People are the most important asset of any company. Companies that treat people as valuable investments have strong cultures of high morale, innovative confidence, maximum productivity, genuinely energetic leadership. It is generally seen that the very top people of truly great organizations are the most humble, the most reverent, the most open, the most teachable, the most respectful and the most determined. Corporate Leaders are always looking for investments with the greatest potential for maximum returns. The most innovative and competitive organizations are created as a result of their people.
Sydney Finkelstein of
1. Superbosses make room for others to shine–and they enjoy doing so. Specifically, they celebrate the success of their understudies. Instead of feeling jealous or threatened, they take pride in the role they played in guiding a raw talent from obscurity to renown and respect.
In the book, one of most compelling examples is legendary trumpeter Miles Davis, who spawned an entire generation of musical talent, including Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Jarrett. As Finkelstein notes, shortly after Davis recruited the relatively unknown Coltrane, Coltrane began developing a huge following of his own. Instead of feeling threatened by it, Davis was energized by it. He even kept Coltrane in his band when the latter was struggling with a heroin addiction.
2. Superbosses approach hiring in an unconventional way. Finkelstein tells the tale of how Paul Bertolli, the executive chef at Chez Panisse who’d learned the ropes from Waters, once interviewed a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. He flicked the applicant’s résumé off the table and instead began asking her questions such as: “Where did you eat yesterday?” and “What books do you read? Not necessarily cookbooks.” One month after this interview, Chez Panisse called her and asked her to come in for a tryout.
The episode is salient, in Finkelstein’s view, for a few reasons. First of all, it wasBertolliwho did the hiring–meaning Waters’s hiring practices had spread to her understudies. “The extraordinary practices that define superbosses and contribute to their success are teachable,” writes Finkelstein.
He suggests that leaders resist the urge to hire or eliminate job candidates on the basis of their on-paper credentials. Be open to “diamond in the rough” candidates who might not have the ideal résumé. And don’t be afraid to veer from a duties-oriented interview script to talk about life in general.
3. Superbosses are unusually accessible to their employees.Michael Miles, the former CEO of Kraft Foods, was a master of nurturing consumer-marketing talent. His understudies became the CEOs of Mattel, Young & Rubicam, Gillette, Sears, Heinz, Hershey Foods, Quaker Oats, 3M, CVS, and Campbell Soup.
One of the keys to Miles’s success was an almost insatiable habit of making himself available. He habitually had lunch with employees several rungs below him in the hierarchy–and he did it in the employee cafeteria, so everyone could see. His office door was always open. And every morning, he picked a younger employee at random and asked him or her to come to his office for an hourlong talk.
These talks revealed Miles’ depth of knowledge about his employees. “His questions were very direct, very pointed,” John Tucker, a longtime Kraft executive, told Finkelstein. “It was like taking a final exam.”
4. Superbosses work as hard as anyone in the organization. Many superbosses model their passion for the job through their own extraordinary work ethics. Tucker told a story about routinely reaching the office at 6:30 each morning–only to find that Miles was already there.
The two of them became tacitly competitive about who would arrive first. One day, when Tucker arrived at 4:30, he thought he had won–until he saw the headlights of Miles’s car. “He got out of the car and just smiled at me,” Tucker told Finkelstein. “Both of us knew exactly what was going on.”
