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Strategy in Operating Decisions |
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Mark Controls Corporation |
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The University of Chicago - Graduate School of Business |
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By H. Edward Wrapp |
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Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
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Interview with Gary MacDougal, the Chairman and CEO
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"This is my first time ever attempt to describe my job as CEO. Starting with a blank piece of paper, I have defined the job as I see it from the past eleven years' experience.
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"The CEO job requires a blend of knowledge about the industry and of management principles. As much as 80-85% of this knowledge is transferable from our company to another. Keep in mind, though, that the job of the CEO changes with the size of the company and its stage of development. For example, as a company grows, more structure is inevitable, or the emphasis will be different in a turnaround situation versus a mature company. In the latter, expect more structure, more planning, and less firefighting.
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"I have identified four important elements in my job: leadership style and coaching of other managers, developing a strategy, establishing an appropriate framework or structure, and selective problem solving. They are not in order of importance. All are important.
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"In my leadership/coaching role, I have several objectives. I want to create an entrepreneurial feeling in other managers. Let them manage. You can be a coach, but not the guy who sends in the plays. Next, I want to establish a common set of values. The customer is the reason we are together and service to him is uppermost. At the same time, timidity in raising prices is usually wrong and should not be confused with customer service.
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"Another of my objectives is to establish the organization as a partnership, a paritcipative environment. The other managers get their cues from my style, my habits, my expectations. Our offices are modest. I share a secretary with three other officers. There are no reserved parking spaces. If you are the first one in, you take the first space. Everyone is on a first-name basis. Titles are minimized inside and are used mainly for outside contact with customers. If you want to see someone, you go to his office rather than asking him to come to yours. Desks are not thrones and we try to have conversations out from behind the desks. Written communications are usually short, handwritten, informal, and minus company jargon.
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"We are extremely cost conscious. It is known that I take paper clips off documents which are going into the waste and reuse them. Everyone flies coach and stays in a minimum single room when traveling. The one place we don’t economize is on management bonuses. When earnings are good, we reward outstanding individual performance with generous cash and stock bonuses.
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"We try to be ‘on time’ with everything—meetings, reports, customer inquiries, deliveries, whatever.
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"About half my time is spent as the Chief Personnel or Human Relations Officer. We consciously struggle to open upward communication. The principle of multiple channels means that each employee has at least two people he can talk to. Senior executives stay in touch with people at all levels with frequent, direct contact, but no directions are given to anyone outside normal reporting relationships.
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"This little booklet on People Policies was written by me over a weekend, and edited by a broad group of our managers at a management conference. It is modified by our partners periodically. The wording has been changed several times. It’s posted everywhere throughout all our locations and applies at all levels.
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"Periodically, we conduct attitude surveys. Our purpose is to spot weak supervisors at lower levels who need our help. For examples, the survey told us we had a problem in a small, remote operation of twenty people before the line managers picked it up.
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Page 3 Page 5
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