Leadership Insights from Anne Moore

Here are some insights I gained from reading “Nine Business Insights from Time CEO Ann Moore, Plus the Mix-and-Match Women“, what a mouthful!

The Right People, Our Most Important Asset

“The only difficult assignment in business is finding good people and putting them in the right job…. Moore insists that the lessons we teach our children should also apply to the work force. Say “please” and “thank you.” Do your homework. Look both ways. Speak up. Don’t shout. Listen to your teacher.”

The only difficult assignment in business is finding good people and putting them in the right jobThis is also what Jim Collins recommends in Good to Great, “first who….then what!” as the key to strategy. Getting the right people “on the bus” goes a long way towards solving the management challenges of motivation, employee engagement and productivity. As a business unit leader states in “Good to Great”, “I don’t know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great” Other obervations in the book on this issue are that:

• “First get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, then figure our where to drive it.”
• “People are not your most important asset. The RIGHT people are.”
• “The role of compensation change from rewarding people for the right behaviours and values to paying people to remain with the organisation.”
• “We hire 5, work them like 10 and pay them like 8.”
  “Whether someone is the “right person” has more to do with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background or skills.”

The late management guru Peter Drucker at one point offered Moore what she viewed as a logical explanation about interpersonal conflict and basic behavior. “It’s the law of nature,” Drucker said, “that two moving bodies in contact create friction.” So Moore doesn’t get worried any more when she sees two grown people fighting in the office. “‘It’s just physics,’ I whisper to myself. Still, I go out of my way to avoid hiring people without manners.”

Effectiveness Before Efficiency

“Forget the clock. Get a compass instead. Time management studies suggest that by doing things more efficiently we will gain control over our lives. ‘This is just complete baloney,’ Moore countered. ‘Faster, harder and more does not bring peace and fulfillment. Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Always plan for the long-term strategy because, trust me, 25 years fly by in the blink of an eye.’…….. When Moore graduated from Harvard Business School in 1978, she had 13 job offers. She accepted the one with Time over more lucrative Wall Street opportunities although it was the lowest paying because “I loved magazines. Others thought I was crazy, but I ended up as president of People. And I did not look so stupid at our 25th reunion.”

This is a common mistake we tend to make, becoming so busy working in the business we neglect to work on the business. The result is that we fail to exploit opportunities emerging in the market place through a lack of preparation, it’s said “luck favours the prepared”.

The Fish Rots from The Head Down!

All behavior emanates from the top and reverberates down the organization to the lowest level. If you can, suggested Moore, check out what your chairman is carrying in his pocket or in her head. What are her values? “There are vast differences in organizations led by the man or woman” whose philosophy is ‘Follow or get out of my way’ as opposed to “the type of chairman who carries an Emerson poem about children in his pocket. It is best if the chairman’s values are compatible with your own. That’s one of my greatest secrets.”

This is closely tied to the first point, “the right people, our most important asset” and in my opinion we should apply this principle most rigioursly to management, especially top management. We should move swiftly to move or replace poor performing management before they damage the people reporting to them! Unfortunately, its my experience that organisations move too quickly to address poor performing employees and too slowing in addressing poor performing management. The impact of poor performing managers on their businesses is huge, in the article titled “Businesses ‘held back by their managers’” describes research found the following:

• “Almost one in four employees feel uninspired by their bosses and just over a quarter believe senior managers fail to provide them with a clear vision.”
• “A total of 60 per cent of those polled who were critical of their employer identified improving the quality of management as a top priority for their organisation, against just 18 per cent of those who spoke highly of their employer.”

Making a Difference Every Day

Making money is easy. Making a difference is hard. That’s why cause-related marketing is a powerful tool today, one that inspires staff and customers. “When I’m 85 in my rocker on my porch and looking through my box of snapshots, what memories do you think I will cherish most? Will it be catching a company plane to go to a shareholders’ meeting or playing golf? Will it be the famous people I have met or the wardrobe of ball gowns I’m accumulating? It would probably be the work that my mother did so well, that she is still doing. Even with arthritis she does something kind every day for a neighbor, the women’s club or the church.”

This importance of making a difference every day is explored in the small book titled “The Fred Factor” by Mark Sanborn, in the book Mark challenges us:

The fact is that everybody is already making a difference every day. The key question is, What kind of difference is each of us making?

YOU Own Your Career

Moore also told her audience that “You are responsible for your own career. People come into my office and say, ‘What do you have in mind for me next?’ Well, I don’t have anything in mind for them. The question is, ‘What do you have in mind for you?’ People get jobs by letting others know what they want to do. I find it tragic that people who have worked beside me for 25 years leave burned out, mad or disappointed. Everyone needs to figure out how to plan their lives, including the second act which comes after they retire from business.”

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Team Leadership, Business, management

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Tagged as: Management, Teamwork