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In 1950, Einstein said:
"Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem, in my opinion, to characterise our age."
He was speaking more broadly of course, but the adage was just as true of marketing.
In 50 years, we have arguably become much more adept at defining and redefining our goals...
It is in the agreement of means that confusion reigns...
The just published biography of Marvin Bower, the former McKinsey managing director, (described on the consulting firm's web-site as the 'Soul of McKinsey') is a great source for first 100 day inspiration.
Bower belongs firmly in the tradition of the charismatic leader - setting a famously stentorian moral tone...including mandatory hat-wearing (!?).
He mellowed into old age, dying rather poignantly aged 99....having established and maintained (marketers take note!!) the cult of excellence, honesty and respect, that still characterises McKinsey to this day...
One Bower memo, on blue paper, written by the long-time managing director of McKinsey in 1961 can only make us pine for this long-departed era of measured communication...no blogs...just memos in in-trays...
Bower writes: "Before I turn to the future, I would like to preach my perennial sermon on the subject of behavior. I want the newcomers to know what kind of behavior we admire, and what kind of behavior we deplore:
* First, we admire people who work hard. We dislike passengers who don't pull their weight in the boat.
* We admire people with first-class brains, because you cannot run a great (organization) without brainy people.
* We admire people who avoid politics -- office politics, I mean.
* We despise toadied who suck up to their bosses; they are generally the same people who bully their subordinates.
* We admire the great professionals, the craftsmen who do their jobs with superlative excellence. We notice that these people always respect the professional expertise of their colleagues in other departments.
* We admire people who hire subordinates who are good enough to succeed them. We pity people who are so insecure that they feel compelled to hire inferior specimens as their subordinates.
* We admire people who build up and develop their subordinates, because this is the only way we can promote from within the ranks. We detest having to go outside to fill important jobs, and I look forward to the day when that will never be necessary.
* We admire people who practice delegation. The more you delegate, the more responsibility will be loaded upon you.
* We admire kindly people with gentle manners who treat other people as human beings -- particularly the people who sell things to us. We abhor quarrelsome people. We abhor people who wage paper warfare. We abhor buck passers and people who don't tell the truth.
* We admire well-organized people who keep their offices ship-shape, and deliver their work on time.
* We admire people who are good citizens in their communities -- people who work for their local hospitals, their church, the PTA, the Community Chest, and so on. In this connection, I am proud of the example set by some of my colleagues during the year.
There is, it seems to be, something ultimately very paternal about great leadership...
How many marketing departments feel like this?
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