8 Management Lessons from A Great Boss
On Wednesday this week we will gather to mark the retirement of Jack Klues from the Publicis Groupe.
In a 35 plus year career, Jack spun out Leo Burnett Media into Starcom, managed its merger with Mediavest to form Starcom Mediavest Group, oversaw Publicis Groupe Media which combined Zenith Optimedia and SMG after being acquired by Publicis and along with David Kenny at first and then alone, headed VivaKi which combined Publicis Groupe’s media assets and the digital giants Digitas and Razorfish.
When he stepped down as CEO at the end of 2012 to take on a six-month transitory stint as VivaKi’s Chairman, VivaKi accounted for nearly 40 percent of Publicis Groupe revenue and over 60% of its growth. Jack was also the only American on a five member Publicis Board of Directors.
And as a last act he along with Maurice Levy, re-engineered VivaKi despite its success to position it for the next few years in a networked global world where collaboration will be an essential requirement since no one company will be able to do it all.
Not bad for a guy from Quincy Illinois.
I have worked directly for Jack for the past 15 years Jack has become not just a boss but also a mentor and a friend. Most importantly he taught me, as he has done so many others, some of the most important management lessons. Here are a few:
1. There is no substitute for hard work: Jack was always on and always in. He is wickedly smart but does not rest on his laurels and is continuously involved and focused on work. (While making sure he always spent time with his priority one his family) . He never called it in. Tim Ferris and all those books of 4-hour workweeks and stuff are full of absolute shit. If you want to do well you have to work your butt off. Period. Even if you are supposedly smart.
2. Constantly learn and keep upgrading your skills: One of the things Jack had me do every four or five months was to organize a “mind expanding trip” to expose him to people, firms, concepts that he had never seen or thought off. From Atom Shockwave Films, who were a pioneer in digital video and flash animation production a decade ago to Blue Fin Labs long before anyone knew who they were to folks whose sole mission was to destroy our business model, he saw and learned from them all.
3. Integrity and your word is everything: Jack hates losing. But he will not win at any cost. Integrity, fair play, transparency are his touchstones. If he makes a commitment he will keep it. No ifs or buts.
4. Be accessible and encourage challenges: A case can be made that Jack was one of the three most powerful and busiest men at Publicis Groupe, but you could always see him and tell him what was on your mind. If you were a student, a start up, a nitwit or someone who wanted to sell him an idea, he always found time to meet folks. There were no chiefs of staffs or bevy of executive assistants to shoo away people. His belief was it was essential for him to learn, to listen, to be available. Most importantly he encouraged people to challenge him. You always respected Jack but you never feared Jack.
5. Always take ideas to Clients and always tell them what you think: Jack loves Clients and getting involved in their business. He always was thinking about ideas for them and while very respectful often told them very inconvenient truths. He respects Clients but he cared that they respect him.
6. Your success is mostly not because of you: Jack believes that his success was due to a combination of many factors a majority that had little to do with him. First, it was the talent around him. Second, it was the company he was working for (Jack always kept company first and never became bigger than the company), third it was the prestige of the Clients he got to do work with and finally a lot of it was pure luck and timing. To this day, I never take any body that believes they are superstars who have achieved it all them selves seriously. Never forget where you came from and all those who helped you.
7. Celebrate the team and make stars of your people: Jack has over the years nurtured hundreds of talented people who he not only gave opportunities to but also put them in the spotlight. His belief was the more people he made stars around him it reflected not only the reality of their contributions, but allowed him to attract even more great folks
8. Put others first. Be Generous: Jack always thinks of others. He also gives back to charity like the Off The Street Club and to the University of Illinois among others. It’s never about Jack. It’s about the team and The Company.
Let me end with a story.
About 11 years ago we were involved in a critical pitch. Due to weather all flights had been cancelled from Chicago and Jack had got a private plane to fly us out from Urbana Champaign. I finished attending my elder daughters middle school graduation late in the evening and caught a train to Urbana where I arrived at a fog bound station at midnight.
In the gloom of the deserted station sat Jack Klues who said, “ After this long trip I thought you would need a ride to the hotel”
The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past
This is the infamous “flying cockroaches” keynote from the 4A’s Transformation Summit where I make the case that a) marketing is a huge growth industry, b) Partnership and collaboration is key c) Companies that are “one-stop” are selling mounds of mediocrity and d) we have to inspire, ignite and invent a new generation of talent!
The Six things Clients Want
I have had the privilege of working with some of the finest companies. Yesterday, as I heard input from a Client on what they value and expect most from outside partners, it struck me that across industries, across the world and across client sizes, everyone is asking pretty much for the same six things.
Three of these are outputs and three focus on how the partner works.
Outputs: Insights, Ideas, Inspiration.
Process: Collaboration, Iteration, Operating Discipline
1. Insights: Clients pay the highest premium in not just economic value but their attention and their admiration to firms that bring them insights about their customers or their business. I have seen businesses saved and businesses poached away by firms that could provide a new way of understanding the marketplace. Something that is so obvious and yet not obvious. If we are living in an age where consumers are in control, understanding them is critical.
2.Inspiration: Agencies and outside partners see a world different than a Client. Most work across different industries and have a different employee mix. Clients in these changing times want to know how they benchmark against the best. Not just their industry, but across industries. Showing them examples, taking them to conferences, bringing in outside experts, all speak to this hunger, while underlining that their partners are in touch with changes happening around them.
3.Ideas: In the end despite debate as to whether Clients pay adequately for ideas, it is clear that Clients care a lot about ideas and without a good flow of them it is hard for an outside partner to remain valuable. Even if a Client does not buy the ideas, the inability to present ideas, including ones that stretch and are out there, often is reason for the Clients eye to wander. Best partners provide “gifts” of a big idea or two every few months.
While insight, inspiration and ideas are the wings of a healthy partnership, there are some processes or ways of working that are as important and often can carry a relationship when the ideas, insights and inspiration are wanting or can challenge a partnership when not present even if ideas, inspiration and insights are flowing.
4.Collaboration: Clients hate (and it is not to strong a word) the lack of collaboration between their various partners and agencies. They resent having to baby sit grownups who cannot play together. They see the friction as a loss of time and economic value. As industries blur in the digital world and many partners all claim expertise or rights to the same area ( e.g. “social”) this has become an obsession with Clients. The words “childish”, “soap-operatic” and ” I wish I could dump the whole lot and start again” are heard. Yes, often the Client’s incentives and structures encourage the petty and insecure behavior we engage in when our turf emotions and short term economic incentives make us forget the big picture. The big picture is that clients are trying to build economic value of their brands via insights, ideas and inspiration and frankly will reward for that.
5. Improvement and Iteration:In a world of change is the outside partner improving themselves. Are they remaining curious, challenging the status quo and remaining curious, cutting costs, becoming more productive? Clients are under intense pressure to enhance productivity and are looking for their partners to become more productive themselves. This is not just about cutting costs but also developing better creative, re-using ideas from one part of the globe in an other, eliminating or automating things that can be.
6. Operating Discipline:This is the least sexy and interesting part of what Clients want because in many ways they expect it. Can their partner actually run their own business by managing budgets, schedules, legal clearances and the like. Are they responsiveness and do they staff with capable people. Can the agency or partner make the trains run on time, read the signals and ensure the engine stays on track? The wrong ad shipped to the wrong media company, lack of legal approval and non responsiveness in an emergency get folks fired all the time.
Every quarter or six months it behooves anyone serving a Client to ask themselves and then their clients:
1. What ideas, insight or outside inspiration and stimulation did we provide?
2. How can I be more collaborative, how can I get my Client to help me be more collaborative?
3. What specifics can I share with the Client as to how I improved my offerings and services recently?
The big benefits of a healthy relationship of trust, respect, wealth and a true partnership ensue as a result of being able to deliver on the six clients wants over time.
Rishad Tobaccowala ( @rishad ) is the author of the bestselling “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data” published by Harper Collins globally in January 2020. It has been described as an “operating manual” for managing people, teams and careers in the age we live in.
Building A Personal Brand
A few months ago during a talk at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business I was asked on how one goes about building a personal brand.
After some thought I noted that successful brand stand for something and have finely honed positions. Therefore I suggested an exercise to develop such brand positions.
Identify three words that uniquely define your NICHE. Another three that reflect your VOICE and a final three that tell your STORY.
Do this with and without alcohol. Do this by yourself and then share with friends or have friends and colleagues create them for you.
Look over each of the three words, a total of nine and ask if they describe you, what you stand for and whether they provide an edge in a world of abundant blah!
Its more difficult than it looks. Try it.
If you are happy with the nine words can you now get down to three? One for niche. One for voice and one for story?
And in the end can you get down to a single word?
I have tried the exercise on myself and with input from folks who know me have determined the three words that describe my niche are FUTURE, CHANGE and INNOVATION. The three words that describe my Voice are AUTHENTIC, PROVOCATIVE, INSPIRATIONAL and the words that detail my story are TALENT (surrounded by talented people), MONGREL ( a hybrid career of this and that) and REINVENTING.
If there were three words they would be FUTURE, PROVOCATIVE and REINVENTING
And if there was one word it would be REINVENTING.