Tony Baird
Tony Baird is the founder and owner of Tony Baird Electronics. In the hallway behind him are quotations that an employee painted on the wall. Among them: "I can accept failure ... I can't accept not trying," from Michael Jordan. And: "Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort," from Theodore Roosevelt.
(Stan Linhorst / slinhorst@syracuse.com)
The leaders who consent to a CNY Conversation often recite inspiration from other business or historical leaders. Among those most commonly cited have been Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Jack Welch and Steve Jobs. Here's a sampling.
I asked John Currier, president of Currier Plastics in Auburn: What tips would you give to ensure that a business succeeds?
"Persistence," Currier replied. He elaborated and included inspiration from Winston Churchill.
On Oct. 29, 1941, before the United States entered World War II and Nazi Germany had conquered most of Europe, Churchill gave a talk at his alma mater, Harrow School, which he attended as a boy in the 1880s. Currier delivered a quotation from the speech by memory:
"Never give in. Never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
Kimberly Boynton, president and CEO of Crouse Hospital, talked about the strong women who influenced her upbringing and career. She found inspiration from Eleanor Roosevelt, especially the last sentence of this quotation:
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
The quotation comes from Roosevelt's book, "You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfulling Life," published in 1960.
Kevin Candee's career in engineering has taken him to the far corners of the earth. He founded and maintains his Aqua-Energie headquarters in Central New York. Asked about advantages and disadvantages of conducting business internationally from Central New York, Candee said the advantages "are much greater than the disadvantages."
He said: "Conducting business internationally requires a highly flexible mind" and referred to this quotation from Mark Twain:
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
Apple and Steve Jobs' leadership come up often.
Seth Mulligan, vice president for innovation services at The Technology Garden, referred to the way Apple creates teams and culture for invention -- sometimes for products that consumers didn't even know they needed. Mulligan said:
"Innovation is about driving culture ... Innovation is the call to action by other people to get stuff done.
"It's some of the classic leadership skills and management skills."
Here's Jobs on that kind of culture:
"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things."
And again:
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."
Sharon Owens, CEO of Syracuse Model Neighborhood Facility Inc., talked about Martin Luther King's wisdom in leading people. Owens said she had made a commitment to witness President Obama's inauguration because her mother, wanted to see King speak in Washington, but couldn't because she was pregnant with Sharon.
She finds inspiration in this quotation from King:
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
Owens explained that leaders set up systems as living organisms to change naturally so that beggars are not produced in the first place.
Joanne Lenweaver, director of the WISE Women's Business Center, talking about entrepreneurship, mentioned the influence of Stephen Covey, the author of the 7 Habits books. She adapted his "Begin with the end in mind" advice to a long-term plan. Here's an excerpt from Covey's second habit:
"Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.
"One of the best ways to incorporate Habit 2 into your life is to develop a Personal Mission Statement. It focuses on what you want to be and do. It is your plan for success. It reaffirms who you are, puts your goals in focus, and moves your ideas into the real world. Your mission statement makes you the leader of your own life."
Laura Miller, general manager of Darco Manufacturing, explained that in making decisions she often goes against the grain and doesn't follow a traditional business rulebook.
She held up Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, as one of her corporate heroes:
"He was trained as a lawyer. And then he saw an opportunity out in Texas, saw a gap and said, back of a napkin, let's fill this gap and how do we do it? All along the way, he asked the right internal questions, the right pragmatic questions. He did things that other people who had an industry heritage didn't do. He saw it differently. He found a way to compete, mostly by deploying his talent and by trusting his employees to understand what the customer needed. You see that in these quotes."
Among the quotations from Kelleher:
"A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear."
"We will hire someone with less experience, less education, and less expertise, than someone who has more of those things and has a rotten attitude. Because we can train people. We can teach people how to lead. We can teach people how to provide customer service. But we can't change their DNA."
"You must be very patient, very persistent. The world isn't going to shower gold coins on you just because you have a good idea. You're going to have to work like crazy to bring that idea to the attention of people. They're not going to buy it unless they know about it."
"The core of our success. That's the most difficult thing for a competitor to imitate. They can buy all the physical things. The things you can't buy are dedication, devotion, loyalty -- the feeling that you are participating in a crusade."
"When someone comes to me with a cost-saving idea, I don't immediately jump up and say yes. I ask: what's the effect on the customer?"
Chedy Hampson, founder and president of TCGplayer.com, is an entrepreneur who studies leadership.
Hampson said: "There are multiple different styles of leadership. There is the Lincoln-sized or Churchill leadership, which is character driven and inspiring. But then there is also company building and putting the right systems in place to allow people to flourish. Those are different skill sets."
He elaborated:
"The point of bringing up those two individuals was that their appearance, demeanor, vocabulary and presentation tied together to be inspirational in its effect. It was a more speech-based use of words and demeanor to convey leadership and move people.
"Contrast that with Sergey Brin/Larry Page or Chip Conley, who owns and operates Joie de Vivre Hospitality. These leaders are sometimes to the point of being introverted. Their leadership is about the culture and systems they implemented at their companies.
"They took great steps to empower and reward their employees beyond the expected norms thus producing some of the great work places in the country. This trust in their employees has allowed them to continue hiring the best of the best and to be considered great leaders for building great teams. Lincoln did this in some ways as well with the creation of his unique and divisive cabinet as opposed to the usual 'yes men.' "
"CNY Conversations" feature Q&A interviews with local citizens about leadership, success, and innovation. The conversations are condensed and edited. They also run regularly on Sunday in The Post-Standard's Business section. To suggest a person for CNY Conversations, contact Stan Linhorst at slinhorst@syracuse.com.
Last week: Phil Memmer says leaders relish the challenge of solving problems.