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December 08, 2003
My Second Favorite FT writer [edit fixed tags]
I have to say I want to recommend reading Lucy Kellaway on a regular basis. In a rather understated way, she brilliantly skewers the idiocy of our modern business hype, from jargon to CEO bios to the latest blather from "strategic vision consultants" - her recent column on the fellow championing ignorance as the new source of strategic vision (HBR, we publish mindless consultant dreck and you like it, and pay for it) was a classic. However, let me quote this:
Lucy Kellaway: Why CEO biogs are all the same
By Lucy Kellaway
Published: December 7 2003 19:11
On the front page of the FT last Tuesday was a photo of three white men in their 60s all shaking hands together.
This was not terribly remarkable: every day the FT is full of pictures of white men approaching retirement age. What was odd about this trio was their extraordinary uniformity. On the left was Phil Condit, departing chief executive of Boeing, and on the right the man who is to take his place.
Both men had the same glasses, the same short brown hair receding sharply at the temples. They were in the same navy blazers with brass buttons and the same button-down shirts with the same top button ill-advisedly undone to reveal the same section of loose neck. The only difference was that the outgoing guy seemed to have eaten more business lunches and looked tougher.
Between them sat Lew Platt, the new chairman, who had dared to be different by wearing grey instead of navy, but otherwise it was the same story with the hair, specs, shirt and neck.
I used to feel a similar urge to conform when I was about 14. At that age, if I did not have the identical Biba T-shirt and loon trousers everyone else had I was not prepared to leave the house. Yet this conformity thing at the top of US corporations goes well beyond what I went through 30 years ago. The clothes and the hairdo are a superficial sign of a deeper urge to be identical.
My evidence for this comes from a study of CEO biographies, which I carried out last week. The biog is a curious document. Not quite a CV, it is a standard five to six paragraphs documenting the subject's proudest achievements to date. It is posted on the company's website and handed out at the slightest excuse.
I submit the bolded paragraphs are subtly brilliant.
The purpose of the biography is presumably to distinguish one chief executive from another. Yet, having pored over the biogs of 24 US business leaders, I can confirm that they are identical in both style and form. The result is that I cannot recall a single fact that distinguishes Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard from Richard Wagoner of General Motors or him from Samuel Palmisano of International Business Machines.
This is how to write the classic CEO biog. You start off by giving the date you became CEO of your company, which you must describe as world leader in something or other. If profits or revenues have risen since you became CEO, you should quote the results and attribute them to yourself. If they have not (as is mostly the case now), you keep quiet about them.
I have a biog from Christopher Galvin at Motorola dating from 1998, when he had been CEO for only a year. It starts by saying how, under his leadership, revenues have risen. This section was dropped from the biog once the company's fortunes dived and now no mention at all is made of financial results.
The classic biog proceeds with a list of all the other positions held on the climb up the ladder to the top. These are linked with "previously" and "prior to". The rule here is that no postings are too dull to mention. Take this from the CEO of Sara Lee. "In 1990 he assumed responsibility for Sara Lee's Packaged Meats, Bakery and Foodservice businesses. In 1993 he added Coffee & Grocery and Household and & Body Care businesses, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands . . ." and on it goes. I shall spare you the rest.
Then there is an awards section. The tone here should be uniformly vainglorious so that it is impossible to tell whether the award is prestigious or not. It does not matter if the award was received a while back.
More important still is the charitable stuff. The wording should be like this: "Samuel DiPiazza has always been very active in civic affairs throughout his career", followed by a list of all charitable positions past and present. Quantity is what counts here. Fewer than three charities does not cut it.
[Note to self, if I ever want to be a CEO I need to work on this, I am notoriously uncharitable, so have to spin]
Finally you list your degrees and educational achievements. Sumner Redstone tells us that he graduated first in his class at high school some 60 years ago - which was probably gratifying for him at the time but, 60 years on, is of dubious relevance to Viacom's shareholders.
I love that.
[Aside: I have been reviewing CVs for some new positions. This is painful I have to say, truly deeply painful as CV writing -however much you can mock it at least is well-developed in the West. Here, I get CVs where people list every fucking course and trip they're ever taken in mindnumbing detial, page after fucking page. No standards.]
A few end with something like "X resides with his wife Sheila near Ashland, Kentucky" but most of them skip this section, which is a shame. None takes the trouble to document previous wives in the same way they do previous jobs, which is even more of a shame.
Hah!
[Hmmm note to self, to stand out, if I ever reach CEO level, should document my previous wife. I think I should include my favorite picture of her, which she hated.]
Two CEO biogs stand out from the crowd. The first is Steve Ballmer's of Microsoft. He uses his biog as shop window for his passion and makes no attempt to stick to the objective. "Described variously as ebullient, focused, funny, passionate, sincere, hard charging and dynamic, Ballmer has infused Microsoft with his own brand of energetic discipline and spirit over the years," it says.
This is not to my taste at all but I still prefer it to the rest as it gives us some idea about how he sees himself, which is interesting. After all, the point of a biography is that it tells us something about the person. A long list of standard facts tells us nothing.
At the other end of the emotional register is Mr Ballmer's rival at Oracle, whose biog is one mean little paragraph. Although Larry Ellison's brevity is arrogant, it is true to the man and does not waste your time. This makes it my favourite biog. The clear subtext is: "I'm Larry Ellison. I founded and run Oracle. You should know that already. Now get lost."
I confess I like this last, a little bit of well-placed arrogance, so long as it is not hubris, is not so bad.
lucy.kellaway@ft.com
Posted by The Lounsbury at December 8, 2003 11:14 AM
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Jan-Dec 2003
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