Reg Jones and the three vice-chairmen, all of whom had been contenders for his office, now had to learn to work with each other despite their respective feelings. As would Ian MacGregor and Jack Hanley in the chapters to come, Jones had to cope with contenders who remained. Describing his experiences managing the disappointment and hostility of former rivals who became his subordinates as he moved through the ranks, he said, “I took the soft approach, coaxed them, let them work out their hostility by my being humble and friendly.” By June, 1973, six months into his new role, he had dissolved the vague vice-chairman “cognizance” concept. Instead, he made each vice-chairman directly responsible for certain designated’ operating groups and corporate staff components. Responsibilities and accountabilities became clearer. Each was also able to be a “vocal advocate” for his groups in the competition for financial and personnel resources. This change from cognizant to direct responsibility wasn’t accepted instantly. How did Jones deal with the initial resistance to this role change? “I wouldn’t accept the responsibility. When we were in a meeting, when they asked me what I was going to do about a problem, I asked, ‘What are you going to do about it? You are responsible for the operation. Do it. Tell me what you intend to do and then do it.’”
Anticipating major thrusts on the fiscal front and others, Jones began to realign the management system at the top. (Realignment to enhance competitive adaptation was tackled by each of our CEOs.) Executives unable or unwilling to meet his standards were replaced over the years, according to insiders, by a phalanx of more competitive hands-on, hard- nosed, broad-gauge operating executives. (This, too, characterizes the direction each CEO took.)
The six corporate staff senior vice-presidents together with the Corporate Executive Office (the chairman and three vice-chairmen) now comprised a new structure, the Corporate Policy Committee, “a forum for reviewing and communicating matters of broad corporate concern.” Jones was laying the groundwork for the later dissolution of the corporate executive staff. Jones had R. L. Johnson, vice-president of executive manpower, report directly to him. Like Borch, he would be preoccupied with succession from the beginning. He would not leave the development of managers to chance, nor relegate it to a staff function.
In 1973, Jones initiated a company organization study to formulate a long-range plan into 1981/1982 for an evolving structure that would provide orderly succession and manageability of the greatly enlarged organization he anticipated. He had no specific idea of what that structure should look like. He began by thinking out loud with Johnson and some of his staff. He told them he was unsure where the ensuing discussions would lead, but he wanted help in preparing a detailed outline for a future discussion with top management of the company. He rambled, thinking aloud about some major outline headings and some concepts he wanted to have included. He asked them to keep integrating their continuing discussions into an evolving report. He supplemented the staff’s detailed notes of these meetings with his own preliminary notes. He, himself, was known for near-verbatim, highly legible notetaking in outside meetings. This process of consultative thinking which led to a formal document was only the beginning of what was to become a trademark of Jones’s style and effectiveness. He would soon gather the best and the brightest staff expertise to assault external threats as well.
Jones had collected i6o items in notes to himself about managment issues. In August, 1973, he began to clarify and document his “Management Style and Related Convictions” (a collection of ideas from the i6o he had noted). Some were maxims, some guidelines, some directives to himself. These included:
1. Minimize ambiguity. (Change the functions of the vice-chairmen and the corporate executive staff, and ensure that people know the purpose of a meeting—decision-making meetings versus review meetings versus communications meetings.)
2. Do your homework. (This becomes more critical as you attain higher responsibility, see the big picture, and know enough details to personally perform “validity tests.” Be willing to read in depth and breadth.)
3. The necessity of strategic planning. (“Surprises” are a cardinal sin. See each business situation for what it is and not through one’s emotional glasses of what one might like to think it is. Make strategic planning a way of life.)
4. Personal relationships. (Have a firsthand knowledge of your customers and their needs, knowing people as individuals; listen with both ears and be willing to “level” with people and to be
“leveled” with.)
. Decision making. (Provide a vehicle that fosters consensus—tempered by the willingness to make decisions where consensus is not achieved. Be ready to stimulate, implement, and live with change. Be prepared to take difficult or unpopular remedial actions where results continue to fall below objectives. Be willing to take risks, make mistakes, and learn from them, and afford one’s subordinates the same opportunity.)
6. Put on the “company hat.” (Be willing to accept actions that may have a negative impact upon a particular component but are in the best interests of the company as a whole.)