Authors: Reynold Levy
Life’s Compensations
In our commercial, free-enterprise society, undue emphasis is placed on money, on what one is earning. There is a widespread view that what matters most is how much an employer pays in salary and bonuses, if any, and what is offered in other terms and conditions of employment.
My experience demonstrates otherwise, especially in nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations and in government service. Those drawn to these workplaces are more concerned with making a difference than making a buck. They are moved by psychic compensation, the timely acknowledgment of a job well done, the expression of appreciation in front of their peer groups and families.
Expressing thanks takes time. It is time wisely spent. Praise well delivered buoys the spirit. It motivates, inspires, and encourages as much if not more than restricted stock options and golden parachutes do in the corridors of our nation’s corporations. “I can live for two months on a good compliment,” said Mark Twain.
A thank-you note for superior performance. The timely expression of appreciation for a job well done. The surprise gift of a book sent in the mail to enrich an employee’s experience of her work or to expand her intellectual and professional horizons. The reference letter for an employee’s child to be admitted into a nursery school, private elementary or secondary school, or college. The advocacy letter for preferential hospital admission for an employee’s parent, relative, or friend. The supportive missive to a co-op board or a private club on behalf of a trustee or volunteer. All of these forms of communication matter a great deal to those who benefit from them.
Even those who work in for-profit firms are extremely responsive to the well-timed message of appreciation. By now, the propensity of Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, to send handwritten
notes of praise to employees located in all levels of the organization has become legendary. I suspect it is a practice not widely emulated. It should be. Communicating how much you value your colleagues is powerful.
Reward and recognition are underutilized management techniques. Repair to them frequently. What you receive in loyalty and applied energy in return is priceless.
Self-Discipline
The respect people accord to those who work hard never ceases to amaze me. Return phone calls, e-mails, and paper correspondence on the day they are received. Be available, as needed, to your fellow employees, trustees, sources of funding, and key influentials. Exhibit energy. Exude optimism. As Vince Lombardi reminds us, “The only place success precedes work is in the dictionary.”
It is the CEO who should be looking to shape an institutional future beyond the next quarter or the next fiscal year. Seeing further ahead and orchestrating the staff forces around you are major responsibilities. Discharge them with care.
Paying attention. Staying alert. Recognizing that methodical and regularly scheduled business reviews will help reach better outcomes. Organizational life is itself a process of continuous improvement. It is about executing well on hundreds of little things constantly.
Each time you dial your own phone, hold meetings outside your own office where your customer or client lives and works, and respond quickly to the needs of those you serve, respect for you broadens and the willingness to help you widens.
Seek Necessary Teamwork
Beverly Sills once asked me soon after I started to work at Lincoln Center what it needed most. My quick answer caught her attention: “A chiropractor.”
My observation, then and now, is that Lincoln Center is favored by many sources of strength, but it is also hobbled by weakness, apparent and undetected. If an organizational chiropractor could help
employees and constituents align behind a common plan, the positive energy unleashed would be phenomenal.
It is the CEO who can most effectively bring employees together, motivate them to work cooperatively, seek common ground, and raise their aspirations. Effective leaders must spend valuable time making themselves understood. What they wish to achieve and why is not self-evident. It needs to be explained, early and often, and then be acted upon collaboratively.
Such harmonious teamwork is the stuff of uncommon institutional accomplishment. Setting inspiring objectives and then insisting on the cooperation required to achieve them is the essence of leadership.
During the early, darkest moments of my tenure at Lincoln Center, when its physical redevelopment was really threatened, no one seemed to be listening, not just to me but to anyone else. Short-term interests were espoused by constituents without much regard for their impact on others. Positions were presented in shrill, uncompromising ways. Creating conditions and articulating positions that would facilitate a meeting of the minds seemed impossible.
I remember reminding the group that we seemed to be conducting ourselves completely incorrectly:
Go [I said], visit the Harvard rowing team.
What you will find is that 8 people are rowing and one is shouting, not the other way around.
Can we try that approach?
Like-mindedness and cooperation demand decisiveness. In my experience, members of the board and staff welcome an informed resolve by their leader. Drift, procrastination, and delay are the enemies of productive teamwork. As the CEO, what you are ultimately paid for is your judgment and your capacity to persuade others to join you.
Climbing a Wall of Worry
Leaders I most admire are always running scared. They are alert to threats. They constantly ask themselves what could go wrong. They do not assume that yesterday’s success preordains good results tomorrow.
Quite the contrary. They most fear complacency. They never rest on their laurels. In fact, they rarely rest at all.
The propensity to look closely and regularly at the world around Lincoln Center for opportunities and threats is the stuff of leadership. There is a high correlation between lost sleep and being in charge. When you are at the top of a complex, high-quality, highly visible institution, there is always plenty to keep you up at night. Besides, sleep is highly overrated. Herb Alpert, the famous trumpeter, is quoted as saying, “While you are sleeping, someone else is practicing.”
The List and the Watch: A Manager’s Allies
When you are in charge of a complex organization, a constant challenge is the effective management of your scarcest resource: time.
Every high-performing chief executive I have ever encountered comes to the office each and every day determined to work through an inner-directed agenda. Outside influences like e-mail, paper correspondence, phone calls, and unplanned meetings are all expected. They go with the territory. Indeed, for a CEO, interruptions are an indispensable part of the job.
Often, sudden and unexpected demands on your time will reveal opportunities and threats that are not otherwise readily apparent. In the laudable effort to operate efficiently and effectively, do not close yourself off from those inside or outside the organization who wish to bring to your attention new ideas or courageously raise unexpected problems.
Let’s concede that some portion of every day must be devoted to the unknown and the unexpected. Still, success requires a leader who is clear about what should be accomplished, works persistently on realizing priority goals, and persuades colleagues to move in the same direction.
Doing this demands discipline. Two allies can offer indispensable help: the list and the watch. Every day of the week, I write out by hand lists: of calls to place; e-mails to write; meetings to schedule; names of employees awaiting the delegation of tasks and responsibilities; and books, articles, and documents to review.
Early mornings and late evenings are devoted to reading and writing, leaving the normal business day to working telephones, conducting
meetings, responding to internal and external requests, and “management by walking around.”
Self-awareness is critical to management improvement. Am I spending time on matters that could be handled better by someone who reports directly to me? Is completing any given task taking up too much of my time? Are there repetitive instances in which I must resort to my own devices, revealing the inadequacy of an employee who should be handling those very tasks? Am I a victim, too often, of “upward delegation”?
Often, managers ignore or give short shrift to the opportunity cost of doing too many things themselves. They “crowd out” others from assuming responsibilities and exercising leadership. The CEO can unlock talent, unleash energy, and stimulate creativity by pausing to consider who in the organization would relish an assignment, rather than tackling the challenge at hand herself.
If the well-composed list helps to ensure that I am addressing considered priorities, then my other trustworthy friend is the watch. Time is a precious and perishable commodity. Whether and when to act is as important as the content of a decision. In my experience, the passage of time has much more often been an enemy than an ally. As time is often in short supply, how it is managed at work really matters to efficiency and effectiveness.
One of my niftiest time savers is the screen on the telephone that marks the passage of seconds as one speaks. It serves as a constant reminder that conversations needn’t take long unless relaxed exchanges serve a useful purpose. Clipped telephone check-ins with staff usually do the trick.
Meetings should be handled the same way. Always start them and end them on schedule. Always be sure they have an expressed purpose, and that participants are encouraged to arrive fully prepared.
I try to think of group encounters as performances. I keep fully in mind what I hope to accomplish. I attempt to move the give and take of discussion to that end. Treating your day as a series of engagements, each of which should achieve something tangible, helps to induce discipline. Of course, if you can’t figure out what you hope to realize in any given meeting or during any phone call, that is a very good indication of its not being necessary.
When I was studying for a doctorate at the University of Virginia and a law degree at Columbia University and working part-time or full-time to make ends meet, I occasionally sought appointments with important figures at school and with employers of all kinds. Often, I simply sought general advice, the kind best proffered by those blessed with an abundance of professional experience. My entreaties were advanced politely and deferentially by letter. They offered what I thought was a sound rationale for a half hour of time. More often than not, these missives and the telephone calls that followed them were turned aside pretty routinely and brusquely, even rudely. I was stunned by the lack of generosity to a young guy earnestly looking for guidance. The guardians at the gates of busy people were well armed.
In my late twenties, I promised myself that if I ever achieved a measure of success noteworthy enough for others to seek my advice, I’d see them, no questions asked.
For a couple of decades, I fully redeemed that pledge. Strangers saw me for counsel on job hunting, on a midlife crisis, and on admission to graduate school. Could I help gain access for their precocious three-year-old to the 92nd Street Y’s nursery school? Could I provide some counsel on a knotty leadership or management challenge?
Nothing seemed off-limits. While this was very time-consuming, I continued to remember where I came from. There but for the passage of decades, I could still be that supplicant eager for help.
Well, my open-door policy became indistinguishable from a free-for-all. Few dentists could boast a calendar as crowded as mine. No one paid me for these counseling sessions, but I didn’t administer root canals or Novocain, either! Finally, I decided, “enough.”
Then an idea occurred to me. Why not ask all who wished to see me to write a simple letter or e-mail stating succinctly what was on their minds and how they thought I could be of assistance? I promised that after receiving such a message, I would reply within twenty-four hours.
What a time-saving technique that proved to be. About half of those who expressed a desire to see me didn’t trouble to write at all! Others sought counseling that friends or colleagues of mine could offer more quickly or intelligently, sparing me the effort. Still others requested face-to-face advice so general that what would suit them best was basic reading, including speeches, articles, or books that I myself had written.
“Just read these, and I’ll be pleased to see you subsequently,” I would offer. There were very few takers.
These hardly high barriers to entry proved formidable enough to dissuade the idle and the semi-serious. Still, no small part of my working week was taken up with dispensing advice, but much, much less than had been the case before I employed my new technique.
I reported on this efficiency scheme to my wife. It met with her approval.
Then one evening, Liz asked what my next day would bring. I provided a rundown of a pretty standard schedule, but mentioned, ever so casually, that I was spending an hour with Cate Blanchett. “In whose company?” she wondered. “Just me,” I allowed.
“About what are you meeting?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well,” Liz wondered, “whatever happened to the required e-mail or letter requesting an appointment and stating its whys and wherefores?”
“Any rule worth its salt should enjoy an exception, don’t you think?”