Allan Leighton (Royal Mail)

[TrueBlueTerrier]

This is on old article but they do say its better to know your boss.

http://www.growingbusiness.co.uk/069591 ... -mail.html

September 2003

Allan Leighton, 49, has come a long way since his days as a Lloyds Bank clerk straight out of North Oxfordshire Poly. These days, the Hereford boy who sold Asda to the Yanks for £6.7 billion is trying to sort out the chaos which is Britain's Post Office. That's when he's not chairing Lastminute.com, Bhs, housebuilder Wilson Connolly and fitness chain Cannons, sitting on the board of Dyson and BSkyB, or sorting out a boardroom brawl at Leeds United (yes, he is a non-exec there too). Here he tells Growing Business why small is beautiful, how he would like to be fired and how he really feels about leaving former Kingfisher chief exec Sir Geoff Mulcahy at the altar in 1999.

Your image is one of an entrepreneurial businessman and guru for the business-owner-manager. Where do you think this perception comes from, given that you have only ever worked for big businesses?
I don't know why I'm seen as an entrepreneur. All I am is a businessman and all I try and do, largely because I'm not smart enough to do it any other way, is keep things very simple. That seems to appeal to small businesses.

One of the few things you have not yet done is build up a business from scratch. Could you do it?
I think it's very hard to start from scratch. I'm involved in two businesses where that happened. I chair Lastminute.com, which really was created in a bedroom on a laptop and I've seen what's needed to go into that. The second one is Dyson, on whose board I sit, and James worked for 20 years before he got anywhere. It would probably not be something I'd be particularly good at, because I don't have the patience. I don't think it's to do with scale: if you can run a business, you can run any business. But I think starting businesses up is a different skill.

What do you think smaller businesses can learn from big business and what do you think smaller businesses do well?
Small businesses are much more focused, much leaner, much more innovative than big businesses. The thing that big businesses can learn from small businesses is to be small. That's not in terms of size; it's to do with the way in which you manage the business. An interesting example is [Wm Morrison chairman Sir] Ken Morrison, who runs his supermarket chain as if it were a very small business. Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world, but the way that it thinks is as if it only had one shop. If you look at the very successful big businesses, they act as if they were a small businesses. I think there is much more learnt by big business from small business than the other way round.

What attracted you to corporate basket cases like Lastminute.com or the Royal Mail?
Two things. There is nothing better than being told: "This cannot happen, you'll never be able to do this, you must be mad." That's quite potent for me. The second thing is that you can only turn those basket cases around which are fixable. For them to be fixable they need great brands and a product which is a pretty good idea. We deliver all the bloody mail, so it should be a good idea! Lastminute is the best thought through brand I've ever seen come through so quickly, because it does exactly what it says on the can. I love brands where the title tells you what it does. And it makes it very easy for us running the business to know what our bloody product is.

Are the disciplines you bring to each company the same?
Yes. It's a discipline in the way you think about things, not a discipline in the way you do things. All I try to do in all the businesses is make them think about things in a disciplined way rather than a spray way and I cause havoc in a positive sense because I understand the detail of stuff. I work on the principle that getting the strategy right is the easy bit and it's the execution that is hard work. It doesn't matter who you are, if you are on the board of the company, you'd better understand whether the execution's working or not and the only way to do that is turn up in places and ask people things.

You are very candid about the Royal Mail's chronic management failure. Is that an approach you have always employed? How do you avoid demotivating staff with that approach?
I've always been the same. The people who know what's going on are the operators and the customers and if you ask them what they thought about the management of Royal Mail they'd say exactly the same thing as me. So there's no point pretending it's any different. Half the time, if you want to create change you have to say to people: "We got it bloody wrong." Even if you've been there a few years and you bugger it up. You can't stop demotivating staff, but what is the point in pretending that something is not what it seems to be? And actually in the case of the Royal Mail, as soon as I started to say the management's completely buggered it up, the morale of the troops went up because it was the first time they'd actually heard somebody say that.

Allan Leighton's Ten Golden Rules of Business

1) Keep it simple.

2) Focus on execution.

3) Listen to your operators.

4) Think small. Small is big.

5) Less often is more.

6) Your people come first.

7) Think like a customer.

8) If in doubt, do the right thing....

9) ....but then do things right.

10) Remember, EGO stands for "edging God out".

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Allan Leighton's Ten Golden Rules of Business

1) Keep it simple. ----- Ah now we see the reason behind the appointment of some (not all) managers

2) Focus on execution.------- The final execution of Royal Mail

3) Listen to your operators-------- I thought the GPO had gone

4) Think small. Small is big. ----------- the letter are small so they can deliver them in bigger loads.

5) Less often is more. ------------------ The reason behind the monthly pay push.

6) Your people come first. ------------------- When please.

7) Think like a customer. -------------------- remembering that a customer must spend £100m a year

8) If in doubt, do the right thing.... ----------- thanks I live by that motto but IMO have seen no sign of it in my local office.

9) ....but then do things right. ------------------- Doh

10) Remember, EGO stands for "edging God out". or Eventually Goodness Overcomes. or Evil Grabbing Overlords.

[Sandyman]

And actually in the case of the Royal Mail, as soon as I started to say the management's completely buggered it up, the morale of the troops went up because it was the first time they'd actually heard somebody say that.

Some time after these remarks, the management under his command bugger it up even more and the morale of the troops is non-existent. Time you told yourself you buggered it up Al boy. :lfo

[strangler]

Lots of use of the word "bloody" in there. He`s obviously trying to sound like one of the "troops"..

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Lots of use of the word "bloody" in there. He`s obviously trying to sound like one of the "troops"..

Well, our DUM certainly fell for it.

[tenpole tudorsack]

Lots of use of the word "bloody" in there. He`s obviously trying to sound like one of the "troops"..

Let's have "bleeding" in there too, there's lots o' that going on at the moment

[johno47]

If you speak to any DUM they all sing out of the same hymn book, they are all brainwashed puppets who talk the RM line, or should i say Leightons line, the guys full of himself, he thinks he knows how we think and what we want, he hasnt got a clue, hes totally detached from the workforce, he earns life changing ammounts of money and has no idea what its like to struggle on s**t wages, because to him proffit is the god not public service...UNITY IS STRENGTH.

[chromium05]

Allan Leighton's Ten Golden Rules of Business

1) Keep it simple. ----- Ah now we see the reason behind the appointment of some (not all) managers

2) Focus on execution.------- The final execution of Royal Mail

3) Listen to your operators-------- I thought the GPO had gone

4) Think small. Small is big. ----------- the letter are small so they can deliver them in bigger loads.

5) Less often is more. ------------------ The reason behind the monthly pay push.

6) Your people come first. ------------------- When please.

7) Think like a customer. -------------------- remembering that a customer must spend £100m a year

8) If in doubt, do the right thing.... ----------- thanks I live by that motto but IMO have seen no sign of it in my local office.

9) ....but then do things right. ------------------- Doh

10) Remember, EGO stands for "edging God out". or Eventually Goodness Overcomes. or Evil Grabbing Overlords.

I did a similar thing but posted in "Canteen"

" Allan Leighton's Ten Golden Rules of Business

1) Keep it simple. - But wrap it up in "bullshit" ( Which is 1 thing RM don't tell us. Apparently...)

2) Focus on execution. - OK. So we get an idea of what to expect if you reach a stage 3...

3) Listen to your operators. - I believe he meant to say "F*ck your operators over as many times as you can"

4) Think small. Small is big. - He must think Crozier's salary is f*cking tiny then. And the posties must be enormous...

5) Less often is more. - What? Days in a week you actually work for Royal Mail?

6) Your people come first. - That's very generous of you Al. So long as you don't come up my ass whilst you're f*cking me over yet again...

7) Think like a customer. - All my customers wonder what the f*ck is going on at RM. So, I guess that's 130000 of us thinking like customers. Which customer do you think like, Al? The one that is trying to buy RM from the government maybe?

8) If in doubt, do the right thing.... - Well, you can't have any doubts that you were doing absolutely the wrong f*cking thing then could you?

9) ....but then do things right. - Do things right by who? The workers or the bloke that wants to run the business down, then buy RM for a knockdown price and then make a fortune selling bits of it off?

10) Remember, EGO stands for "edging God out". - No Al. Remember - there is no EGO. Only your way.


Idiot. "

Can anyone provide any evidence of Leighton's rumoured involvement with TNT? I have someone that would be very interested in running that story....