The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership by Richard Branson Read Free Book Online Page B

for a few hours. Generally, however, I find that visiting staff on their own – or at least neutral – turf is a lot less intimidating for them than if they have to come to you. I still break out in a cold sweat just thinking of the words I used to dread hearing at school. ‘Branson – the headmaster wants to see you in his study. Now!’ Even if it were to impart some positive news – which was seldom the case – just stepping into that musty oak-panelled room used to put the fear of death into me. The business equivalent is, ‘The CEO wants to talk to you in his/her office as soon as possible’ – particularly if it’s on a Friday afternoon! But even if the meeting is for an amicable chat on some good idea that made it ‘upstairs’, for the junior employee, the intimidation factor of going through that door can often be enough to completely tongue-tie even the most confident of staffers.
    The obvious solution, therefore, is to stop issuing edicts to ‘come unto me’ and instead get out there, walk about and change a few lives. It’s hard to imagine the impact of a ‘C’ level heavyweight showing up unannounced at a mid-level manager’s or front-line staffer’s workplace and saying, ‘Hey, it’s Mario, right? I’m Maggie Cohen, the chief information officer, and I just came down here to see if you can spare me a few minutes to talk about your great idea for the new distribution software’ – and then sitting down and listening and taking notes. I assure you such a transformational moment is priceless. A simple twenty-minute exercise such as that goes way beyond ‘accessibility’. But I firmly believe it’s these types of seemingly insignificant little moments that go unrecorded on HR files and balance sheets that distinguish the true leader from the mediocre and, over time when multiplied by hundreds or thousands, help to build the kind of stand-out corporate culture that differentiates a merely good company from a truly great one.
    The simple fact is that nobody has ever learned anything by listening to themselves speak. At the same time, sitting in a top-floor corner office may afford some wonderful views of the surrounding scenery but until you get out of there on a regular basis you are never going to get a proper view on what is going on in the company. Get your extra ears strapped on, get out there and take note – literally – of what your people will be anxious and excited to discuss with you. And if they find it odd that you’re suddenly mixing with ‘the madding crowd’, just tell them that Richard sent you!

Chapter 3
MIRROR MIRROR
    How do you look to your customers?
    My lovely wife Joan was born and bred a Glaswegian and as with many of her fellow Scots she loves to quote the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. By osmosis, therefore, I too have become familiar with some of the works of the bard. ‘Rabbie’ Burns is possibly best known as the author of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, which most of us sing every New Year in various states of inebriation.
    Of all the words he wrote, however, the ones that have always resonated with me come from his somewhat unlikely titled poem, ‘To a Louse’, in which he wrote, ‘ O would some power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us’. Simply stated this does of course mean, ‘If only we had the power to see ourselves in the same way that others see us.’ Of all the mantras one might adopt in life, this is surely one of the better ones and for anyone in a leadership role it should be an essential part of the checks and balances that are built into a company’s standard operating procedures. I suppose the corporate version of Burns’ famous line would read something like, ‘ Always try to look at what we are doing from the customer’s perspective. ’
    IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK . . .
    Like it or not, in the eyes of our customers, employees, friends, whoever, perception is very much reality. Or as the old saying goes, ‘If it walks