14,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Radical, creative, often extreme, and incredibly successful management techniques from a leading global entrepreneur
Written from the point of view of someone achieving business success in today's turbulent economy, Forget Strategy. Get Results offers you a fresh way of thinking about successfully managing any sort of business, under any conditions. Controversial, thought-provoking, and entertaining, it delivers TelecityGroup founder and former CEO, Michael Tobin OBE's, unconventional approach to management and shares the lessons he's learned on his path to building one of the world's largest data center provider companies. Radical, creative, often extreme, the techniques it describes are the same ones Michael used every day at TelecityGroup, and with which he has achieved nothing short of awe-inspiring results.
- Inspiration and practical tips for managers or business leaders who are stuck in a rut and in search of new ways to motivate their teams, make bolder decisions and handle change with more agility
- Makes managers at all levels rethink and reassess the way they plan, manage, and deliver vision in their organizations
- Identifies eleven fundamental rules that any manager or leader can adopt at any level in any organization
- Identifies the core characteristics that underpin Michael Tobin's, OBE controversial management philosophy and illustrates how they have been applied with fascinating, often hilarious stories and vignettes
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 257
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Endorsements
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Introduction
1: Fear
The Problem: The fear of fear itself
The Solution: Swimming with sharks
The Outcome: Emerging from the challenge
No fear?
Taking it back to basics
There is a time to let go
2: Freedom
The Problem: Heading into unknown territory
The Solution: Pushing the boundaries
The Outcome: A team for the future
We all have different freedoms
3: Flexibility
The Problem: Cherchez le client
The Solution: Let your fingers do the walking
The Outcome: La vie en rose
Vision is flexible. Strategy is static.
Doing nothing is never a solution
Give decisions maximum flexibility
Love it, leave it, change it
4: Failure
The Problem: The danger of loose talk
The Solution: Interrogation in Tallinn
The Outcome: Speaking with confidence
Define your successes, not your failure
“No” is a journey towards “yes”
Fail at the hurdles, win at the goals
5: Faith
The Problem: Spoilt for choice
The Solution: The leap of faith
The Outcome: Onwards and upwards
Respect everyone, hurt no one, regret nothing
Faith crops up when you least expect it
Keeping the faith
Face to face improves faith to faith
Tell your vision through stories
6: Fortune
The Problem: A vicious circle
The Solution: A true Christmas tale
The Outcome: The magic of happenstance
Realize how lucky you are
7: Fortitude
The Problem: It's war
The Solution: Overcoming demons
The Outcome: Stronger than before
Getting rid of what is dragging you down
Learn to turn off the pain and relieve the stress
Behave with grace under pressure
Building the strength to adapt
The fortitude of tough choices
8: Focus
The Problem: Pushing for more push
The Solution: The Lillehammer Run
The Outcome: Real momentum
Release the freedom of the hypertext mind
Relish fragmentation
No one can genuinely multitask
Get your focus right in Q1, don't wait for Q4
Focus on the positive
9: Fun
The Problem: Eyes firmly glazed
The Solution: Pulling rabbits from a hat
The Outcome: Abracadabra!
Adding entertainment value
Make sure you have fun at work
Unfreeze team tensions
10: Future
The Problem: Life itself
The Solution: Using the now to control the future
The Outcome: The future is bright
Be attuned to what lies ahead
The future is a fragmented but not a frightening place
The future is the possibility of change
On Groundless Ground
Acknowledgements
About Michael Tobin
“Michael Tobin is one of Britain's most successful and inspirational business leaders. His new book Forget Strategy is full of stories, observations, tips and ideas for leaders in the 21st century. From the opening – when Tobin turns up for an awards ceremony wearing a tee shirt and ripped jeans, only to discover it is a black-tie dinner – to swimming with sharks, a KGB-type interrogation or hiking an Icelandic glacier, Forget Strategy is about thinking differently. Even if you disagree with some of what Tobin has to say, the stories will stick in the mind. An inspirational must-read for anyone who wants to think through problems and find inventive solutions.”
Gavin Esler, BBC Presenter
“Michael Tobin avoids the traps of many management books and flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Focussing on EQ, his leadership approach delivers outstanding business performance and is equally relevant to an entrepreneur, someone taking their first steps into employment or a seasoned manager.”
James Bennet, MBE, Director, Ernst & Young LLP
“This is a concise and effective manual for personal and commercial success, penned by a friend who has ‘been there and done it’ privately and publically. One of his mantras, ‘Fear of failure closes you up. Feeling you have the power to change, to do something, is powerful. Don't worry about mistakes’ has driven his amazing business success and his remarkable and generous private life where he has helped so many, less fortunate than him. Read, learn the lessons, and execute them.”
Alastair Stewart, OBE
“Mike is a great person, an inspiration to so many and has created success for himself and his companies through hard work, dedication and being brave enough to make tough decisions when they're needed which is vital as a leader. Despite his rise to the top, he has remained humble throughout and stuck to his core values, which is so important. A book worth reading if success and how to face up to challenges is what you're after.”
Alec Stewart, OBE, Director of Cricket, Surrey CCC
“There is one thing of which I am certain. ‘Doing good is good for business’ and that just shines through in everything that Tobin does. He has one of the biggest hearts I know in business and that translates into customer and staff loyalty. It can also alter perceptions from hard-nosed analysts like me. I learnt a lot from this book. Not just about Tobin but it also made me rethink my own personal approach to business. I suspect it will for you too.”
Richard Holway MBE, Chairman, TechMarketView LLP
“It's amazing how Michael Tobin takes us through his own experiences to enlighten true fundamentals of leadership. It's a must-have book for any CEO.”
Miquel Lladó, Professor of General Management, IESE Business School
“Forget Strategy. Get Results. differs from the ‘traditional’ management books I have read in the past. Tobin is direct and the ‘F’ themes are a useful guiding principle through the book. Certainly some of the practices are really valid and you'll likely find yourself relating to some based on your own experiences, either as a leader or a follower.”
Carlos P. Hornstein, Head of US Executive Education, IESE Business School
“Pacey, direct, challenging and very well written.”
Professor Susan Blackmore, Psychologist, freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster
This edition first published 2014
© 2014 Michael Tobin
Registered office
John Wiley and Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com.
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademark or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-118-80878-8 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-118-80883-2 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-118-80881-8 (ebk) ISBN 978-1-118-80880-1 (ebk)
Cover design: Salad Creative Ltd
To my wife Shalina, whose “leap of faith” has given me happiness beyond measure
Introduction
“This book is about experiences that have stuck with me and ideas that have influenced my life. What I have learned has enabled me to empower and inspire people around me – people far brighter than I will ever be – to perform fabulous things. I am riding the waves of change.”
Often it takes someone else to point out that maybe you do things a little differently to other people. Because the way we behave in our life on a daily basis is – from our own point of view – simply the way we are.
A couple of years ago, I was trying to get back to London for an industry awards ceremony: I had been nominated as Personality of the Year, and the organizers were very keen for me to be there. I had taken a few days off to go skiing in Switzerland with my kids and was planning to fly back for the ceremony. As luck would have it, on the day itself, the weather was against me and all the flights were delayed or cancelled. I phoned in to say it didn't look like I was going to be able to make it after all. “Please make it,” was the message back. “We really need you to be here.”
There was a break in the weather, eventually, and well behind schedule a flight managed to get off the ground while the weather window was – precariously – open. I landed in London and, with minutes to spare, a cab whisked me over to the Grosvenor House Hotel just in the nick of time. As I walked into the ballroom, which was full to bursting with industry colleagues in immaculate tuxedos and evening wear, heads turned as they clocked my T-shirt and ripped jeans. “It's black tie,” hissed someone helpfully. “I know, I know, I couldn't help it,” I muttered as I sat down at the table.
The awards were announced and, gratifyingly, I had won the personality award I was up for. It was the main award of the night, and obviously explained why the organizers had been so insistent on my attendance. I made my way to the podium where the comedian Ed Byrne, who had been compering the event, made a suitably sardonic comment about my sartorial choice: “You could at least have made a f***ing effort.” I joshed with him – “Hark who's talking!” – since he was looking pretty scruffy too. We all laughed and the evening moved on. But the impact of that lasted a long time. I was, from then on, remembered as the guy in the ripped jeans who had picked up the main gong. And people thought how daringly different I had been to go up and get the award like that. They didn't know it was entirely faute de mieux.
Although I had not planned to turn up to the event in ripped jeans, I had still been determined to be there no matter what, against all the odds – a commitment to honouring promises that has always been important to me – and then be prepared to take a certain amount flak and ridicule for standing out quite so obviously. It played in my favour, because that was what made me memorable.
These things stick. Ever since, I have been asked to talk about my approach to work, to business, to management, because other people perceive it as being somehow different, radical or creative.
For me it is just a natural way of operating. A management technique that has grown organically and imperceptibly out of the experiences of my life, and the way I view the world – a world that demands a new approach to business, where old-school, analogue management techniques are defunct. Where fast, flexible, fearless business thinking is the only way forward.
So when, following a merger between two companies who had been fierce competitors, I needed to diffuse the tensions between colleagues who had until recently been bitter rivals, I took them up to the Arctic Circle where they would have to huddle up together to keep each other's bodies warm to survive the night. When I wanted to encourage my team to break old patterns of thinking, I treated them to an unprotected swim with sharks to learn how to confront fear. To help key members of the company learn to field tough press enquiries I arranged for them to be “abducted” and “interrogated” on a trip to Tallinn.
Extreme? Maybe. Unusual? Definitely. Effective? Yes. Even if the way I run my business seems to others a little out of the ordinary, there is always a clear reason behind it, a result I have in mind, a purpose I am determined to aim for.
Although I was taught how to perform tricks by a member of the Magic Circle, there is no magic formula. No smoke and mirrors. No sleight of hand. My approach to business is grounded in real-life pain and toil, twinned with a little left-field imagination, plenty of business experience, and, I hope, a liberal dash of nous and gut feeling.
I always try to respect everyone, hurt no one and regret nothing. It is a kind of a mantra for me. The problem is that it is almost impossible to do all those things all the time. They end up conflicting with each other. But life for me is all about how we meander through those conflicts, making the tough decisions. Otherwise what's the point?
The strategies and attitudes in this book are, to me, instinctive, practical common sense driven by the realities of commercial life in the 21st century. They are applications of the core characteristics that underpin the philosophy I apply personally every day, and which I try to instil in the people who work with me. I want to encourage them to stand on “groundless ground;” to have the courage to believe in something when there are no logical grounds to assume they should. Our company operates in the ever-changing IT sector, and we are constantly having to predict, react and adapt to technological shifts that in turn impact directly on the way we will all live and work.
I am definitely not trying to set down in stone The Thoughts Of Chairman Michael (or of CEO Michael at least). The ideas in this book are meant to help you review and rethink the way you currently do your job or run your own business or team. They should provoke a questioning, querying, quizzical mindset. You may find it provocative. You may think it is outrageous in places. But, best of all, you don't even have to agree with me.
I didn't go to university. I don't have a brain the size of a planet, unlike many of the people I have the privilege to work alongside or do business with. But I do believe that by reflecting on your own experiences in the right way you can apply a new type of thinking to the way you operate in the future. And, because those experiences are personal to you, you will be better equipped with flexible optionality than you would be if you were to follow a set of hard and fast rules or theories.
That way you can take the decisions and the initiative in creating an experience, fostering an attitude, and developing a memory, a culture and a vision that directly inspire the business success of a company.
I have divided up the book into ten chapters, each centred on what I call an F Factor: from Freedom to Fortitude, Focus and Faith. Each starts with a story from my business life: a problem I had to deal with, the solution I devised and the positive outcome that followed. The F themes are the essential strands of my business DNA, and I hope you will come away with questions you can pose to yourself about your own approach, and which may prompt fresh ways of thinking.
One of my F Factors is Fun: however serious and pressurized your business, however difficult and unrelenting the economic climate or market conditions, always leave a sliver of space to have fun, as well as doing business in a way that makes you feel good. If we can all achieve that, I believe the world of industry and commerce will be a far better place.
1
Fear
“I learnt early on in my life never to have regrets, to face the future whatever it was going to be, to make tough decisions by getting on and doing it.”
The Problem: The fear of fear itself
It was the summer of 2006, the really hot one. As a major merger loomed between the company that I was running at the time – Redbus – and Telecity, one of our fiercest competitors, I knew that core members of my staff were getting increasingly nervous about who amongst them might be at risk of losing their jobs.
There was history between the two companies. Since the late 1990s they had been sworn enemies, battling to dominate the nascent market for data centre capacity. At times the fighting had been nothing less than cut-throat.
However, I had a vision that if Redbus and Telecity could only be brought together as one entity, the new company that emerged would be able to reshape the industry, by pulling in the same direction rather than expending energy locked in a bloody battle. Competition between companies is healthy, but it can also be exhausting.
After two years trying to engineer the merger, and three or four failed attempts, I was finally at the point where, barring last-minute or unseen problems, the merger was on the verge of happening.
But my team was understandably worried. Each member knew that in most mergers there are going to be two people for each job and, out of necessity, one of those people will have to be let go. It was a time of tough decisions and there was nervousness about who would get fired. It was exacerbated by the fact that those who lost their job would do so to someone from the rival company they had been up against, some of them for their entire career.
I could sense, practically smell, the fear in my key management team. It was distracting them from the functions they had to carry on doing in the meantime. I needed them to confront and overcome that fear.
The Solution: Swimming with sharks
I wanted to create an experience that would help the team convert their fearfulness into fearlessness, something that would instil fear in them but then show them that their fear was unfounded.
“We went off to swim with sharks. Face to face with an icon of danger. This would be confronting fear by being thrown in at the deep end.”
We had, as we still do, a regular management meeting away from the office. On this occasion I booked us into a hotel in Edinburgh: we held a business meeting, talked about the future, and the merger. We also visited a local whisky museum and, one afternoon, I took them out towards the Forth Bridge, where the minibus turned into the Deep Sea World car park.
Everyone was relaxed, if somewhat puzzled. The first inkling they had of what I had in mind was when each of them was asked for their wetsuit sizes. I wasn't letting them in on anything. With the suits on, we all had breathing apparatus training. Already there was apprehension in the ranks. Some had never put a wetsuit on before, most had never used an aqualung. For a first-timer, the sensation of wearing the suit and the apparatus felt claustrophobic and very uncomfortable.
Once the training session was complete, I finally broke the news of what was ahead. “Listen up,” I said, “you are all going to be swimming with sharks. Down on the seabed, inside a man-made aquarium, but with no cages, no Plexiglas protection. Upfront and personal.” That was when the fear kicked in. It was palpable.
There were 13 of us on the outing. One of them had to be excused on medical grounds because he had a back problem. Fair enough. Four simply said they were too scared and were insistent they couldn't do it. I didn't try to railroad them, but left them to make up their own minds. While they thought about it, the others were being taken, two by two, into the water by the instructors. There was a five-minute swim down to the seabed, just long enough to get really frightened. Then you saw the sharks.
These were big beasts. Three-metre-long hammerheads and tiger sharks. When it was my turn the anticipation on the way down was definitely unpleasant but, once I was down there, I felt much better. It was extraordinary to be this close to the sharks. They swam right up to me, out of curiosity, but – well-fed by their handlers in advance – they were not looking for a little lunch. “Just don't put your hands out to touch them,” we had been advised. I hoped everyone would remember that because there was no insurance and I didn't want to lose anyone from the management team before I absolutely had to (and the danger was real – some years later there was an incident at the same centre when a staff diver was bitten by an angel shark).
As the groups of two went down, those left waiting their turn had an exquisitely painful time. They could watch each pair swimming down, then see them coming back out of the water – some absolutely buzzing with the wow factor, others just glad to be out of there, though still exhilarated. In the end everyone swam, bar one.
The Outcome: Emerging from the challenge
Once the shark dive was finished, we all went out to dinner. I asked everyone what they had felt when they realized what was in store. One guy said he had been excited, that it was something he had always wanted to do. Most of the others said they had felt a huge panic. Everyone admitted to having been terrified – regardless of the fact that the instructors diving with them had assured them it would be fine. Nothing the shark specialists said had alleviated a primeval fear.
And what about when they were on the seabed? That was still terrifying, they said, but nowhere near as terrifying as the anticipation and apprehension. As the seconds and then minutes ticked by and the sharks were only staring, not attacking, they had realized that what the instructors said was true. They started adjusting their expectations.
“And what did you feel when you came out?” I asked. “It was a life-changing experience.” “I was overcome. I dealt with something that I didn't even know was an issue.”
The shark swimming experience became embedded as part of company folklore. At my wedding in 2012, more than five years later, I had four best men, three of whom were part of the team who had been on that swim. And all of them mentioned it in their speeches.
That experience taught the whole team that it is easier to confront the reality than to dwell in apprehension.
The merger took place, and it was successful: the two main European rivals became the clear market leader, and subsequently had the critical mass to transform the data centre industry completely. Telecity turnover grew by over 350% in the following seven years.
My decision to go swimming with sharks was not macho posturing on my part, or just an excuse for a gimmicky awayday. Strangely, whenever I talk about the swim, people simply don't believe we did it. But it's true. I've got the photos to prove it. I talk about the sequence of dealing with initial, massive fear, moving to a phase of fear blended with excitement, and the life-changing exhilaration that follows. And, by reaching that final stage of exhilaration, you know that you can handle all the fear that went before. And they still insist, “No, you didn't do that …”
I didn't do this because I thought it would be a good story to tell. It had a genuine purpose, which led to a real impact on the people who took part, and was in turn an element of the ethos in the new company.
* *
If, by the way, you are not familiar with the data centre industry, here is a succinct explanation. A recent New Statesman focus on the industry put it this way: “A data centre is a building (or self-contained unit within a building) used to house computing equipment such as servers along with associated components such as telecommunications, network and storage systems.” Data centres handle vast quantities of digital data (and data has been described by McKinsey's Dennis Layton as “the iron ore for a new industrial revolution”), and play a vital part in the way our digital world operates, like a brain at the very centre of the global digital network.
No fear?
There was a best-selling business book in the 1980s, written by the American businessman Harvey Mackay, called Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate and Outnegotiate Your Competition. It was published in the era of Gordon Gekko, dog eat dog (or in Gekko-speak, “If you want a friend, get a dog”), ruthless, money-driven competitiveness. My swimming with sharks message is not about becoming a shark. Those days are over. It is about dealing with fear.
I believe that it is vital to learn how to remove the fear factor from business. That doesn't mean denying that fear exists. I still experience many fears. But to progress, grow and build, you have to channel fear, and make that change from fearful to fearless. Let's explore what that means in a business environment.
Address fear by accepting it as inevitable
Accept uncertainty as a fact of business life. If you are going to deliver more in business, you are going to have to head outside your comfort zone. Good business, successful business, demands the ability to encounter and confront tough business issues and decisions.
Hunkering down inside that comfort zone used to be the safe option – in the current climate, staying put and keeping your head down is no longer a guarantee of a natty gold watch on your retirement day. Nothing is guaranteed. Job security is an archaic concept. Progress involves poking your head above the parapet, taking a risk.
This is ever more important. We are living, working, succeeding or failing in a new environment, in which technology is changing at the fastest rate in history. We are living in an exponential world. There is no time for techno-fear: Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, has said, “The past 25 years have been the warm-up act. We are now entering the era in which technology will truly transform every aspect of business, government, education and society of life.” From the point of view of the IT sector, this is not only true but it will remain true for the foreseeable future.
The funny thing is, whoever is reading this book will have had x number of years' experience behind them, where they worried and pondered many times about many things. Funnily enough they are still sitting here reading this book. So they have got through all of those things. It is almost like inviting someone to go back in their mind and think about when they were really worried about something, desperately worried, and yet here they are. The sun keeps on coming up and you somehow get through it. And that goes back to the sharks.
Maybe that was a particularly extreme excitement, but often in daily life it doesn't have to be that extreme. You are enjoying yourself; take the time to appreciate that you are enjoying yourself.
Be prepared to make bold career moves
There has been a fear factor in every job I have taken on, every career decision I have made. I have always gone in way beyond my own comfort zone.
At each stage, other people have confidently told me I had no chance of getting the job I was going for, or achieving the targets I set for myself and others. Impossible? No way. I constantly took on what looked like ridiculous challenges: moving across to run business in countries that were new to me and where I didn't even know the language. At the age of 21 I was appointed MD of a French tech company. I didn't speak French. But I knew I could learn it there. I arrived in Paris the weekend before starting the job, without an apartment. The prospect was daunting. The potential for being frozen with fear was high. I didn't know any better so I got on with it. Maybe I'm just bolshy by nature. But I prefer to think of it as being fearless.
Convert fear into a positive excitement about future possibilities
How can you pass on that sense of not being afraid of fear to colleagues? One of the most common examples I come across is with those who have specific targets to achieve. Let's say they need to achieve £1 million in sales and, at the moment, with the year end approaching all too fast, it looks like they will fall short by a quarter of a million. In most companies they will be feeling afraid, fearful of what that “failure” to achieve an agreed target might mean in terms of their career, job security, peer pressure.
I try to encourage them to step outside the fear, by telling them, “You are already a success for achieving 75%+ of your target. Now set yourself a higher target – get rid of your fear of not making that 100% because you don't need to be afraid. Go out there, and get me 105% – and by taking that ridiculously challenging opportunity and making it successful, when no one else could think you would do it, you will be a hero. Choose that outcome and then go back and find the building blocks you need to make it.”
Appreciate the excitement of doing something that scares you
Rather than worrying about the prospect of leaving your comfort zone, remember the buzz that everyone on my team felt after swimming with the sharks. Embrace the fear and enjoy the feeling of conquering it. This is the art of converting distress into de-stress.
Many companies have experienced what has been called a “crucible moment,” a tough, scary phase when everything could have gone disastrously wrong, but which the team survived and from which they emerged stronger, tempered like steel. They have taken tangible lessons away from nerve-wracking experiences and turned them into working practices and protocols.
