“Management in 10 Words: Practical Advice from the Man Who Created One of the World’s Largest Retailers” by Terry Leahy (Crown Business, $25.)
When you’re voted “Britain’s Most Admired Leader” by Management Today for five consecutive years, you and the firm you run must be doing things right. As CEO of a $97 billion supermarket chain, Leahy learned a great deal about himself and business during his climb from entry-level to the top. His 10 words arguably could be called the “10 Commandments of Management.”
Here they are:
1. Truth — Too many managers filter out what they don’t want to hear. As a result, they make uninformed decisions. Even successful businesses fall prey by becoming complacent and ignoring consumer and competitive reality. Look for truth; listen to it; tell it.
2. Loyalty — Within the business, reward the behavior that a business needs to prosper. Rewards aren’t just monetary. Challenging people with opportunity rewards them, too. There will always be a company that offers more money; but there aren’t many that offer the continuing opportunity to learn.
From the customer’s view, loyalty resides in ways a business meets their needs and lives up to its reputation. You may be a manager; but don’t think you’re in the driver’s seat. You’re the car; your customers are the drivers.
3. Courage — “Good strategies need to be bold and daring. People need to be stretched as they can do more than they think. Goals have to cause excitement, and perhaps a little fear.”
Managing by fear of failure always minimizes success. Tell your teams what needs to be achieved and their roles. Change, innovation and lessons learned from mistakes build a business.
4. Values — How a business behaves, what it sees as important and what it does when dealing with a problem sends a message to its stakeholders and customers. When companies lose sight of their values, they start to make decisions based on short-term gains. View these gains as baby steps to the slide down the slippery slope to failure.
5. Act — Leahy says he learned the hard way about the perfect plan: It doesn’t exist. Trying to ensure perfection before attempting execution leads to paralysis analysis which costs time and money.
Good plans fail because of “lousy implementation.” Successful execution depends upon clear decisions, simple processes and defined roles. Discipline in the form of feedback and knowledge-sharing keeps things on track.
6. Balance — Internal processes shouldn’t be roadblocks to getting things done. Think of them as ways to effect “continuous improvement” — a framework that fosters innovation and individual responsibility within organization, not personal, priorities. The silo builder is the enemy within.
7. Simple — Business and life are complex because of all of the choices and information available to us. The speed of change only adds complexity. Keeping things simple doesn’t mean doing simple things. It means stripping out unnecessary processes. Managers should measure what’s being done against what was intended in the first place.
8. Lean — Being lean doesn’t mean cutting corners and cheapening your offerings. Lean eliminates waste (i.e. processes, material, time) that both lowers cost and creates value. Going lean means “going green” because it saves the energy required to make products and deliver services.
9. Compete — “Competitors are great teachers.” Knowing them keeps your plans vital. Not knowing means that you didn’t plan for the unexpected. Be inquisitive. Find out why people are buying their products, not yours.
10. Trust (the bedrock of leadership) — Trust wins hearts and minds. Be authentic. People can tell if you left your real personality at home.
Trust employees to do what you hired them to do. When you lack confidence in the troops, they quickly lose their creative edge.
Leahy believes that without “Truth,” a manager can’t effectively employ the actions required in the other nine words.
Jim Pawlak is a nationally syndicated book reviewer.
