This week a business management book review caught my eye. In the first paragraph the reviewer expressed his dislike for most books written by CEOs and books proclaiming, for example, “Three Easy Steps to Becoming a Fortune 500 Company.” I resonated with these sentiments and kept reading the review in “The Economist.”
Surprisingly, the book review was called “Management in Ten Words” and was written by Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco, the giant retailer based in the U.K. Hmmmm…I thought, but read on and then ordered the Kindle edition so I could read the whole book.
Then I decided to recommend it to readers of this column.
Terry Leahy became CEO of Tesco after years there in marketing and other departments. He writes about the management philosophy that he developed as he moved through Tesco, garnering increasing respect from peers and the leadership team. During his tenure, Tesco became six times larger than its competition. It is now the third largest retailer in the world.
Leahy makes it clear that he alone is not responsible for this phenomenal success, that there were many players involved. He does attribute the success to a relentless focus on delivering value to customers, to earning loyalty and to constant innovation. Also, says Leahy, the staff had a will to succeed. Leahy’s leadership embraced all of these with consistency, teaching and modeling throughout his career with Tesco.
In his book, Leahy shares many observations that are useful to anyone in a business organization, or one of any kind, be it the Girls Scouts of America or a huge global company. Readers should find this book relevant to managing any endeavor, large or small. He presents it as “simple truths, which combined with hard work, increase the chance of success.”
Leahy focuses on concepts defined by ten key words: Truth, Loyalty, Courage, Values, Act, Balance, Simple, Lean, Compete, and Trust. Pretty basic words and ones you’ve read about and talked about many times, I bet. In this book, these words come to life because of the rich trove of examples that Leahy brings to illustrate the importance of each of the concepts. He writes about his experiences and things that worked remarkably well. He also writes about times when he made mistakes and learned from them.
Leahy says that business organizations world-wide are just pitiful at confronting the truth. He believes it is fear of the bugaboo word “failure” that is behind this dance around the truth. There is a general fear of facing bad news especially. However, he says the more successful the organization the more they float around on a cloud of complacency, avoiding any truth that might burst the bubble of success. He offers many stories to illustrate this. And I add my motto, “Only the truth makes sense.”
At Tesco, Leahy introduced many new programs to build and keep the loyalty of customers. We all know that it is more expensive to attract new customers than to keep the ones we have. Leahy’s book includes many suggestions for maintaining customer loyalty. Of course they are all based on the truth.
Leahy is talking about mental, spiritual and moral courage. He promotes bold and daring strategies because they stretch people to do more than they thought they could. He says there is no magic in little plans. He talks about acting courageously because you are certain you are right in terms of facts and values – and then acting in concert with that certainty.
Most business organizations have a poster or plaque somewhere near the entrance with a list of the company values. Too many times, though, that is as far as it goes. Leahy believes in a strong focus on finding shared values among associates, as well as with customers, and certainly among disparate cultures. Values give managers an anchor. They determine how a business behaves and give direction when faced with a problem. Values underpin our emotions, our gut reactions. Both are part of any business transaction.
Leahy says “Intention is never enough. Plans mean nothing if they are not effectively enacted.” If organizations lack a clear and generally accepted purpose, people labor under the illusion that any activity equals progress. They fall in love with looking busy. Leahy says part of the implementation of big plans is transparent decision-making representing the interests of most stakeholders. Everyone knows who does what, when and how their actions relate to everyone else on the project. He accepts trial and error and warns us to act neither too fast nor too slow. “Try pouring water down a pipe: too quick and you spill some, too slow and you pour too little and are there for ages.”
Leahy’s examples add color and richness to this book, which is highly readable. Yes, there are five more in that list of words in the title. Read my next column to see what Leahy has to say about those. Or, buy the book and you’ll be ahead of everyone.
Jo Gorissen is a certified transition coach and a former Milwaukee area resident. Her web site is www.coachingconbrio.com and she can be reached at (414) 305-3459.
