Business books from business leaders seek to draw general rules from specific experience. For us to read them we have to believe the person is successful, and they are able to distil the knowledge they have gained from their careers into a form we may learn from.
Allan Leighton is a former boss of Asda and the Royal Mail. Since then he has in his own phrase “gone plural”, taking on a string of positions from lastminute.com and Leeds United to Bhs and Selfridges, building up a huge range of experience, and making a lot of contacts on the way.
One obvious advantage his high profile has given him is that for a book like this he can speak with dozens of very well known, influential and respected business leaders and learn what they think about decision-making. Everyone from Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco) to Martin Sorrell (WPP), Sir Stuart Rose (Marks & Spencer) to Charles Dunstone (Carphone Warehouse) is here, and it’s immensely interesting reading what they have to say.
For those of us interested in the travel industry, you also have everyone from Surinder Arora, hotelier who tells a story of quick decision making at his Sofitel T5 property during the snow crisis of December 2010 (and contrasts it with that of BAA Heathrow) and Carolyn McCall, who when she arrived at Easyjet from the Guardian faced a situation where only 48 per cent of the airline’s planes were going out of Gatwick on time.
“The official line was that air traffic control services in Europe were to blame, but, as Carolyn quickly found out, easyjet had more flights scheduled than crew available.” The situation has now been fixed, to management’s credit, but as Leighton points out, “predicting every eventuality is impossible". As Carolyn McCall recalls,
“With an airline there are so many unknowns. Early on in the job, I asked BA boss Willie Walsh if he had the volcano on his risk map. “You have to be joking,” he said. Nobody talked about volcanoes at that time. Then it came out of the blue and grounded airlines.”
Since they sat together at the Business Traveller Awards last year, I’d like to think we helped facilitate this sharing of wisdom.
The disadvantage of Leighton’s approach is that each one of these business leaders has their own receipe for success, and they don’t always agree with one another. For instance how can one reconcile the notice, put up by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan outside his office, that “Calm deliberation untangles every knot,” with Sir Stuart Rose’s that “Not making a decision is the worst decision you can make. You must always make a decision... procrastination is damaging.”
Then we have General Sir Mike Jackson saying “It is always sensible to listen to that little voice in the back of your head that says “Are you quite sure that you have not got this wrong?” Check, check check.” It’s good to know that someone in charge of life and death decisions has this attitude, but it hardly agrees with Martin Sorrell’s belief that “A bad decision on Monday is better than a good decision on Friday.”
So though enjoyable to read for the anecdotes, I think we will tend to agree with those business leaders think as we do, and disagree with the rest. Leighton distinguishes between different sorts of decisions – the opportunity decision, the radical decision, the crisis decision and so on, but it’s not clear that different processes are at work in each type of decision, especially since depending on where you are standing can alter the category. Today’s progress decision may turn out to be tomorrows crisis decision. Who knows? Well, not some of these leaders, for sure.... Under the heading “Decision-making lessons” we learn from James Murdoch of News Corp “It’s hard to make a hierarchy of decisions. Some that seem hard now may turn out as of little importance later on. Others that seem easy now can turn out to be a real headache further down the line.”
It’s something Alan Leighton knows to his cost, since at the present time he has interests in several businesses which are going through “interesting” phases. He is chairman of Peacocks (fashion) and CD-buying group MusicMagpie – both of which are deciding on flotations; chairman of electronics group Pace and a non-executive director of BSkyB - presumably how he can phone up James Murdoch for a quote, something I doubt I'd have much luck with. He is also deputy chair at Selfridges and president of the Canadian Loblaw group (supermarkets). Lastly he is chairman of jewellery group Pandora, which last month issued a huge profits warning and lost two thirds of its share value. Leighton was quoted as saying in a phone call to investors, "The CEO is accountable for what happened and that is why he resigns," No doubt that’s correct, but Chapter Two here begins...
“Imagine that you have just been parachuted into a highly successful company at a very senior level. Everything is fine when you arrive, but then the organisation is hit by a series of seismic shocks. Soon what was a very successful company is in crisis. ... The natural human instinct.. is to tell everyone who will listen that it’s not your fault.... Another fairly natural reaction is to blame others.”
It is, and sometimes, it might be the right reaction. Leighton’s conclusion is to admit that his ”four basic types of decision” might be arbitrary. He quotes the BBC director general Mark Thomspon’s opinion that in fact there are just two types of “tough calls” – "one where the options are finely balanced, the other where it is obvious what you should do, but the consequences are far reaching and painful in human terms”. Other readers may come up with another number. Others may be too busy making decisions to decide which categories they fit into.
Nevertheless, Leighton concludes by offering a sequence of actions on the part of the decision maker:
“1. Step in. 2. Collect and digest the best information available at the time. 3. Make the decision. 4 Communicate the decision. 5. Make sure it happens. 6. Move on.”
I’m not sure this takes us very far. Many of us over the years have had bosses like this, who distil their considerable wisdom to the point where it’s obvious. Perhaps if you were in a complete flat spin and had this as a checklist it might help, but nevertheless, there are some nuggets here, including the need to keep developing.
“Good decision-makers... learn the whole time. Great decision-makers build on what they have learned.”
The most enjoyable part of the book, however, is in the stories and the observations into the decision-making habits of some very well know and successful business leaders, few of whom would ever agree with one another. And also reading quotes from James Murdoch such as this one.
“I have been following a lot of journalists and commentators tweeting and blogging about News Corp. I am constantly amazed at the extent of which [sic] professional people seem willing to tweet their innermost thoughts at 2am. They’ve been out to dinner, they’ve had a drink and then they are on Twitter. It is just madness. You have to have rules about engagement in these areas.”
Quite.
Tom Otley Business books from business leaders seek to draw general rules from specific experience. For us to read them we have to believe the person is successful, and they are able to distil the knowledge they have gained from their careers into a form we may learn from.
Allan Leighton is a former boss of Asda and the Royal Mail. Since then he has in his own phrase “gone plural”, taking on a string of positions from lastminute.com and Leeds United to Bhs and Selfridges, building up a huge range of experience, and making a lot of contacts on the way.
One obvious advantage his high profile has given him is that for a book like this he can speak with dozens of very well known, influential and respected business leaders and learn what they think about decision-making. Everyone from Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco) to Martin Sorrell (WPP), Sir Stuart Rose (Marks & Spencer) to Charles Dunstone (Carphone Warehouse) is here, and it’s immensely interesting reading what they have to say.
For those of us interested in the travel industry, you also have everyone from Surinder Arora, hotelier who tells a story of quick decision making at his Sofitel T5 property during the snow crisis of December 2010 (and contrasts it with that of BAA Heathrow) and Carolyn McCall, who when she arrived at Easyjet from the Guardian faced a situation where only 48 per cent of the airline’s planes were going out of Gatwick on time.
“The official line was that air traffic control services in Europe were to blame, but, as Carolyn quickly found out, easyjet had more flights scheduled than crew available.” The situation has now been fixed, to management’s credit, but as Leighton points out, “predicting every eventuality is impossible". As Carolyn McCall recalls,
“With an airline there are so many unknowns. Early on in the job, I asked BA boss Willie Walsh if he had the volcano on his risk map. “You have to be joking,” he said. Nobody talked about volcanoes at that time. Then it came out of the blue and grounded airlines.”
Since they sat together at the Business Traveller Awards last year, I’d like to think we helped facilitate this sharing of wisdom.
The disadvantage of Leighton’s approach is that each one of these business leaders has their own receipe for success, and they don’t always agree with one another. For instance how can one reconcile the notice, put up by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan outside his office, that “Calm deliberation untangles every knot,” with Sir Stuart Rose’s that “Not making a decision is the worst decision you can make. You must always make a decision... procrastination is damaging.”
Then we have General Sir Mike Jackson saying “It is always sensible to listen to that little voice in the back of your head that says “Are you quite sure that you have not got this wrong?” Check, check check.” It’s good to know that someone in charge of life and death decisions has this attitude, but it hardly agrees with Martin Sorrell’s belief that “A bad decision on Monday is better than a good decision on Friday.”
So though enjoyable to read for the anecdotes, I think we will tend to agree with those business leaders think as we do, and disagree with the rest. Leighton distinguishes between different sorts of decisions – the opportunity decision, the radical decision, the crisis decision and so on, but it’s not clear that different processes are at work in each type of decision, especially since depending on where you are standing can alter the category. Today’s progress decision may turn out to be tomorrows crisis decision. Who knows? Well, not some of these leaders, for sure.... Under the heading “Decision-making lessons” we learn from James Murdoch of News Corp “It’s hard to make a hierarchy of decisions. Some that seem hard now may turn out as of little importance later on. Others that seem easy now can turn out to be a real headache further down the line.”
It’s something Alan Leighton knows to his cost, since at the present time he has interests in several businesses which are going through “interesting” phases. He is chairman of Peacocks (fashion) and CD-buying group MusicMagpie – both of which are deciding on flotations; chairman of electronics group Pace and a non-executive director of BSkyB - presumably how he can phone up James Murdoch for a quote, something I doubt I'd have much luck with. He is also deputy chair at Selfridges and president of the Canadian Loblaw group (supermarkets). Lastly he is chairman of jewellery group Pandora, which last month issued a huge profits warning and lost two thirds of its share value. Leighton was quoted as saying in a phone call to investors, "The CEO is accountable for what happened and that is why he resigns," No doubt that’s correct, but Chapter Two here begins...
“Imagine that you have just been parachuted into a highly successful company at a very senior level. Everything is fine when you arrive, but then the organisation is hit by a series of seismic shocks. Soon what was a very successful company is in crisis. ... The natural human instinct.. is to tell everyone who will listen that it’s not your fault.... Another fairly natural reaction is to blame others.”
It is, and sometimes, it might be the right reaction. Leighton’s conclusion is to admit that his ”four basic types of decision” might be arbitrary. He quotes the BBC director general Mark Thomspon’s opinion that in fact there are just two types of “tough calls” – "one where the options are finely balanced, the other where it is obvious what you should do, but the consequences are far reaching and painful in human terms”. Other readers may come up with another number. Others may be too busy making decisions to decide which categories they fit into.
Nevertheless, Leighton concludes by offering a sequence of actions on the part of the decision maker:
“1. Step in. 2. Collect and digest the best information available at the time. 3. Make the decision. 4 Communicate the decision. 5. Make sure it happens. 6. Move on.”
I’m not sure this takes us very far. Many of us over the years have had bosses like this, who distil their considerable wisdom to the point where it’s obvious. Perhaps if you were in a complete flat spin and had this as a checklist it might help, but nevertheless, there are some nuggets here, including the need to keep developing.
“Good decision-makers... learn the whole time. Great decision-makers build on what they have learned.”
The most enjoyable part of the book, however, is in the stories and the observations into the decision-making habits of some very well know and successful business leaders, few of whom would ever agree with one another. And also reading quotes from James Murdoch such as this one.
“I have been following a lot of journalists and commentators tweeting and blogging about News Corp. I am constantly amazed at the extent of which [sic] professional people seem willing to tweet their innermost thoughts at 2am. They’ve been out to dinner, they’ve had a drink and then they are on Twitter. It is just madness. You have to have rules about engagement in these areas.”
Quite.
Tom Otley 
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