On Leadership by Allan Leighton

I totally believe if you want to improve a certain skill then you should model yourself on someone who already has had success in that skill.

I am a huge lover of self-development especially management and leadership, and a few months ago I became aware of a book by a guy called Allan Leighton. The book is On Leadership: Practical Wisdom From The People Who Know.

So I completed a small amount of research on Allan and found that he is the Chairman of Royal Mail Group amongst others. Previously he was credited with turning around a ‘basket case’ (Allan’s words) i.e. ASDA into a highly successful company that was eventually sold to US retail giant Wal-Mart.

So here is a guy who has a successful career as a manager, as a leader and I thought I could discover some new ideas from him.

So I purchased the book.

Little did I know but the book was not just Allan talking about his successful ideas but it also included 50+ other top successful leaders tips and thoughts as well.

What Allan had done was talk to his ‘mates’ in the business world for 20 minutes max and picked their brains on leadership.

Allan believes meetings should last no longer than 20 minutes (and I was to experience that – see below).

One of the stories, which Allan shares, goes back to the time he worked for Mars – the confectionary maker. On his first day at Mars any Maltesers that fell off the line, Allan had to sweep up. He spent three exhausting hours with a brush chasing little balls of chocolate as they rolled around the factory floor. His success rate was dreadful.

Eventually the supervisor came over and deliberately trod on one of the Maltesers. Allan swept the crushed Malteser up, trod on all the other Maltesers and swept them up in a fraction of the time.

The supervisor had purposely watched Allan struggle for 3 hours. From that day onwards, Allan believed in ‘asking for help’ rather than struggling along.

And today, Allan spends as much time as possible going ‘back to the floor’ to see the operations running, offering advise and listening to his staff.

It is a great book if you want to learn from those Managers and Leaders who are household names in the Corporate world.

Individuals like James Dyson. You know what everyone who starts working for Dyson have to do on their first day? Build a vacuum cleaner. This is whether you are an accountant, call centre operator and or any other job at Dyson’s.

It is a great idea.

Others include Lord Browne (BP), Sir Philip Green (Arcadia), Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco), Rupert Murdoch (NewsCorp), Stuart Rose (M&S), plus 50 others.

The result is like having 50+ plus books in one. It is jam-packed with ideas.

One of which I am implementing now – meetings only lasting 20 minutes. No more. It keeps you focussed, you make decisions and then you agree the next steps. Try it.

Allan’s approach to interviewing successful leaders gave me an idea about one of my own new products. I decided to do the same and I approached Allan for an interview. I asked for 1 hour. I was gobsmaked when he personally replied, said ‘yes’ and added I would only get 20 minutes of his time. I did not mind.

We conducted the interview, it was brilliant. He was so approachable, down to earth, shared some great insights and ideas on being a successful manager. He did try and stop the interview after 20 minutes – I kept asking questions and actually got 25 minutes!
~ Andrew Rondeau

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Postscript: This is Andrew's second review for A Love Affair with Books; he had previously reviewed The Dream Manager for us.

Guest reviewer Andrew Rondeau and his dog Sam.

Andrew Rondeau transformed himself from a $4 an-hour petrol-pump attendant to a highly successful Senior Manager earning $500k every year. Discover how you can enhance your life simply, easily and fast by discovering the innermost secrets from 16  masters of success.

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Thanks, Andrew. It sounds like this book is packed full of advice. I like the 20 minute meeting idea.

I have used two related enhancements to meetings successfully. One, where the group was physically in the same building/floor we held a standing meeting. Yes, we stood for the meeting which coincidently was scheduled for only 30 minutes and usually ended early.

Two, I am currently scheduling meetings to start at 5 past the hour and for 45 minutes to ensure some buffer time; transition time moving from one room to another. These are for larger groups 6 or more.

For simple one-one meetings, they are indeed scheduled for 20 minutes and start 5 minutes off the half hour and end 5 minutes before the half hour.

It takes something extra to do this with Outlook but it is worthwhile. I did hear someone say they had a meeting starting at 2:05, and he was told "oh, you must be meeting with Steve". Someday, that won't be so obvious. :-)

[Andrew Rondeau]

Steve,

it makes great sense to start at 5 past the hour and for 45 minutes to ensure some buffer time - a great idea. Everyone will soon be following you including me!

Andrew

[Rosa Say]

Andrew, I am so happy that you’ve jumped in here with another book review, for this one sounds like a must-have for me! Like you, I love these books which are compilations of lessons-learned; ones I have on my bookshelf include Forbes Greatest Business Stories of All Time (ISBN 0471-19653-3) and the series edited by Peter Krass for Wiley; his Little Book of Business Wisdom (ISBN 0471-36979-9) is in my Recommended Reading list within Managing with Aloha.

Also Andrew, seeing the common thread here in the two books you have reviewed for us, bravo for your initiative in contacting each author! It is a win/win for both of you, yet one that always is so much more rewarding, I think, when initiated by the reader. Your energy jumps off the page in all your writing, and I can just image what a delight that 25-minute conversation was between the two of you :)

[Andrew Rondeau]

Rosa,

The Allan Leighton interview was superb. No prep, just correctly worded questions and straight to the point answers. I focussed so much on his answers and kept asking away. You know what I got best from the interview? Allan's kindness, humour and knowledge. He was so inspiring!

Andrew