The prosaic path to business success
This is how the chairman of a big advertising agency used to spend his spare time. “I hear a great deal of music. I am on friendly terms with John Barleycorn. I take long hot baths. I garden. I go into retreat among the Amish. I watch birds. I go for long walks in the country. And I take frequent vacations . . .”
Here is the unmistakeable voice of David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy Mather and author of the line: “At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” Ogilvy’s description of how he kept alert is from Confessions of an Advertising Man, his 1962 classic about Madison Avenue, now reissued in the UK by Southbank Publishing.
It is not the approach of Martin Sorrell, the empire-builder whose WPP Group has acquired a string of agencies over the years, including Ogilvy Mather. Alain de Pouzilhac, chairman of Havas, the French group he is now pursuing, would no doubt like him to go into retreat. But Sir Martin keeps sharp by buying companies, not by riding around Pennsylvania in a horse-drawn buggy.
In terms of style of leadership, it is hard to think of a greater contrast than that between Ogilvy and Sir Martin. The former never hid his distaste for the latter’s modus operandi. As he memorably told the FT during Ogilvy Mather’s vain battle to resist WPP in 1989: “The idea of being taken over by that odious little jerk really gives me the creeps. He’s never written an advertisement in his life.”
That was the ultimate sin in Ogilvy’s book. Confessions is best-known for his advice on how to write advertisements. But much of it is devoted to extolling the value of charismatic leadership: “No creative organisation, whether it is a research laboratory, a Paris kitchen or an advertising agency, will produce a great body of work unless it is led by a formidable individual.”
Sir Martin is formidable in his own way, but not in the way Ogilvy had in mind. He was thinking of Monsieur Pitard, head chef of the Hotel Majestic in Paris, where he had worked as a young man. Not only did Pitard hold his junior chefs to the highest standards, but he cooked brilliantly himself: “He was the best cook in the whole brigade and we knew it.”
That, in a nutshell, is the case for charismatic leaders. Creative groups function best when the employees whether software programmers, research scientists or advertising copywriters are led by one of their own. Only this inspires them to do their finest work, confident in the knowledge that good ideas will be recognised and bad ones spurned.
There is something to it: nobody with a spark of originality wants to report to a dunderhead in a suit who is good at office politics. Sometimes it even helps for the chief executive to be a creative maverick. History shows that Apple Computers prospers when Steve Jobs is in charge: he may be arrogant and wilful, but he has an uncanny sense of what consumers want.
If it were universally true, however, it would be a counsel of despair for most companies. By definition, there are not many geniuses around. There are even fewer with the patience or inclination to manage other people. And if all business was like cookery the best work only being produced in small kitchens under the personal supervision of a master chef no large company could nurture innovation.
Luckily, Ogilvy’s argument is flawed in two ways. First, it is untrue even for small organisations. The manager of a creative group does not have to be personally innovative. He or she simply has to be able to recognise, reward and manage creativity. Indeed, the egocentricity and instability that accompanies talent can make a person unsuited to the task of getting others to perform at their best.
A fine cook can make a poor head chef, and a fine writer can be a poor editor. Ogilvy cites Harold Ross, editor of The New Yorker in the 1930s, as a creative leader on a par with Pitard. But in his memoir The Years With Ross, James Thurber records Ross lamenting at their first meeting: “Writers are a dime a dozen, Thurber. What I want is an editor. I can’t find editors. Nobody grows up.”
Second, a big company need not be structured in a way that requires the chief executive to have creative insight. Indeed, it would be crazy for a software or pharmaceuticals group to arrange programmers or researchers in serried ranks, and require them to report through tiers of managers to a chief executive who reviews every piece of code or drug lead.
It makes more sense to recognise the kernel of truth in Ogilvy’s argument and keep them in teams overseen by specialists. Music companies have labels, book publishers have imprints and drugs companies have research laboratories. The chief executive’s job is to manage the company as a whole, not delve into each unit.
WPP, which has just reported its strongest quarterly revenue growth for three years, is an example. Sir Martin talks of “creative diseconomies of scale” and keeps agencies such as Ogilvy Mather as separate groups under WPP’s umbrella. While his copywriters get their kicks from devising campaigns, he gets his from running the numbers. That division of labour seems to work.
In fact, a balance between creativity and discipline has advantages even in the kind of workplace that Ogilvy revered. Ross thought The New Yorker could do with some of it: “What I need is a man who can sit at a central desk and make this place operate like a business office, keep track of things, find out where people are,” he moaned to Thurber. What he needed was
an odious little jerk.
商业成功的平凡之路
一家大型广告公司的董事长曾这样度过他的闲暇时光：“我听大量的音乐。我和约翰?巴利科恩(John Barleycorn)的关系不错。我泡热水澡；打理打理花园；隐居在一群教徒之中。我观察鸟类；到郊外远足。而且我经常度假……”
没错，这绝对是奥美集团(Ogilvy Mather)的创始人大卫?奥格威(David Ogilvy) 的原话，那位写下“坐在新款劳斯莱斯车内，开到时速60英里时，身边只有钟摆滴答作响”的作者。奥格威将他如何保持警醒的描述都写在了《一个广告人的自白》(Confessions of an Advertising Man)一书中。Southbank Publishing重新在英国出版了他在 1962年写的有关麦迪逊大道(美国广告业中心)的经典著作。
然而这却不是广告帝国的奠基人马丁?索瑞尔(Martin Sorrell)的方法。他的WPP集团近年来收购了一长串的广告公司，其中就包括奥美。无庸置疑，如果马丁爵士会隐居，法国传播集团Havas的董事长 Alain de Pouzilhac一定很高兴。但马丁爵士是靠收购企业来保持干练的，而不是靠驾着轻马车绕着宾夕法尼亚州兜风。
奥格威和马丁爵士的领导风格上存在很大的分歧。奥格威从来不掩饰自己对马丁爵士做法的嫌恶。就在1989年奥美对WPP作徒劳的抵抗时，他令人印象深刻地向《金融时报》表示：“想到要被那个可恶的小混蛋收购，就让我浑身起毛。他这辈子都没写过一句广告词。”
这在奥格威的书里是最大的罪恶。《自白》一书的最著名之处即是他对如何写好广告词的建议，但其中还是有很多笔墨花在了赞扬有魅力的领导风格上。“除非有一个令人钦佩的领导人物，否则没有哪一家创意机构会拿得出好作品，不管它是科研实验室，巴黎的厨房，还是广告公司。”
马丁爵士自有他令人敬畏的方式，只不过那不合奥格威的想法。他脑海里的人物是巴黎皇家饭店(the Hotel Majestic)的大主厨皮塔德先生(Monsieur Pitard)，他年轻时曾在那儿作过厨师。皮塔德不仅以最高的标准要求他手下的厨师，自己也烧得一手好菜。“他是这群人里最好的厨师，而且我们知道这一点。”
这是一个实打实的具有人格魅力气质的例子。由内行人来领导创意团体的雇员是最有效率的，不管他们是搞科研的科学家还是广告文案。唯有这样才会激发他们创造出自己最好的作品，使他们对一点有信心：好创意会得到赏识，而坏点子会被淘汰出局。
其中的道理就在于：没有哪一个满脑子创意的人愿意向一个穿着西装、玩弄手腕的笨蛋汇报工作的。有时候，甚至一个富有创意却特立独行的首席执行官也是好的。历史告诉我们，苹果电脑公司(Apple Computers)在史蒂夫?乔布斯( Steve Jobs)的时代最为繁荣：他或许有些傲慢任性，但他对消费者想要些什么有着出奇的嗅觉。
然而，如果说这是一个放之四海皆准的道理，那大多数的公司都要陷入绝望。按天才的定义来看，这世上本无几个惊世之材，而有耐心或有兴趣领导其他人的天才就更少了。如果所有的生意都像烧菜那样，最好的菜只能是在主厨亲自监督之下从一个小厨房里端出来的，那没有哪个大型企业可以培养出创新精神。
幸运的是，奥格威的论点有两个瑕疵。首先，即使是对小机构，这种观点也并不正确。一个创意团队的管理者自己并不一定要具有创造性。他或她只要能够赏识、奖励并管理创造性就可以了。事实上，才气所附带的自我中心和不稳定性，或许会使一个人不适合从事让别人发挥出最佳表现的工作。
一个好厨师可能是一个坏厨师长，一个大作家可能是一个差劲的编辑。奥格威拿《纽约人》(The New Yorker)杂志30年代的编辑哈罗德?洛斯(Harold Ross)作为与皮塔德对等的例子。然而詹姆士?瑟伯(James Thurber)在他的回忆录《与洛斯在一起的岁月》(The Years With Ross)中写道，洛斯在他们第一次见面时悲伤地说：“作家一毛钱就能买一打，瑟伯。我想要的是一个编辑。我找不到编辑。人们都没有长大。”
其次，一个大型企业不需要以这种方式建构，即执行总裁必须具备创造性的洞察力。事实上，要一个软件组或医药组严密安排内部的架构，并要求他们一层层向经理直至首席执行官汇报，而要后者审查每一个编码或药物配方，简直是不可能的。
认识到奥格威的论点的精髓，将程序师或研究员组成团队，由专家监督他们的工作，才是更合理的。唱片公司有商标，出版商有印刷，而医药企业有科研实验室。首席执行官的工作时要对企业整体进行管理，而不是钻研每一个部门。
WPP就是一例，它刚刚公布的季报显示，这是其近三年来赢利增长最快的一季。马丁爵士谈到“创造性地管理不当的规模”，并把诸如奥美这样的广告公司作为WPP大伞之下独立的集团。当他的文案为设计出广告而兴奋不已时，他则从管理数字中获得快感。这种劳动分工似乎很有效。
事实上，创意与规范的平衡甚至有利于那种奥格威所崇敬的工作场所。洛斯觉得《纽约人》就该这样。他向瑟伯抱怨道：“我想要的是一个能坐在核心位置，又能使这个地方像商业办公室那样运作的人，他要记录每件事的来龙去脉，找到人都在哪里。”他要的是一个可恶的小混蛋。
