Good management works anywhere
by Miki SaxonI really enjoy stories of how great managers turn around complex, sometimes mind-numbing, situations; who make really tough decisions, instead of taking the easy route (layoffs); believe in being open to customers by giving them 24/7 access and fast responses—not just feel-good talk; communicate clearly, avoiding ambiguity and obfuscation and who keep moving forward—even when they don’t win a battle.
Any names come to mind?
How about the CEO Mayor of New York City—Mike Bloomberg.
‘Bloomberg sees New York City as a corporation, its citizens as customers, its sanitation workers, police officers, clerks, and deputy commissioners as talent. He is the chief executive. Call him a technocrat all you want; he’s O.K. with that. ‘I hear a disparaging tone, like there’s something wrong with accountability and results,’ he says. ‘What was I hired for?’‘
‘Bloomberg had three options: cut services, raise taxes, or both. He did what no mayor had dared to do in more than a decade: He jacked up property taxes. And he didn’t agonize over the decision a bit. ‘It [was] easy to make that choice,’he recalls.’
‘Where most politicians would have seen only a fiscal solution to the budget gap, he spotted a marketing opportunity. He was protecting the New York City ‘brand.’ Bloomberg saw a low crime rate, good public transportation, and clean streets as indispensable to selling New York. Cutting back on services, he felt, would send the wrong message to the business community and the outside world.’
‘Bloomberg the executive was obsessive about catering to his customers, establishing 24-hour call lines, collecting data to help develop new products, and sending his executives out into the field to solicit feedback directly from clients. ‘Good companies listen to their customers, No. 1,’ he says. ‘Then they try to satisfy their needs, No. 2. But don’t let [them] drive the internal decisions of the company.’
‘Bloomberg himself each year makes three budget presentations in the same day: one to city council, another for other elected officials, and one to the press. He uses easy-to-follow charts and table…The approach has not only helped him in budget negotiations with city council but also fostered a smoother relationship with civic and advocacy groups…’
‘The semiannual mayor’s management report once exceeded 1,000 pages in three printed volumes. Today, the report…is 186 pages, available online…that allow New Yorkers to compare past and present. …the city plans and budget, once convoluted fiscal documents with only summaries available online, are now fully accessible on the city’s Web site. Before…agency’s overhead costs…were pooled as a single number. Now each agency breaks them out.’
And a final quote from Bloomberg that really says it all,
‘In business, you reward people for taking risks. When it doesn’t work out, you promote them because they were willing to try new things. If people come back and tell me they skied all day and never fell down, I tell them to try a different mountain.’ He adds: ‘I have always joked that [the difference between] having the courage of your convictions and being pigheaded is in the results.’
‘The real world, whether in business or government, requires that you don’t jump to the endgame [or] to success right away. ‘You do it piece by piece. Some people get immobilized when they come to a roadblock. My answer is, ‘you know, it’s a shame it’s there, but now where else can we go? Let’s just do it.’‘
