[Cabs-talk] FW: [Transition-Council] If Plan B Fails, Go Through the Alphabet.

[Angela Fowler]

This is a good read.
 
 
  _____  

From: transition-council at googlegroups.com
[mailto:transition-council at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Richard Rueda
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2010 11:25 PM
To: transition-council at googlegroups.com
Subject: [Transition-Council] If Plan B Fails, Go Through the Alphabet.


I thought that this was a good article.  It speaks to both leadership as
well as to some sound career advice.  Please consider reading and sharing
with those that you work with.  This is from this Sunday's (May 16) New York
Times.
Richard
 
***

CORNER OFFICE. If Plan B Fails, Go Through the Alphabet.


This interview with Steve Hannah, chief executive of The Onion, was
conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. 

Q.When you're introduced at a party as Steve Hannah from The Onion, do
people expect you to be funny? 

A. All the time. People say, 'This guy is going to be a laugh a minute.
Sadly, it's a very disappointing evening for them. I am the hired help. At
The Onion, the creatives are absolutely the center of gravity. 

Q. How do you interview job candidates? 

A. I have two basic questions in mind: 'Can you do the job, and would I
enjoy spending time with you? I want to know where you came from. I want to
know how many children are in your family. I want to know where you fit in
and what your role was. I want to know what your mother and your dad did,
what influence they had on you. I find that, without overstepping my
boundaries, most people like to talk about themselves. 

Q. What is it you want to know? 

A. I want to know whether you were a kid who was entitled, whether you
worked hard, whether you excelled at school, whether you held summer jobs,
how hard you had to work, whether you got the jobs yourself, whether you got
promoted. I want to know if you'll work hard. I'm hopelessly old-fashioned.
I want people who really want to work hard. And I absolutely loathe a sense
of entitlement. 

Q. What else turns you off? 

A. I hate it when someone comes in and they trash their former employer.
They talk about how they were held back. They talk about how they worked for
a terrible boss, and the boss did this or the boss did that. 

I have no idea what makes people think this, but this happens often. People
think that by telling their prospective employer that their previous
employer was a complete slug, that somehow this is going to make me feel,
what, sorry for them? I generally figure: Well, you didn't work hard enough,
and apparently you weren't smart enough to figure out the system. That's
probably why you didn't advance at your last job. 

Q. What were the biggest influences on your leadership style? 

A. My dad was a World War II and D-Day veteran. He was just a tough guy, and
everything I ever learned about leadership from my dad was, you know, manage
tough, manage angry. Life is tough, an endless struggle. You're entitled to
nothing. My parents used to say to me, 'When you're 18 you're on your own.
And they meant it -- I was on my own. He thought: 'We've done our best with
you. Now, we'll find out what kind of character you have. 

At the same time, my mother said, 'The sun, the moon, the stars and the
tides were in alignment when you were born. You know: 'You can do anything
you want. You're terrific. And if your mother tells you this often enough,
you start to believe it. I think that if you're going to run something, you
have to have self-confidence. She gave it to me. 

It doesn't mean you think you're going to get everything right. It doesn't
mean that you're smarter than everybody else. It means that essentially you
believe that you can get the job done. So my mother kind of told me, 'You
can get the job done. 

Meanwhile, I got my father's view of the world that life is tough and you
have to work hard to get what you want, to take care of your family, make
sure your kids are provided for and be good to your friends. It's not that
complicated. 

Q.Tell me about the first time you were a manager. 

A. I was a reporter at The Milwaukee Journal. I was really hungry, terribly
ambitious. My boss came to me one day and said, 'We need you to run the
bureau at the state capitol. I was just starting a family. So I said, 'How
much does it pay? 

I felt that I could straighten my co-workers out. And so I went in on Monday
and said: 'In case you guys hadn't heard, I'm the boss. Anybody who doesn't
like it, step right up and let me know. 

I did this silly dance for about nine months, and one day the senior member
of the office came to me and said, 'How long do you think we can survive
this? And I said: 'I've got about another day in me. I'm exhausted trying to
prove to you that I'm in charge. 

Around the same time, I had lunch with a friend who said, 'Do you get up
every morning and think that life is a battle, that you're going to war
every day? And I said, 'Yeah, basically. And she said: 'It's not going to
work. Be kind, take care of them and they'll perform for you. It was a
revelation. 

Q.What were other big influences? 

A. About 10 years ago, I met a remarkable man, Lt. Gen. Harold Moore. Hal
Moore co-wrote a book called, 'We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. It was a
book about the very first battle between the United States Army Rangers and
North Vietnamese regulars, in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in November
1965. It's a spectacular book. 

He had a favorite phrase: 'I'll always be the first person on the
battlefield, my boots will be the first boots on it, and I'll be the last
person off. I'll never leave a body. And he never did. It was incredibly
humbling just to be in his presence. 

They made a movie out of the book, and Mel Gibson played Hal. The movie was
called 'We Were Soldiers. 

We met through a friend, and Hal said, 'I want to write a book about
leadership. So we began this book project. Over the next year, I interviewed
Hal with a tape recorder for hours and hours. Midway through the project,
Hal got an offer to write a sequel to his book and I was offered The Onion
job. But during our time together, he taught me a lot about how you manage
people and what you owe the people you manage. 

Q. What are the top three or five lessons? 

A. In no particular order? He taught me that you never, ever do anything to
deprive a human being of their dignity in work, in life. Always praise in
public and criticize in private. You might be tempted, for example, when
you're letting someone go, to say something that would diminish the value of
their work. Don't ever do that. 

And he taught me that when you're faced with something that's really
difficult and you think you're at the end of your tether, there's always one
more thing you can do to influence the outcome of this situation. And then
after that there's one more thing. The number or possible options is only
limited by your imagination. Hal often said, 'Imagination is enormously
important, enormously important. 

Q.What else? 

A. When I was young and managing, I didn't listen nearly enough. Hal would
always say to me: 'Listen to the people below you because they are on the
front lines. Do you realize that any given moment any one of those people
from the highest to the lowest can be the most important person that day in
your operation? I've seen that happen in our business. 

There was another thing that Hal and I used to talk about: decisiveness. In
the beginning of my career, when people walked up to me and said, 'Here's
the problem,' I'd say, 'Here's the answer' immediately. I did it in a
nanosecond. It took me a while to learn that with some issues, I'd probably
have a better answer tomorrow. 

So I always say: 'What's the sunset provision on this decision? How much
time do I have? If somebody says to me, 'You have 24 hours,' then I'll take
23 hours and 59 minutes. Not always, but I usually take as much time as I
possibly can. I don't feel the need to appear so swift and decisive that I'm
going to make a knee-jerk decision. I think that's a young person's game.
I'll take the time allotted to me. 

Q.What are some other approaches you have to work? 

A. I try to get out of my comfort zone every day. I say yes to things that I
really don't want to do, or I get involved in things that are difficult for
me to be involved in, for whatever reason. 

Q.What is your career advice to somebody just graduating from college? 

A. Find what you really love to do and then go after it -- relentlessly. And
don't fret about the money. Because what you love to do is quite likely what
you're good at. And what you're good at will likely bring you financial
reward eventually. 

I've seen too many people who have plotted a career, and often what's at the
heart of all that plotting is nothing other than a stack of dollar bills.
You need to be happy in order to be good, and you need to be good in order
to succeed. And when you succeed, there's a good chance you'll get paid. 

And while you're at it, read. A lot. Start with Plato. He was a very
practical man. 


 
***

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Transition-Council" group.
To post to this group, send email to transition-council at googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
transition-council+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/transition-council?hl=en.


No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.819 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2878 - Release Date: 05/16/10
11:26:00