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Leaders need to show caring is contagious

By Harvey Mackay

A few weeks ago, the day that John Walter was named the new CEO at
AT&T, the stock dropped 2 points. It was the corporate equivalent of
the traditional bone-jarring sack that greets rookie quarterbacks.

"Welcome to the NFL, kid."

Welcome to the corporate big leagues, John.

Leading the corps of business blitzers was "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap, who
got his nickname by sacking 11,200 employees when he headed Scott
Paper.

According to Dunlap, John Walter was not what "suffering
shareholders are looking for."

Well, neither was Walter's predecessor, Bob Allen, another job-slasher,
who pared 40,000 employees at AT&T. This year, while the Dow Jones
industrials are up 16 percent, AT&T stock is down over 18 percent.
Needless to say, employee morale is also in the tank. On the day his
selection was announced, Walter said he regards the job as "25
percent strategy and 75 percent execution."

I hope he means it. The best way to prove it would be for him not to
set foot in his office for 75 percent of his first month on the job
and spend the time with his troops in the field.

Many years ago, another Bell system chief executive named Bruce
Foraker was head of the phone company in New York City. One frigid
January night, upon leaving the theater, Foraker noticed an open
manhole in the street. Realizing that Bell employees were below,
splicing cable in the freezing weather, Foraker dropped down and
joined them for a little chat. It wasn't unusual behavior for him.
He was called the "man of 10,000 friends" because his employees held
him in such high esteem.

CEOs of major corporations have a duty to employees, customers,
shareholders and the communities they operate in. They cannot afford
to ignore any of them.

These days, you have to add a fifth constituency to the stew, the
media.

Robert Dilenschneider of The Dilenschneider Group, a strategic
counseling and public relations firm, recently spoke on "The Public
Aspects of a Chief Executive's Job: Helping Chief Executive Officers
Become Part of the Solution."

"If the shareholders are unhappy, they will drop the stock," said
Dilenschneider. "Estranged employees, studies show, are not as
productive. Customers just walk away if they are not treated well,
and the community can freeze the CEO and his team out, making it
hard to recruit on the one hand and live on the other."

Al Dunlap says that when you find a corporate CEO that takes time
away from his principal business to serve on numerous outside
boards, particularly non-profits, you'll find a company that's
underperforming. I disagree.

I say that when you find a CEO doing just that, you'll find a CEO
doing his job.

Cost-cutting, down-sizing and plant-closings are short-term
solutions. So is just focusing on shareholders.

The name "Dayton" is synonymous with community participation in my
town. The executives of this retail giant, Dayton-Hudson
Corporation, are found on almost every civic and charitable
organization board in town.

Like Bruce Foraker, Don Dayton liked to get out and mingle. He never
took an elevator up to the corporate offices above the department
store that bears his name. He always took the escalator so he could
see more of what was happening on each floor and talk with customers
and employees.

A few years ago, when the inevitable takeover attempt was directed
at Dayton-Hudson, the Minnesota Legislature held a special session
and adopted legislation that stopped it cold.

The reason was stated over and over: We can't lose Dayton's. It's
part of the community.

A lot of names have disappeared from the retail scene, but not
Dayton's.

This year, Dayton's stock is up over 43 percent.

Not bad, Al, for an outfit where the bosses spend so much time away
from their desks.
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