Bob Chapman's Leadership Approach

St. Norbert's Schneider Business School recently sponsored renowned businessman Bob Chapman for a day to talk about his excellent approaches to Leadership, and his examples of how they create vibrant organizations of mentally healthy and unusually productive employees.

His counterpoints were severe … that today’s workplaces are centers of high anxiety, that ownership and leadership are “Me-centered”, focused only on shareholder success, seeing employees as functions necessary to ownership success,  that there is an “epidemic of anguish”, with statistics that support this … 74% of employees become sick at work due to anxiety and distress, 88% go home feeling not valued.

Management, he said, is interpreted as “manipulation of others for your success.”

“I watched a group of enthusiastic employees, as their 8 AM start came closer and they had to go into the office, and saw their energy drain out of them.”

“ We aren’t taught how to work with people as people with energy and soul."

Bob Chapman To The Rescue!

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But his messages/approaches/philosophies/bromides are actually wonderful and right on!

And his record of accomplishment is very impressive.  Today, his St. Louis-based Barry-Wehmiller has expanded with 100 acquisitions, mostly manufacturers like Paper Converting here in Green Bay, grossing $3 billion in revenues and 12,000 employees.  Today, he says that Harvard Business School and McKinsey are doctoring their teachings to include his approaches.

One can argue that the application of his approaches is not consistent at his various operations, but chalk that up to the challenges of growth and re-training managers to apply them consistently.

Insights

•  He titles his comments, “The PRIVILEGE of Leadership.”

•  Your job as a leader is to be the steward of the people you are leading, to help them discover, develop and share their gifts.

•  When you hire a person, gather his/her family and promise to nurture those gifts.

•  Our greatest act of charity is not the check you write, but how well you treat the many people you lead.

•  You CAN make work FUN!

•  The foundation of our leadership development is “empathetic listening.”  I thought when you saw a problem, you went and talked it over.  No, it starts with questions and empathetic listening.

•  Yes, we all have to create VALUE …

•  Yes, we need ways to keep score, to know we are meeting daily goals.

•  Every Sunday, we go and listen to our preacher and his/her message on how to act right for an hour.  As Leaders, we have a FORTY TIMES greater opportunity each week to influence people.  We must be intentional in using that opportunity.

•  At a wedding, what the father-of-the-bride is really thinking:  You better continue our efforts to nurture her growth, and health and development that we just spent 20 years at!

•  Parenting and Leadership are identical.

•  You pay people for their hands to do the work, yet they’ll give you their heads and hearts for free … if you can figure out how to do it.

Some Other Thoughts

•  Who they ARE and what they DO ... matter.

•  Listenig is both the most critical leadership skill … AND the most powerful act of CARING.

•  Recognition and Celebration are essential tasks of leadership.

•  Lead like the Leader you want your children to have.