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WHARTON
LEADERSHIP DIGEST
June,
2006,
Volume 10, Number
9
CONTENTS
His Finest Moment: Eisenhower's Decision to
Invade Normandy
Leading a
Company: An Interview with Brian Blake, CEO
of New Zealand's DB Breweries
Leadership Lessons from
Survivors: 'Climbing on the Mountain's
Schedule, Not Ours'
Wharton Leadership Conference: June, 2007
His
Finest Moment: Eisenhower's Decision
to Invade Normandy
 By
Ed Ruggero
Dwight Eisenhower was fifty-three years old
in the spring of 1944 when he commanded the
Allied Forces poised for the invasion of
France. During those early June days, he
set a keen example for leaders everywhere.
He radiated optimism, kept his cool, and
sought input from his subordinates when
making decisions. But it was in a private
moment -- preserved for us almost by
accident -- that he showed the leader's most
important trait: character.
[What follow is excerpted from The First
Men In: US Paratroopers and the Fight to
Save D-Day, by Ed Ruggero
(HarperCollins, June 2006)].
 During
the weekend of June 3-4, the pressure on
Eisenhower reached almost unimaginable
levels, but he continued to show an
optimistic face to the world. He had long
ago determined that one of the principal
jobs of the commander was to be optimistic
at all times, and he remained upbeat in all
of his meetings and especially in his visits
with the troops. But his staff saw the toll
the pressure put on the old man. Ike
chain-smoked four packs of cigarettes a day,
drank pots of coffee, suffered from
headaches and a sore throat. His staff made
every effort to get him outside for some
exercise, even if it was just a walk or a
horseback ride, to relieve some of the
stress.
On
June 4 Ike got another unpleasant surprise
when Churchill announced his intention to
observe the invasion from the HMS Belfast.
Although Eisenhower had himself considered
going ashore late on D-Day (and would go
ashore by D + 6), the thought of the Prime
Minister exposing himself to enemy fire --
or being close enough to interfere with the
plan -- was too much. Eisenhower asked
Churchill to reconsider. The PM said that
he would sign on as an able seaman, since
Ike did not control the muster rolls of
individual British ships.
When
King George VI learned of Churchill's
intentions, he came to the rescue of the
American Commander. The King sent a message
to Churchill saying that while the King
would never presume to tell the PM where and
how he should serve, his majesty thought it
only fitting that as titular head of the
empire's armed forces, he, too, should
observe the battle from close up, and he
looked forward to joining Churchill on the
Belfast. Churchill relented, and at
least one of Ike's problems went away.
At
the late evening briefing on Sunday, June 4,
Group Captain Stagg [staff meteorologist]
told Eisenhower that there would be a window
of clearer weather opening up over Normandy
late on June 5. While overall the weather
would remain poor, visibility would increase
and the winds die to a point that made the
invasion possible.
Admiral Ramsey pointed out that if the
invasion was to proceed on June 6, he needed
to give his ships movement orders in the
next thirty minutes. Ike polled his
commanders, who were hesitant, but
determined that the invasion should
proceed. Montgomery was perhaps the most
effusive in support of going, but the final
decision was Eisenhower's.
The
staff officers left the room, leaving the
commanders behind. Eisenhower was quiet,
mulling over the most critical decision he'd
ever had to make. If the weather turned
against them and derailed the invasion, it
was quite possible that the Allies could
lose the war in the west. At the very
least, the fight would drag on for a few
years more.
The
room was silent. Bedell Smith, Ike's chief
of staff, later recalled that the only
sounds were the wind and the rain pounding
Southwick House while his boss wrestled with
the momentous decision.
"I
am quite positive we must give the order,"
Ike said. "I don't like it, but there it
is
I don't' see how we can do anything
else."
With
that, the invasion was on -- contingent on a
final weather brief the next morning.
Eisenhower's subordinates rushed from the
room to set things in motion.
Just
hours later the officers reconvened; it was
still possible to postpone the invasion if
the weather forecast had changed. Stagg
reaffirmed his prediction: there would be a
window of acceptable weather. Eisenhower
sat in silence for a few moments on a sofa.
"Well, Stagg," he said, smiling, "If this
forecast comes off, I promise you we'll have
a celebration when the time comes."
Then, after a brief discussion, Ike said,
"OK, we'll go."
###
Sometime during that day, Eisenhower, left
alone with his concerns as the vast machine
he'd put in motion rolled toward France,
pulled out paper and pencil to compose a
note he hoped never to use. It was a
message to be read in the event the invasion
failed.
Ike
wrote, "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre
area have failed to gain a satisfactory
foothold and the troops have been
withdrawn."
The
original draft of the note, saved by
Eisenhower's naval aide, shows that Ike
crossed out this use of the passive voice,
substituting instead a bold claim to
personal responsibility. The sentence now
ended with, "I have withdrawn the troops."
Eisenhower continued in this way, the
commander taking personal responsibility for
the actions -- and the failure -- of the
nearly two million people involved in the
vast operation.
"My
decision to attack at this time and place
was based upon the best information
available. The troops, the air and the navy
did all that bravery and devotion to duty
could do. If any blame or fault attaches to
this attempt it is mine alone."
Eisenhower's reputation and place in history
were guaranteed by what happened over the
following year on the large stage that was
the war in Europe, and in his two terms as
President. But this note, with his
shouldering of specific, personal
accountability, may have been his finest
moment as a leader.
Note: Ed Ruggero can be reached at
edruggero@comcast.net.
Leading A Company: An Interview with
Brian Blake, CEO of New Zealand's DB
Breweries
 By
Lester Levy
Brian Blake has served as chief executive of
New Zealand's DB Breweries since 1993, a
company that holds about half of the
country's beer market. Lester Levy, chief
executive of Excelerator: The New Zealand
Leadership Institute of the University of
Auckland, interviewed Blake for the autumn,
2005 issue of the University of Auckland
Business Review, from which the
following is an excerpt:
Levy: What is leadership to you in the
context of DB?
Blake: Leadership at its core is
developing a vision of the future along with
the strategies to achieve it. To me the
leadership challenge at DB is to align the
aspirations of the individuals working for
DB with the vision of DB. Unless I can
create an environment where those two
factors can be interwoven, we will have
difficulty in taking the company to where we
want to.
In
essence I think leadership is about creating
a culture where people can
realize their full
potential and where that potential can be
harnessed to achieve the company's vision.
Levy: In what ways do you see it as
being different to management?
Blake: To me management is more about
structures, systems and processes, the
basics of getting your business right.
Leadership complements management by
establishing very clearly the vision and the
strategy and then inspiring and motivating
people towards the vision that has been
created.
Leadership to me is more about the
motivational aspect of
realizing human potential.
Levy: When you recruit, do you look for
management capacity and leadership capacity
in different ways, or do you place a
particular emphasis on one or the other?
Blake: We do have an emphasis and it is
more on attitude. When I am recruiting for
senior positions I normally take it as given
that those people will have the required
competencies for the role. If we are
looking to employ a marketing manager, then
obviously, the range of candidates that we
would give consideration to have the
appropriate experience and training in
marketing.
What
I look closely at is their attitude and
passion for joining DB and wanting to make a
difference within the company. The reason I
focus more on attitude is not to end up with
a situation where you have people simply
managing to the status quo. We want to
recruit people who can create new dimensions
of performance, which in my view, relates
more to leadership capacity.
Levy: What key principles
characterize your
leadership?
Blake: Articulation, alignment and
decisiveness are at the core of my
leadership.
It
is really important that you are able to
articulate a vision for your people. They
want to know where the company is going and
more than that, to really understand the
direction and the reasons for that
direction.
People have a deep need to understand where
the company is headed, because unless they
have that real understanding they will not
be willing to fully engage. Also, and of
critical importance, they want to be part of
the process of developing that direction.
The
process that we use in DB, although not
consensus, creates genuine participation. I
spend a lot of time with people right
through the organization
creating opportunities for them to express
their opinions about where they think we
should be going. I know people want to have
a say in the direction that we are heading
and I believe they need that opportunity and
it must be a genuine opportunity.
As a
leader, having set the direction, they want
you to be decisive in the way you manage and
lead the company. It is vital to establish a
high level of trust across the
organization if
you are to harness the potential of the
people who work within your
organization.
The
workforce wants to see consistency in your
decision-making. I don't believe that people
like surprises.
Levy: In your own growth as a leader,
when do you think you experienced the most
growth and why?
Blake: I have grown the most when I
have been under pressure. One of the
necessities of growing as a leader is
experiencing situations during your career
where you are really tested. In the early
days of my tenure, when DB was really
struggling, in what I now call the survival
phase, many people said to me there are
easier ways to make a dollar. There are
companies in far better shape than this. I
could have walked away from the incredibly
tough situation, but to me there was a
compelling challenge in turning the company
around. I learned so much during that
period, about myself, about how to create
success through creative thinking, teamwork,
hard work and perseverance.
One
of the core elements of leadership is
persistence. You need to have the inner
strength and energy to keep going, if you
fundamentally believe in something. You need
to keep focused on heading in the right
direction and not deviate. I learned in the
early days, that things just need to be done
and you have to get on and do them.
When
you are under pressure you learn a lot more
than when you are in a winning streak. I am
certain that I learned more in that early
phase where we were really struggling to
survive as a company.
Levy: What is your current biggest
leadership challenge?
Blake: The challenge is, having emerged
first from the survival phase and then the
strategic phase, to
realize the potential of the people
that we now have. I think it was Jim
Collins who said, "get the right people on
the bus". At DB I have a first class
management team, probably the best
management team I have ever had. My
challenge is to optimize
the potential that exists in the management
team, to really take the company to the next
level of performance.
From
a leadership challenge, I suspect I have all
the management basics in place and the
strategy is sound
it is the human capital
and getting that focused as a collective
capacity, to operate in the most creative
way in order to achieve new breakthroughs in
performance.
Levy: What changes have you noticed in
people's expectation of you as a leader over
the last five years?
Blake: People expect to have access to
me. At DB, most people, not everyone, but
most people feel that they should be able to
come and see me, or ring to talk about
something.
People expect me to communicate regularly as
to where the company is, what has changed
and where we are going. They expect to hear
from me on all emerging issues. If they
don't, then they will ask "what has happened
to Brian and why is he not talking to us
about this."
We
have worked hard on these communication
issues and as a company we are now very good
at company-wide communication. We
over-communicate
if that is possible. We
have now established an expectation that the
lines of communication will always be open.
I
think people expect me to be consistent with
my decision-making. I have created
expectations around decision making that
were not there five years ago.
Levy: Have you ever made a significant
bad hiring decision that you regret?
Blake: Yes. That is interesting in the
context of discussing the lows I have
experienced.
I
had a situation in the early nineties when
we employed someone and at the time we were
not totally convinced that they were the
right person. That was an incredibly costly
mistake. At first it takes you time to
accept that you have made a mistake.
What
you tend to do is to initially
rationalize it by
saying this person has good industry
experience and has now exposed weaknesses in
particular areas. I suppose in a nice way
you are giving them the benefit of the doubt
and you then try to start to work on their
weaknesses. You then
realize that you have made a mistake
in appointing them in the first place and in
the New Zealand environment that takes time
to fix.
Once
fixed, you have to go back to the market and
find somebody else. If you make that
mistake at a senior level of a company like
DB, you have probably lost eighteen months
of time, which is significant if you
consider the overall performance impact of
that.
What
I learned from that is to be incredibly
rigorous in recruitment.
Your
filters and your checks for recruitment need
to be incredibly strong and robust, to
reduce the chances of making the wrong
decisions. We are now very robust in this
area
again learning from mistakes made.
A
good recent example is our search for a
general manager of marketing last year. It
took us six months to find that person. I
just kept saying that I would not compromise
my decision until I had found the right
person. I would rather be without someone
for six months than make a compromise
appointment.
Levy: Who have been key influencers in
your career?
Blake: I have worked over the years for
very, very good bosses and I have worked for
a couple of very bad ones. There is
absolutely no doubt that you learn as much,
if not more, from the bad ones as you do
from the good ones. You watch a particular
boss in action and you say I would or I
would not do it that way ... I can see the
impact it will have.
For
me personally though, I have been lucky in
that DB has had very good boards and I have
had excellent directors with a broad range
of experience. Their constant input and
feedback to me has been very, very important
in my own leadership development.
Levy: In your view how important is
self awareness to leadership effectiveness
and how do you develop your own self
awareness and that of others at DB?
Blake: We have been doing 360 degree
assessments and feedback at DB for some time
and it is now quite comprehensive. I think
it is critical and for me it is good because
as a CEO you have always got to be aware
that people in your company will approach
you and treat you in a certain way.
You
need to be very careful that the way in
which people in the company approach and
treat you, does not camouflage some of the
weaknesses that you have as a person. A 360
degree assessment and feedback system,
provided it preserves anonymity, will allow
you to get candid feedback and build a more
accurate self-image of yourself.
Without this type of feedback you can easily
be blinded to some of the weaknesses that
you have and that cannot be good for the
company.
Levy: When this happens, when you get
the feedback about a blind spot, how do you
respond yourself?
Blake: The initial response is usually
some form of self-denial, particularly if it
is a surprise, but then I take time and
think about how to address it. This may
involve talking to some of my people to gain
a clearer understanding which will help me
change.
I do
not think you can just carry on in the same
way and ignore it, otherwise the whole 360
process becomes meaningless.
Levy: What would you say to CEOs who do
not want to undertake this kind of
assessment because it exposes them and their
management team to frank and direct
feedback?
Blake: You are denying yourself the
opportunity to improve your performance. I
would imagine if you had a CEO who was
particularly autocratic in their management
style and was reluctant to undertake 360
feedback, then they would be heading for
troubled waters sometime in the
future.
Avoidance is not going to solve the problem.
If it is treated as an early warning system
to identify blind spots, then it can be a
very constructive process.
The
other thing to mention is that as you employ
new people out of the marketplace these
days, they will more than likely have been
involved in the process previously and
already have had feedback. You will almost
seem to become somewhat antiquated in your
leadership style if you do not do 360 degree
assessments.
Levy: What do you have in place in DB
to support and stimulate the development and
leadership within the
organization?
Blake: Well this has been interesting.
When I talk with people who are new to the
organization I say
that although they may not always work for
DB, while they are here the contract is that
they add value to us and we add value to
them. They may go through our ranks, go on
to work for Asia Pacific or Heineken or end
up working for somebody else.
Realistically we are not that big a company
that everyone will get all their career
opportunities with us. If we have someone
with us for a short period of time or a long
period of time, we will commit to their
development.
We
invest time into helping people develop
while they are with us and that is good for
the individual and DB gets the benefits of
that. We are not a company that takes the
view that we should not develop these
people, because someone else is going to
come in and take our good people. That is a
risk any business takes.
More
recently we introduced the leadership
development group. We started this three
years ago and that was quite a breakthrough
for the company. Philosophically we had to
ask ourselves whether within the DB culture
we could take a group of people and actually
set them apart and say we are going to
accelerate their development. Would they be
perceived as crown princes and princesses
within the company?
We
felt that if we were serious about taking DB
to a higher level, becoming a high
performing company, then we had to have the
courage to stand up as an
organization and say these people
have been identified to receive a range of
opportunities to accelerate their leadership
and management development. We also made it
clear that if they did not measure up they
will be dropped from the development group.
We felt that was constructive to that high
performing culture that we were trying to
develop.
What
we have done more recently is introduce a
leadership and management development
program for some of those people who are not
yet ready for the top group. It will take
them out of their comfort zone and place
them in cross functional groups. Hopefully
that will help them grow and become the next
logical group to enter the high level
leadership development program.
Note: The full interview can be found
in the
University of Auckland Business Review.
Leadership Lessons from
Survivors:
'Climbing on the Mountain's Schedule, Not
Ours'
By Knowledge@Wharton
At Wharton's 10th annual
leadership conference on June 13, the theme
of "Leading with Resilience: Coming Back
from Challenge and Adversity" brought
together speakers who had faced hardships in
a number of different areas. Perhaps none of
the speakers, however, had experienced as
much physical danger as David Breashears,
filmmaker and mountaineer, who recounted how
he and his team survived one of the
deadliest accidents in the history of Mt.
Everest.
"So where does a mountaineer
and filmmaker fit into this conference?"
Breashears asked. "Resilience, excellence,
determination, conviction, resolve" -- words
that are often used to describe a successful
team anywhere, whether on Wall Street or on
a cliff. "The mountain has been my
workplace," said Breashears, adding that his
high-altitude pursuits have taught him a few
things about planning and leadership.
Another speaker at the conference --
organized by Wharton's Center for Human
Resources and The Center for Leadership and
Change Management -- was Sylvia M. Montero,
who recounted her own journey from a farm in
Puerto Rico to a position as senior vice
present, human resources, at Pfizer.
The Best-laid Plans
 Climbing
the world's highest mountain under normal
circumstances requires months, sometimes
years, of preparation. In May 1996,
Breashears and his team faced a special
challenge: making an IMAX film about their
journey. Carrying and maintaining hundreds
of pounds of filming equipment meant that
planning was even more meticulous than
usual. "We went to that mountain with a
great plan, an elegant plan," said
Breashears. For one, it was flexible. "A
good plan makes you nimble, not stuck. Ours
gave us options ... wiggle room."
By rehearsing extensive "what
if" scenarios long before they got to the
mountain, the team was ready for the
unexpected. So when a freak storm hit the
day they were to approach the summit,
Breashears' team turned back while other
teams kept climbing. With the summit just
within reach, the temptation to go on was
enormous, Breashears recalled, especially
since the team had already spent weeks on
the mountain, passing through all four base
camps and acclimatizing their lungs to the
thin air. Yet, as Breashears noted, "We had
to climb on the mountain's schedule, not
ours," an acknowledgment that probably saved
his life.
As Breashears' team went back
down, they passed several other teams on
their way up. By nightfall, eight people had
perished, including Rob Hall, a
world-renowned climber and friend of
Breashears. Hall was leading a group of
individuals who had paid him a substantial
fee to lead them to the top. Jon Krakauer, a
writer and outdoorsman who was on Hall's
team, would eventually write the
best-selling book Into Thin Air,
chronicling in heartbreaking detail what had
gone wrong.
Among the tragedies of that
day was one event that many later described
as a miracle. The storm that had hit as
Hall's ill-fated team made its ascent caused
many of the climbers to become separated.
One small group was in desperate trouble:
They had lost their way in the blinding snow
and had run out of oxygen. In an attempt to
save their own lives, they made the
difficult decision to leave behind one of
their team members, Beck Weathers, a doctor
from Texas. By all accounts, Weathers was
already close to death. He had no pulse and
appeared to be frozen in the ground.
The next morning, however, as
Breashears and his team helped with the
rescue efforts for those teams still on the
mountain, word came on the walkie-talkie
that "the dead guy is alive." Weathers had
spent the night in sub-zero temperatures
fully exposed to the elements. The next
morning, as the sun hit the mountain, he
awoke from a hypothermic coma and, despite
snow blindness and severe frostbite on his
hands and feet, managed to stumble into
camp. He was eventually flown off the
mountain in a helicopter rescue that had its
own share of danger and drama.
Having reached the summit of
Mt. Everest five times, Breashears knows
what he wants in a team. Surprisingly, he's
not necessarily looking for the best
climbers. "I look for talented people who
believe in their craft, not those who are
looking for praise," he said. "The most
important quality is selflessness. I knew
that no matter what, no one would leave me
behind," he joked.
Sharing a common goal and
vision is critical, and no one's ego can
take precedence. "People who say 'me first'
can be dangerous on Everest." Indeed, in
Breashears' experience, the teams that
operate best have a higher objective than
themselves. Humility makes a great leader.
"The kind of leader I want wakes up and
asks, 'What did I do wrong yesterday, and
how can I fix it today?' Your team doesn't
need to like you, but they have to trust and
respect you," he said. "A leader who puts
his interests first is a highly demoralizing
force."
Seeking Guidance from Others
 Far
from Tibet, speaker Sylvia M. Montero,
senior vice president, human resources, at
Pfizer Inc., has had her own mountains to
climb. She spent the first eight years of
her life on a farm in Puerto Rico where her
father struggled as a sugar cane farmer. "We
were poor," she said. "We just didn't know
it." After moving to New York City with her
family, it became obvious to Montero that
she was both poor and a member of a
minority. The knowledge of this, and what it
can do to your sense of self worth and
self-esteem, she said, had an impact on her
childhood. "Children internalize subtle
messages. I had a sense that I couldn't
compete with people who were more
prosperous."
Although she did well in high
school, Montero never imagined going to
college until a high school counselor
advised her to apply to Barnard. She did,
and received a full scholarship. But college
life for her was different than it was for
most others. She lived at home and took the
subway to and from school; she married in
her first year and became a mother in her
second year. "I lived between two worlds,"
she said, "a co-ed by day and a married
mother who lived in a drug-infested tenement
by night." Straddling these two worlds,
Montero made a decision: "I chose to
actively participate in what happened to
me."
She returned to Puerto Rico
after the breakup of her marriage and taught
literature for many years. When an
opportunity to join a small pharmaceutical
firm emerged, she took it. In her first 15
years with the company, which was eventually
bought out by Pfizer, Montero was given
"numerous opportunities for growth. I
traveled around the world and had the chance
to live abroad, including China, where I set
up the company's first HR function." As she
moved up the corporate ladder, she was often
the first female or first Hispanic in the
job, a fact that often weighed heavily on
her. "I was deeply aware of" of being a
minority, "and that concern often held me
back." Each time she found herself in this
defensive position, she had to recharge
herself. "I purposely decided that I was not
going to allow it to be an obstacle."
In the past few years, as
Pfizer weathered the challenges and
opportunities that come with mergers (two in
the space of three years), Montero has been
able to access the lessons that adversity
taught her. From her first mentoring
experience with her high school counselor,
Montero continues to seek guidance from
others. She has worked with the same
business coach for years. In him, she found
a "thinking partner, someone who challenges
me and helps me work through strategies,"
she said. She also does a lot of listening,
perhaps a vestige of her early years in
business when self-doubt but strong will
emboldened her to learn as much as she could
by asking questions.
The
approach has served her well. Today she is
responsible for the overall strategy and
development of company-wide HR policies and
also oversees leadership development,
compensation and benefits for the company's
120,000 worldwide employees. Asked whether
her current financial situation -- from a
poor farmhouse in Puerto Rico to the
executive suite -- has changed her, Montero
did not hesitate. "Yes," she responded, "but
not in the way you might think." Montero
says she probably takes more risks because
she is not preoccupied with wealth. "If I
lost it," she reflected, "it wouldn't be
scary because I have done without."
Note: This article in the June 28
edition of Knowledge@Wharton can be accessed
here.
Wharton Leadership Conference:
June, 2007
The
10th annual Wharton Leadership Conference on
June 13 focused on "Leading with Resilience"
and drew more than 300 participants, and we
are already planning our next annual
conference for June, 2007.
We
would be interested in learning what theme
you would like to see our next leadership
conference focus upon. The themes for our
recent conferences have included:
Leading with Resilience, 2006
Leading with Creativity and Conviction, 2005
Leading in an Era of Uncertainty and Change,
2004
Leading with Integrity, 2003
Leading in All Directions, 2002
Developing Leaders, 2001
Leading with Speed, 2000
Building Top Management Teams, 1999
Leadership Capabilities for Winning
Companies, 1998
If
you would like to suggest a theme for the
2007 conference, send an email message with
"Leadership Conference" in the subject line
to Kay M. Dowgun, Associate Director of the
Center for Human Resources (dowgun@wharton.upenn.edu).
If you have suggestions for specific
speakers, they would be appreciated as
well.
If
you would like to be updated directly about
the 2007 leadership conference, please send
a message with "Conference Update" in the
subject line to Kay Dowgun. If you have
colleagues that might benefit from also
knowing about our next conference, please
also email their names and email addresses
(we will only contact them in reference to
the Wharton Leadership Conference and never
share the information).
As a
token of our appreciation for the "update"
information, we will send you and your
suggested colleagues an advance
chapter from the upcoming Wharton School
Publishing book entitled
Success Built to Last: Creating a Life that
Matters by Jerry Porras (co-author,
along with Jim Collins of Built to Last),
Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson. We'll
also include a special value coupon for
the any books on
website of
Wharton School Publishing.
Copyright
1996-2006, Wharton
Center for Leadership and Change Management
University of Pennsylvania |
