Enterprise Issues
With Siaka Momoh
Harvey Mackay did a clinical treat of this subject in his Swim with the Sharkswithout Being Eaten Alive. As regards not being one’s own hatchet man, he recalls Ike had Nixon, Reagan had Reagan… He argues you have to get someone who can get too tough, mean and unpopular. He says you are the peerless leader. Mackay says you want to be known as the good guy, as the one serving on community boards (the one flagging corporate social responsibility), the one making new business presentations, and the business leader that is the darling of the press. Not one that lays off employees at Christmas or one that dislikes labour unions. For him, your public performance won’t fly if you are the one who has to crack the whip at home. How do you run a business? That was his next question. And he proffers an answer, perhaps in case you do not know how: “You understand the strengths and weaknesses of the people you are dealing with and exploit them – in the best sense of the word – to build strong personal loyalties and to make sure everyone plays his or her role.” Ostensibly to carry you along, he says “Even though this sounds like a bad B-school text, doesn’t it make a little more sense? In another breathe; Mackay says if you are going to be your own hatchet man, “be a damn good hatchet man”. He argues classic slave drivers like Harold Geneen, Lyndon Johnson, General George Patton, and Vince Lombardi are too larger than life to be prettied up by public relations. For him, no large organizations, especially one with a strong desire to be a winner, survives without a little bit of Attila at the top. He identifies those who do this as the COO or the director of operations or occasionally, the CEO himself. But there is a price to pay for this, he says – with the community and the press, with his employees – but most of all, with his counterparts in other companies. He tells you the arsenals you need to play the tough guy. Wisdom demands you bring the following strengths to the fore, he advises: · Exceptional intelligence with the ability to ask tough questions from 9.00 am until quitting time; · Fair-mindedness; · Maintenance of extremely high performance standards for yourself; · Commitment to keep your guard up continually (and cynically); · The ability to share criticism like a duck shedding raindrops. For Mackay, you must have the mindset of a drill sergeant, your troops aren’t going to love you, but they will respect you – as long as you can prove to them you are tougher than they are and you are willing to drive yourself even harder than you are driving them. He believes establishing this kind of style is like playing corporate ‘ King Mountain ’ He says with the style, everybody competes with everyone else in the place for the turf or gets thrown off the pile. He concludes it is not his first recommendation, “but if it’s for you, go to it”. The two styles postulated by Mackay are okay and are in practice. In Nigerian Breweries Plc. in the 1970s (it was Nigerian Breweries Limited then), the commercial manager played the role of the hatchet man. The chief executive then was up there doing all the strategizing and featuring in public functions. The commercial manager was tough. He flushed out of the system, two senior managers of the accounts department who were found wanting. Little I, fresh from school, was an accounts clerk in the department then. It was quite an interesting scene. Late Dora Akunyili was a good example of a chief executive who was her own hatchet woman. You are aware of the tough manner she managed NAFDAC. And you and I know how much the iron lady was abhorred by fake drug and other goods barons whom she consistently kept on their toes. |