InformationWeek

July 5, 1999

Secret CIO:
Lessons Of Leadership

Trying too hard to change your style can lower your value to everyone

Secret CIO y enthusiasm, such as it is, for corporate management experiments has dimmed. I have known and liked Ron Stagweg, our recently appointed executive VP of domestic operations, for years. Today, however, was the first meeting I have attended in which he presided in his new capacity.

I had been concerned about Ron's ability to handle the job because his well-known uncritical nature and hardy good fellowship are untempered by either a willingness to criticize poor performance or a surfeit of analytical skills. Normally, I'd mentally mind my own business, but since earnings are in disarray, the lack of executive leadership may affect profitability--which translates itself into lower or nonexistent year-end bonuses for those of us who are fortunate enough to be on the sacred list.

In lesser jobs, Ron has been blessed with subordinates who were talented and performed well without much intervention. Ron's great interpersonal skills shone in such an environment, and he was effective--although one could hardly point to anything that he really ever did that was outstanding. His real claim to fame is that he has never been closely associated with anything that smelled of failure. The other candidates for executive VP, while having achieved some major successes, carried at least one smudge on their records. Having headstrong former peers reporting to him, including some of the disappointed contenders for the title, would be difficult.

Evidently, Phil Whitestone, our president and CEO, must have spoken to Ron about the need to assert himself in his new role, since today we saw a new Ron. This Ron went to great lengths to be insightful and probing, a man eager to set forth vision and direction. The result, however, was akin to Big Bird leaving Sesame Street to audition for the role of a Jedi warrior in one of the Star Wars movies. I suppose the right director could make it work, but it's difficult to imagine that the yellow-feathered fellow would ever grow into the part.

The meeting was about unacceptable increases in inventory, which translate into greater working capital and write-offs, both of which wreak havoc on any company's bottom line. I was there in case someone decided that some sort of new computer report would help alleviate the problem. As a minor player, I just sat back and listened.

Out Of Sync
Ron started off the meeting with a long-winded discourse on why excess inventory was bad. People looked at each other as this recitation from Business Management For Pre-Schoolers progressed. He then asked each business head to report on his or her situation, but interrupted continuously, reiterating again and again the importance of controlling inventory. He demanded the answers to a barrage of questions, many of which, even to my untutored ears, had little to do with the subject.

His new subordinates grew quieter as the meeting progressed. The trips from their seats to the coffee urn became increasingly frequent. Finally, with little accomplished, the meeting ground to a halt some two hours after it began. Less had been resolved than if Gotland, his predecessor, been sitting at the head of the table for 45 minutes.

Ron is basically a good guy who seems to be in over his head, and I hope that he grows into the role. It would be nice if Big Bird could learn to wield a light sabre, but it's going to take a lot for him to challenge the Dark Force that I see asserting its presence. Either a lot of people are going to have to be replaced so that Ron can resume his old management style, or else he needs to rethink quickly the performance he gave in this first outing.

I'm pulling for him--but then I always root for the underdog.

Herbert W. Lovelace is the CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty. Send him E-mail at lovelace@home.com. He'll provide real answers--and whimsical comments--to your questions on InformationWeek Online at www.informationweek.com.