business school at Stanford in the late 1980s, it seemed like all of big business was dominated by the “great men” of the board rooms—folks like Jack Welch, Larry Bossidy, Andy Grove, and Warren Buffett. I can still remember thinking how important it could be to my career if I could receive some advice from executives of that stature and fame.

  Fifteen years later, as the president of Unocal, a Fortune 200 energy company, I have indeed had the opportunity to meet and talk with a number of noted business leaders. Ironically, the best business advice I ever got wasn’t from one of these high-powered guys. Rather, it came from someone who was finishing out his long career with Unocal as I was coming in to be the company’s CFO in 1997. A gracious North Carolinian with a Duke pedigree, Fielding Walker had spent the bulk of his career climbing the corporate ladder at Unocal and had made it all the way to running one of the company’s largest divisions. He was anxious to start his new career as a painter (a career move he has now successfully completed), but as a favor to the then-CEO Roger Beach, he delayed his retirement for a few years in order to serve as an advisor to the CEO and senior executives on organizational and personal development issues.

  When I joined the company, there were many things that I believed needed to be changed in order to give us a good chance of long-term success. With the naiveté of a former consultant, I embarked upon an aggressive and in hindsight overly comprehensive agenda for change. My personal combination of inexperience and impatience drove me at a rate of a hundred miles an hour in pursuit of a quick turnaround.

  Needless to say, I was soon confronted with the reality that in a big company environment, change has to be dealt with in a fairly holistic way. That is, leadership has to focus on a few critical things which have to change and then bring the organization along to be able to execute these changes. Once the big changes begin taking shape, other issues can be addressed that build upon the momentum of the overall big picture changes. Six years later, I can confidently say that the company is now on an exciting path, patiently executing a simple strategy which should position Unocal well for the next phase of its future.

  For me personally, however, my struggles in learning how to be an effective senior executive really started after we slowed down and focused our change agenda at the company. Some of the things we had to do were fairly major departures from what the company had been used to doing, and, not surprisingly, would be difficult and involve major dislocations. Thus it was natural that the changes would spur lots of emotion, unhappiness, and resistance among some of our employees and other affected stakeholders. And, indeed, as we began to roll out and execute some of the changes, I became a lightning rod for the organizational resistance and personal displeasure. Internet message boards churned with nasty and very personal comments attacking me.

  I had grown up as a fairly well liked and reasonably popular kid. I played sports all through high school and always prided myself in being supportive and encouraging to everyone on the team, whether they were the all-state star or the guy with the really clean jersey who never got to play. I was elected co-president of my business school class, running on a platform of being a guy who pretty much knew everyone in the class. As an adult, I had always taken pride in being able to relate to and learn from everyone I met, whether they were the CEO of a big company or the guy who came to cut my grass every week.

  Now, for really the first time in my life, I was faced with the reality that, at least for some segments of the population of my company, I was not a very popular guy. Maybe that was always the case in my life before Unocal, but without vocal message boards I went along in happy ignorance. Anyway, in retrospect, it really got to me. I began to question myself and my ability to stay focused on the major changes that were needed. Maybe incremental change versus more radical change was the right answer. I found myself tempted to say things to the employees like, “Once we’re over this, things will go back to normal,” even while recognizing that they probably wouldn’t and any short-term healing that might be gained would be overwhelmed when the reality hit that in today’s environment, “normal” just means more change.

  Fielding Walker had noticed that I was struggling and sensed that I was losing my edge and ability to stay focused and confident in helping to execute the needed changes. He reminded me what was happening at Unocal was not unique. It wasn’t really about me personally; it was about the anxiety, fear, and anger inevitably arising from major change.

  Logically, I knew that he was right. I had worked as a consultant for McKinsey, where we researched the topic of change and had actually published a book called Real Change Leaders in which employee resistance to change was one of the key topics. But this wasn’t a logical issue for me—it was personal and emotional and that is why logic wasn’t helping me.

  Fielding figured this out. He came into my office, and in his calm southern drawl, said, “Tim, I think what you are really struggling with is approval. You’re a guy who likes people to approve of you. Until now you’ve been in situations where your personality and makeup allowed you to have that approval. Now you’re in a situation where it is impossible for you to do the right things for this company and at the same time be approved of by everyone—it just can’t happen. You need to think very clearly about who you really are seeking approval from.” This notion of being purposely discriminating about where and whom I was seeking approval from was simple, but for me incredibly insightful and illuminating.

  He continued. “Could just be me, but my guess is that you might not want to put disgruntled ex-employees or ma
nagers who can’t get the job done on your list of who you are seeking approval from. Be respectful in your interactions with everyone but be a lot more selective in terms of whose approval you seek.”

  A twenty-minute casual conversation with a wise and caring person who was my friend as much as my counselor gained me some incredible advice. I quickly came to realize that seeking approval from my wife and family would help to keep me grounded and living my personal values, not just at home but at the workplace as well. At the office, I recognized that I needed to seek approval from just a few key constituents—my boss, our Board, and our key team members.

  Today I continue to take Fielding’s thoughtful words to heart. When you must make difficult decisions, you’re not going to be liked or approved of by everyone. I gain comfort in the knowledge that by doing what I believe is right for the company and performing well for those people whose approval I seek, in the long term I will have done my best for my company and our employees.

  Serve the company, not the chattering crowds

  William H. LONGFIELD

  Chairman and CEO of C. R. Bard, Inc.

  Do the right thing.

  Be one of the good guys

  Terry J. LUNDGREN

  President, CEO, and Director of Federated Department Stores, Inc.

  New to the retail business and eager to learn and make my mark, I became frustrated because I wasn’t being challenged enough and wasn’t learning as much as I expected from my boss. I had been on the job as an assistant buyer for a mere eighteen months when I complained about my situation. I was told by my college recruiter, who had played an integral role in my decision to join the company, that I should “Bloom where you are planted.”