"First of all, you get the right oganization in place. you can have a winderful culture, and you can pay people very well, but if you have an organization that by its very nature generates a lot of internal - as opposed to external - activity, if you find yourself writing a lot of letters to people in the company there's something wrong. You ought to be focussed outwardly."
The Days of "Because I Say So" Are Gone
1) Certainly there are some CEOs who run a pretty tight ship, and dictate everything that needs to be done. But to run a company the size of Caterpillar, which has $21 billion in sales, you have to convince people.
2) You have to distribute information, and authority, as far down in the organization as you possibly can to allow people to make the right decisions.
3) I wanted to completely restructure the company into profit centers.
4) Doing this changed the whole operating environment,"
5) Leading by example means that you don't just talk about performance, you demonstrate performance in your own job, and you reward people who perform and you do not reward people who do not perform.
6) Another way you do it as a CEO is by who you promote, by who you put into key jobs. Let me tell you, there are an awful lot of people, at an awful lot of companies, who still get promoted based on who likes them and who they know. If you promote people who have demonstrated performance regardless of whether you knew the person, the organization picks up on it pretty fast. They are watching to see if you are really serious about performance. If you are not they'll wonder why you aren't promotIng people who are demonstrating superior performance and superior commitment.
