The Hindu Business Line : Don't buy into anything you do not understand

WHAT is common between a performing top management and a good jazz quartet? The team members listen to and improve with one another to create harmony. What is more important than an apple a day? An idea a day is the answer, because the key to a long life is a restless curiosity.

These and more insights are what Sidney Harman offers in Mind Your Own Business, a Currency Book (www.currencybooks.com), that is "a frank, no-nonsense guide for those who want to bring strength, vitality, and values to their business."

"A welcome contrast to the bad behaviour of business leaders recently dominating the news," is how the blurb describes the book and it has an audience to address. "The corporate misdeeds of self-serving executives during the high-octane economy of the 1990s have forced many people to rethink the qualities that make a strong leader."

There are two ways to conduct business, many would say: The traditional way, as taught in business schools, and the `deeply flawed New Economy way.' There is a third way, says the author: "The maverick's way looks not to the dogma of the past, nor to existing models of action and behaviour, but struggles to determine what is truly effective regardless of traditions and trends." This, he calls, a mutant of the Old Old and the New New, the New Old Thing.

Don't stifle creativity by not thinking outside the box. That would be like accepting the hospitality of Procrustes, a villain in Greek mythology who ensnared his victims to his bed where their legs would be stretched or cut off to accommodate the length of the bed — the `ultimate one size fits all.'

There is the easy part of running a business — creating budgets, exercising business controls and managing cash flow. What is tough then? "Negotiating the interplay of personalities and helping them work together effectively." Thus, the hard part is where the leader has to "deal with the temperamental employee who responds to every question or challenge as a personal rebuke, and with the seasoned veteran who strives to keep others at arm's length."

An important section of the book discusses `profit and loss fundamentals', where Harman prescribes what knowledge the CEO should have: "The chairman or the CEO need not be a financial or accounting expert, but he should be financially literate." Why? Because the numbers are merely symbols for the important stuff. "What counts is knowing what those numbers really mean. I always reject the suggestion that `this is too complex for you to understand.' I buy into nothing I do not understand, and the more convoluted or sophisticated the material, the more determined I am to understand it." The moral, therefore, for bean counters: Don't `snow' the boss using jargon to obscure rather than clarify, because he would see through the game if he were a smart CEO!

Marketing demands attention, so you can't take it for granted, reminds the author. "Like life, it is always one thing after another. It sits atop a gathering of tectonic plates, and they keep shifting, altering the relationships among these, packaging, negotiation, advertising, brand and distribution."

There is no standard operating procedure, but there is one thing fundamental: "Know what business you are really in." For instance, "Apple does not think it makes computers. It believes that it makes `tools for creative minds.'"

At the age of 85, the author is experienced enough to comment that "any men devote far more attention to the care and cleaning of their automobiles than they do their one and only body." Here is one thought you can take home: "Take no day for granted. Keep engaged in some serious activity, always. Retirement is the enemy of longevity. The mind goes first — then the body."

Looking for apples?

ManageMentor@hotmail.com

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