Sir John Harvey-Jones

The death in 2008 of Sir John, famous for his role in the Troubleshooter BBC TV documentaries, meant the loss of one of the UK’s most charismatic and highly regarded businessmen.

Sir John joined the Navy aged 16 during World War Two and was torpedoed twice as a midshipman before serving in submarines. He spent two decades in the Navy, during which time he qualified as a German and Russian interpreter and was awarded the MBE for his work in Naval Intelligence.

Entering the business world, he rose to become Chairman of the UK multinational ICI from 1982-87. Knighted for services to industry, Sir John Harvey-Jones also became Honorary Vice President of the Institute of Marketing, and Chairman of The Economist from 1989-94.

Harvey-Jones found wider fame in BBC TV’s Troubleshooter. Through five series in the UK and Eastern Europe, Sir John was a visiting management expert examining the state of different businesses and brands including Morgan sports cars, Copella apple juice and Triang toys. He put his finger on the problems they faced or in some cases had created, and pointed the way to success. Sometimes they followed his advice, such as at Copella, and sometimes, notably at Morgan, he was met with a truculent defence of the status quo. But perhaps the greatest achievement of the Troubleshooter programmes was to make business management a popular discussion subject in the homes of millions of British people, and to provide a role model for people wanting to enter business.

Author of leadership and management books including Making It Happen and Getting It Together, Sir John told trustedleader’s editor about his keys to developing effective, trusted leadership.

He unhesitatingly rated the ability to motivate people as ‘top of the lot’ in terms of the various qualities a good business leader needs. As the world’s organizations have had to become leaner in the effort to remain competitive, he viewed the challenge of retaining and developing people as more important than ever.

Finding wisdom on the factory floor

A believer in collective leadership, his techniques in Troubleshooter were instructive: believing that the greatest wisdom was often to be found outside the boardroom and on the factory floor, Sir John took time to observe manufacturing practices and listen to the workers, machinists, salespeople and support staff. These people revealed what many of the directors either did not know or would not admit, because they usually knew the things that were going wrong.

He advocated the importance of visiting people you manage at least daily. He expanded on this in his book All Together Now, a thoughtful and detailed study of how to manage people, and a book that became required reading for leaders wishing to improve their 'people skills': 'The more this [visiting people you manage] is done as a routine, the less importance individuals attach to a visit from the boss, and the more likely you are to pick up early warnings in good time, so that a gentle word of advice may be enough to persuade your subordinate to re-examine the way he is working.'

A past recipient of the Award of Excellence in Communication from the International Association of Business Communicators, Sir John highlighted the importance of the leader taking the time to demonstrate a personal interest in people at all levels in organizations. 'I had friends at every level,' he said, 'trusting and liking them.' The approachability, accessibility and genuine interest in people at all levels is a common characteristic of leaders who are trusted and who get to the root of what makes the work go right or wrong.

Values

Sir John told trustedleaderaboutthe importance of openness and integrity in a business leader. He believed it is vital for an organisation's staff to be able to identify with the leader's values, and stressed the importance of saying thank you – qualities that set the tone for the behaviour of everyone in the organisation. He believed the organisation's values, as demonstrated by the leader, should be 'a credo for life' personally and professionally, not just words in a values statement.

Sir John viewed encouragement as vital to effective leadership styles, going so far as to say that there should be around ten 'carrots' to each 'stick' if you are to get the best out of human motivation, 'and the carrots should be large and obvious while the sticks should be small' - an approach this editor concurs with.

Acknowledging Mistakes

Sometimes disarmingly ascribing his success to being a 'tired old thing' who has 'made every mistake in the book,' Sir John said that you also have to have the ability to say ‘I screwed up’. Publicly acknowledging mistakes discourages a blame culture and promotes a learning culture. After all, he observed, 'if the subordinate fails, he or she was badly chosen or badly briefed or badly supported or badly trained and whose fault is this?' Equally he believed that people should be prompted into their own realisations if they have made a mistake: 'people value more what they learn for themselves and it is the lessons one teaches oneself that endure.'

Structure

An advocate of non-hierarchical structures because of their speed, he explained in All Together Now that 'the feeling of space, responsibility, ownership of the problem, trust and overall clarity about what is expected in terms of achievement, rather than conformity, has to be the aim of business organisation... The ability of a decentralised, empowered group of people to adapt and achieve this flexibility is of a different order from that of the closely controlled, hierarchically dominated organisation and ultimately will grow the people and the response needed.'

And the management style needed in such an organisation? 'It calls for sensitivity, wisdom, openness of mind, ability to listen and to trust.'

Role model: Sir Ernest Shackleton

Sir John Harvey-Jones chose his role model in leadership as Sir Ernest Shackleton, leader of the 1914-16 expedition to the South Pole. The expedition was abandoned after their ship Endurance became locked in the Antarctic ice. Setting out on one of the greatest sea voyages ever achieved, Shackleton sailed 800 miles through a hurricane in a tiny 22-foot boat to reach the Atlantic island of South Georgia. Crossing the mountainous island on foot – one of the most inhospitable landscapes on earth, which decades later defeated British SAS troops during the Falklands war – Shackleton eventually reached help and returned to Elephant Island in the Antarctic to rescue his men. All 28 members of the expedition were saved. In Sir John’s words, Shackleton 'placed his people over and above the accomplishment of his ambitions and goals.'

All Together Now is published by William Heinemann Ltd