Do It Right, Do It Now!

A Dembitz John

Description

A book for all. A book for existing and future leaders. A book for all those involved in managing people, in any capacity. John Dembitz has set down all the key ingredients for effective management and leadership in one easily readable book. As he emphasizes, there is no magic formula, just a willingness to engage, to be aware of others, to listen and to act. All his actions require is an attitude of mind, not capital investment. This is the only book you will ever need to read to become a better leader and manager and the results will be rapid! Do it Right; Do it Now!'There are many books on management, some are highly theoretical. This is a very practical guide for business leaders, written by a successful entrepreneur and an extremely experienced, and current, Chair/Non-Executive Director. Definitely worth a read.'Martin Scicluna Chair, J Sainsbury's plc and RSA Insurance plc.'If you haven't been there, seen it, done it and got the T-shirt you should read this book by the man who has. Packed with practical advice and distilled wisdom. No matter where you are on your organisational career from working on your own, to ultimately leading a global enterprise, there is plenty to learn and reflect on. Read it now and keep it by your side.' John M Neill, Chairman and Group Chief Executive Unipart group'This isn't an academic, theoretical view of business. It's candid, hands-on, and personal. John has been there and done it right and shows you how you can too.'Belden Menkus, Founder, Menkus & Associates

Sujets

• Gestion et management

Informations

• Publié par: The Conrad Press
• Date de parution: 07 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839783111
• Langue: English

Extrait

Do it Right: Do it Now!
People - the essential ingredient for success
John A. Dembitz


Do it Right: Do it Now!
Published by The Conrad Press in the United Kingdom 2021
Tel: [phone] www.theconradpress.com 
 [e-mail]
ISBN 978-1-839783-11-1
Copyright © John A. Dembitz, 2021
The moral right of John A. Dembitz to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
Typesetting and Cover Design by: Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to a vast number of people.
A significant majority are not aware of the important contributions they have made to this book. A significant number will remain nameless, unacknowledged without a corporate identity, in that they have provided me with a wealth of experience of what not to do.
But, there are many to whom I do owe a real debt of gratitude for their support, tolerance, encouragement, and understanding.
I want to start by thanking my partner-in-life, my wife, Alexandra. She was not only always encouraging, was not only always ready to be supportive, but also undertook a lot of the early proof reading and correcting the English of an émigré!
I would like to give special thanks and acknowledgement to Max Landsberg for being amazingly encouraging and pushing me to pursue my writing of It’s the People! What really drives great management and leadership , the original edition of this re-write. Max read early drafts and provided valuable advice for a novice author. A number of other people helped with the original edition including Belden Menkus for reading drafts and sharing his honest views with me; my amazing mother-in-law, Helen Barnett, who proofread the original manuscript and picked up numerous errors in punctuation and spelling.
In addition I would like to thank very specifically the good guys in my life, the guys from whom I have learnt an awful lot… Charles Handy, and in particular for giving me the opportunity to gain an MBA from London Business School; Brigadier Harry Langstaff, and in particular for opening the door to McKinsey & Co. Inc. and thereafter for his long ongoing wise council and friendship; Rudolph Agnew; Bruce Fireman; Reg Valin; my brother Alexander Dembitz and the whole team at IDOM; Leo Noé, Carl Whayman, Ian Jones, Simon Harding and the team and Lee Baron; Nick Naismith, Tim Newberry, Charles Trace and the team and Coffee Point; Eric Pillinger, Louise Gulliver and the team at TACK International; Esther Dyson, an incredibly wise, knowledgeable and supportive co-director, Norrie Sinclair, Stephen Kerkow and the team at CVO Group; Robert Appleby, Joe Appleby, Tom Appleby and the team at Titus International; Peter Johnson, Chris Houghton and the team at Park Group; Nick Robeson and Lisa Farmer and the team at Boyden; Neil Hedges, Andrew Boys and the team at Valin Pollen; Daniel Spinath; Patrick Flockhart; my clients all over the world and in particular at Rolls-Royce who provided me with the opportunity to work with them as a sole trader; Dirk Schavemaker, Bernard Meyer and all the advisory board members of Marriott Vacation Club International; and to all the companies I have had the privilege of working with over the past 20+ years in a non-executive capacity including the above and Anstey Horne, Cripps, Confirm, FHO, Winmark and Future Thinking: they have contributed untold volumes to the creation of this book.
I offer my gratitude also for the many excellent articles, in particular in the Financial Times and the Director magazine, The Economist , and numerous other public or private journals, periodicals, and publications from around the world, from which I have gained insights, ideas, quotations and other reference material.
I wish to express my gratitude to my publisher James Essinger, founder and principal, The Conrad Press, for making the re-publication of this book under its new title, Do it Right: Do it Now! - People the essential ingredient of success, a reality.
I would like to make special reference to my children, Robert and Sarah, for furnishing some invaluable experiences and for recounting anecdotes of experiences of their friends, many of which have found their way into the pages that follow. And equally my daughter-in-law, Heather, and my son-in-law, Laurent, both of whom have also contributed with valuable anecdotes from their own experiences.
But the most important acknowledgement, the acknowledgement left to the last, goes to my parents, Marianne and Leslie Dembitz, who took the enormously difficult and wrenching decision to emigrate to the UK and start afresh in 1957, to give my brother and myself the opportunity to grow up in a free society. - You Did it Right; You Did it Then! and for that I, my brother and all of our families are eternally grateful!




INTRODUCTION
‘Of all the decisions an executive makes, none are as important as the decision about people because they ultimately determine the performance capacity of the organization.’
Peter Drucker
This book is aimed at leaders. Actual, and potential leaders. All leaders in all forms of organisations: large corporations or small businesses, entrepreneurial businesses or professionally owned and managed businesses, not for profit entities including charitable organisations, public sector and massive supranational organisations, or any form of endeavour where people come together and work together.
This is a book based on my experiences, and the experiences of others with whom I have worked and interacted, observed or just been aware of through the media, notoriety, literature, anecdotes and case studies.
THIS IS NOT A THEORETICAL BOOK! IT HAS NO AMBITION TO LECTURE, TO SUGGEST THAT THERE IS A RIGHT WAY OF PROVIDING LEADERSHIP… THERE ISN’T. IT’S A BOOK BASED ENTIRELY ON EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE/EXPERIENCE!
I have deliberately endeavoured to make this book pithy. Why? Because I have a real belief in the value of brevity! Because I’m in total harmony with what pithy means – ‘Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief’.
From the very beginning, right the way through all the various stages of my career, I have asked ‘why?’ Throughout this book I shall frequently ask ‘why’ and attempt to provide a few ‘hows’. How to deal with people, how to recruit, how to interview, how to deliver difficult messages, how to motivate and inspire, how to create extraordinary loyalty.
This book is about actions and behaviours to pursue, and actions and behaviours to avoid, based on what, in my experience, seems to have worked, and equally, based on my experience, what definitely did not work and caused pain and anguish!
Within each chapter there are a number of ‘whys’ always aimed at asking the simple questions that so often get overlooked. Equally, within each chapter, there is a section devoted to Do it Right: Do it Now! , very much with the intention of underlining simple steps that can be taken immediately. Steps that just may make sense to you, and that just may have a positive impact in your business environment too. Steps that can materially impact on the motivation and drive of your employees and hence their productivity, initiative, creativity, and potential genius!
The first and most frequently repeated Do it Right: Do it Now! is that doing things right is not difficult; often it is just an attitude of the mind. Equally it is not difficult to do them wrong, but the benefit of a little forethought can be substantial.
This is not an A-Z of management concepts and buzz words. Instead I have tried to use ordinary language and wherever possible anecdotes, vignettes, mini cases and real-life examples to help dramatise different situations. I hope I have kept it relevant to everyday life.
There may or there may not be a body of research behind my assertions, assertions that I have based on personal, empirical evidence. Evidence from my some 49 years of working and from putting into practice all of the recommendations whenever and wherever it was possible to do so, from having had the privilege of working with some of the most outstanding organisations in the world, and from having experienced working life in less remarkable organisations too. From having experienced creating a business from scratch with my brother and seeing it grow to over 350 people and $40m of revenue; to working with one of the world’s largest and most reputable management consultancies; to being chairman/non-executive director/advisor to hedge fund owned, Private Equity owned, family owned, partnerships, AiM listed businesses; and lots more along the way.
Each chapter will deal with a specific topic. As the chapters progress there will be a gentle transition from the ‘why’ to the ‘how’… although I will continue to ask the ‘why’ right to the end. You can either cherry pick your way through the pages, or read it cover to cover, front to back, or back to front! You can dip in and out at your leisure.
The chapters commence with the general (‘The Human Capital Equation’), get increasingly more specific, and conclude with a series of rapid bite sized sections, my concluding ’bitz and pieces’: a veritable potpourri, which when taken together covers many aspects of leadership and management that can have a material impact on the destiny of a business, and the people within it.
What I very much wish to achieve is to touch a nerve within you. A nerve that sparks a shared experience, a nerve that leads to some recognition of behaviour patterns, a nerve that elicits some response.
I would like to believe that I will be able to see people reading this book and nodding in agreement or disagreement, smiling, even laughing at the recognition of a scenario. I would like to be