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When Charlotte Beers was chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, she received a private call from IBM.
The company was undergoing a “very secretive review” and was planning to fire its 48 agencies and hire one. Beers, who was “cooking along at Ogilvy and crazy about brand stewardship,” used that passion to differentiate Ogilvy from the other agencies in contention.
She nearly won the pitch, bringing IBM’s choice down to Ogilvy and one other agency, but there was one big catch: “To be in, I had to resign three other clients: AT&T, Comcast and Microsoft.”
But Beers wanted the deal, so she brought it to her boss, Sir Martin Sorrell, chairman of WPP Group, as well as to Shelly Lazarus, who went on to succeed Beers as chairman of Ogilvy.
Beers told Sorrell and Lazarus that she liked Lou Gerstner, then IBM’s CEO, and that she liked what he was talking about. “I believe those other three clients aren’t very brand-oriented,” Beers said.
Sorrell asked the obvious question: “How much does IBM bill?”
“I don’t know,” said Beers, since the money was spread out across so many agencies.
“How much do those other three bill?” asked Sorrell.
“$700 million,” said Beers, naming the price of the bet she was about to take.
“OK, but it’s on you,” said Sorrell.
“And I said, ‘It always was,’” Beers told attendees at PromaxBDA’s Leadership Institute during The Conference 2014 at Manhattan’s New York Hilton on Tuesday.
That instinctual decision ultimately turned out fine, with IBM billing $1 billion with Ogilvy in the first year, making Beers “look like a retroactive genius,” she said.
The story illustrates a few things Beers wanted to say about leadership.
Knowing exactly who you are and why you work is imperative to being a strong leader, said Beers, who served as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs under Secretary of State Colin Powell after running Ogilvy and serving as senior vice president at J. Walter Thompson.
“Having this idea in your mind about who you will be in the workplace, what is important to you, and what you consider to be vital will change you in 100 ways,” said Beers.
Beyond developing that personal clarity, which is at the core of Beers’ leadership philosophy, she also said leaders need to be memorable and persuasive. They need to have the power of passion behind their ideas, as well as the ability to communicate to their teams and inspire them with that passion.
“If you work for just title and money, it’s too thin,” she said. “You have to get deeper than that.”
Workers come in three roles, Beers said: doers, managers and leaders, and leaders cycle in and out of all three roles all day, every day.
“Everyone of us likes [the role of ] doer,” she said. “Some people live too long in that world; sometimes people live there because they are experts.”
“Managers hire, fire, direct and collaborate. Here’s what I think managers do: they create an environment in which the best work goes forward. The best ones think about what can be done that will make the very best work. We could run our country on good managers.”
“Leaders step out into the unknown. When you get a moment of leadership, seize it for the sheer practice of doing it. How will you know when you’re at a moment of leadership? You will be really uncomfortable and uneasy. Leadership and comfort don’t go together. That’s why there aren’t that many people standing in line to be leaders.”
Besides knowing herself, Beers also used this George Bernard Shaw quote as a guideline: “This is the true joy in life: Being used for a mighty purpose. Being thoroughly used up before being thrown out.”
Beers applied that to herself when she was frustrated with the difficult process of getting approved for high public office. She also considered it when she faced difficult decisions or situations atop influential agencies.
“It’s good to know why you work because it might be out of the context of everyone around you,” Beers said. “You have to know who you are, why you work and why this work is valuable. You cannot be a leader without these things.”
And you have to know these things for yourself, and not be swayed by a negative evaluation or experience.
“You aren’t going to learn who you are on evaluations,” said Beers. “In fact, they can be disruptive. Work is the best place you will ever be to experience yourself, who you are, how you behave, react, respond. It’s not how you do the work, but how you deliver the work. How you cause it to be noticed and recognized.”
Beers, like so many creatives, recommends that rising executives court failure instead of comfort.
“Honor that person you are becoming by keeping your own scorecard. I’ve seen some very grown up men crying across my desk because they didn’t get clear on why they were working. People can help you see yourself, but they can’t define you.”
Image courtesy of Tamra Raven.
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