The Best American CEOs of All Time

Yikes! Its been two months since my last post. First I was studying for the GMATs, then I was moving back to Cornell and getting back into my role as President of my Fraternity and for the past few weeks, I have spent hours attending information sessions and writing cover letters for various jobs for after I graduate. I haven't had any time to rest, let alone write. However, my resolve to write this blog is still strong. Like I said, commitment is a muscle. So I couldn't expect it to be strong overnight. My goal moving forward is to have at least one post a week. I certainly have enough material. Now that I am implementing the leadership development program I have briefly talked about at my fraternity, taking an MBA level class, Leadership Theory and Practice, and continuing to participate as a member of the BOLD (Business Opportunities in Leadership and Diversity) program, I feel like I could write a post about being a student leader just about every day if I had the time. Unfortunately, time is something I never seem to have any extra of, so I have committed to one post a week. Hopefully broadcasting my goal will keep me accountable!

CNBC's Ranking of the Best American CEO's of All Time can be found at the following link:
www.cnbc.com/id/30391313

As an aspiring leader, clearly I would be interested in the stories of the Greatest American CEOs of all time. The first thing that struck me as I explored the list was the story of Andrew Carnegie. A businessman known to step on toes on his way to success did not realize the importance of giving back until late in life. His brief bio reads:

Ah, the power of philanthropy! Carnegie, the iron-and-steel baron, wasn’t as ruthless as some of his fellow industrialists, but he still had a lot of reputation mending to do upon retirement. After selling Carnegie Steel in 1901 (it eventually became U.S. Steel), the former CEO polished his image by giving away most of his billion-dollar-plus fortune to support libraries and promote world peace and education.

To his credit, Cargenie gave enormous amounts of money to a variety of organizations. However, why can't we start to develop leaders committed to being responsible citizens DURING their business careers and maybe even in conjunction with their business?

I read an article from the Harvard Business Review entitled "Where Will We Find Tomorrow's Leaders?" by Linda Hill. The general theme deserves its own blog post, but one specific story I wanted to highlight was that of IBM's World Development Initiative, led by Steve Kloeblen. Steve's job is to oversee the acquisition of companies and their integration into IBM. In 2006, he had the idea to look into business opportunities for IBM that would meet the needs of people at the lower end of the socioeconomic pyramid. He saw it as a way to help IBM live by one of their values: "focusing on innovation that matters for the world." Steve put out the word to gauge interest. He ended up getting responses from people from various locations and a broad range of departments. In total, there were 100 volunteers who were willing to work on the project in addition to their current jobs. They put together detailed plans for achieving aggressive profit targets and for reducing the number of people living below the poverty line. The group has traveled the world to see what business opportunities exist in places like China and Kenya and has built vast networks to help set their plans into motion. Now I can certainly appreciate the power of volunteers. In one of my upcoming articles, I will be discussing the success I have had with an all volunteer leadership development program I implemented at my fraternity. There is definitely something to be said for having people who are motivated to be there. Beyond that, I have an enormous amount of respect for both Steve and IBM for looking for socially responsible ways to grow their business. I hope to hear more and more stories of similar programs in the future. It would be amazing for more of Corporate America to adopt this sort of mentality.

Moving on to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:

A few pointers from the Bezos school of leadership: Micromanage, micromanage, micromanage. It’s a strategy that has kept Bezos—one of the first to recognize the potential of online commerce—in the CEO seat since the Web 1.0 era. He’s also been willing to make risky bets—from allowing other retailers to sell via Amazon to offering free shipping at the expense of profits in order to increase market share—that have ultimately paid off.

While I mean no disrespect to Bezos, who has been enormously successful at Amazon, the first thing I thought of when I read his bio was Marshall Goldsmith's "What Got You Here Won't Get You There." The same article that inspired me to write a blog. Sounds like Bezos, like many successful people, has an "excessive need to be me." It seemed strange and out of place to me to see his bio talk about him committing what is probably one of the cardinal sins of leadership: Micromanagement. How can he micromanage such an enormous organization and keep his sanity. And how can his leadership team have handled it for such a long time? Whatever the answer, I can't help but think of where Amazon might be if Bezos was able to break one of his most limiting habits.

Those were just a few of my take aways from the list. Obviously these CEO's were successful in anticipating the future climate of their industry and positioning their companies for success. Some, like GM's Alfred Sloan, made huge changes like separating GM's brands to target different demographic groups. Others, like Rueben Mark, found success by focusing on the small picture rather than flashy initiatives. Just goes to show you that different situations call for different business plans and sometimes different leaders. See you sometime in the next week!

The (Hopefully) Changing Influence of Fraternities

Before watching the movie "W." the other night, I had remembered hearing that George W. Bush had been a member of a fraternity. I was interested to see how his fraternity system would be portrayed. During the movie, the only mention of his fraternity experience was a minute or two of him being hazed in what looked like the fraternity's basement and being forced to drink with his pledge brothers when they failed to answer questions thrown at them by the brothers.

It was a shame to me to see the fraternity system portrayed in this way although I do not doubt that it was accurate. Movies like this were the sole source of information I had on the fraternity system for the first 18 years of my life. When traveling on a college campus as a high school senior, the tour guide spoke of the prevalence of the Greek System on that particular campus. At that time, my mother asked me if I thought I would ever join a fraternity and I quickly dismissed the thought with a "No Way." Famous last words.

In my first semester as a Cornellian, I got a new and much more diverse view of the fraternity system. Although I definitely came across some fraternities on campus that fit my preconceived notions, with over 40 fraternities on campus I found many chapters with personalities that I felt at home with.

Still, I was reluctant to associate myself with a fraternity. Partially because I knew my family and friends at home would have the same negative stereotypes as I once had and partially because I was afraid that I would see a different side of the fraternities if I started pledging. On top of that, I was reluctant to take on another time commitment even if hazing was not involved. Luckily, I found a fraternity with guys that I could trust to have a good pledging experience. They assured me that they would be flexible to the schedules of the pledges. Even so, I wrestled with the decision for a long time. One of the things that finally sold me was hearing about the leadership experiences available. Never before had it even crossed my mind that I could gain that type of experience as a member of a fraternity.

As with most things in my life, once I committed to joining, I gave it everything I had. I was elected pledge class president by my pledge brothers and learned a lot trying to keep everyone on top of their pledge work and school work. After serving as assistant social for my first semester as a brother, I made the leap to Vice President (which we call Grand Procurator). I held that position for two semester-long terms before taking on my (calendar) year long term as President (Grand Master) which I am currently serving.

I know that if a movie were to be made about my life (or in a far more likely scenario, when I tell people about my life) my time as a member of Kappa Sigma would highlight the rich leadership experiences I was able to have and the subsequent role it played on my growth as a person. The fraternity scene is changing. It is my highest aspiration to continue the momentum towards fraternities being positive life changing experiences for men in my chapter, my fraternity and in the fraternity system as a whole.

Who I Am

My father has been a successful entrepreneur since I was 7 years old, something that I admire immensely. He decided to quit his job as a successful executive in health care because he had lost his passion for work. Instead, he began a leadership development company that he dubbed The XLR8 Team. Ever since, he has been helping others reignite their passion for work. Needless to say, listening to him talk about leadership for the past 13 years has shaped much of my life. From striving to be the captain of numerous soccer and tennis teams to earning the rank of eagle scout and now being the president of my fraternity, leadership has become deeply ingrained in who I am.

I recently attended a week long leadership retreat that my father takes his clients through that includes traditional 360 feedback as well as a great amount of self-reflection to develop leaders that are self-aware and able to transform company cultures. His largest client is Wegmans Food Markets, a supermarket chain in the Northeast that has been ranked among the top 5 in Fortune Magazine's Best Places to Work including a #1 Ranking in 2005. While he certainly cannot claim credit for such a massive accomplishment, I would like to think that his role as a consultant to Wegmans' leaders has been a significant ingredient in their recipe for success.

When I return to school for my senior year in the fall, I will be taking my direct reports through the leadership process that he has all of his clients take their people through. After all, teaching others is the best way to retain what you have learned. In this blog, I plan to talk about the trials and tribulations of organizational transformation and student leadership in general. It is also intended to help me practice sharing what I know about leadership so that I can do the same with the leaders in my fraternity and others I may come across. While I certainly don't know it all, I hope to be able to share what I do know or comment on things I have read or experienced recently.

And so it begins...

I must admit that I have had an aversion to writing as long as I can remember. In school, I always did all of my homework before touching any essay, usually leading to late nights and feeding my distaste for writing. However, a series of events that have happened in my life recently convinced me to give blogging a try...

While reading Marshall Goldsmith's "What Got You Here Won't Get You There," Goldsmith outlines 20 flaws that he sees as the main deterrents that keep good leaders from becoming great. Two that struck a chord for me were #12 Making excuses and #20 An excessive need to be me. Both are similar in that they detail a leader who accepts their own flaws, justifying them by saying "That's just me. Deal with it." For example, one might say "I'm just no good at managing my time; that's just the way I am." This particular excuse is one I have used for years. I rationalized my poor time management by explaining how well I worked under pressure. While I always meet deadlines and turn in quality work, my sleep often suffers. In addition, I accepted that writing was just "not for me." In the leadership training I have been through, I have learned about the power of positive thoughts as well as how crippling negative thoughts can be. While it seems silly, my belief that I disliked writing became a self-fulfilling prophecy that kept me from writing. How long would I write a blog before I became tired of writing?

Finally, while at the gym a few days ago, I noticed a sign that said "Know that commitment is a muscle." I realized that when I began regularly attending the gym in my first year of college, I convinced myself that I loved to go. In the past 3 years since, I have been to the gym 5 or 6 days a week almost every week. I had convinced myself that the gym was the best part of my day--it was an hour that I could forget about my to-do list and the aching that I felt when I left gave me great satisfaction. It didn't take long to see the result, which only motivated me to go more often, learn more about fitness and work out harder. This gave me the drive to begin a blog and know that through practice I would be able to sustain it and learn to enjoy writing. Hopefully my skill at writing and the ease with which the words flow will only improve as I continue to write and it will continue to motivate me as I had been motivated by the results of working out. If I can overcome the one thing that makes me procrastinate more than anything else, maybe it can help with my time management as well.