If you ask some C-level executives what they might do after they retire, you could hear something like, "I've thought about writing a book which chronicles what I learned running a major company." Unfortunately, few CEOs write management books after they retire. Furthermore, it's rare to find a senior executive who has written one while he or she is still actively on the job. Bob Seelert, the chairman of Saatachi & Saatchi, one of the world's largest advertising companies, is that rare kind of executive. He is one of the most insightful executives to emerge in this troubled business landscape. His new book, Start with the Answer, is a back-to-basics primer for anyone in a leadership capacity.
Seelert has been with Saatchi & Saatchi since 2003. After graduating from Harvard Business School, Seelert spent the next 23 years with General Foods Corp. where he eventually became CEO of Worldwide Coffee and International Foods. He closely observed one of the largest mega-mergers in United States' corporate history - Philip Morris's acquisition of General Foods. His career also included leading the turnaround of Topco, a grocery industry co-operative, and Kayser -Roth Corp., a leading U.S. manufacturer of leg wear.
Enterpriseleadership.org recently sat down with Seelert to talk about the management challenges CEOs, as well as other C-level executives, face dealing with the economic downturn.
EL. Why did you decide to write this book?
BS. A creative person at Saatchi & Saatchi told me that my wisdom set me apart from other executives he had known. After he said that, I got to thinking that, in fact, I dispense advice, council, and perspective. It's based on my collective experience. Perhaps, I know quite a bit about many things. I decided to put down the wisdom I have collected over a career that spans five different companies and 40 plus years.
The book consists of a series of easy-to-understand points about things that can lead to success in your career and high performance in companies. My book is drawn both from business and my life. You can pick up this book, read a few sections, and then put it down. It is biblical in that sense. That's the one comment I hear frequently.
EL. What are the three top lessons you learned as a CEO?
BS. Leadership begins at the top. Having the right person in the CEO seat can make all of the difference for a company. You can cascade that down the organization as well. Next, you always have to be open, honest, and candid and get a straight forward assessment of the facts. Some times the truth can be pretty ugly. Until you get it on the table, you are not in a position to deal with it. Unfortunately, many people do not look down the pike at the truth. It is one of the reasons they don't make progress. Throughout the book I adopted the predominant philosophy which became the book's title - Start with the Answer. Before you go off and spend much time and money, you have to assess all of the facts about where you want this to end up. In essence, if you start with the answer, then you are in a position to work your way back to the solution.
EL. According to industry consulting firms, such as Gartner Group, the average CEO tenure is about four years. Why is CEO turnaround so high?
BS. In some cases, you may have the wrong person. He or she may not have the right vision for the company. Also this person may or may not have established the right standards of the performance expectations and may or may not have delivered against what he or she had initially proposed. He or she may or may not have unleashed the energy in the company for building the right kind of rapport and relationships with all of the employees. Impatience heightens all of these things. In this short-time world, others judge executives by what have you done for me lately? You have to deliver against what you said you would do. It's a combination of factors.
EL. What challenges do CEOs face in this economic downturn?
BS. They are coming under more pressure now. This is the most challenging environment that businesses have faced in decades. A recent article I wrote about leading in tough times lists the 10 things you need to do to lead successfully. First, you need to get the truth on the table. Make sure you start with a good cold heart assessment of the facts. Second you need to establish the right kind of standards for the new reality. You can establish a performance expectation in terms of how you will perform relative to the market.
At Saatchi & Saatchi, we do not know how far off the media environment will fall. We know that we want to beat whatever happens by 50 percent. That is a relatively high expectation in an assured market sense. We want to use this as an opportunity to grow our share of the market. Others include the following: Think long term but act short term. Communicate, communicate, and communicate. Do whatever it takes to get in front of your people to reassure them that you are going to lead the company to see a better day. Tough times call for extraordinary efforts by everyone in the company. Get with your customers to see how their needs are changing and how to best respond to those needs.
EL. What companies do you most admire and why?
BS. I admire the leadership of Toyota and Procter & Gamble. Toyota has done a good job of driving innovation and making continuous improvements. Even through automobile sales have fallen, Toyota has continued to add enhancements to the third generation Prius. In fact, some auto manufacturers do not even offer a hybrid. Toyota's new Venza fills a gap this company had in the market. Toyota continues to stay true to its long-terms goals of innovation and continuous improvement. Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble has reframed the value of some products to better fit the economic environment. For example, it has introduced a low-cost version of Tide. The company reminds people that Tide will help them keep their new clothes looking that way longer. This feature and benefit appeals to consumers in this type of environment.
EL. So what type of a balancing act do CEOs need to do in this environment?
BS. Despite the rough times, you have to add some people and create some new capabilities. Whenever you add people, however, you need to look at where you can reduce. Adding a new capability also means thinking how you can eliminate something you no longer need. You need to make tradeoffs in this kind of tight environment. To pay for the additional staff and capabilities, you need to think about the reductions and the elimination.
EL. As the CEO of a major advertising company, are you seeing your business evolving more to social media?
BS. Absolutely! Our world has moved from talking to people to building connections with them. We want to create information that is useful in peoples' lives so our clients will be invited in their homes.
EL. Can you briefly describe some of the technology trends you have seen in your career?
BS. When I worked at General Foods and Philip Morris, hardware and a centralized IT environment dominated the company landscape. Today, we can disburse software applications so they are closer to meeting the needs of disparate, decentralized entities. People at Saatchi & Saatchi not only need to understand technology, but to understand how it affects the way they access information, the way they lives their lives, and the way they make decisions. We have various centers of expertise that touch all of these things. You need to embed these things in every operating unit today. You cannot have a periodic get together with some center of expertise that tells you about this that and the other thing. You need to be living these things on a day-in and day-out basis.
EL. You prefer to talk about corporate dream as opposed to operate vision. Is that something that can be applicable to any company?
BS. It can be and should be. I have a story in the book called Tape Your Strategy to Your Forehead. There is a big difference between a dream and many mission statements. You should be able to express your dream in 20 words or less. People should be able to tape it to their forehead. You see a lot of vision and mission statements that go on and on. People do not have a way to quickly state back to what is this company all about. When I did the turnaround for Kayser-Roth Corp., we said our dream was to become the best leg wear company by meeting customer needs better and faster than competition through total quality. It is 20 words. It said this is what the company is all about. At Saatchi & Saatchi we want to be revered as the top house for world changing ideas to create sustainable growth for our clients. This is a pithy, meaningful statement. We expect everyone in the company to take this forward and know what the company is about. This kind of thinking energizes every employee.
EL. When you were at General Foods, the company went from a centralized to a decentralized structure during the acquisition by Philip Morris. How did you deal with the CEO so everything was harmonious?
BS. In the book I say that centralization and decentralization can be the nitroglycerin of organizations. Individually they are fine. However, together they can create some real problems. You need to be one or the other. One company highly centralized, while the other one was highly decentralized. It just never got to be a happy marriage. There was no way to bridge that kind of gap. General Foods was a matrix organization with many centralized resources, such as IT. We had ways of cross roughing them with the line organizations to get out of the decentralized needs of the various businesses. Centralization ends up often times being a one-size-fits-all environment. It is a difficult approach when your business comprised of an entire bunch of disparate business with no relationship to each other.
EL. What is your organizational structure at Saatchi & Saatchi?
BS. We are disbursed geographically across 83 countries. In some areas we deal with affiliates. We have an entire series of company beliefs that we distribute around the globe. We start with our inspirational dream ad. Our local management and applications are highly decentralized. We will give them the beliefs, values and principals. The applications and the plans are in the hands of local managers.
EL. Can you describe the differences in the strategy process at the companies where you were CEO?
BS. General Foods had an intensive strategic planning process. In fact, it could drag on for a year and wind up being a three-inch thick book. By the time it got done, it was time to start the next strategic planning process. At Saatchi & Saatchi, we have the entire thing down to a single page that tells you everything you need to know about our strategic direction. Most companies will never get to that type of an environment because spend too much time strategizing about the future. Instead, they should spend more time thinking about it and making it happen.
We operate on two types of beliefs - 'one team, one dream' and 'nothing is impossible.' We have an entire series of beliefs and character statement. We have the challenge to become the agency of the year in every market in which we operate. Our organizational focus includes filling the world with love marks, which is a strategy to elevate brand to customer loyalty and beyond. We can put all of this stuff on one piece of paper.
The next thing we do is to put together an annual plan. We try to cascade what we call our 100-day plans throughout the company. It consists of the half dozen things you want to get done in the next 100 days. If you knock those things off, you get your next 100 days. That makes up a year.
Elizabeth M. Ferrarini -She is a technology writer from Boston, MA. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com
