Fundamentals of Management 6th Edition by Ricky Griffin

Exercise 35

When to Stand on Your Head and Other Tips from the Top
It isn't easy leading a U.S. business these days. Leaving aside the global recession (at least for a moment), the passion for "lean and mean" operations means that there are fewer workers to do more work. Globalization means keeping abreast of crosscultural differences. Knowledge industries present unique leadership challenges requiring better communication skills and greater flexibility. Advances in technology have opened unprecedented channels of communication. Now more than ever, leaders must be able to do just about everything and more of it. As U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain puts it, "[Leadership is] a game of pinball, and you're the ball." Fortunately, a few of Corporate America's veteran leaders have some tips for those who still want to follow their increasingly treacherous path.
First of all, if you think you're being overworked-if your hours are too long and your schedule is too demanding-odds are, you're right: Most people-including executives- are overworked. And in some industries, they're particularly overworked. U.S. airlines, for example, now service 100 million more passengers annually than they did just four years ago-with 70,000 fewer workers. "I used to manage my time," quips one airline executive. "Now I manage my energy." In fact, many high-ranking managers have realized that energy is a key factor in their ability to complete tasks on tough schedules. Most top corporate leaders work 80 to 100 hours a week, and many have found that regimens that allow them to rebuild and refresh make it possible for them to keep up the pace.
Carlos Ghosn, who's currently president of Renault and CEO of Nissan, believes in regular breaks. "I don't bring my work home. I play with my four children and spend time with my family on weekends," says Ghosn. "I come up with good ideas as a result of becoming stronger after being recharged." Google vice president Marissa Mayer admits that "I can get by on four to six hours of sleep," but she also takes a weeklong vacation three times a year. Many leaders report that playing racquetball, running marathons, practicing yoga, or just getting regular exercise helps them to recover from overwork.
Effective leaders also take control of information flow-which means managing it, not reducing the flow until it's as close to a trickle as you can get it. Like most executives, for example, Mayer can't get by without multiple sources of information: "I always have my laptop with me," he reports, and "I adore my cellphone." Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz receives a morning voice mail summarizing the previous day's sales results and reads three newspapers a day. Mayer watches the news all day, and Bill Gross, a securities portfolio manager, keeps an eye on six monitors displaying real-time investment data.
On the other hand, Gross stands on his head to force himself to take a break from communicating. When he's upright again, he tries to find time to concentrate. "Eliminating the noise," he says, "is critical.... I only pick up the phone three or four times a day.... I don't want to be connected-I want to be disconnected." Ghosn, whose schedule requires weekly intercontinental travel, uses bilingual assistants to screen and translate information-one assistant for information from Europe (where Renault is), one for information from Japan (where Nissan is), and one for information from the United States (where Ghosn often has to be when he doesn't have to be in Europe or Japan). Clothing designer Vera Wang also uses an assistant to filter information. "The barrage of calls is so enormous," she says, "that if I just answered calls I'd do nothing else.... If I were to go near e-mail, there'd be even more obligations, and I'd be in [a mental hospital] with a white jacket on." Not surprisingly, Bill Gates integrates the role of his assistant into a high-tech informationorganizing system:
On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you'll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.
The screen on the left has my list of e-mails. On the center screen is usually the specific e-mail I'm reading and responding to. And my browser is on the right-hand screen. This setup gives me the ability to glance and see what new has come in while I'm working on something and to bring up a link that's related to an e-mail and look at it while the e-mail is still in front of me.
At Microsoft, e-mail is the medium of choice.... I get about 100 e-mails a day. We apply filtering to keep it to that level. E-mail comes straight to me from anyone I've ever corresponded with, anyone from Microsoft, Intel, HP, and all the other partner companies, and anyone I know. And I always see a write-up from my assistant of any other e-mail, from companies that aren't on my permission list or individuals I don't know....
We're at the point now where the challenge isn't how to communicate effectively with e-mail-it's ensuring that you spend your time on the e-mail that matters most. I use tools like "in-box rules" and search folders to mark and group messages based on their content and importance.
Like most leaders of knowledge workers, Gates also knows how important it is to motivate and retain talented individuals who (at least under normal circumstances) have other options for employment. In fact, he once stated that if the 20 smartest people at Microsoft left the company, it would shrivel into an insignificant dot on the corporate map. Obviously, then, executives who employ thousands of such workers are under enormous pressure to keep them productive and happy. Mayer holds office hours at a regularly scheduled time every day so that she can field employee complaints and concerns. Schultz visits at least 25 Starbucks stores each week. Jane Friedman, CEO of publisher HarperCollins, attends lots of parties. Authors, she explains, "are the most important people in our company, [and they] really appreciate it when the [publisher's] CEO turns up at events [to celebrate their books]."
At Boeing, CEO Jim McNerney has a goal of making his people 15 percent better each year. The key, he says, is a two-step process. First, you focus your attention on those people who show the greatest potential to change, generally because they're more open, appreciate teamwork, and have more courage. Second, you remove all the bureaucratic obstacles that will prevent them from doing what you're working so hard to get them to do. (McNerney apparently remembers what management expert Peter Drucker once said: "Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.")
And what about leading in a recession? What adjustments do you have to make when money is scarce, markets are volatile, and morale needs boosting? The current economy, says Neiman Marcus CEO Burt Tansky, "requires all of us to pull up every leadership trait that we have." Dennis Carey, a senior partner at Korn Ferry International, an executive search firm, suggests that top managers start by acknowledging that leading in extreme circumstances means calling into question everything they do under normal circumstances. "You can't rely on a peacetime general to fight a war," he reminds fellow executives. "The wartime CEO prepares for the worst so that his or her company can take market share away from players who haven't." Hire away your competitors' best people, for example, and keep them from grabbing yours. Or buy up their assets while they can be had at bargain prices.
Jack Hayhow, founder and COO of Opus Training, adds that leaders need to make sure their employees know why they're making changes: "Clearly state to your people that we are in a recession... [and that] very little of what [they've] assumed to be true in the past will be true in the future. [Tell them]: 'You must understand that this is no longer business as usual.' " Let them know if you can no longer guarantee their jobs. "My suggestion," says Hayhow, "would be [something like]: 'Quit worrying about the things you can't control and focus on what you can. Find ways to contribute... and make it really hard for the company to let you go....' If you have people who argue or debate, show them the door."
Hayhow also realizes that "when things are as bad as they are [in a recession], motivation is critical.... If you create an environment conducive to people motivating themselves," he contends, "you'll be able to motivate in these changing times." Ho do you create such an environment? "Start by matching talent with the task," says Hayhow. "Play to your employees' strengths. Figure out who does what and make sure they're spending their time where they can best utilize their talents." And don't forget to "give people some choice.... When people have even a little choice over what they do or how they do it, they're more committed and enthusiastic about the task." Let employees decide how to do something "or maybe even who they work with to get the job done."
Many leaders go a step further and use a time of crisis as an opportunity to rethink a company's reward system. At Boeing, for example, McNerney replaced an old bonus system based something that managers can't control (the company's stock price) with a system based on something they can -profit: He rewards people who improve the firm's profitability by better managing its capital. So, if a manager can figure out how to generate $10 million in profit by spending $1 million instead of $2 million, he or she now gets to keep some of the savings. One organizational psychologist adds that if you're the top person at your company, "the last thing you want is for people to perceive that you're in it for yourself." In December 2008, for example, when FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith was forced to make broad salary cuts, he started with himself, slashing his own paycheck by 20 percent.
Ex-Starbucks CEO Jim Donald makes a fairly simple recommendation: "Communicate, communicate, communicate. Especially at a time of crisis," he advises, "make sure your message reaches all levels, from the very lowest to the uppermost." Kip Tindell, who's been CEO of the Container Store since its founding in 1978, agrees. That's why his managers "run around like chickens relentlessly trying to communicate everything to every single employee at all times." He admits that it's an impossible task, but he's also convinced that the effort is more important than ever in times of crisis. He also contends that his company is in a better position to ride out the economic storm "because we're so dedicated to the notion that communication and leadership are the same thing." At the very least, he says, "we're fortunate to be minus the paranoia that goes with employees who feel they don't know what's going on."
Of all the leaders cited in this case, for which would you most like to work? For which would you least like to work? Explain your answers.