The Fine Art of Being the Boss

I had occasion to choose one man from a list of five candidates for promotion to a top executive position. Accompanying the mass of reports and documents concerning the five men was a covering roster that listed them according to the length of their experience. The first man on the list was far and away the most experienced, in the sense that he'd held executive positions nearly five years longer than his closest rival. Had I been content to use amount of experience as the sole yardstick, he would have been my choice. According to legend, the Roman emperor Hadrian once found himself in an analogous position. One of his generals, the story goes, felt overdue for promotion. He took his case to the emperor and cited his long service as justification. "I am entitled to a more important command," he declared. "After all, I'm very experienced--I've been in ten battles."

Hadrian, a shrewd judge of men and their abilities, did not consider the man qualified for higher rank. He waved a casual hand at some army donkeys tethered nearby. "My dear general," Hadrian said dryly, "take a good look at those donkeys. Each of them has been in at least twenty battles--yet all of them are still donkeys."

The point, of course, is that length of experience alone is not an infallible gauge by which to measure a man's executive ability. Although the most experienced man was a capable and, indeed, valuable executive in the post he held, his experience had been limited to a narrow and highly specialized field. Despite the fact that he had been an executive for considerably longer than any of the other candidates for promotion, there was nothing to indicate that he could handle the diverse responsibilities that would be required of him in the higher position. As it happened, I chose a man who stood third on the list insofar as length of experience was concerned. But this man was a proved and skillful manager who had demonstrated his ability to cope with a wide variety of responsibilities.

I am afraid that many businessmen fall into the habit of placing far too much emphasis on experience without really understanding what the term should mean. Experience is qualitative, not quantitative. It's an old personnel managers' saw that many a man with ten years' experience has really had only one year's experience repeated ten times. Experience in doing one kind of work, repeating more or less similar tasks year after year, can certainly improve manual skills. The surgeon who has removed 300 sets of tonsils is far more likely to perform a smooth tonsillectomy than the intern who has yet to perform his first. But beyond a very limited point, one-dimensional, repetitive experience does not achieve the same end when mental processes are involved. In business, the effects are frequently the opposite. Too much time spent doing the same things tends to stultify the mind and petrify the imagination. The result is a poor boss.

It seems to me that many businessmen today--both those on top and those on the way up--have lost sight of the basic ingredients that constitute a good executive. The business schools, especially, in their desire to make business a science rather than an art, have fostered this confusion. By the early Twenties, Harvard's President Lowell was declaring that business administration is "the oldest of the arts and the newest of the professions."

Lowell's words occasioned some understandably ribald comments. They also inspired great rejoicing among businessmen who were still a bit self-conscious about "being in trade." Suddenly, Lowell had liberated them from the vaguely suspect milieu of the market place and conferred a prestige that placed them on a par with such traditional community pillars as physicians, attorneys and theologians.

Personally, I don't see what difference a name makes. If an executive wants to think that business management is a profession, fine--as long as he does his business managing efficiently. In other words, as long as he is a good boss. If press agents can be public-relations counselors and sewer cleaners sanitary engineers, then bosses can be professional business administrators.

The problem is that the word is often father to the deed. Business "professionalism" can encourage bureaucratic corpulence, trapping the manager in sterile formalism and unproductive ritual. The high priests of professionalism are specialists, whom business observer Clarence Randall once described as "the men who, with infinite patience, skill and (continued on page 146)Being the Boss(continued from 143) learning, have completely mastered one minuscule segment of a business and can do nothing else." To repeat, these are precisely the people who should not be bosses.

Worse, the cult of professionalism has merged into a newer cult of "business science," around which a vast, complex (and at times totally incomprehensible) mystique is forming. Each year, countless executives will spend untold hours in seminars, conferences and study groups, listening to pundits expound on the science of business management. These conferences have a habit of flourishing whenever business is good and the stock market is roaring. The argument presented at these revival meetings is essentially the same doctrine preached at many of our more advanced business schools: that all management functions can be reduced to mathematical equations. This woolly-headed notion holds that executives working in a committee room can somehow concoct remedies for business problems with all the ease of laboratory chemists producing a desired compound by mixing materials according to formula.

But to argue that business management is a science, in the sense that chemistry is a science, is to misunderstand the functions of management and to disregard its most significant element: people. Management--the fine art of being boss--is nothing less than the direction of human activities, obtaining results through people. Formal business education can only form a basis on which a man can build. It is not a guarantee that an individual can step forth into the business world qualified to manage as much as a candy store. At least in theory, the trained physician can set a broken leg the day he hangs his diploma on the wall. But no theory in the world holds that a man with one, two or even three degrees in business administration can repair a cracking corporate structure merely because he has a collection of sheepskins hanging on his office wall. Getting results through people is a skill that cannot be learned in a classroom.

Feel, intuition and the willingness and ability to make decisions and then see them through--these are other marks of the top-notch boss. They are also non-academic traits. And they are most definitely not things that can be plucked off graphs, caught in market-research nets nor dredged from the electronic bowels of a computer. When I first started drilling in the Oklahoma oil fields, the consensus of expert judgment held that there could be no oil in the so-called Red Beds region. The known "facts" and all specialist opinion would have convinced anyone using conventional scientific method to avoid the Red Beds area. Certainly, if a computer had been available and all the existing data fed into it, the machine would have given a loud and one-sided no.

But like so many oilmen, I chose to temper all "analytical" thinking with a healthy dose of nonlogical subjectivity. To me, the area looked as if it might hide oil. Largely on the basis of a hunch, I decided to see for myself. I began drilling in the Red Beds, struck oil and brought in a vast new producing field. I rather suspect that by relying on such nontextbook thought processes, and taking attendant risks, the biggest fortunes have been made--in oil and in other endeavors.

Then, too, the business world would be a melancholy one if all decision making were reduced to mathematical equations. If all the risk--and by that I mean not only the dangers but the zest and the excitement--were removed from business, then the businessman might as well take a civil-service job.

Management is much more than a science. Its skills cannot be systematized, learned by rote nor practiced according to formula. Business is an art--even a creative art. You would think that businessmen would even prefer it this way. I personally derive immense satisfaction from the knowledge that I am practicing an art, that I am creating. After all, the successful boss who builds a business that serves a constructive purpose is no less a creative artist than the painter who produces a fine canvas. The manager who ably directs human activities, who works through human beings to produce more and better goods or services at lower cost for more people is, by any standard, doing creative work. He is creating jobs, comfort, welfare--a higher standard of living. He is leading people to perform constructive work well, for the benefit of themselves and others. The boss who accomplishes this is as much a creative artist as the stage director who brings out the best in a group of actors and inspires them to give memorable performances for the edification of their audiences. I doubt seriously if anyone would argue that the dramatic arts are a science or that directors are scientists. Then why, in the name of all that's rational, insist on trying to make a scientist out of a business executive whose function is, in effect, analogous to that of the director?

I consider myself fortunate to have learned my basic lessons in the art of handling people not at a business school but in the Oklahoma oil fields. It was a school that, if short on management manuals, was certainly long on practical training. My earliest lessons were taught me by the drilling superintendents, tool-dressers and other men under whom I worked while serving my apprenticeship. The experience, in my opinion, was all the more valuable--and left a deeper and more lasting impression--for having been acquired the hard way.

Generally speaking, bosses in the oil fields fell into two categories. Some--luckily, a small minority--were bullies. They relied on the loud, profane bellow to get men working and used the short right to the jaw or the long kick in the pants to provide their subordinates with inspiration and motivation. The majority, while no less demanding, tempered their toughness with reason, understanding and, more often than not, a gruff sense of humor. They, too, expected their orders to be obeyed without delay or argument, but they were not bullies. They realized they were dealing with human beings and used a straightforward and entirely human approach: "Look, we've got a job to do--now let's do it."

Such was the extent of the pep talks in the oil fields. Not much more was needed. The "super" knew not only his own job but also the jobs of every man in his crew. His "technical qualifications," as the modern textbooks on management would have it, were proved. The men who worked under him were acutely aware of this. They also knew he worked as hard as they did.

The men feared few things as much as the opprobrium they would earn from their fellows if they failed to pull their weight. Hence, the good superintendent rarely had to play slave driver. However, if a laggard did persist in soldiering on the job, there was one growled phrase that almost always achieved the desired results: "Get a move on--or get your pay!"

It was by working in such an environment and among such men that I began to understand the fundamental principles of being boss--the how, why and wherefore of getting things done through people. Later, when I went into business for myself as a wildcatter, I had ample opportunity to apply what I had already learned--and to gain more experience. This "postgraduate" process of learning what it meant to be the boss instead of the bossed was not always an easy one. I was young and, I fear, my lack of seasoning occasionally caused me to be impatient, impetuous--and to make errors in handling the men who worked for me.

I recall one incident that, though minor in itself, proved instructive on several counts. My men and I were drilling a well and the bailer brought up samples of sand that indicated we might be nearing oil. About the same time, I noticed a roustabout, named Hank, who wasn't working as fast nor as hard as I thought he should. Impatient and annoyed, I gave him an angry bawling out. (continued on page 198)Being the Boss(continued from 146) "Damn it, get cracking!" I barked as a coda to my tirade.

"Ok, boss," Hank replied quietly--but he gave me a peculiar look. A little later, I discovered that he'd painfully injured his right hand earlier that morning. He could have taken off to obtain medical assistance, but, because he didn't want to let the crew--or me--down, he'd elected to say nothing and stay on the job. Having learned this, there was nothing for me to do but go to him--and say my piece.

"I'm sorry I went off half-cocked," I said--and meant it. "I'll drive you into town, so someone can look at that hand."

"It's OK, I'll work out the shift," Hank replied. At that point, the drilling super spoke up.

"Let him finish the shift, boss," the super urged.

"Not a chance." I shook my head. "If the hand gets worse, Hank might not be able to do any work for days or even weeks. Besides, a man with a bad hand has no business around drilling equipment--he could cause serious accidents."

Both men stared at me for a long moment. Then they grinned. "You're right, boss," Hank declared, and the super nodded agreement.

On the face of it, the incident might appear insignificant; however, some highly valuable management tips can be drawn from it. As boss, I had made a mistake, one that could have caused resentment among all the members of the crew and thus resulted in lowered efficiency and production. However, as soon as I learned my error, I acknowledged it frankly, apologized sincerely and offered to make reasonable and proper amends by taking the roustabout to a doctor. This served immediately to re-establish a sound employer-employee relationship.

But when the man refused my offer and wanted to work out his shift--and the super chimed in to support him--I asserted my authority and overruled them both. This step was dictated by self-interest as well as a sense of responsibility toward the employee--a fact I made no effort to hide. However, when it was all over and done with, there was no doubt in anyone's mind as to who was the boss.

I believe that most sound and effective employer-employee relationships rest on foundations that are no more complex. I'll grant there are many and enormous differences between being a wildcatting oil operator 50 years ago and being a manager in--or the head of--a company today. Yet, as the French say, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The boss still has to deal with people. John L. McCaffrey, former president of International Harvester, is credited with making the wry observation that "the biggest trouble with industry is that it is full of human beings." Therein, of course, lies the biggest universal management problem: how best to direct human beings in order to get things done through them.

Different businessmen have applied different solutions to the problem. Andrew Carnegie, for instance, was a domineering, tyrannical employer who drove his subordinates mercilessly. Carnegie ruled his business enterprise with a mailed fist, which he seldom bothered to sheathe in a velvet glove. He used every Machiavellian trick in the book to obtain desired results. When tongue-lashing, acid sarcasm, threats or similar spurs failed, Carnegie would resort to the classic dictator's divide-and-conquer technique. Pitting his aides against one another in a spirit of blatantly unfriendly competition, he would stir up bitter rivalries and jealousies among them--so that each man would strive furiously to outdo the next. From an icily practical viewpoint, it must be conceded that these ruthless tactics achieved impressive goals. Carnegie's browbeaten subordinates performed astounding feats, helping him build one of the greatest industrial empires the world has ever seen.

However, when considering Carnegie or any of the famous captains of industry who were his contemporaries, it must be remembered that these men thrived in an era of laissez-faire economic philosophy. Theirs was an age in which the boss was accepted as the unquestioned master of his domains, which, if he so chose, he could rule as a benevolent--or malevolent--despot.

Thankfully, these times have long passed. Although there are still some atavistic examples of the autocratic boss to be found, they are comparatively few, and even these are much circumscribed. In fact, there are signs that the pendulum may have swung too far in the opposite direction. Often we now find that the boss is no longer a figure of authority at all but an individual who persuades rather than directs, who makes many suggestions but rarely gives an order. Glowing with benign tolerance, he is consumed by a mortal fear of giving offense--to anyone, especially his subordinates. My personal feeling is that the emergence of business professionalism and the "science" of business management has played a large role in this weakening of the figure of the boss. The concept of business as science largely rejects that of the forceful individual leader, replacing him with such pale substitutes as the committee--a device that is much safer for "organization men" because it diminishes authority and thereby diffuses responsibility. When a mistake is made, it's easy to fire an individual but difficult to fire an entire committee. However, committee-made policy is almost invariably bland policy. The guiding motto is, "Don't rock the boat."

The younger generation of executives seems the most culpable, but the man who gave us the term organization man, William H. Whyte, Jr., has pointed out that youth may not deserve all the blame. "Older executives are partly responsible for the younger man's outlook," he writes, "for they often sound as if the thing they love most is deferring to colleagues, delegating authority to subordinates, and in general submerging themselves in the team."

John Kenneth Galbraith, in The New Industrial State and more recent writings, has offered a different theory to explain why many modern corporations seem to be characterized by (in his phrase) "the bland leading the bland." Galbraith's argument is that the modern corporation has obsoleted the supply-and-demand mechanism. Traditional economics says that demand must originate with the consumer, but Galbraith says that modern corporations now create such demand themselves, through advertising and other devices.

Like most businessmen I know, I am suspicious of economic theory. But if Galbraith is correct, it's easy to see why at least some corporations prefer committee rule to individual leadership. If a corporation can control demand for its products (in a sense, it already controls supply), then it need not pay attention to the market place at all. Instead, it can look elsewhere for goals, high among which, I have little doubt, will be the security and enrichment of its own management.

In the business ventures in which I have been involved, I have never had the luxury of being able to control demand for my products. This is one reason I am suspicious of Galbraith's hypothesis. However, I have seen what happens when a company forgets about the market place and tries to cater to internal goals. I once took over a company that, after a period of some success, had fallen into the doldrums. Sales--and profits--had fallen and the concern, although fundamentally sound and with a good potential, simply wasn't showing the old spark.

Only a once-over survey of the situation was needed to determine what was wrong. The company's executives--all the way to the top--had obviously decided that diffusing responsibility, and thus saving everyone's skin, was more important than bearing down and taking aggressive steps to boost sales and profits. I held a series of forthright conferences with these men. "What do you think you're here to do?" I asked them in essence. "To create a great big--but broke--happy family or to build a prosperous company?" A few didn't seem to get the point. A few others did but were unable to change their ways. The remainder understood completely and made the most of it. They became bosses in the best sense of the word. They did not abruptly turn into tyrants--and there was no need for them to do that. They merely accepted responsibility and authority and became hard-driving, conscientious managers.

In short, they realized it was better to hold the reins of their departments firmly in their own hands than to have them held collectively by the members of some committee. After all, outward appearances can easily be deceptive; despite apparent harmony among them, not every member of a committee is necessarily pulling in the same direction. In any event, these men and a transfusion of equally aggressive, profit-minded new executives soon had the company in good health.

I would be the last to advocate a return to the despotic, laissez-faire management techniques that prevailed in the business world of my youth. But I certainly think it's time to dump the authority-dodging committee system. It won't be easier to do business in years to come. Competition will always be stiff and companies and men not capable of meeting the challenges will continue to fall by the wayside. There is need for more flexibility, adaptability and, above all, more individual responsibility, and the change will have to begin at or near the top. There must be less blandness, less discussion and less bending over backward to avoid ruffling sensitive feelings. I think the day of the organization executive who can't stand criticism or give a no-nonsense order but who relies, instead, on the conference-room sewing circle is just about over. We have already seen, in the rise of the conglomerates, a return to the concept of management by individuals rather than by committees. True, the conglomerates took their comeuppance in the stock market, but this was not a reflection on their management techniques. The conglomerate structure--lean and hungry companies headed by strong individual personalities under a broad corporate roof--is a sound one. It will provide great management opportunities in years to come.

I doubt if anyone has defined the boss's fundamental responsibility more clearly than Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor. "The worst crime against the working people," he said, "is a company which fails to make a profit." The first duty of the boss is to ensure that his company will not commit this worst crime. To achieve that end, the boss of tomorrow will be a generalist, not a specialist, with a broad overview not only of his corporation but of the world it inhabits. He will be a man willing--even eager--to accept responsibility for his own decisions and willing, too, to assert strong authority in order to do his job and see that his subordinates do theirs. To my mind, such a man could do far worse than to model himself--as, in a way, I have done--after the old-time oil-field drilling superintendents. These were tough men who knew their work thoroughly, worked hard and conscientiously, made their men do the same--yet were always entirely human.

While on the subject of remaining human, I would like to add something of a postscript. In all my writing about the pursuit of business success--its joys, its challenges and its immense rewards--I have perhaps not emphasized strongly enough that the ultimate goal of the businessman, whether he be boss or trainee, middle manager or entrepreneur, is not primarily to forge a corporate empire but to fulfill himself. I speak from bitter experience and with deep regret at my own personal failures when I say that the narrow-minded pursuit of the "bitch-goddess success" frequently begets serious domestic dilemmas.

Burgeoning work loads and ever-increasing demands on time and energy are almost inevitable corollaries of business achievement--and they greatly reduce the time a man is able to devote to home and family. At ideal best, wife and children understand and adjust and the integrity of the family unit is maintained. At dismal worst--and with five marital disasters to my debit, I'm hardly unfamiliar with this extreme--there is no rapport. Marriage and family disintegrate. All too belatedly, I now appreciate that an ounce of domestic prevention is worth a courtroom full of cure. If I have any hindsight advice to offer, it is of a very humble nature: The businessman should take his wife and children into his confidence--explaining his work, his dreams and his hopes--and he should miss no opportunity to demonstrate that he is not only a businessman but a husband and a father, worthy and giving of love as well as of substance.