Pony Express to Federal Express
Fred Smith, FedEx founder on the leadership lessons of historical figures
✓ There aren’t many new things under the sun. History lessons are clear and proven.
✓ Business successes are but blips in history. Tom Watson and his son were fantastic managers, but IBM’s success waned. Now, it’s General Electric’s turn. Listen to history, not business gurus.
✓ Alexander the Great was better at winning the peace than at winning wars. He reached out after a military victory. Losers had always been put in shackles, or had their heads cut off. Alexander gave defeated chieftains authority.
✓ Likewise, most acquisitions result in wholesale turnover. Alexander’s far-seeing management style enabled him to build the biggest empire ever, matched only by the Romans years later. His lesson: Make an acquired company a part of the team – make two plus two equal five.
“Somebody once asked Chinese leader Zhou Enlai what he thought of the French Revolution. He said: ‘It’s too early to tell.’”
✓ George Marshall was the architect of the reconstruction of Europe – the Marshall plan and the United Nations. He was self-effacing. He refused to write his memoirs because he said his memories had been paid for by taxpayers, and because the truth about some people would be unpleasant for their families. Learn humility from Marshall.
✓ Historic figures who would have made great CEOs: Marshall, Theodore Roosevelt, Peter Drucker and Cordell Hull. Hull was a congressman, senator and secretary of State under Franklin Roosevelt. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the father of the modern trading system. After World War II, the Depression and the Smoot Hawley tariff increases, Hull became an advocate of open trade. Open markets track back to Hull just as all management theory comes from Drucker.
✓ “Hull said, ‘When goods cannot cross borders, armies will.’"
✓ Union Civil War Gen. George McClellan was fired, but too late. He was too cautious. He never had enough resources, always waited for the optimal moment. He was indecisive.
✓ Too many leaders think inaction is the least risky path when action can be the most conservative and safest. Before Pearl Harbor, they put all the airplanes in the middle of the airfield to protect them from saboteurs. We were undone by cautiousness, not bravado.
✓ Every decision is made with imperfect information. Washington was pretty sure when he crossed the Delaware that he was going to be annihilated. Eisenhower had rudimentary meteorological information when he made the D-Day decision on the 6th of June. He wrote out on a slip of paper that the fault of the invasion failing "is mine alone." History is the study of people going out on a limb.
✓ Great leaders take responsibility. When they have a chance to rectify a mistake, they react urgently and strongly, and oftentimes do things they don’t want to do.
✓ Julius Caesar had a proconsul in Palestine, one in Gaul and one in Britain. Each reported to a cavalry commander, each had infantrymen, an archer, etc. FedEx has leaders in Hong Kong, Brussels, etc. Each has an IT person, each has a business unit head, each has a personnel person.
“Julius Caesar would recognize FedEx’s organizational structure.”
✓ Speed has been important throughout history. The Pony Express was the FedEx of its time. It was put out of business by the telegraph. FedEx sails the clipper ships of the computer age. We carry pharmaceuticals, fashion goods, surgical kits, airplane parts, semiconductors. High-value goods are more expensive to move slowly. Container ships move 98% of the tonnage. Air is less than 2%, but almost 45% of the value. Take out petroleum and agriculture and the majority of international trade doesn't go by sea.
✓ Business is fueled by the Internet. Order an auto part from the Sahara desert and in 24 to 48 hours it's there.
✓ Read history, not management books. A half dozen management books provide 95% of what you need to know about leadership. Know Edward Deming and J.M. Juran if you have an interest in providing a quality product. Drucker is profound in terms of the theory of business.
✓ The right war movies are valuable. Twelve O'Clock High with Gregory Peck is the story of a feeling man who has command of a unit, and he can't get the job done. The more he doesn't hold people accountable, the worse it becomes. He tries to be too good, and it works against his purpose. Peck comes in with a cold dose of discipline. The lesson is if you don't hold people to a high standard, organizations gravitate to the lowest common denominator.
✓ Leaders are made. Some people are incapable, but you can identify them on the front end. The rest can be taught to be effective. Some fail because leadership requires them to subordinate self-interests for the organization.
✓ A Mount Rushmore of CEOs would include Alfred Sloan of General Motors. Henry Ford owned the auto industry, but Sloan recognized that the country was becoming more affluent and marketing was more important. Tom Watson Jr. at IBM made the courageous decision down the path into computing and modern mainframe computers. William Allen of Boeing bet on the swept-wing jet that led his company's aerospace dominance. How could you not put Walmart's Sam Walton there? He allowed people of modest incomes to have a standard of living they never dreamed.
Did you know?
• Smith served in the U.S. Marine Corps 1966-70. Remains CEO of FedEx, which he founded in 1971.
• If he could travel back in time he would want to see the Napoleonic armies laid out at Waterloo; the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia; ancient Rome.
Who would Smith rather have lunch with?
✓ Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee? "Lee. I suspect Grant was not a good conversationalist."
✓ Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton? "Probably Hamilton.”
✓ Washington or Lincoln? "Wow. I guess Lincoln because of the scope of what he was managing. What Washington did was every bit as profound, but in scale a fraction of what Lincoln dealt with."
✓ Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.? "I admire both, but I’d choose King. In many ways he sort of saved America."
✓ Lewis and Clark or Magellan? "Lewis and Clark. Magellan did a lot, but it must have been pretty damn boring out on that ship. He probably had only one or two good stories."
✓ Hitler or Stalin? "Neither. The depravity of the Stalin regime was every bit as bad as the Nazis; it just didn't get the exposure. I would pass."
Fred Smith is among 64 leaders included in Advice from the Top: 1001 Bits of Business Wisdom edited by Del Jones. The book focuses on the leadership advice of Fortune 500 CEO's, but also gets advice from athletes such as Ronnie Lott, coaches such as Joe Moglia, entertainers such as Howie Mandel and artists such as Wynton Marsalis.
Jones recently published his debut historical novel, The Cremation of Sam McGee built creatively upon the poetry of Robert W. Service. The novel is set in the 1898 heyday of yellow journalism. The narrator is a fabricating newspaper reporter working for William Randolph Hearst during the Spanish-American War and Klondike Gold Rush.
Purchase The Cremation of Sam McGee and post a customer review on Amazon.com to receive a free autographed copy of Advice From the Top. To receive the free book, please send your mailing address through “contact me” at this website.
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