Leadership is “to serve"

For Alan Mulally, the outgoing Ford CEO, “to serve” is the philosophy, and the way to lead. He successfully used this Mantra during his 8 year tenure as the first person of Ford. He took over when the company was saddled with tremendous loss, turnaround it and raised the profit bars applying the Servant-Leadership Model. His turnaround philosophy is a valuable lesson for leaders to be.

I give below his historic action as explained by him in brief:

Starting his job with a “home improvement loan” he implemented 4 key elements initially:

·         Focus on serving all markets;

·         Commit to a complete family (of product);

·         Quality, efficiency and

·         Work together to scale and leverage.

The bracket around the profit means to him that “you do not have any idea what you are doing and that is not the purpose of business.” these are the two thoughts that should be there in everybody’s mind he emphasizes.  “Always have a can-do attitude.”

 

He started a “Business Plan Review (BPR)” to achieve his “one ford” goal. “One Ford” plan drives the business to get PGA, Profitable Growth for All, meaning that every year we increase the profits and cash flow. BPR was organized every Thursday, where everyone was asked on the team to share where they were and where the issues lay. Out of that came the priorities and they were together on that.  He claims with pride that BPR (business plan review) is both an execution-driven mechanism and also a strategic tool. He constantly focused on adhering to the vision of Henry Ford: “open the highways to all mankind” by looking at risks and the opportunities, the business environment, the strategy, the plan, areas that need attention at every BPR meetings.

When asked how he decides on the options that have the most chance to succeed—gut or data? He replies: “Talk to everybody you possibly can and you will get a consensus. Talk to everybody that is investing because it's their money.”

With BPR strategy he proclaims it just takes, “about two nanoseconds, because we have been working on it for the whole year. It is that adaptive.”

On motivating for innovations his comments were: “Our brand promise says we will offer a complete range that's best-in-class in terms of quality, environment-friendly, safe, smart and offers the very best value. This is the all-time motivator for innovation. Innovations just don't happen by asking people to innovate but by making sure innovation has a purpose. You are doing something that is going to make life better or easier, more worthwhile.” He admits that it is a challenge for companies to use less resources and less time than competition. 

While nurturing him his parents taught “that to serve is to live and if you find your passion in serving, then that is the most satisfying thing in the world.” He continues, “I always loved serving and I liked doing a real good job for people, taking care of them, helping them.”

To the query as to how he managed your time, energy and the inner equilibrium, his answer was thus: “The more you include everybody the less you have to worry. You have a process to come together, where everybody knows everything. You switch over from this model of thinking where you have to tell people what to do because you know everything, to a servant-leadership model. So you move to a model where you have all kinds of energy, you have wonderful emotional resilience plus you have consistency of purpose. That's an important thing in all our lives.” 

His message to the young leaders: “Serving is the most important thing in business. Money is the output of serving these customers. If you do not do that, you are not going to grow.”

P.S: Lesson for life: Include everybody, the less you have to worry. Serve all.

Source:  Corporate Dossier, June 27-July 3, 2014